5/3/2017
thin ice
Harold had fished this lake for fifty-six years. His father had brought him out here, just as his father had, and so on. The lake was a source of comfort for Harold. He preferred its company in the white, stillness of winter. The lake would freeze over and fish inside it would lull themselves into trance-like state, waiting for the water to flow again and food to become more abundant. Fishing was never about the fish for Harold. Sure, he enjoyed the taste of a panfish, but what he really loved was the stillness. Lake Adeline was one of the smaller lakes in Wisconsin, flanked on two sides by swamps, and was roughly three miles in diameter. There were spots that reached twenty-five feet deep. You could pick these spots out easily in the warmer months. Dark pockets speckled the surface of the green water. It resembled the body of a largemouth bass. In winter, the lake was a placid mirror, with drifts of snow scattered about its surface.
Harold knew to keep close to the edge of the lake, just in case the ice ever decided to crack. Twenty years ago, a twelve-year-old boy drowned in the lake. He had been playing on thin ice; the boy decided to walk to the center of the lake and show off to his friends. It had been a temperate winter that year, and the lake was not as solid as it typically was. Adeline groaned and gave way under the boy’s feet; his friends could only watch in dismay as the lake swallowed the boy whole. Harold had been one of the first responders to the scene. Instead of pulling a bass out of the lake, he assisted the paramedics in dragging out the rigid corpse of a child. Harold shuddered as he pictured a little blue face being pulled from the water. He made his way through the patchy forest that led to the lake. It was a still day, eerily so. The trees resembled upturned legs of dead spiders. Once Harold reached the edge of Adeline, he placed his bucket, rod, chisel, and drill on the snowy ground. The old man steadied himself as he carefully tapped the toe of his boot onto the frozen lake. Harold slowly added more weight until he was confident the body of water would hold him. He gathered his belongings and slowly made his way onto the surface, settling for a spot that was about fifteen paces from the bank.
Harold gently laid his tools down and began the careful process of drilling a hole into the ice. It was several inches thick and required more strength than he remembered. He had to stop and catch his breath at least three times during the process. I’m getting old or Adeline is growing stubborn. After the hole pierced the water below and the chisel widened the circle, Harold sat gingerly on his bucket and dipped his rod into the lake. The sounds of nature amused the old man, the stray crows that would caw overhead, the squirrels chippering at one another from the trees. Today, the world seemed to be sleeping. It was as though the snow had blanketed the earth, just as a mother tucks her child into bed. Harold’s mind wandered over the snowy drifts; the silence left him feeling uncomfortable today.
His life was already silent. His wife of forty-five years, Maxine, had recently been admitted to a residential care facility. Her Alzheimer’s had finally become too much for either of them to handle. He visited her every week, but the trips depressed him. Maxine rarely recognized her husband, but when she did, her face would light up. She would hug him tightly and kiss his cheek. On the good days, Harold would tell his wife stories about their life together, and bring photos of their many vacations. The good days reminded both his wife and himself that their lives had some sort of meaning. Some days he resented her illness. He hated the shell of the woman he loved, that she had become. Watching his once brilliant wife’s mind trudge through the motions of simply existing pained the old man.
Prior to old age and illness, the pair had been inseparable. Harold worked as a cranberry farmer, spending his days on the sand and peat marshes. Maxine was an elementary school teacher. The couple never had any children of their own, each content with only having the other. Harold’s wife insisted that she had hundreds of children, the count grew with each passing school year. The couple’s paychecks were used for summer trips across the country in a used Winnebago Harold had purchased from the classified section of the local paper. Every spare moment they had was spent side-by-side, save for Harold’s fishing trips. Maxine jokingly referred to Lake Adeline as the other woman. Harold simply called her church.
Maxine’s Alzheimer’s began innocently enough, causing the old woman to get distracted and forgetful. Her illness progressed gradually, and the forgetfulness led to leaving the stove on, and misplacing kitchen knives in sock drawers. The day Maxine wandered out of their home in her housecoat and slippers, in the middle of February, and was found miles away, was the day Harold knew he could no longer keep his wife safe. Checking his wife into a nursing home took a toll on the old man. He always assumed he would end up being a burden on his wife as they aged. He was five years her senior, and never completed high school. Maxine went to college, and was a voracious reader with a sharp wit. Now she spent most of her days struggling to perform basic tasks such as using a spoon.
As Maxine slipped further away, so did Harold. He was lost without his wife’s cheerful banter, and gentle touch. The old man would sit upright in bed for hours thinking of ways to end his life. He would purposely skip his heart medication and toy with the idea of leaving the gas stove on after snuffing the pilot light. She wouldn’t even know I was gone. No one would know. No one would care. I would finally be able to stop caring.
A brisk wind woke Harold from his trance, causing him to readjust his red flannel trapper hat. He looked out over the bleak landscape, still uneased by the unusual stillness. Suddenly a loud clap thundered across the lake. The sound nearly sent the old man off his bucket. Harold stood, looking in every direction, trying to pinpoint the location of the shot as it echoed into nothingness. A large whitetail deer darted out of the tree line on Harold’s right. It ran straight onto the lake, slipping, and clamoring like a newborn calf trying to acquaint itself with its newfound legs. The beast thrashed about on the ice. Blood from a fresh wound in its shoulder began to mix with the snow, resembling an artist’s first brush strokes on a canvas. The old man watched in horror as the beast shrieked and snorted, unable to move across the ice. Harold felt like the friends of the boy who drowned, unable to assist the dying animal, staring blankly, mouth agape.
Without realizing it, he had been inching closer to the deer. He was only a few paces away from the beast, now on its side, panting, surrounded by crimson. He studied its chest as it heaved furiously, eyes blinking wildly. The old man moved closer, and for a second, he swore he locked eyes with the dying animal. At that moment, the lake groaned and a thin crack began forming under Harold’s feet. The old man froze, his heart matching the pace of the deer’s breathing.
A low bleat from the deer sent Harold shuffling backwards, slipping and landing with a thud on the ice. The lake let out a sinister groan and the crack grew thicker. Harold began shuffling across the lake on his stomach. The ice sliced his palms as he dragged his frail body across the surface of the frozen water. The old man pictured the blue face of the twelve-year-old, of Maxine, and of the dying deer.
Before he realized it, he was clutching the bank of the lake. His fingers dug into the frozen earth as he let out a breathy groan. He pulled his body up the bank, boots refusing to find traction on Adeline’s still cheek. The old man’s arms tremored with exhaustion, as his heart pounded with determination. Once he was fully on solid ground, Harold flipped over onto his back. Arms outstretched, and chest still heaving, he resembled Christ during crucifixion. As he stared into the hazy white of the sky, a bird flew overhead. The old man collected himself, and rose with popping knees and stiff joints. Harold didn’t look back at the deer, he couldn’t. He left his belongings on the ice, shuffled to his truck, and drove straight to the nursing home. He was old, and he was glad Adeline was growing stubborn.
