All I can hear is the constant cawing of the crows outside, they flock in the pine tree there because the branches are thick and there is ample space to hide and peer in windows and spy on the comings and goings of the young people here who walk with the striding confidence of youth. I wonder if they spy in my windows too. And what they might see. But I know that I watch them, as I eat my morning breakfast, an English muffin with peanut butter and honey, or maybe a fried egg, and while I look at my food as I eat and taste the sweetness I also see the crows eating worms or dancing around in the grass that is just barely green with the snow melted and the sun finally shining. It shines differently now, now that winter seems to be on the wane, now that the days are longer and the air is warmer and even the clouds look different, like spring clouds instead of winter clouds. All I can hear is the crow outside.
When you called on the phone and we tried to have a conversation of what we were doing with our days, what we were reading or thinking about, all I could do was watch the crow dance. It was one claw up, then the other, and a flutter of wings that were such a deep black I thought maybe they had caught a bit of the night in them and held the night tightly in the feathers where it couldn’t get away as the rest of the night disappeared around the globe and was night somewhere else besides here. You talked and I listened, or half listened, and still watched the crow dance. I tried to mimic it and you asked me what I was doing because you could hear my breathing change, and maybe I missed a place where I should have said uh-huh and I didn’t. I said I was doing a crow dance, shaking a tail feather, right? Isn’t that what we always said as kids, running around the playground? We were shaking a tail feather, doing a dance with our behinds wagging out there in the breeze as if they were detached from the rest of our bodies and dancing all on their own out there, so far out. You weren’t sure whether to laugh or to be annoyed that I wasn’t listening. So I told you, its ok, you can be annoyed, I am sorry. I am listening now. Its just that the crows outside are making so much noise and all I can do is stand at the window and watch them as they spy back at me, or hop from one branch to another then disappear in the shadows of the pine tree. Someone throws a cigarette butt out the window from the floor above mine and I want to yell up at them, say stop that, what do you think you are doing littering in the crow yard, distracting the crow dance? But I don’t, and instead I turn my attention back to you, and accidentally caw into the phone.
August 12, 2009
One Page 55
I thought the woman was dead. But she wasn’t. She was just sitting in her red pickup truck looking like she was dead. Her head was leaning against the window, her shiny silver barrette glittering in the sunlight. I watched her for a moment as I walked by. And then she moved. So I knew she wasn’t dead. But I wondered what I would have done if she was dead. Or if I would even have known whether she was dead. It is hard to tell through a car window whether someone is dead or not, head slumped over, hair falling in face.
The glittering barrette seemed to have more life than the woman did. But the woman is fine, she isn’t dead, I think she was just writing a letter, or finishing her radio program, or reading the last pages of a novel before she returned it to the library. I walked on.
She was still dead in my mind, even though I had seen her move. Even now, hours later, she still looked dead in my mind. My initial thought of her left a lasting impression. I imagined her being discovered, dead in her truck, days later, the smell of rotting flesh that had been sitting in the sun for several days seeping out of the truck and into the air and causing much alarm to all of those who walked by. But the problem is that they did walk by, they didn’t stop to see if she was alive or not, and so she rotted away and was ignored by all who passed. She was even ignored by me, who passed along like the rest, all thinking about where we were going and what we were going to say when we met the person we were meeting, or wondering whether the bus had already come and gone and I would be late for work, and would have to work late to make up for it, and I didn’t make coffee this morning and now it is far too late to stop and get some before I get on the bus, unless I missed the bus and then I have plenty of time to get coffee before the next bus.
But the woman still rots. And her body is prematurely decomposing because of the sun, and she is liquidating into her seat and the odor is seeping into the cushions and none of us walking by think long enough to feel sorry for whoever has to removed her from the truck, maybe having to use a spoon to scoop up her body that is falling to pieces and mushy like a sponge cake that has been sitting for too long and has soaked up too much liquid and simply turns to a puddle. Maybe all that will be left by the time she is removed is her clothing left in her slouched over position like a ghost had worn them and then left for another dimensional existence. Her shoes are still resting near the gas pedal filled only with nylons in a taupe color. Her barrette has fallen to the floor of the truck and rests no longer glittering in the sun because it is hidden in the shade.
The glittering barrette seemed to have more life than the woman did. But the woman is fine, she isn’t dead, I think she was just writing a letter, or finishing her radio program, or reading the last pages of a novel before she returned it to the library. I walked on.
She was still dead in my mind, even though I had seen her move. Even now, hours later, she still looked dead in my mind. My initial thought of her left a lasting impression. I imagined her being discovered, dead in her truck, days later, the smell of rotting flesh that had been sitting in the sun for several days seeping out of the truck and into the air and causing much alarm to all of those who walked by. But the problem is that they did walk by, they didn’t stop to see if she was alive or not, and so she rotted away and was ignored by all who passed. She was even ignored by me, who passed along like the rest, all thinking about where we were going and what we were going to say when we met the person we were meeting, or wondering whether the bus had already come and gone and I would be late for work, and would have to work late to make up for it, and I didn’t make coffee this morning and now it is far too late to stop and get some before I get on the bus, unless I missed the bus and then I have plenty of time to get coffee before the next bus.
But the woman still rots. And her body is prematurely decomposing because of the sun, and she is liquidating into her seat and the odor is seeping into the cushions and none of us walking by think long enough to feel sorry for whoever has to removed her from the truck, maybe having to use a spoon to scoop up her body that is falling to pieces and mushy like a sponge cake that has been sitting for too long and has soaked up too much liquid and simply turns to a puddle. Maybe all that will be left by the time she is removed is her clothing left in her slouched over position like a ghost had worn them and then left for another dimensional existence. Her shoes are still resting near the gas pedal filled only with nylons in a taupe color. Her barrette has fallen to the floor of the truck and rests no longer glittering in the sun because it is hidden in the shade.
Desert
A lonely little store and gas pump stand is the only beacon of life in a deserted dessert of sand and tumbleweed. A woman sits out front on a metal folding lawn chair with plastic woven slats that leave red lines in her skin. The slats are disintegrating because of the sun and the shreds that stick up scratch the woman’s legs, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Her face is blank of any expression, either restful or with so few interactions with other people she has forgotten what it means to show expression. Her eyes are pallid and gray, as if they too are bleached from the sun. The woman has owned the store for most of her life, taking it over at a young age from her grandfather who had passed away long ago from lung cancer, which was no surprise after sixty years of smoking. The woman thought she had learned her lesson from his death, but ten years later she too picked up smoking and now sat outside in the sun, skin wrinkled and dark, smoking one cigarette after another. The only event that marked that passing of time was when one cigarette burned down to the stub and she threw it in the bucket that sat next to the chair and lit another one.
Once in a while a truck would roll by. Sometimes they stopped for gas, or a pack of cigarettes, or a bottle of water and a bag of chips. There was no other gas station for many miles around, so she got the unlucky drivers who rolled in on the last drop of gas, desperate from the heat, and grateful for another face that wasn’t made of sand. The cars and trucks that pulled in were always covered in dust, and the faces were covered in dust, and the children’s hands were covered in dust because they had been stuck out of the windows grabbing at the air and the blowing sand and occasionally a piece of tumbleweed that had blown up from under the tires.