Harold knew to keep close to the edge of the lake, just in case the ice ever decided to crack. Twenty years ago, a twelve-year-old boy drowned in the lake. He had been playing on thin ice; the boy decided to walk to the center of the lake and show off to his friends. It had been a temperate winter that year, and the lake was not as solid as it typically was. Adeline groaned and gave way under the boy’s feet; his friends could only watch in dismay as the lake swallowed the boy whole. Harold had been one of the first responders to the scene. Instead of pulling a bass out of the lake, he assisted the paramedics in dragging out the rigid corpse of a child. Harold shuddered as he pictured a little blue face being pulled from the water. He made his way through the patchy forest that led to the lake. It was a still day, eerily so. The trees resembled upturned legs of dead spiders. Once Harold reached the edge of Adeline, he placed his bucket, rod, chisel, and drill on the snowy ground. The old man steadied himself as he carefully tapped the toe of his boot onto the frozen lake. Harold slowly added more weight until he was confident the body of water would hold him. He gathered his belongings and slowly made his way onto the surface, settling for a spot that was about fifteen paces from the bank.
Harold gently laid his tools down and began the careful process of drilling a hole into the ice. It was several inches thick and required more strength than he remembered. He had to stop and catch his breath at least three times during the process. I’m getting old or Adeline is growing stubborn. After the hole pierced the water below and the chisel widened the circle, Harold sat gingerly on his bucket and dipped his rod into the lake. The sounds of nature amused the old man, the stray crows that would caw overhead, the squirrels chippering at one another from the trees. Today, the world seemed to be sleeping. It was as though the snow had blanketed the earth, just as a mother tucks her child into bed. Harold’s mind wandered over the snowy drifts; the silence left him feeling uncomfortable today.
His life was already silent. His wife of forty-five years, Maxine, had recently been admitted to a residential care facility. Her Alzheimer’s had finally become too much for either of them to handle. He visited her every week, but the trips depressed him. Maxine rarely recognized her husband, but when she did, her face would light up. She would hug him tightly and kiss his cheek. On the good days, Harold would tell his wife stories about their life together, and bring photos of their many vacations. The good days reminded both his wife and himself that their lives had some sort of meaning. Some days he resented her illness. He hated the shell of the woman he loved, that she had become. Watching his once brilliant wife’s mind trudge through the motions of simply existing pained the old man.
Prior to old age and illness, the pair had been inseparable. Harold worked as a cranberry farmer, spending his days on the sand and peat marshes. Maxine was an elementary school teacher. The couple never had any children of their own, each content with only having the other. Harold’s wife insisted that she had hundreds of children, the count grew with each passing school year. The couple’s paychecks were used for summer trips across the country in a used Winnebago Harold had purchased from the classified section of the local paper. Every spare moment they had was spent side-by-side, save for Harold’s fishing trips. Maxine jokingly referred to Lake Adeline as the other woman. Harold simply called her church.
Maxine’s Alzheimer’s began innocently enough, causing the old woman to get distracted and forgetful. Her illness progressed gradually, and the forgetfulness led to leaving the stove on, and misplacing kitchen knives in sock drawers. The day Maxine wandered out of their home in her housecoat and slippers, in the middle of February, and was found miles away, was the day Harold knew he could no longer keep his wife safe. Checking his wife into a nursing home took a toll on the old man. He always assumed he would end up being a burden on his wife as they aged. He was five years her senior, and never completed high school. Maxine went to college, and was a voracious reader with a sharp wit. Now she spent most of her days struggling to perform basic tasks such as using a spoon.
As Maxine slipped further away, so did Harold. He was lost without his wife’s cheerful banter, and gentle touch. The old man would sit upright in bed for hours thinking of ways to end his life. He would purposely skip his heart medication and toy with the idea of leaving the gas stove on after snuffing the pilot light. She wouldn’t even know I was gone. No one would know. No one would care. I would finally be able to stop caring.
A brisk wind woke Harold from his trance, causing him to readjust his red flannel trapper hat. He looked out over the bleak landscape, still uneased by the unusual stillness. Suddenly a loud clap thundered across the lake. The sound nearly sent the old man off his bucket. Harold stood, looking in every direction, trying to pinpoint the location of the shot as it echoed into nothingness. A large whitetail deer darted out of the tree line on Harold’s right. It ran straight onto the lake, slipping, and clamoring like a newborn calf trying to acquaint itself with its newfound legs. The beast thrashed about on the ice. Blood from a fresh wound in its shoulder began to mix with the snow, resembling an artist’s first brush strokes on a canvas. The old man watched in horror as the beast shrieked and snorted, unable to move across the ice. Harold felt like the friends of the boy who drowned, unable to assist the dying animal, staring blankly, mouth agape.
Without realizing it, he had been inching closer to the deer. He was only a few paces away from the beast, now on its side, panting, surrounded by crimson. He studied its chest as it heaved furiously, eyes blinking wildly. The old man moved closer, and for a second, he swore he locked eyes with the dying animal. At that moment, the lake groaned and a thin crack began forming under Harold’s feet. The old man froze, his heart matching the pace of the deer’s breathing.
A low bleat from the deer sent Harold shuffling backwards, slipping and landing with a thud on the ice. The lake let out a sinister groan and the crack grew thicker. Harold began shuffling across the lake on his stomach. The ice sliced his palms as he dragged his frail body across the surface of the frozen water. The old man pictured the blue face of the twelve-year-old, of Maxine, and of the dying deer.
Before he realized it, he was clutching the bank of the lake. His fingers dug into the frozen earth as he let out a breathy groan. He pulled his body up the bank, boots refusing to find traction on Adeline’s still cheek. The old man’s arms tremored with exhaustion, as his heart pounded with determination. Once he was fully on solid ground, Harold flipped over onto his back. Arms outstretched, and chest still heaving, he resembled Christ during crucifixion. As he stared into the hazy white of the sky, a bird flew overhead. The old man collected himself, and rose with popping knees and stiff joints. Harold didn’t look back at the deer, he couldn’t. He left his belongings on the ice, shuffled to his truck, and drove straight to the nursing home. He was old, and he was glad Adeline was growing stubborn.
5/2/2017
Fifty years
The trip had been booked for weeks. Margot had never really thought much of Mexico, but recently it seemed like as good a place as any to slip away and unwind. Tonight was their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Gary was running late for dinner per usual. Margot didn’t mind the delay, she carefully packed her toiletries, and house shoes; hotels were notorious for foot fungus. She gently folded her black and white striped swimsuit and placed it alongside her skirts. The thought of a warm breeze blowing through her short, gray curls thrilled Margot.
The couple never took many vacations when they were younger. Gary hated traveling and insisted it aggravated his ulcer. He also couldn’t stand being trapped in their moss green station wagon with two screaming sons and whatever mutt of a dog they had dragged home that year. Gary showed his affection for his family by paying the bills and staying as far away from everyone as possible. There was one exception he loved sports and hauled the family to as many local games as he could. Friday night football wasn’t particularly big in their rural Midwestern town, but for Gary, every weekend might as well have been the Super Bowl. He would get angry at his sons for their lack of desire to play any sports themselves; he thought it was the result of Margot being too soft on them.
Margot hated sports, but being the diligent and ever-faithful wife she was, she went to every high school football game. She would pack sandwiches for the kids and Gary, filled with various deli meats, plump tomatoes, and lots of mayonnaise. Margot even took the time to fill Gary’s thermos with Budweiser so he could really enjoy the game. Gary was convinced his fellow sporting fans thought he was only drinking coffee out of his thermos. He would chuckle to himself, pleased with his cleverness while he yelled for the Macon High Muskrats. However, after being banned from all future games following a physical altercation with the father of a visiting team, Gary resorted to ignoring his wife and children and watching football in the den with his beer on Friday nights.
Margot was very close with her two children, Randy and Steven. The boys were her world; everything Margot did was to ensure their happiness. They weren’t spoiled, though. Being the children of a single-income household, gifts were few and far between. The boys tended to avoid their father, who was always waiting to punish even minor transgressions with a leather strap, and critique their love of school opposed to sports. Both boys ended up graduating from high school with honors and receiving full-ride scholarships to the universities of their choosing. Margot had never been more proud than when Randy was accepted to Yale and began working on his law degree. Steven studied at MIT to become an engineer. Their education, careers, subsequent marriages, and families kept the boys away from home, apart from major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Though it pained her to be so alone, Margot was glad they got away from their small town. Her two boys were more successful than either she or Gary had ever been or would ever be.
Gary had worked at the same paper mill since he was a teenager. Through the years, he had worked his way up to assistant manager. He could have retired years ago, but he insisted that working kept him sane. Margot passed the time keeping the house tidy, fixing Gary’s favorite meals, mending the holes in his trousers, and tending to her garden. It wasn’t much of a garden, just two little tomato plants, a few rows of peppers, and cucumbers. One year she grew a watermelon after Gary carelessly spat some seeds into the dirt during a Fourth of July cookout. He had been drinking incessantly, and causing a scene. It was the last summer that Margot would have her boys home before they left for college. She wanted the day to be special, so she invited the entire neighborhood. Gary got into an argument with Ted Miller, from a few doors down, over the proper way to grill a burger.
“If it isn’t pink in the damn center, it’s ruined! You might as well serve up the charcoal briquettes that are in the stinking grill, Ted! No one wants to eat this shit,” he waved his bright pink watermelon slice around like a fencer holds a saber. Thrusting it towards Ted’s plump abdomen, which was covered by a red “Kiss the Chef” apron. “Just let me take it from here,” he spat.
The neighbors looked on, flabbergasted by Gary’s insults. No one was surprised by his temper, though. He was quite notorious after the football game. Margot had to swoop in and try to distract Gary with more Budweiser. “Come on, Gary, let’s go grab another drink. Yours looks like it’s getting warm,” she placed a gentle hand on his arm, which he immediately smacked away.
“Woman, I’ll go where I please. When I please. I’ll drink the damn warm beer if I want, and I am going to grill these burgers. The right way.”
Blushing, Margot turned from Gary and made her way quickly into the house. She couldn’t look at the yard full of neighbors and friends. She didn’t come back outside for nearly an hour, but when she did, she was carrying a freshly decorated cake, and a forged smile.
Margot was a patient woman, but she had been growing restless recently. Gary had been seeing a mistress for a little over a year. Margot caught him one day in a local diner while she was out running errands. He was with a younger woman, maybe in her late-forties, long legs, and hair that was entirely too dark to not come out of a bottle of Nice & Easy. Margot nearly crashed her Camry into a fire hydrant when she saw them together through the big restaurant windows. She confronted him night when he returned home from work. Gary insisted it was just a business meeting with a manager from another paper mill. His wife was not born yesterday, she noticed his lip twitch as he was telling the lie. He also adjusted the gold band of the watch he had worn every day for forty years. It was a gift from Margot on their tenth wedding anniversary. She had been putting back a few dollars from the grocery money Gary gave her each week to save up for it. Every time Gary told a fib, he fidgeted with that watch. If his body language wasn’t enough, the fact that she caught him on numerous occasions with the same woman confirmed her fears.
After several feeble attempts over the course of nine months to get Gary to end the affair, Margot finally demanded that it stop. “I can’t take this anymore, Gary! Am I not good enough for you?” she pleaded.
“What’s good got to do with anything, woman?”
“Why are you doing this? After all this time? Why her? Why now?”
“Why don’t you mind your own damn business?” Gary’s knuckles turned white as he clenched his fists.
“This is my business, Gary! I’m your wife! Please,” her voice caught on the final word. A single tear rolled down her pale cheek.
“You’re my wife. Exactly. So be a good one, and leave it the hell alone. Your place is in this house. Everything you have is because of me. You have nothing to your name that wasn’t bought on the count of my labor. This conversation is over. Unless you’d like to be living on the street.”
Margot knew it was over. She stopped pleading for the affair to end. Then and there.
A few weeks ago, Margot had suggested the idea of a trip to Gary. Much to her surprise, he agreed. He even let her pick the location, as long as it wasn’t too expensive. Maybe her husband was finally feeling guilty for his infidelity, or maybe he had ulterior motives. Margot didn’t care. She was ready for a change of scenery and a fresh start. She slowly zipped up her little purple suitcase and sat it by the front door. She made her way into the living room and sat in her favorite armchair, waiting for Gary to get home. In the darkened house, she watched out their bay window for his little red Honda pickup to roll into the driveway. The clock above the mantle read 8:03 pm. Gary was later than usual. Probably had to get in one last go with that trollop. Margot ran her hand over a little white doily she had draped over the arm of her chair.
At 8:27 pm Gary’s truck turned into their driveway. His headlights flashed across Margot’s face while she was still resting in her armchair. Gary fumbled with his keys in the lock of the front door, a tell-tale sign that he was drunk. Once he finally managed to let himself inside he stumbled around the entryway, tripping over Margot’s suitcase. “What the hell is this, you trying to kill me, you dumb bitch? Don’t put shit like this in the hallway. Why are the lights off?” Margot heard him pick up her suitcase and fling it across the room. The old man rounded the corner of the entryway muttering under his breath, and took two heavy steps into the living room.