The woman was pleasant to the people that stopped, but never said more than she needed to. She wasn’t looking for conversation, she was happier to exchange money and see people off. She was more at ease watching the backs of the cars or trucks drive away than the fronts of cars or trucks pulling in. But she always had a vague smile ready for her customers because she felt that they expected that after so many miles of seeing no one. She, too, was covered in dust from sitting outside and catching the sand and dirt and pieces of tumbleweed that blew by in the constant light wind. Sometimes the wind grew harsher and the sand bit her cheeks so her cheeks were always red both from the biting sand and the constant sun. Her teeth were browned from smoking and her hands and arms were wrinkled from the glare and deeply tanned. But her legs were pasty white underneath the jeans that she wore everyday. They hadn’t seen the sun in many years; they only felt the heat coming through. Her boots were dusty, and the hat that she wore sometimes was dusty, and her store windows were dusty, and the interior of her store had gradually collected dust as well so everything that was bought had a fine layer of sand on it that the customer would brush off. If the customer had found the layer of sand in a store in the city, they surely would have left and gone somewhere else for fresher goods. But here, after so many miles of nothing, no one seemed to notice because their eyes were covered in sand as well. Most people that drove through this way, except for the truck drivers, weren’t prepared for such a long stretch of nothing. They never brought enough food or water and were never prepared mentally to deal with endless sand dunes dotted by tumbleweed. They always walked into the store with a glazed look on their faces, with the feeling that they had been away from society for a very long time, even if it had only been a few hours. They almost forgot how to speak, or how to interact with other people. Conversations in the cars, if there were multiple people, had long since ceased because the endless landscape led to endless nothingness in their minds, even their brains were covered in dust.
The woman was used to this. She treated everyone with care because the customers were always a bit shocked and confused to be out of the sun’s glare and to see something with more color than sand. Once in a while, when there hadn’t been a customer for several hours, the woman pulled out her broom from the closet and swept the floor. When the sun wasn’t too bright, she even swept the stoop outside of the store; and on a rare cloudy day she would sweep around the gas pumps and polish the glass. Sometimes she even hosed down the sign.
The woman never waited for anyone to come, she didn’t sit on her plastic chair looking down the stretch of highway that ran to the right and the left. She just sat on her chair, smoking. Sometimes she did a crossword puzzle from a book she had found under her grandfather’s bed after he died. He had completed the first few in pencil, but the marks had mostly faded and nearly disappeared. But the rest of the book was blank and she worked through each one with pen because she didn’t want her marks to disappear, she wanted her letters to last and last. She wondered who would find the crossword puzzle book under her bed.
Once in a while a truck would roll by. Sometimes they stopped for gas, or a pack of cigarettes, or a bottle of water and a bag of chips. There was no other gas station for many miles around, so she got the unlucky drivers who rolled in on the last drop of gas, desperate from the heat, and grateful for another face that wasn’t made of sand. The cars and trucks that pulled in were always covered in dust, and the faces were covered in dust, and the children’s hands were covered in dust because they had been stuck out of the windows grabbing at the air and the blowing sand and occasionally a piece of tumbleweed that had blown up from under the tires.
The woman was pleasant to the people that stopped, but never said more than she needed to. She wasn’t looking for conversation, she was happier to exchange money and see people off. She was more at ease watching the backs of the cars or trucks drive away than the fronts of cars or trucks pulling in. But she always had a vague smile ready for her customers because she felt that they expected that after so many miles of seeing no one. She, too, was covered in dust from sitting outside and catching the sand and dirt and pieces of tumbleweed that blew by in the constant light wind. Sometimes the wind grew harsher and the sand bit her cheeks so her cheeks were always red both from the biting sand and the constant sun. Her teeth were browned from smoking and her hands and arms were wrinkled from the glare and deeply tanned. But her legs were pasty white underneath the jeans that she wore everyday. They hadn’t seen the sun in many years; they only felt the heat coming through. Her boots were dusty, and the hat that she wore sometimes was dusty, and her store windows were dusty, and the interior of her store had gradually collected dust as well so everything that was bought had a fine layer of sand on it that the customer would brush off. If the customer had found the layer of sand in a store in the city, they surely would have left and gone somewhere else for fresher goods. But here, after so many miles of nothing, no one seemed to notice because their eyes were covered in sand as well. Most people that drove through this way, except for the truck drivers, weren’t prepared for such a long stretch of nothing. They never brought enough food or water and were never prepared mentally to deal with endless sand dunes dotted by tumbleweed. They always walked into the store with a glazed look on their faces, with the feeling that they had been away from society for a very long time, even if it had only been a few hours. They almost forgot how to speak, or how to interact with other people. Conversations in the cars, if there were multiple people, had long since ceased because the endless landscape led to endless nothingness in their minds, even their brains were covered in dust.
The woman was used to this. She treated everyone with care because the customers were always a bit shocked and confused to be out of the sun’s glare and to see something with more color than sand. Once in a while, when there hadn’t been a customer for several hours, the woman pulled out her broom from the closet and swept the floor. When the sun wasn’t too bright, she even swept the stoop outside of the store; and on a rare cloudy day she would sweep around the gas pumps and polish the glass. Sometimes she even hosed down the sign.
The woman never waited for anyone to come, she didn’t sit on her plastic chair looking down the stretch of highway that ran to the right and the left. She just sat on her chair, smoking. Sometimes she did a crossword puzzle from a book she had found under her grandfather’s bed after he died. He had completed the first few in pencil, but the marks had mostly faded and nearly disappeared. But the rest of the book was blank and she worked through each one with pen because she didn’t want her marks to disappear, she wanted her letters to last and last. She wondered who would find the crossword puzzle book under her bed.
One Page 54
Anyway—you want a fresh slice of tomato? The man across the counter grinned at me showing a full set of gleaming teeth with silver caps on his molars and a piece of lettuce wedged in between two of his bottom teeth. No, no thanks. No tomato. I hate tomatoes. And, I thought silently to myself, I hate you. Your grin frightens the bejeezus out of me. Those shining eyes, my god, where did this man come from? Straight out of an evil cartoon with the devils horns hidden underneath his blue and white stripped train conductors hat, a replica, and a poor one at that.
He moved along down the counter to help other customers. I thanked my god damn lucky stars that I was only a stranger around these parts, passing though, on to new sights after this breakfast that tastes like deep fried oil that had smoldered for a long while in a pot with a chicken leg and a ham bone and a few worn out pieces of celery in an excuse for god only knows what.
I shoveled the remnants of food around on my plate, watching the trail of grease catching the glint of florescent lights above and looking like a trail that a slug had left behind, so green and translucent and gooey and solidifying right before my eyes. I swallowed. My stomach turned.
The grinning man reappeared out of nowhere to refill my coffee. No, no thanks, I said and placed my hand over my cup. The brown water was not coffee and couldn’t even call itself coffee and I wondered how often the grinds were even changed for newly brewed pots and wondered whether I was really so far from anywhere that I wouldn’t be able to find a cup of coffee that even resembled coffee and wondered whether the people around here thought this brown slush water was actually. As soon as I moved my hand away from my coffee cup, the grinning man pounced on it and refilled it anyhow. At least it was free refills, after wasting a dollar and a quarter for brown water that I could have dished out of the sewer.
The lettuce remnant had relocated and was now wedged in his top teeth and had disintegrated a bit. He must have swallowed the other little bit, and I wondered why I was thinking about the lettuce leaf when I was three hours from a funeral for my mother, and guessed that the grave was already dug, and was filling with water with the onset of rain, and the roses were already picked and were sitting in vases so that we could throw them on top of the shiny oak box that was polished so I could see my reflection and the reflection of the rose, and I hoped that I wouldn’t look down and grin and see the reflection of a lettuce leaf in my own teeth, and guessed that wouldn’t happen since I wouldn’t be grinning and I hadn’t eaten lettuce today, or even yesterday.
He moved along down the counter to help other customers. I thanked my god damn lucky stars that I was only a stranger around these parts, passing though, on to new sights after this breakfast that tastes like deep fried oil that had smoldered for a long while in a pot with a chicken leg and a ham bone and a few worn out pieces of celery in an excuse for god only knows what.
I shoveled the remnants of food around on my plate, watching the trail of grease catching the glint of florescent lights above and looking like a trail that a slug had left behind, so green and translucent and gooey and solidifying right before my eyes. I swallowed. My stomach turned.
The grinning man reappeared out of nowhere to refill my coffee. No, no thanks, I said and placed my hand over my cup. The brown water was not coffee and couldn’t even call itself coffee and I wondered how often the grinds were even changed for newly brewed pots and wondered whether I was really so far from anywhere that I wouldn’t be able to find a cup of coffee that even resembled coffee and wondered whether the people around here thought this brown slush water was actually. As soon as I moved my hand away from my coffee cup, the grinning man pounced on it and refilled it anyhow. At least it was free refills, after wasting a dollar and a quarter for brown water that I could have dished out of the sewer.
The lettuce remnant had relocated and was now wedged in his top teeth and had disintegrated a bit. He must have swallowed the other little bit, and I wondered why I was thinking about the lettuce leaf when I was three hours from a funeral for my mother, and guessed that the grave was already dug, and was filling with water with the onset of rain, and the roses were already picked and were sitting in vases so that we could throw them on top of the shiny oak box that was polished so I could see my reflection and the reflection of the rose, and I hoped that I wouldn’t look down and grin and see the reflection of a lettuce leaf in my own teeth, and guessed that wouldn’t happen since I wouldn’t be grinning and I hadn’t eaten lettuce today, or even yesterday.
One Page 53
The clouds whispered in my ears. They called to me silently, a voice so quiet but not so still, rather ever-changing. They told me to go, run away, feel the wind whistling in my ears. They told me to leave it all behind. The cloud in the shape of a train told me to charge forth.
The cloud in the shape of an elm tree told me to bend and keep on bending, I would never break.
The cloud in the shape of a river bend told me to flow, and I would never cease.
I stood in the field and let the clouds whisper into my ears, taking in the words. They tickled the hairs at the base of my neck and stroked the folds of flesh. I closed my eyes and we all laughed together, a great belly laugh from deep below. They roared with me, sending laughter into the heavens. The clouds spread their arms, and I spread my arms and we shook the earth together.
Then I lay down, exhausted from the laughter, and let the ants crawl over my arms and up around my ankles. I could feel them with my eyes closed like a tickle that ran this way and that in so many arcs and circles that I lost track of which ones were where.
The long grasses that blew around me in the breeze tickled my forehead and I wondered whether there were ants on my forehead too, or if it was just the grass. The clouds looked down on me and watched, they too could see the ants running around in circles and then settling as if they too were exhausted from the laughter. Together, the clouds and the ants and the blowing grasses and I rested. As I fell asleep the clouds whispered words into my ears that formed into dreams. They picked me up and carried me with them on their backs, lifting me towards the stars. The great blackness of sky tumbled into my body, filling me with all the stars and moons of the universe, making my body feel so expansive and alive, a million beating hearts and a million blinking stars reverberating inside of me.
After many long minutes, the clouds brought me back down to the ground, back to the field with the blowing grasses and the sleeping ants. In my ears, the clouds whispered goodbye and floated away to look after other fields and other ants and other blowing grasses.
I lay in the field, my eyes now open, watching the stars dance and feeling them inside of me blinking in and out with the beating of my heart. I reached out and took hold of the grasses that bumped against my forehead. I waved the ends of the grasses towards the stars, towards the rising moon, saying hello, calling out a welcome to the night. The air grew cooler and I stood up.
I opened my mouth and let all of the stars and moons pour out with a silent roar and join their sisters and brothers and cousins in the sky.
The cloud in the shape of an elm tree told me to bend and keep on bending, I would never break.
The cloud in the shape of a river bend told me to flow, and I would never cease.
I stood in the field and let the clouds whisper into my ears, taking in the words. They tickled the hairs at the base of my neck and stroked the folds of flesh. I closed my eyes and we all laughed together, a great belly laugh from deep below. They roared with me, sending laughter into the heavens. The clouds spread their arms, and I spread my arms and we shook the earth together.
Then I lay down, exhausted from the laughter, and let the ants crawl over my arms and up around my ankles. I could feel them with my eyes closed like a tickle that ran this way and that in so many arcs and circles that I lost track of which ones were where.
The long grasses that blew around me in the breeze tickled my forehead and I wondered whether there were ants on my forehead too, or if it was just the grass. The clouds looked down on me and watched, they too could see the ants running around in circles and then settling as if they too were exhausted from the laughter. Together, the clouds and the ants and the blowing grasses and I rested. As I fell asleep the clouds whispered words into my ears that formed into dreams. They picked me up and carried me with them on their backs, lifting me towards the stars. The great blackness of sky tumbled into my body, filling me with all the stars and moons of the universe, making my body feel so expansive and alive, a million beating hearts and a million blinking stars reverberating inside of me.
After many long minutes, the clouds brought me back down to the ground, back to the field with the blowing grasses and the sleeping ants. In my ears, the clouds whispered goodbye and floated away to look after other fields and other ants and other blowing grasses.
I lay in the field, my eyes now open, watching the stars dance and feeling them inside of me blinking in and out with the beating of my heart. I reached out and took hold of the grasses that bumped against my forehead. I waved the ends of the grasses towards the stars, towards the rising moon, saying hello, calling out a welcome to the night. The air grew cooler and I stood up.
I opened my mouth and let all of the stars and moons pour out with a silent roar and join their sisters and brothers and cousins in the sky.
One Page 52
Shamed into the salt flats that radiated gold and blue like a thorn in my side so sharp. Sun fades and my arms are cold. Belly sticking out and falls into the sea carried away by the waves on whales backs and fishy brine. Sea eagles circle overhead cawing to the fish below as a warning so useless. Rocks protrude from the waves angled pointy to the sky providing perches for the gulls and sea lions that don’t get along and bark at each other mouths wide open catching the salt air on their tongues and deep into their throats. Pastures of blue waves turning gray and green with white caps blowing like wheat dancing in the wind. Spry kites. Rainbows against the sky so gray now with the coming storm. Clouds reaching high into heaven standing so tall and proud bringing darkness like a blanket in behind them. Blanket ripples. Sends me into shadow. Goosebumps leaping. Hairs on end bristling. You walk up behind me and your faint shadow merges with mine. Arms around. Skin settles and smoothes. Our shadow disappears with the darkening sky. We back away from the waves that tickle our toes. Waves crying out in urgency. Seals and gulls disappear, falling into the sea, leaping into the sky and away like specks then gone. We stand like a rock into the wind impenetrable. Skin like bark reflecting the weather. Clouds cover the blue and sea turns to gray almost black with white foaming in anger. Boiling. We turn to leave arms still wrapped around each other, our chests sheltered from the wind. Our shoulders taking it all in, hair flapping. We fall in the sand that blows and stings our ankles. With a glance we run through dried seaweed and hollow crab shells empty and abandoned. I don’t know what a palindrome is. But the saints are knocking around in my skull wanting in. And there is a crow slowly eating my eyes out. If I grew horns I would wear a crown so that you would never know. And it would be decorated with rubies and sapphires and sharp as a knife in case I needed protection. The moon reflects off the gold. It is so shiny that if I held the crown in my hands I could see whether there was anything in my teeth, even in the moonlight. But I won’t take it off my head. Otherwise you might see my horns. And run away. Scared. Because the wind is picking up and the sea is rolling and we haven’t reached the house yet but I see it up ahead coming closer. The rain has started and it has soaked through my shirt. My goosebumps are back. Ten more steps and we grab hands to hold each other down and we reach the screen door that bangs several times as we race through. Thunder is rumbling now with my tummy grumbling and I towel off, and towel you off, and we shiver together.