Margot fired one shot into her husband’s head. The bullet hit his left cheek, ripping through tendons, shattering bone, as well as cartilage, and ended up being lodged somewhere in their living room wall. Pieces of Gary’s brain speckled the wall behind him, adding a new shade to the hanging replica of Monet’s ‘Water Lilies’ that Margot had purchased at the Pottery Barn. Gary’s body crumpled to the floor, knees buckling, face landing firmly on the once beige carpet.
Margot took a pause to admire her handiwork. Fifty years was her limit.
She stood calmly, placing the pistol on the cushion where she had been sitting. Margot hated guns. She thought they incited violence, but Gary had insisted on purchasing it many years ago after a neighbor’s shed had been broken into. Margot knew it was just the work of bored teenagers, but Gary asserted. Being careful to avoid the gore that was before her, she made her way into the entryway to retrieve her suitcase. Gary had slung it halfway into their kitchen. She grabbed her car keys and headed out the front door, closing it delicately behind her. She placed the suitcase in the trunk of her little white Camry and readied herself in the driver’s seat. She had never thought much of Mexico, but recently it seemed like the perfect place to slip away and unwind.
The couple never took many vacations when they were younger. Gary hated traveling and insisted it aggravated his ulcer. He also couldn’t stand being trapped in their moss green station wagon with two screaming sons and whatever mutt of a dog they had dragged home that year. Gary showed his affection for his family by paying the bills and staying as far away from everyone as possible. There was one exception he loved sports and hauled the family to as many local games as he could. Friday night football wasn’t particularly big in their rural Midwestern town, but for Gary, every weekend might as well have been the Super Bowl. He would get angry at his sons for their lack of desire to play any sports themselves; he thought it was the result of Margot being too soft on them.
Margot hated sports, but being the diligent and ever-faithful wife she was, she went to every high school football game. She would pack sandwiches for the kids and Gary, filled with various deli meats, plump tomatoes, and lots of mayonnaise. Margot even took the time to fill Gary’s thermos with Budweiser so he could really enjoy the game. Gary was convinced his fellow sporting fans thought he was only drinking coffee out of his thermos. He would chuckle to himself, pleased with his cleverness while he yelled for the Macon High Muskrats. However, after being banned from all future games following a physical altercation with the father of a visiting team, Gary resorted to ignoring his wife and children and watching football in the den with his beer on Friday nights.
Margot was very close with her two children, Randy and Steven. The boys were her world; everything Margot did was to ensure their happiness. They weren’t spoiled, though. Being the children of a single-income household, gifts were few and far between. The boys tended to avoid their father, who was always waiting to punish even minor transgressions with a leather strap, and critique their love of school opposed to sports. Both boys ended up graduating from high school with honors and receiving full-ride scholarships to the universities of their choosing. Margot had never been more proud than when Randy was accepted to Yale and began working on his law degree. Steven studied at MIT to become an engineer. Their education, careers, subsequent marriages, and families kept the boys away from home, apart from major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Though it pained her to be so alone, Margot was glad they got away from their small town. Her two boys were more successful than either she or Gary had ever been or would ever be.
Gary had worked at the same paper mill since he was a teenager. Through the years, he had worked his way up to assistant manager. He could have retired years ago, but he insisted that working kept him sane. Margot passed the time keeping the house tidy, fixing Gary’s favorite meals, mending the holes in his trousers, and tending to her garden. It wasn’t much of a garden, just two little tomato plants, a few rows of peppers, and cucumbers. One year she grew a watermelon after Gary carelessly spat some seeds into the dirt during a Fourth of July cookout. He had been drinking incessantly, and causing a scene. It was the last summer that Margot would have her boys home before they left for college. She wanted the day to be special, so she invited the entire neighborhood. Gary got into an argument with Ted Miller, from a few doors down, over the proper way to grill a burger.
“If it isn’t pink in the damn center, it’s ruined! You might as well serve up the charcoal briquettes that are in the stinking grill, Ted! No one wants to eat this shit,” he waved his bright pink watermelon slice around like a fencer holds a saber. Thrusting it towards Ted’s plump abdomen, which was covered by a red “Kiss the Chef” apron. “Just let me take it from here,” he spat.
The neighbors looked on, flabbergasted by Gary’s insults. No one was surprised by his temper, though. He was quite notorious after the football game. Margot had to swoop in and try to distract Gary with more Budweiser. “Come on, Gary, let’s go grab another drink. Yours looks like it’s getting warm,” she placed a gentle hand on his arm, which he immediately smacked away.
“Woman, I’ll go where I please. When I please. I’ll drink the damn warm beer if I want, and I am going to grill these burgers. The right way.”
Blushing, Margot turned from Gary and made her way quickly into the house. She couldn’t look at the yard full of neighbors and friends. She didn’t come back outside for nearly an hour, but when she did, she was carrying a freshly decorated cake, and a forged smile.
Margot was a patient woman, but she had been growing restless recently. Gary had been seeing a mistress for a little over a year. Margot caught him one day in a local diner while she was out running errands. He was with a younger woman, maybe in her late-forties, long legs, and hair that was entirely too dark to not come out of a bottle of Nice & Easy. Margot nearly crashed her Camry into a fire hydrant when she saw them together through the big restaurant windows. She confronted him night when he returned home from work. Gary insisted it was just a business meeting with a manager from another paper mill. His wife was not born yesterday, she noticed his lip twitch as he was telling the lie. He also adjusted the gold band of the watch he had worn every day for forty years. It was a gift from Margot on their tenth wedding anniversary. She had been putting back a few dollars from the grocery money Gary gave her each week to save up for it. Every time Gary told a fib, he fidgeted with that watch. If his body language wasn’t enough, the fact that she caught him on numerous occasions with the same woman confirmed her fears.
After several feeble attempts over the course of nine months to get Gary to end the affair, Margot finally demanded that it stop. “I can’t take this anymore, Gary! Am I not good enough for you?” she pleaded.
“What’s good got to do with anything, woman?”
“Why are you doing this? After all this time? Why her? Why now?”
“Why don’t you mind your own damn business?” Gary’s knuckles turned white as he clenched his fists.
“This is my business, Gary! I’m your wife! Please,” her voice caught on the final word. A single tear rolled down her pale cheek.
“You’re my wife. Exactly. So be a good one, and leave it the hell alone. Your place is in this house. Everything you have is because of me. You have nothing to your name that wasn’t bought on the count of my labor. This conversation is over. Unless you’d like to be living on the street.”
Margot knew it was over. She stopped pleading for the affair to end. Then and there.