One Page 51
Someone told me, deadpan, while looking at my face coldly that we are living on borrowed time. I asked if I could check out more time with my library card. He glowered at me and turned away. Smirking at his back I fingered my library card in my pocket and it felt hot from sitting in the folds of my shorts while I sat in the sun. The man’s back shrunk as he walked down the path, shoulders slumped, shoes scuffing. He had not borrowed the right kind of time. He had borrowed This World is Too Burdensome time. I wondered if there might be an overdue fine if I returned the borrowed time late. The overdue notice would read: Borrowed Time, overdue, fine up to 1.00 a day. Could I put a hold on time? And not just any time, but a certain time, a happy time. I didn’t want to borrow sorrowful time, or hungry time. I wanted to borrow peaceful time, restful time. Something to ease me.
I wondered whether it would wear out, the time I borrowed, after too many uses. Then the old time would be discarded into a dumpster out back in the alleyway where scavengers might try to eke out just a little more use before the time was dead.
I gulped from my iced tea and scowled at the clouds that were moving closer and sending me into shade. The man was only a dot now, but I could still see the garish orange plaid of his shirt and faintly hear the scuff scuff of his shoes against the gravel. He was smoking now and a puff of smoke blew over his head with a big sigh, so resigned that I had not bought his cynical sketch. With one last huff, he disappeared around the corner. I wondered who he borrowed his time from, and wanted to suggest that he change his sources.
Left alone in the courtyard, I considered his idea more seriously. If we were all living on borrowed time, then who was lending it out? God? Maybe when we die we owe it all back and we get set up on a payment plan of a certain amount a month. Those who lived until their faces were lined with wrinkles and their hair was falling out would be paying it all back for so long, along with their loan for wings and a halo and the long white gown. How depressing to die and know that you are in debt. I wondered whether God charged interest too. My head sunk down into the crook of my arm and the sweat on my face stuck to my arm and when I moved my head it went splunk splush as the sweat squirmed between my skin, sticky and aromatic. My lunch was not digesting well and my eyes were clouding over. I didn’t want to owe any more than I already did. I hated owing people for things. I like to be squared away, accounts settled. The sooner it was over the less I would owe. I thought seriously about that.
I wondered whether it would wear out, the time I borrowed, after too many uses. Then the old time would be discarded into a dumpster out back in the alleyway where scavengers might try to eke out just a little more use before the time was dead.
I gulped from my iced tea and scowled at the clouds that were moving closer and sending me into shade. The man was only a dot now, but I could still see the garish orange plaid of his shirt and faintly hear the scuff scuff of his shoes against the gravel. He was smoking now and a puff of smoke blew over his head with a big sigh, so resigned that I had not bought his cynical sketch. With one last huff, he disappeared around the corner. I wondered who he borrowed his time from, and wanted to suggest that he change his sources.
Left alone in the courtyard, I considered his idea more seriously. If we were all living on borrowed time, then who was lending it out? God? Maybe when we die we owe it all back and we get set up on a payment plan of a certain amount a month. Those who lived until their faces were lined with wrinkles and their hair was falling out would be paying it all back for so long, along with their loan for wings and a halo and the long white gown. How depressing to die and know that you are in debt. I wondered whether God charged interest too. My head sunk down into the crook of my arm and the sweat on my face stuck to my arm and when I moved my head it went splunk splush as the sweat squirmed between my skin, sticky and aromatic. My lunch was not digesting well and my eyes were clouding over. I didn’t want to owe any more than I already did. I hated owing people for things. I like to be squared away, accounts settled. The sooner it was over the less I would owe. I thought seriously about that.
One Page 50
I had my head stretched back to the point where I thought it would fall off of my neck and I was staring at the moon that was just a sliver of light between the branches of the oak tree that was to be taken down the next day. I had lived with that tree all of my life until the blight hit last year. I had swung from its branches, I had climbed high enough that my parents yelled for me to come down. I had watched squirrels and blue jays explore. I had built a platform in the sixth grade in a poor attempt for a clubhouse that Patty and I had clumped around on until the board split in two and sent us falling to the ground surprisingly unharmed. Now, twenty years later, my parents were selling the house and I thought maybe they were selling it because the oak tree had died. I hugged the tree now, its dead bark rough against my cheek. The smell was different now. It was a lifeless smell. I couldn’t say exactly how it was different, but it smelled musty as if it had been sitting in an attic for far too long. I wondered how far down the roots reached into the earth and whether once the tree was cut down and the stump removed whether there would be pieces of the roots left to disintegrate and disappear into the soil. Maybe one shoot would rebirth a small trunk that would breach the surface and grown into another oak tree, a daughter oak tree. The descendent would give shade to the new occupants of the house and it would offer branches as homes to new birds. Someday maybe someone would stand just here, looking back, neck craning, for a look at the moon. It would be the same moon as I was seeing now, and the light would peak around the branches, except maybe then there would be leaves on the branches and a little less moonlight would be able to shine through.
I lifted my head back upright and stroked the dead bark of the oak tree. It had long been a friend. I wasn’t sure what would happen to the wood. Can dead trees be made into paper, or cardboard boxes or books, or business cards and wrapping paper. Would this tree end up around a present being sent off to a cousin in Japan? Or would it carry the words of a lover to a partner far away? Maybe it would hold a spray of perfume and lopsidedly drawn hearts surrounded by loopy handwriting. Maybe the wood would be composted and return to the earth slowly, giving food for insects and shelter for earthworms. I said goodbye to the oak tree. I wished it well through its transition to a new place in whatever use or non-use it might find. I thanked it for the joy it had given me. I was certain it would see moonlight still, wherever it would be next.
I lifted my head back upright and stroked the dead bark of the oak tree. It had long been a friend. I wasn’t sure what would happen to the wood. Can dead trees be made into paper, or cardboard boxes or books, or business cards and wrapping paper. Would this tree end up around a present being sent off to a cousin in Japan? Or would it carry the words of a lover to a partner far away? Maybe it would hold a spray of perfume and lopsidedly drawn hearts surrounded by loopy handwriting. Maybe the wood would be composted and return to the earth slowly, giving food for insects and shelter for earthworms. I said goodbye to the oak tree. I wished it well through its transition to a new place in whatever use or non-use it might find. I thanked it for the joy it had given me. I was certain it would see moonlight still, wherever it would be next.
One Page 49
We can stop on the way home, she told me, but I knew she wouldn’t want to stop. She hated stopping once we got going. She didn’t like pauses in the action, or diversions from the path, or moments that weren’t scheduled into the plan. She liked plans. I just nodded and pretended for a moment that maybe we would stop, and I could get some water and go to the bathroom and stretch my legs for a minute before the doors were closed again and we were rolling onwards. I didn’t remember what my body felt like when it wasn’t moving and wasn’t held by the car seat. I didn’t remember what it felt like for my eyes to look at something still, something unmoving, something at rest. My right hand was molded to the armrest and my left hand clung to my leg just above the knee where my shorts stopped and the skin was sticky from sitting all day long in the sun that never seemed to rise or set, it just hung tightly to the middle of the sky where it would be sure to hit me without ceasing. I wasn’t usually allowed to drive. But I was expected to keep the soundtrack going and supply water and food when asked. Technically I wasn’t allowed to drive since I had never gotten my license, so it was fair that I was never asked to take the wheel. But I still sort of resented the fact that I had one seat to sit in for three thousand miles and I couldn’t even ask for a stop unless it was at a scheduled mealtime.
I don’t mean to make it sound like it was all bad though. We laughed a lot, the two of us; we shared stories and ideas. We sang along with Abbey Road and Graceland and an occasional chance U2 song on the radio. And the long stretches of road ahead of us started to feel comforting and familiar, even as the landscaped changed and I saw deserts and mountains I had never seen before. It all felt like home, like the whole country was my home. Passing through towns I saw people walking along sidewalks, so at home. Passing by truckers with cigarettes hanging from hands held out the window, they seemed so at home in their cabins pulling loads behind them. The sky was over all of our heads, holding us in close to home, a blanket so blue across our laps. I was a stranger to stillness, to familiar beds, to home cooked meals. I missed these things sometimes, but at the same time I couldn’t imagine what I would be like to not have a different view out of my window every day. It was a transitioning world out there, and I was just flying on by right through it, something static in a fading countryside. The seat of my shorts would wear thin but they would never be washed in the same washer twice. That was comforting to me. At least in those few weeks. Until it would stop on the other side.
I don’t mean to make it sound like it was all bad though. We laughed a lot, the two of us; we shared stories and ideas. We sang along with Abbey Road and Graceland and an occasional chance U2 song on the radio. And the long stretches of road ahead of us started to feel comforting and familiar, even as the landscaped changed and I saw deserts and mountains I had never seen before. It all felt like home, like the whole country was my home. Passing through towns I saw people walking along sidewalks, so at home. Passing by truckers with cigarettes hanging from hands held out the window, they seemed so at home in their cabins pulling loads behind them. The sky was over all of our heads, holding us in close to home, a blanket so blue across our laps. I was a stranger to stillness, to familiar beds, to home cooked meals. I missed these things sometimes, but at the same time I couldn’t imagine what I would be like to not have a different view out of my window every day. It was a transitioning world out there, and I was just flying on by right through it, something static in a fading countryside. The seat of my shorts would wear thin but they would never be washed in the same washer twice. That was comforting to me. At least in those few weeks. Until it would stop on the other side.
September 28, 2008
One Page 48
The old man dropped his cigarette butt into the ashtray after grinding the stub out. There was a pile of stubs already so this one addition hardly caused any notice. I watched his fingers shaking, yellowish, with dirt under his nails. His voice was gruff and hollow and he was telling me about the war, which war I wasn’t really sure, there had been so many. He crossed his legs slowly and raised his face to meet my gaze. His eyes were a watery blue and deep creases ran along his cheeks and forehead. He was an old man. He was my grandfather, although I had only just met him. It took my father dying to bring this side of the family together, and now we sat, in poorly cushioned chairs all in a line, waiting. The flowers were pungent and brilliant, the only color in the room. The air was silent for a moment with the coincidence of everyone’s mouths shutting, no more words to be spoken. I looked out the tall windows where there was only a small plate of clear glass surrounded by stained glass images from the Bible, images I did not recognize. My mother had not allowed us to go to church, and I had hardly been inside of a church until now, besides a few weddings long ago. It felt comfortable, as if a part of me had been kept from coming home. The alter was polished and gleaming in the late afternoon sun. the air was warm with so many people breathing quietly, waiting. An old man dies and all these people, many of whom do not know each other, come together as a group, all mourning in their black suits and ties. The old man who died was not even liked by most, including my grandfather who sat here next to me. I wondered whether he had ever liked his son or if from the very beginning he had known the man would do no good in the world. I was the outcome of one sweet moment, so I was told, a moment that was never to be repeated. Now, looking at his body, I see nothing but the skin and bones of a skeletal man, ridden by sickness, and left to die nearly alone. I almost felt sorry for him, not the man, but the body, a body so unloved and untouched. A body that had, until recently, bled and festered just like any other aging body, bones cracking and hair falling out. My grandfather shook his head slightly and looked down at his lap. I could hear his rasping breath. The body before us lying in the casket, the body next to me, only barely hanging on, my own body, also aging and wearing down, were all not so different. Could it really be just the minds, three separate minds that worked in such different ways, be the only divisions between us? Our blood was made off the same stuff, our flesh the same color. Even our eyes looked nearly the same. But the differences between us, so vast.
One Page 47
As I waited at the train station I looked at the other people, looked in their faces until they looked at me and I looked away quickly, I drummed my hands against my thighs and felt the bench beneath me shake with my motion, unending, because I didn’t know how in that moment to sit still because the one person I wanted to see was nearly a million miles away, and even if it was less than that it didn’t matter because I wouldn’t see her anyhow, but I needed to do something in the meantime so drumming on my thighs seemed like the nearest thing I had to something productive to do that would, in theory, relax me. But it didn’t relax me and I couldn’t get her smile out of my mind and it was tearing my inside out until I felt like I could reach down and grab the guts that spilled out of me, throwing them against the station walls, brick and graffitied because the kids around here have nothing else but spray paint, and I would watch the blood trickled down running around the curves and crevices of the stones, already red but now much redder. A cloud passed and the skylighted ceiling tinted darker and my face was shrouded and everyone else’s face, waiting patiently looking left towards where the train would come from, and it was all dark for a moment until the cloud passed and all of our faces lit up again, shinny noses and foreheads, greasy hair, and bedraggled expressions, just waiting, and wanting, but not looking forward to. Looking forward to anything, none of us had that. We were going somewhere, who knows where, but it didn’t matter because it was probably a place we had been already, and if it happened to not be we probably weren’t excited anyhow because at this time in the late afternoon no one wants to be going where they are going because wherever that is there is nothing there, just emptiness. I could hear the train in the distance, just coming around the bend, and then it was there, screeched to a stop, green lights flashing as if we weren’t sure that the train was really there and we needed the lights to let us know. So green means go so I stood up and stopped drumming my thighs and my hands tingled with the constant motion suddenly stopped and I wondered what I would do with them once I got on the train because in close quarters it is hard to be nervous, wanting, waiting. They know you are wanting, waiting, and I don’t want them to know that so I will put my hands in my pockets and pretend that I am excited to go wherever it is that I am going, which is home, and I am not excited because it will be cold and dark and unused since it had been a while since I had been there. I thought of coffee and I thought of tongues dancing and I nearly banged my head.
One Page 46
I was disheartened and when I looked at your face I saw nothing but a blank slate and I remembered my second grade teacher, glasses slipping off her nose and slip showing, who drew diagrams on the chalkboard in chalk so faint that no one could really see what she was drawing so we looked at her, the flowers on her skirt dancing as she drew so vigorously, and we didn’t learn anything and failed all of her tests because we were more preoccupied with her lipsticked teeth than the numbers she wrote, but at the end of the year she didn’t notice, and we didn’t notice, and our third grade teacher was a tall bald man who wore blue suits every day that covered in chalk on the back when he leaned against the blackboard and we weren’t sure whether he knew he had drawings and numbers littering his back or not so we didn’t say anything because we didn’t want to embarrass him and he never seemed to notice and so we spent more time looking at the patterns on his back than they diagrams on the board and so we learned nothing and mostly failed his tests but he didn’t notice because he was preoccupied by the gym teacher who was definitely a lesbian but he didn’t know that and we didn’t tell him because we didn’t want to ruin his infatuation since it made him blush and the red of his cheeks looked dashing against his blue suit and we were sure that if the gym teacher wasn’t a lesbian she would be in love with him too, aside from his bowling ball shinny head and the diagrams and numbers imprinted on his back, but she was a lesbian and once we saw her behind the gym one afternoon after school making out with the vice principle and we almost yelled at them, laughing at their glory in love found, but we were too shy and embarrassed and so we snuck away and peered around the corned of the gym at them because we had never seen anything that made us tingle in quiet that same way and we weren’t sure whether we would ever see it again and so we had to enjoy it at that very moment and the unfortunate downpour of rain ruined the moment and the two of them laughed, covered each other helplessly with their arms and ran inside leaving us to feel the soaked through shirts stick to our skin and wonder whether the books in our back packs were getting ruined but we didn’t care because we still felt that special and unfamiliar tingle and our toes were warm and our cheeks were warm and we couldn’t look at each other without blushing and so we stared at the pavement that was filling with puddles and then we ran away, hurrying home, as if our hurry would keep us from getting wetter even though we knew better, and fifth grade was no better so we didn’t speak of it.