A few weeks ago, Margot had suggested the idea of a trip to Gary. Much to her surprise, he agreed. He even let her pick the location, as long as it wasn’t too expensive. Maybe her husband was finally feeling guilty for his infidelity, or maybe he had ulterior motives. Margot didn’t care. She was ready for a change of scenery and a fresh start. She slowly zipped up her little purple suitcase and sat it by the front door. She made her way into the living room and sat in her favorite armchair, waiting for Gary to get home. In the darkened house, she watched out their bay window for his little red Honda pickup to roll into the driveway. The clock above the mantle read 8:03 pm. Gary was later than usual. Probably had to get in one last go with that trollop. Margot ran her hand over a little white doily she had draped over the arm of her chair.
At 8:27 pm Gary’s truck turned into their driveway. His headlights flashed across Margot’s face while she was still resting in her armchair. Gary fumbled with his keys in the lock of the front door, a tell-tale sign that he was drunk. Once he finally managed to let himself inside he stumbled around the entryway, tripping over Margot’s suitcase. “What the hell is this, you trying to kill me, you dumb bitch? Don’t put shit like this in the hallway. Why are the lights off?” Margot heard him pick up her suitcase and fling it across the room. The old man rounded the corner of the entryway muttering under his breath, and took two heavy steps into the living room.
Margot fired one shot into her husband’s head. The bullet hit his left cheek, ripping through tendons, shattering bone, as well as cartilage, and ended up being lodged somewhere in their living room wall. Pieces of Gary’s brain speckled the wall behind him, adding a new shade to the hanging replica of Monet’s ‘Water Lilies’ that Margot had purchased at the Pottery Barn. Gary’s body crumpled to the floor, knees buckling, face landing firmly on the once beige carpet.
Margot took a pause to admire her handiwork. Fifty years was her limit.
She stood calmly, placing the pistol on the cushion where she had been sitting. Margot hated guns. She thought they incited violence, but Gary had insisted on purchasing it many years ago after a neighbor’s shed had been broken into. Margot knew it was just the work of bored teenagers, but Gary asserted. Being careful to avoid the gore that was before her, she made her way into the entryway to retrieve her suitcase. Gary had slung it halfway into their kitchen. She grabbed her car keys and headed out the front door, closing it delicately behind her. She placed the suitcase in the trunk of her little white Camry and readied herself in the driver’s seat. She had never thought much of Mexico, but recently it seemed like the perfect place to slip away and unwind.
5/2/2017
Recipe for a failed dating life
(Non-fiction)
Recipe for A Failed Dating Life
Prep Time: 25 Years Cooking Time: Indefinite
Yield: One Sad, Lonely Existence Level: Intermediate
Ingredients:
Special Equipment:
The audacity to accept that you are a hot mess, and thus, will die alone.
Directions:
1. To begin this recipe, enter the dating scene with a crippling fear of rejection. The thought of asking someone out on a date and being turned down should scare you more than your other fears: falling from a great height, balloons (globophobia is a real disorder), drowning, brain cancer, needles, going blind, and dying alone. This fear should make it difficult to approach potential dating partners. Your fear of dying alone should make this emotion conflicting for you. Panic accordingly.
2. Throw in lots of jokes on your first date. If someone does not like your unique sense of humor, which is riddled with sarcasm, curse words, and obscure pop culture references, YOU are the problem. You should anticipate the fact that everyone is going to hate you and misunderstand you. This anticipation should make you feel insecure. Feeling extremely un-datable should combine nicely with the panic induced by your crippling fear of rejection. *
*By this step, you should be feeling almost completely discouraged. If you aren’t discouraged, remind yourself of that time you tripped while exiting a restaurant and immediately exclaimed, “Oh, shit! Trying to turn myself into Hellen Keller over here,” trying to diffuse your clumsiness. While your date just looked at you with disgust.
3. Sprinkle some delusion into the hot mess that you have been concocting. Even though you are clearly hopeless when it comes to finding someone to date, you should allow yourself to believe that there is a soulmate out in the universe for you. Just one. There is only a singular person who is compatible with you out of the 7+ billion humans who currently inhabit the planet. This delusion should make you extremely meticulous when choosing potential dating partners. If you do not get butterflies instantly upon meeting your potential dating partner, leave. If you aren’t nauseous, leave. Remember, step one and two can lead to nausea. Make sure you can distinguish the difference between anxiety induced stomach discomfort, and soulmate sickness. *
*(See the recipe for Panic Attack on page 12 to find out how to induce anxious stomach discomfort.)
4. Stir in a healthy amount of an inferiority complex. Brace yourself for this next step, it will require a lot of stirring. If the mixture is becoming difficult to balance, you’re on the right track. You should already be feeling inadequate, but once you add the actual inferiority complex things should be looking very bleak for you. On dates, make sure you tell countless self-deprecating jokes. This is a delicate tightrope to walk on; you do not want to appear humble. You want to make sure your date knows that you have a very low self-esteem and that you are the most pessimistic person in the room. Be sure to mention the time you had a mental breakdown and ended up in therapy. Then immediately try to backtrack and play that down. If your date tells you that you look nice, immediately bypass their compliment, and point out the pimple that is ruining your complexion and your life. It also helps to have an arsenal of things you don’t like about your appearance on hand, in case your date tries to compliment you again. *
* If your date doesn’t look uncomfortable you have not added enough inferiority complex.
5. In a separate mental bowl, you are going to combine a superiority complex with unreasonably high standards for your potential dating partners. You want to mix these two ingredients thoroughly. These are highly reactive ingredients on their own, and when mixed together, they become volatile. One part of you should already be feeling inadequate, thanks to your inferiority complex. You, however, are a complex creature. While hating yourself, and loathing the fact that you’re single, you simultaneously believe you’re better than everyone around you. This superiority explains why you’ve been single for so long – you’re just too good for your own good. The standards that you hold for yourself are very high. A potential dating partner should mirror your desire for perfection. If someone is not as neurotically concerned with their physical health and appearance as you are, they are not worth dating. You deserve someone who makes themselves as crazy about trivial things as you do. Equally matched neuroses lead to a life of love.
6. Chop your standards in half during a wine induced moment of weakness, and you may find yourself flirting with that strange guy on Instagram who lives conveniently close to you (the one who kept liking your selfies in groups of ten, and casually slid into your DMs). This could lead to a few dates that turn into a relationship. He’s desperate, you’re desperate, why not see how things turn out? Even though you know this is a mistake, and every relationship you’ve ever entered has crashed and burned, and his sideburns are kind of creepy, but you convince yourself that he can pull them off. Sprinkle this hot mess generously over the ingredients of step five.