One Page 45
An enormous chain of mountains had formed around the small town and they hardly noticed. They were a community of ground-watchers, meaning they rarely looked at what was around them, but were more concerned with the view of the pavement, the sparkles in the cement, the cracks caused by tree roots. These people looked down. The sky was no concern; most of them couldn’t even tell you that they sky was blue. They would have said that leaves are brown because the only ones they saw were the dead ones on the ground. They didn’t even recognize reflections in windows or other people’s hair color. I walked over the mountain peaks and down into the valley because I had heard of the strange occurrence of ground-watchers. I didn’t understand, but I wanted to. The mountain walls were steep and I slipped on the pebbles that littered the path. Inside the town I walked around, and it seemed that people recognized other people by their shoes. They didn’t recognize my shoes and they knew I was an outsider. But they didn’t look at my face, or even as high as my chest. I was Adidas black stripes to them. And they stomped on them. My toes were crushed and my heart was crushed as they pounded the ground around my feet. They didn’t like outsiders apparently. They didn’t need the sky, or the window reflections. They didn’t need anything above the knees. I asked someone if they knew what it felt like to stretch the neck and look up. The person kicked me in the shin. I have no need for that he said before stomping away. I see I said to his back, but he didn’t hear. It wasn’t a conversation. It was a lifestyle, and not one I was likely to break. After several weeks of trying to make sense of their reality I realized that I had started to look down. I noticed the sparkles in the pavement and I saw the grass grow each day, and noticed when it was cut the day it grew too tall. I saw the shine on everyone’s shoes; they took care of them. They polished and bought new laces when the old ones were ragged. They folded their cuffs neatly, knowing that hundreds of people would see and notice the fold, the crease. At first I wanted to reach out and lift their chins with my palms, making them see, even if only for a moment, the blue of the sky, the shape of the cloud that passed slowly overhead. They were missing out on so much. But I put my hands in my pockets and walked on. I didn’t scuff my heels along the sidewalk any longer. My neck developed new muscles. My eyes felt relaxed, shielded from the glare of the sun. The sunny days, the rainy days, it hardly mattered now. I never left. And my shoes always shone.
September 7, 2008
July 25, 2008
One Page #44
We were sitting in her living room and she was reading me paragraphs from her latest book. I was across the room from her on the couch watching her as she stood by the window overlooking the busy street. The streetlamps shone on her face, but I could only see the curve of her jaw since she was mostly turned toward the window. Her reflection mimicked her face as she read, animated and involved. I spent more time watching her face than listening to her words, and I knew I would pay for that mistake soon enough. She was nearing the end of the first chapter and I knew she would turn around at look at me, her eyes questioning what I thought. I would have little to say but could have told her in detail how her expressions changed as she read. It wasn’t her story that prevented me from hearing her words. I could say that it was mostly because I am a visual reader and need the page in front of me, my eyes reading the lines, to actually absorb the content. But this wasn’t entirely true. Mostly, I was captivated. I couldn’t stop looking at her face, and I was distracted by the curve of her lips that undulated as she spoke and I thought of wild horses racing off through fields of wheat. I watched her hair bob gently back and forth as she moved her head around in emphasis of the words, and I thought of trees bending in the breeze. Not just any trees, but trees that were embedded deep in the forest where few human feet passed by and songbirds chirped in a rowdy chorus. I watched her nostrils flare when the one evil character entered and significantly bowed and tipped his top hat, and I thought of wild turkeys screaming at their enemies with open jaws and snapping teeth. Her face created a story that I could watch, like a film, whereas her written story, however intriguing, were words that whispered into my ears and then blew back out in a swirl of dust and feathers. There was a pause, and I saw her face grow still in her reflection. The streetlamps twinkled in her eyes that swam with the effort of reading aloud, something she didn’t normally enjoy but made her anxious and her breath come quickly. She turned. She looked at me with questioning eyes. I smiled back at her and clapped my hands with vigor, a grin spreading wider on my face. She blushed, and grinned back at me. But I was applauding not for her story, which I am sure was articulate and engaging, but for the transformations that changed her face with every second, with every word that she spoke. I clapped for the blowing wheat and the whispering trees and the screaming turkeys and her breath the fogged the window with steam that made me hot. She bowed and promised to read the next chapter tomorrow.
July 20, 2008
One Page #43
The beginning of a storm starts with a growl of thunder, like a hungry stomach. And then a wind that picks up speed as it turns leaves over and sends trees crawling over each other. I am always amazed that they remain upright, no matter how fiercely the wind howls. Although branches do come down, and sometimes whole trunks, and I hear sirens screaming and imagine cars and houses and hopefully not people crunched underneath. Every storm is a gamble, but the don’t come without warning. They build, and it this tension that draws faces towards the sky, and muscles clenched in the unknown. The sky darkens slowly. The clouds have been slowly rolling in all day, but mostly they weren’t storm clouds, just humidity clouds that were as pale as the faded blue sky. Birds scramble towards cover and the cat preens on the deck in the final moments of dryness. I sit on the porch, but know that I will be inside soon. The rain begins. Lightly at first, it slowly dampens the pavement and brings the smell that only rain can bring. The then rain becomes heavier, slowly, mounting like an orchestral crescendo. And more thunder, closer this time. I see people on their porches running for cover, a woman who had been gardening stand up slowly, brushing off her knees as if she had all the time in the world to stay dry. Or maybe she welcomes the cool air that comes with the rain. More thunder and the rain is heavier still. But the storm is only beginning. I move further back on the porch and can only feel occasional drops on my legs that extend to the storm searching for relief from the heat. The rain lightens momentarily, but I know that it is only temporary. The real storm is still miles off. More thunder, closer yet, and aggressive. I wait. Sometimes it takes longer than I expect for the storm to blow in full force and angry. I can feel the sky opening up, relieving itself of all the tension that has been mounting. The first of the lightening flashes, a quick streak across the sky. And then the rain tumbles down with strength. It is roaring now. The last of the people run for cover, realizing the seriousness now. This storm isn’t messing around; it is crashing towards us with an iron fist shaking at the earth. The breeze picks up and cools my forehead and ankles. Raindrops fall heavily from the roof and splatter voraciously, pooling and spreading. Cars drive slower, headlights come on and wipers pick up speed. But the center of the storm is still a ways off. And I just wait, knowing it will come, but not in any hurry for it. You can’t hurry a storm; it just doesn’t work that way. A storm is far beyond my control, and I just let it happen to me, like a breath, mounting then calming.
One Page #42
Bob scoured the parking lot. It was long abandoned and weeds had grown through the cracks. The lot was surrounded by a chain link fence that had been cut and stretched and climbed over hundreds of times. Bob remembered when the space was the parking lot for the neighborhood grocery, which was also abandoned now. Nothing had replaced the grocery and the windows were broken and the walls were covered in graffiti. The floors were beaten down, littered with butts and bottles and even a small pile of syringes in the corner. Bob had only looked in the window, but not gone inside. He had been away too long, and fear that he hadn’t know before had crept into his chest, warning him to stay away. But the parking lot held personal interest, and so he climbed through a hole in the fence and wandered around, toeing the broken pavement to see what was underneath and admiring the purple chicory that grew heedless of its rundown surroundings. It brought a colorful cheer to the lot that was otherwise grayed and left behind even by the neighborhood gangs. Bob heard a shot far off, and he shuddered. He fingered his pocket, but found nothing but lint and an few coins. His right hand still felt trigger-happy and he remembered. He remembered too much. An image of Carol shot through his mind and he blinked away the sadness and nostalgia. He walked with renewed purpose to the other side of the lot where an oak tree hung over, bedraggled and ignored. Around the far side of the tree, the side right next to the fence where even a few links dug into its bark as the tree grew, he pushed aside leaves and dead branches until he found what he was looking for. He fingered the heart carved into the tree bark, still visible like an old scar. Inside the heart’s outline he could still barely make out the B+C that he had carved so carefully, so long ago. Carol had stood by watching, smiling, bemused. They had always made fun of couples who had carved their initials to be remembered forever, like sweethearts who would never grow apart. They were already growing apart, and the carving was a symbol of this separation. Carol was going to live with her aunt upstate. No reason was given to Bob. He didn’t ask. But he would remember. And he hoped that she would also, even though he was beginning to doubt that. He would find his way out of this city too, somehow. He wasn’t sure how just yet. Another gunshot rang out, closer this time, and it woke Bob up from the past. He traced his finger once more around the heart, smiled faintly, and walked back toward the hole he had entered through. He would not come back here again. He had grown soft in his small town life. He no longer needed the past.
July 17, 2008
One Page #41
When Jerry came in with a plate of cookies and set them on the kitchen table he didn’t expect the dogs to go after them. But they did and when he returned to the kitchen a few minutes later after visiting his mother who was permanently in bed he found the plate licked clean and shining with saliva. The dogs were by the door now, panting to go out, no doubt infected with a sugar rush. Jerry silently cursed under his breath and slammed open the door. The dogs raced out and ran around to the back yard. He brought the plate to the sink and washed it thoroughly. Cookies were his specialty and his mother’s favorite. She hadn’t been able to get up since her unfortunate surgery that rendered her immobile. Since then she hadn’t smiled and her eyes had gone flat. Jerry tried desperately to revive her spirits, but she had gone completely cold. The blood still pumped through her veins, but it was all useless now. And now even the cookies were gone. He would have to go home to make a new batch. He remembered that he needed brown sugar and more chocolate chips. The dogs were back at the door, wanting to be let in and given attention no doubt. He sullenly opened the door and they bounced around, licking his knees. He didn’t move but stood looking out the door at the cars that passed slowly outside. The day was turned gray, and now his mood had taken a severe turn for the worse. He was slowly giving up on brightening his mother’s outlook. He had tried for almost four months, but nothing registered anymore. She ate and slept and seemingly listened to him when he told her stories about his day at the factory, but she didn’t look at him any longer, and her face never moved a muscle. He took the phone off the hook and dialed his sister. They were in regular contact now, even though they hadn’t been for years until recently. They wrote Christmas cards, and sometimes birthday cards, but rarely more than that, even though they lived only a half hour away from each other. Now they spoke almost every day or so. Their mother lived just around the corner from Jerry, so he was there far more often than his sister, and he called to update her. He usually had little to say. When his sister picked up and listened to the update, he silently prayed that she would agree with his proposition. He thought she would, but wasn’t sure. It was risky even mentioning. But it would help them all, their mother included, in the long run. He mentioned it nervously, his voice shaking. There was a pause and Jerry held his breath. But she agreed. The following week Jerry bought flowers and a shovel. It was unofficial, but finalized. He would plant cornflowers over her grave, they were her favorite.
One Page #40
The volume wasn’t the problem. It was the gaping hole between her teeth that was the problem. And that I couldn’t shy away from. She smiled and a photograph clicked in my memory and even today, years later, I think about that gap that was the shape of a highway disappearing over the horizon. I think that if I started walking down that road I would never find myself again. Her eyes shone and her cheeks blushed, but it was the gap, almost a ravine falling away into an abyss, which was the sole focus no matter how hard I tried to stray away from it. It was deep and dark in there, and I wondered what kind of ghosts, monsters, gods as captivating as Medusa laid waiting. There was gravel shifting beneath my feet and I thought about grabbing a handful and shoving it into her mouth, breaking her teeth and reforming the gap, widening the highway, and crushing her devilish smile. But I stood motionless. She talked on and I watched, not listened. Her words were nothing more than a whisper in my ears. I found myself leaning closer. She may have noticed because the volume of her voice got louder. She articulated more clearly; looked at me more closely. But I didn’t notice. My eyes were transfixed and it was as if my whole body was shaped just to watch the black hole. I felt it reaching out for me. Its fingers were liquid and enticing. It had me by the neck, and reached for my own partially opened mouth. It crawled beyond my lips and onto my tongue and then slivered down my throat. It had me by a firm hold, but from the inside as if it knew that it could conquer me starting in my inner orifices and working outward toward my skin and my hair and my toenails. I didn’t move. My eyes got wider. She looked at me and looked away, as if embarrassed. I didn’t know why she was embarrassed. She handled me like a puppet, my nerves twitching as if each were attached to a string that she plucked. She paused in her monologue, and closed her mouth. The reaching fingers lets go and disappear back through her closed lips and the strings were snipped and released. I blinked again and looked into her eyes. I noticed that they were a pale blue and reflected my face so cautiously timid. When she raised her eyebrows, it was my turn to be embarrassed. I looked down at the gravel and it blinked in the sun. I shifted my weight and the gravel shifted beneath me and the sound of it crunching startled me. Sound cascaded into my ears as if I hadn’t heard anything in a long time and my ears had forgotten how to listen. When I looked up I saw her walking away. I knew I would never see that highway stretching out before me again. My throat felt empty, lacking, lonely.
July 16, 2008
One Page #39
I never knew where I was with her. I looked into her eyes and saw an emptiness covered by desperation. Even when they were radiating happiness. I still never knew. Her bangs fell over her eyes and nearly touched her cheeks that bloomed out in the summer heat, flushed and freckled. The corners of her lips curved into a smile that was almost mocking. She told me once that she was determined not to get frown lines so she drew her mouth into this awkward smile, even when she didn’t want to be smiling. You could tell because her eyes were blank, flat, unless she was really smiling and then they shone with an amused twinkle. She was hard to read. I finally gave up trying to understand. Usually the tone of her voice was the only hint. And even then her smooth soft voice didn’t fluctuate too much. But she squeezed my hand and goose bumps would jump up on her arm, sending the small blonde hairs erect. Then I knew she was happy. And I was happy. And I squeezed back. Out on the pier we escaped her mother’s watching eyes. Always watching. Looking. She didn’t scold or offer opinions. She just looked. It made us both nervous, especially me since I wasn’t quite used to it yet. I hoped I would get used to it though. If this lasted. And I thought it might. But with a girl who is hard to read, you never really know. I was always questioning myself. And that was exhausting. When the moon rose and the stars came out and they reflected on the waves that rolled in without ceasing and the pier emptied when everyone went home, we sat on the end with our legs over the edge and felt the chill settle in. I would let go of her hand and put my arm around her shoulders to keep her warm. She would nestle in. I couldn’t see her eyes then, and could only read her by how much she relaxed and let herself fall into me. Otherwise, I had no idea. But that was ok right then. I figured that she would be off with her other friends if she didn’t want to be there with me. And so I relaxed to and let me head fall lightly onto hers and we watched the swells and an occasional gull fly by, diving for fish, or looking for a place to rest. We heard the sea lions as they barked out to sea, calling to the horizon. The sharp smell of fish caught in my nose and I sighed. Another day had passed, so quickly that I hardly remembered what had happened. Next week I would go home, the car packed, and my brothers squashed into the backseat, my crossword puzzle book on the lap. But I would be staring out the window, pen poised. The ocean would fall away, and her eyes would fall away, and once again I would return. With her body held close I leaned over and saw our reflection in the water far below.