7. Drop some desperation into that separate mixing bowl and there will only be one date with Mister Instagram, which lasts a grand total of two hours. He will force you to meet in the middle between the two locations you both reside, because why would a guy drive two hours to see his “little love” when he could only drive one? Because you’re desperate for affection and settle for less than you deserve, you agree to the blatant slap in the face, and try to convince yourself that meeting in the middle is the feminist thing to do. You’ll awkwardly walk around a Barnes and Noble and end up next door at the Ihop, where you choke down two alarmingly blue, blueberry pancakes and he’ll order the All-You-Can-Eat special. You’ll talk incessantly, sweat through your H&M band tee, and drop a radioactive blueberry onto your lap. You’ll try to laugh it off, and pretend that you’re the kind of girl who just “rolls with the punches” but when the bill comes and Mister Instagram remarks, “Wow, you’re a cheap date,” the only thing you’ll want to punch is his face. The goodbye will be awkward, he will kiss you twice, and the bile from your stomach will roll up into the back of your throat. You’ll immediately drive to Target to buy a pack of gum, and start wondering if you’re a lesbian, or if all men simply suck.
8. Take the ingredients you mixed in steps 5-7 and add them to the original mixture you began creating in steps 1 - 4. The volatile nature of these ingredients will produce a healthy amount of passive aggressive tendencies now that you have found yourself in a relationship. You stay in contact with Mister Instagram for a few more weeks, though you never meet in person again. You play along with his insistence that what you two have is a relationship. The best part is that this passive aggressiveness will come from both yourself and your dating partner. To get the right consistency of passive aggressiveness, you should expect your partner to be able to read your mind and know exactly what you want. *
*Especially when you don’t even know what you want.
9. Plop a hearty amount of pettiness onto the relationship you are quickly ruining. The big things your partner does wrong should bother you, but the smaller things should get under your skin. Spite should begin to bubble up to the surface of your budding relationship. The sound of your partner’s voice should make your skin crawl at this point. If your partner forgot to send you a good morning text, but you see them liking photos on Instagram, you should hate them and their mother for pushing that ungrateful spawn into the world. You will not tell them you hate them, though. You will slowly begin withholding your affection until they begin to ask you what is the matter. Even if they guess correctly, keep up your frigid and seemingly unwarranted behavior.
10. The final step of this recipe requires the addition of room temperature resentment. A properly failing dating life will not come together with a dose of cool, fresh resentment. Allow the resentment to heat up, so that it can be spread evenly over your entire relationship. If you’re lucky, there will be enough resentment leftover to share with your partner. Not that he or she ever shared when you were dating. You know your relationship is over and you have once again ruined a potential courtship if you feel bitter about the entire dating process and despise the person you have just broken up with. *
*The taste of blueberry syrup will forever make you nauseous
Chef’s Notes:
Repeat this recipe as often as needed to ensure that you have no healthy and sustainable romantic relationships in your life. If you end up in your mid to late twenties, still single, with no viable dating prospects, you will know that you have mastered this recipe. At this point, you can move on to a more advanced project like Becoming a Cat Lady (page 37), or Midlife Crisis (page 45).
Prep Time: 25 Years Cooking Time: Indefinite
Yield: One Sad, Lonely Existence Level: Intermediate
Ingredients:
- A Hearty Dose of a Crippling Fear of Rejection
- 25 Years’ Worth of Insecurity
- A Sprinkle of Delusion
- ½ of Your Body Weight Inferiority Complex
- ¼ of Your Body Weight Superiority Complex
- Unreasonably High Expectations
- Drops of Desperation
- An Unhealthy Amount of Passive Aggressive Tendencies
- A Pinch of Pettiness
- Heaps of Resentment *
Special Equipment:
The audacity to accept that you are a hot mess, and thus, will die alone.
Directions:
1. To begin this recipe, enter the dating scene with a crippling fear of rejection. The thought of asking someone out on a date and being turned down should scare you more than your other fears: falling from a great height, balloons (globophobia is a real disorder), drowning, brain cancer, needles, going blind, and dying alone. This fear should make it difficult to approach potential dating partners. Your fear of dying alone should make this emotion conflicting for you. Panic accordingly.
2. Throw in lots of jokes on your first date. If someone does not like your unique sense of humor, which is riddled with sarcasm, curse words, and obscure pop culture references, YOU are the problem. You should anticipate the fact that everyone is going to hate you and misunderstand you. This anticipation should make you feel insecure. Feeling extremely un-datable should combine nicely with the panic induced by your crippling fear of rejection. *
*By this step, you should be feeling almost completely discouraged. If you aren’t discouraged, remind yourself of that time you tripped while exiting a restaurant and immediately exclaimed, “Oh, shit! Trying to turn myself into Hellen Keller over here,” trying to diffuse your clumsiness. While your date just looked at you with disgust.
3. Sprinkle some delusion into the hot mess that you have been concocting. Even though you are clearly hopeless when it comes to finding someone to date, you should allow yourself to believe that there is a soulmate out in the universe for you. Just one. There is only a singular person who is compatible with you out of the 7+ billion humans who currently inhabit the planet. This delusion should make you extremely meticulous when choosing potential dating partners. If you do not get butterflies instantly upon meeting your potential dating partner, leave. If you aren’t nauseous, leave. Remember, step one and two can lead to nausea. Make sure you can distinguish the difference between anxiety induced stomach discomfort, and soulmate sickness. *
*(See the recipe for Panic Attack on page 12 to find out how to induce anxious stomach discomfort.)
4. Stir in a healthy amount of an inferiority complex. Brace yourself for this next step, it will require a lot of stirring. If the mixture is becoming difficult to balance, you’re on the right track. You should already be feeling inadequate, but once you add the actual inferiority complex things should be looking very bleak for you. On dates, make sure you tell countless self-deprecating jokes. This is a delicate tightrope to walk on; you do not want to appear humble. You want to make sure your date knows that you have a very low self-esteem and that you are the most pessimistic person in the room. Be sure to mention the time you had a mental breakdown and ended up in therapy. Then immediately try to backtrack and play that down. If your date tells you that you look nice, immediately bypass their compliment, and point out the pimple that is ruining your complexion and your life. It also helps to have an arsenal of things you don’t like about your appearance on hand, in case your date tries to compliment you again. *
* If your date doesn’t look uncomfortable you have not added enough inferiority complex.
5. In a separate mental bowl, you are going to combine a superiority complex with unreasonably high standards for your potential dating partners. You want to mix these two ingredients thoroughly. These are highly reactive ingredients on their own, and when mixed together, they become volatile. One part of you should already be feeling inadequate, thanks to your inferiority complex. You, however, are a complex creature. While hating yourself, and loathing the fact that you’re single, you simultaneously believe you’re better than everyone around you. This superiority explains why you’ve been single for so long – you’re just too good for your own good. The standards that you hold for yourself are very high. A potential dating partner should mirror your desire for perfection. If someone is not as neurotically concerned with their physical health and appearance as you are, they are not worth dating. You deserve someone who makes themselves as crazy about trivial things as you do. Equally matched neuroses lead to a life of love.
6. Chop your standards in half during a wine induced moment of weakness, and you may find yourself flirting with that strange guy on Instagram who lives conveniently close to you (the one who kept liking your selfies in groups of ten, and casually slid into your DMs). This could lead to a few dates that turn into a relationship. He’s desperate, you’re desperate, why not see how things turn out? Even though you know this is a mistake, and every relationship you’ve ever entered has crashed and burned, and his sideburns are kind of creepy, but you convince yourself that he can pull them off. Sprinkle this hot mess generously over the ingredients of step five.
7. Drop some desperation into that separate mixing bowl and there will only be one date with Mister Instagram, which lasts a grand total of two hours. He will force you to meet in the middle between the two locations you both reside, because why would a guy drive two hours to see his “little love” when he could only drive one? Because you’re desperate for affection and settle for less than you deserve, you agree to the blatant slap in the face, and try to convince yourself that meeting in the middle is the feminist thing to do. You’ll awkwardly walk around a Barnes and Noble and end up next door at the Ihop, where you choke down two alarmingly blue, blueberry pancakes and he’ll order the All-You-Can-Eat special. You’ll talk incessantly, sweat through your H&M band tee, and drop a radioactive blueberry onto your lap. You’ll try to laugh it off, and pretend that you’re the kind of girl who just “rolls with the punches” but when the bill comes and Mister Instagram remarks, “Wow, you’re a cheap date,” the only thing you’ll want to punch is his face. The goodbye will be awkward, he will kiss you twice, and the bile from your stomach will roll up into the back of your throat. You’ll immediately drive to Target to buy a pack of gum, and start wondering if you’re a lesbian, or if all men simply suck.
8. Take the ingredients you mixed in steps 5-7 and add them to the original mixture you began creating in steps 1 - 4. The volatile nature of these ingredients will produce a healthy amount of passive aggressive tendencies now that you have found yourself in a relationship. You stay in contact with Mister Instagram for a few more weeks, though you never meet in person again. You play along with his insistence that what you two have is a relationship. The best part is that this passive aggressiveness will come from both yourself and your dating partner. To get the right consistency of passive aggressiveness, you should expect your partner to be able to read your mind and know exactly what you want. *
*Especially when you don’t even know what you want.
9. Plop a hearty amount of pettiness onto the relationship you are quickly ruining. The big things your partner does wrong should bother you, but the smaller things should get under your skin. Spite should begin to bubble up to the surface of your budding relationship. The sound of your partner’s voice should make your skin crawl at this point. If your partner forgot to send you a good morning text, but you see them liking photos on Instagram, you should hate them and their mother for pushing that ungrateful spawn into the world. You will not tell them you hate them, though. You will slowly begin withholding your affection until they begin to ask you what is the matter. Even if they guess correctly, keep up your frigid and seemingly unwarranted behavior.
10. The final step of this recipe requires the addition of room temperature resentment. A properly failing dating life will not come together with a dose of cool, fresh resentment. Allow the resentment to heat up, so that it can be spread evenly over your entire relationship. If you’re lucky, there will be enough resentment leftover to share with your partner. Not that he or she ever shared when you were dating. You know your relationship is over and you have once again ruined a potential courtship if you feel bitter about the entire dating process and despise the person you have just broken up with. *
*The taste of blueberry syrup will forever make you nauseous
Chef’s Notes:
Repeat this recipe as often as needed to ensure that you have no healthy and sustainable romantic relationships in your life. If you end up in your mid to late twenties, still single, with no viable dating prospects, you will know that you have mastered this recipe. At this point, you can move on to a more advanced project like Becoming a Cat Lady (page 37), or Midlife Crisis (page 45).
1/27/2016
cottonmouth
(Non-fiction)
According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, anxiety is: an apprehensive uneasiness or nervousness usually over an impending or anticipated ill; mentally distressing concern or interest; or a strong desire sometimes mixed with doubt, fear, or uneasiness. Anxiety is feeling the cotton begin to form in my mouth, lining my cheeks and coating my tongue, as words become hard to form. The white fluff begins to crawl down the back of my throat, restricting my airway. The fear and unease begins to creep through my veins and paralyze my body, as if I’ve just been bitten by a cottonmouth. My pulse quickens and each beat of my heart brings the poison closer to its center. I can’t do anything to stop the spreading. There is no antivenom. Once I’ve been struck I must feel every second of excruciating pain and pray that it never reaches my vital organs. Palms sweat. My insides churn like a Dutch maid is making butter with soured milk. Vision blurs as I forget to blink and my contact lenses turn to glass over my corneas. Sound is funneled. Each set of eyes in the room is throwing daggers into my body. My cheeks flush with crimson embarrassment. I try to talk myself down off the cliff, but I’m too late, I’m already falling.
Symptoms associated with generalized anxiety disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health include: restlessness or feeling wound-up or on edge; being easily fatigued; difficulty concentrating or having their minds go blank; irritability; muscle tension; difficulty controlling the worry; sleep problems. Symptoms can also include having a panic attack every single morning on the way to school as a seventh grader. These panic attacks will eventually lead to screaming fits with my mother because I am unable to articulate the thoughts and feelings that are taking over my body. My mother believes I’m faking a stomach ache, and faking the shortness of breath, and faking the fevers simply because I don’t want to attend school.
I didn’t want to attend school; but even more than that, I didn’t want my body and my mind to be at odds with one another. I felt like I was in the middle of a boxing ring, wishing I could hear the bell before my opponent, my own brain, knocks me out. I began trying to induce vomiting in the mornings before leaving for school. I was sick, truly, but my body betrayed me and would not produce any physical signs of my ailments. My guts were churning, that Dutch maid was right on schedule, yet I couldn’t purge her from my body. The handle of my toothbrush only made the back of my throat raw and pushed the cotton further down my windpipe. Letters from the school concerning the forty-five school days I had missed before the one-hundred-and-eighty-day school year was even up prompted my mother to seek medical attention. An appointment with a gastroenterologist was the final straw. “If he says nothing is wrong with you, you’re not missing a single day of school! I’ll throw your ass into the building! I can’t take this anymore. I’m tired.”
How could I tell my mother that I was also tired? Tired of not being in control of my body. I remember walking into the x-ray room and thinking it looked like a submarine. The lighting was dim but gave off a blue hue. I was instructed to swallow a thick, pale, chalky syrup and rest against a vertical table. As the goo slid down my esophagus, it mixed with the cotton, and I imagine it spilled onto the bonnet of the Dutch maid in the pit of my guts. I was strapped to the table like a frog ready for dissection in a Biology lab. The cottonmouth struck my ankle as I was left alone in the submarine. The board I was strapped to started to raise and became horizontal. I began moving about the room, being slowly tossed and turned on the table. The poison began to seep through my veins. What if there is nothing wrong with me? What if I don’t get better? I can’t feel this way every day of my life. Once the carnival ride was over, I sat in an examination room with my mother while the doctor read the results of my x-ray. I had acid-reflux which resulted in ulcers being formed deep within my stomach as well as my duodenum. Apparently having ulcers on the latter part of the digestive tract was a rarity. My gastroenterologist suggested I seek a therapist for my anxiety, and prescribed a medication that would temper the acidity of my guts. Satisfied to learn that I was experiencing actual physical issues, I took the medicine but refused the therapy. The snakes seemed satisfied with my decision for the time being.