July 14, 2008
One Page #38
So much of life was stillness just then. And it was unsettling. When everything stops you wonder whether you have stopped too, and ceased to exist for a moment, however brief. And then with a bang everything floods back in, exacerbating the lost moment of calm. Whether or not you enjoy the stillness while life is on pause, you will mostly certainly enjoy it once you are scrambling to keep up. The rope was still swinging back and forth in the breeze. No one had taken it completely down, just cut the loop on the end. While I watched it swinging everything else was still. The air held me upright and I was lulled into the slow motion of the frayed rope. I wondered how he had reached the rafter to fasten the end. It was so high up. When the breeze stopped the roped stopped moving and everything fell into motion again. Sirens screamed toward the house and I looked to the woods in desperation, hoping they would reach out and swallow me whole. Instead I would be identifying and signing and releasing. The rope twitched. I felt as if I were being pushed from behind by a forceful wave. The van drove away with lights blinking. A few cars followed. I stood on the front walk and watched. Silence. My hands shook, and if I hadn’t been standing I guessed my feet would be shaking too. Inside, I put on a black shirt and re-outlined my eyes in black. The stillness returned. The house was quiet after so much commotion. I wondered how long it would last, days, perhaps weeks. I wasn’t sure I could handle that. I threw my fist into the wall to test whether the bang would shake the stillness. It didn’t. Instead my knuckles hurt. I lay down on the couch and fell into the stillness. I released myself to the stillness. I gave in and it felt so good. The stillness was a power far beyond my own, and it reminded me of how small I was. I felt like I was being carried, but I didn’t know where to. I hoped that wherever I was headed would provide me with a moment of peace. A moment of letting go. I gently rubbed my knuckles and listened to the occasional car roll by outside, slowly as if already in the funeral procession. I thought about my car with the flag on the antennae. I thought about the flowers in tall vases and the carpet that softens our footsteps into a collective hush. I thought about the reflection on the casket that shone under the gentle but florescent lights, and the fingerprints that would grapple with understanding, desperately clawing for an answer, quietly overlapping each other and further confusing the swirled prints. I closed my eyes. I wondered if the rope still swung back and forth or whether it was still now. I would cut it down tomorrow. Until then it would be a reminder.
July 8, 2008
One Page #37
In the event of an emergency please extinguish the cat and save the photographs. All else can go. In fact, it would be a relief. There is too much around here, I trip and fall my way down the hall and it is dark so I can’t see where I am going. There is so much stuff around here, but no light bulbs to replace the one that burnt out and so I keep on tripping each time I go up and down the hallway. The rooms are mostly blocked off now. Doors have been closed as if they can be denied their existence because no one can see in. But the sky can see in, and the trees and the sun, so the rooms must still exist somehow. Just not in our consciousness. The photographs are in a box right next to the back door. It is as if we are all expecting the house to spontaneously combust, and we want to be prepared. And we are prepared. We nearly have our suitcases packed and ready to go. Our hands instinctively reaching for the handles, prepared to grab and run. But so far we are at ten sunny days and not a hint of flame. Even wavering cigarette butts and random acts of lighters flickering don’t send this house to its rightful position of ash and charred wood and melted windows. It is no use. It seems indestructible and we are wildly disappointed. The air is too clean and we long for plumes of smoke, rising and tumbling out over the river and into the city where people would look out their windows and wonder what was happening upstream and whether everyone was all right. But they would turn back to their newspapers or their quiet dinners, and would never find out aside from a possible mention in the city papers the next day. But it would be so small, just a sentence, and so easy to miss. Most people would. The cat was white and he shed everywhere, especially on my black shirts. He seemed to mostly ignore me until I was wearing black, which was often, and then he would follow me begging for attention and pressing his nose deeply into my thigh so hard he would nock my legs over and I would nearly fall off the bed where I was lying, scheming, and hoping for rain. Lightening would do. Lightening starts fires. I instinctively looked to the sky as if my thinking about lightening would make it appear in a glorious thunderstorm headed directly for our house alone. But the sky was blue and fading to black as evening approached. I could already imagine its sparkling starlit deepness with not a cloud to shroud the moon. I glowered and turned back to my book. I had almost been dozing off, but was trying to catch myself. I flicked cigarette ash to the floor and a moment later looked over the edge of the bed to see if small flames were lapping. They weren’t. I read on. The night grew darker, clearer.
July 5, 2008
One Page #36
In the cool blue October dusk, not a cloud passed overhead. The air was still and the leaves lay settled in their places on the tree limbs. The grass stood tall but quietly. Three friends walked down the gravel road toward home. They had been at the beach all day surfing the waves and collecting mussel shells at low tide. They had waved at the passing lobster boats and followed the small airplanes in their course across the horizon. As the light dimmed the air grew cooler and they headed for their warm kitchens thinking about stews and apple pies with vanilla ice cream. Their stomachs growled softly as they walked along in silence. A breeze came up and rustled the leaves that lined the avenue, and the grasses that stood tall, and the hair on their heads blowing it gently away from their faces that shone from many hours in the sun. Their eyes still sparkled from the exertion of running up the sand dunes with their arms laden with towels and picnic blankets. Into town the two of the friends walked in opposite directions towards home while the third went straight on down the main street towards her home on the other side of town. She passed the post office and the library and the grocery store still filled with people gathering ingredients for dinner. The light deepened suddenly and lights flickered on in the stores and the houses. Her house lay at the end of the main street and the front door was open, inviting the cooling breeze and welcoming her home. Inside her brothers crashed about, excited with a day of successful fishing. Her mother and father chopped vegetables and she could smell haddock baking in the oven with lemon and breadcrumbs. She was suddenly hungry, but overwhelmed by all the noise from her family after so many hours on the beach with only the crashing waves and her friends’ quiet laughter interrupting the silence. Her body was tired from swimming and her bag felt heavy on her shoulder. She went upstairs and left her bag by the door. She moved toward the window and looked out over the sand dunes to the ocean beyond. She saw the lighthouse blinking rhythmically and heard the fog horn start up. Rain was moving in. she pulled her hair back into a ponytail and curled up on her bed, quietly content with a long day in the sun. her eyes closed with a sudden heaviness and she fell into a deep sleep littered with dreams of white surf and crabs that were ten feet tall who carried her lightly over the sand on their backs. A woman in yellow rubber coveralls drove by on her fishing boat, delighted to see her riding so high up on the hard shell. They waved to one another. The sunrays licked her cheek and the crabs cackled with jokes only they could understand.
One Page #35
Perhaps she was heartened by the greeting card left in her mailbox with no stamp informing her that it had been hand delivered while she had been in town. It was odd knowing that someone had come to her house while she was away. While she was buying zucchini or looking at the most recent cooking magazines, someone had come by and opened her mailbox leaving her a note. She fingered the creamy white envelope and admired the calligraphy spelling out her name. Someone had been thinking about her earlier and had drawn out each letter of her name. She might have been taking a shower or cutting strawberries over her cereal while someone was licking the tacky glue on the edge of the seal, securing a letter inside. She had been oblivious to this entire process while she went about her daily chores. The kitchen still needed to be mopped and her books needed dusting. But that could wait a moment. Her groceries were heavy on her arm so she took them and the letter to her front porch. The groceries waited on the front steps while she carefully unsealed the envelope and pulled out a matching creamy paper folded twice. She unfolded it and found the same cursive handwriting inside. The writing was brief. She had been invited to dinner the following evening. Her neighbor, Gracie, had a garden overflowing with vegetables and was inviting the block to her house for dinner in an attempt to free her kitchen counters from the overwhelming amount of tomatoes and squash and basil. She was heartened by this invitation. But a small and private part of her was disappointed as well. The cursive was so sensually inviting and reminded her of cherry pie in late summer. She thought maybe, just maybe. But no, not today. Dinner would be delightful and she would share a bountiful meal with her neighbors who were often too busy to get together with one another. She looked up at the sky and saw that it was darkening in preparation for a storm. The air was thick and she figured she should pick some of her own tomatoes before the rain came. She brought the groceries inside and laid the May Sarton novel that had been in her pocket on the kitchen table. Back outside she was attacked by mosquitoes that were attracted by the sweat on her brow. She went to feed her sheep, one black and one white, and moved them into the barn for the storm. They bleated at her and nosed into her pockets in hopes that she had brought them a treat. She had, of course. It started to rain. The tomatoes were still hanging on the vine as the drops fell with attacking force on her garden. She followed her sheep into the barn and stayed there for the storm, stroking their dirty wool, so thick.
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