The National Institute of Mental Health lists several different treatments for anxiety disorders: psychotherapy, self-help or support groups, stress management techniques, and medication. Holistic anxiety tablets, and regular intervals of exercise, coupled with the distraction of high school boys kept the snakes satiated enough to leave me alone for the most part. I would get bitten before big presentations, and first dates, but the poison was mainly a dull ache. I didn’t feel the complete fury of the cottonmouth until an August night in 2013, the night before I was supposed to move out of my family home and attend college at a major university. Countless snakes struck me as I lay curled in the fetal position of my parent’s bathroom floor. Thoughts were racing through my mind, I remember biting my forearm to the point of blood. I don’t know why I felt compelled to join the snakes in their attack. The pain grounded me; it was the only thing I could feel. My body was numb. My mind was on fire. I wasn’t breathing, the cotton was back and had completely constricted my airway. The Dutch maid wasn’t churning spoiled butter; she was splashing molten lava on the walls of my abdomen. The world was collapsing around me. The venom was finally beginning to reach vital organs. I was consumed.
A knock on the bathroom door from my younger sister was the only salvation. The sound startled the snakes and they left my crumpled corpse on the floor. The next morning I withdrew from all of my classes and removed all of my belongings from the apartment I had already paid for. My parents forced me to attend sessions with a therapist. I don’t remember much about the therapy sessions. I remember crying while sitting next to my mother. Not fully understanding why I was crying at all. Perhaps I was crying because I just wanted my brain to stop attacking itself. Crying because I could see the toll my snakes had taken on the face of my mother. Crying because this stranger now knows the darkest parts of me. Crying because I knew no matter what I did, this cottonmouth was a part of me, and always would be.
Symptoms associated with generalized anxiety disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health include: restlessness or feeling wound-up or on edge; being easily fatigued; difficulty concentrating or having their minds go blank; irritability; muscle tension; difficulty controlling the worry; sleep problems. Symptoms can also include having a panic attack every single morning on the way to school as a seventh grader. These panic attacks will eventually lead to screaming fits with my mother because I am unable to articulate the thoughts and feelings that are taking over my body. My mother believes I’m faking a stomach ache, and faking the shortness of breath, and faking the fevers simply because I don’t want to attend school.
I didn’t want to attend school; but even more than that, I didn’t want my body and my mind to be at odds with one another. I felt like I was in the middle of a boxing ring, wishing I could hear the bell before my opponent, my own brain, knocks me out. I began trying to induce vomiting in the mornings before leaving for school. I was sick, truly, but my body betrayed me and would not produce any physical signs of my ailments. My guts were churning, that Dutch maid was right on schedule, yet I couldn’t purge her from my body. The handle of my toothbrush only made the back of my throat raw and pushed the cotton further down my windpipe. Letters from the school concerning the forty-five school days I had missed before the one-hundred-and-eighty-day school year was even up prompted my mother to seek medical attention. An appointment with a gastroenterologist was the final straw. “If he says nothing is wrong with you, you’re not missing a single day of school! I’ll throw your ass into the building! I can’t take this anymore. I’m tired.”
How could I tell my mother that I was also tired? Tired of not being in control of my body. I remember walking into the x-ray room and thinking it looked like a submarine. The lighting was dim but gave off a blue hue. I was instructed to swallow a thick, pale, chalky syrup and rest against a vertical table. As the goo slid down my esophagus, it mixed with the cotton, and I imagine it spilled onto the bonnet of the Dutch maid in the pit of my guts. I was strapped to the table like a frog ready for dissection in a Biology lab. The cottonmouth struck my ankle as I was left alone in the submarine. The board I was strapped to started to raise and became horizontal. I began moving about the room, being slowly tossed and turned on the table. The poison began to seep through my veins. What if there is nothing wrong with me? What if I don’t get better? I can’t feel this way every day of my life. Once the carnival ride was over, I sat in an examination room with my mother while the doctor read the results of my x-ray. I had acid-reflux which resulted in ulcers being formed deep within my stomach as well as my duodenum. Apparently having ulcers on the latter part of the digestive tract was a rarity. My gastroenterologist suggested I seek a therapist for my anxiety, and prescribed a medication that would temper the acidity of my guts. Satisfied to learn that I was experiencing actual physical issues, I took the medicine but refused the therapy. The snakes seemed satisfied with my decision for the time being.
The National Institute of Mental Health lists several different treatments for anxiety disorders: psychotherapy, self-help or support groups, stress management techniques, and medication. Holistic anxiety tablets, and regular intervals of exercise, coupled with the distraction of high school boys kept the snakes satiated enough to leave me alone for the most part. I would get bitten before big presentations, and first dates, but the poison was mainly a dull ache. I didn’t feel the complete fury of the cottonmouth until an August night in 2013, the night before I was supposed to move out of my family home and attend college at a major university. Countless snakes struck me as I lay curled in the fetal position of my parent’s bathroom floor. Thoughts were racing through my mind, I remember biting my forearm to the point of blood. I don’t know why I felt compelled to join the snakes in their attack. The pain grounded me; it was the only thing I could feel. My body was numb. My mind was on fire. I wasn’t breathing, the cotton was back and had completely constricted my airway. The Dutch maid wasn’t churning spoiled butter; she was splashing molten lava on the walls of my abdomen. The world was collapsing around me. The venom was finally beginning to reach vital organs. I was consumed.
A knock on the bathroom door from my younger sister was the only salvation. The sound startled the snakes and they left my crumpled corpse on the floor. The next morning I withdrew from all of my classes and removed all of my belongings from the apartment I had already paid for. My parents forced me to attend sessions with a therapist. I don’t remember much about the therapy sessions. I remember crying while sitting next to my mother. Not fully understanding why I was crying at all. Perhaps I was crying because I just wanted my brain to stop attacking itself. Crying because I could see the toll my snakes had taken on the face of my mother. Crying because this stranger now knows the darkest parts of me. Crying because I knew no matter what I did, this cottonmouth was a part of me, and always would be.
4/28/2016
Apple Picking
(Non-fiction)
It was a sunny day in late August; my younger sister and I were spending the weekend at my Grandparents house. We spent many weekends running through and around their grapevine, skipping through their garden (ruining many a pair of white sneakers in the bright red mud), and playing hide and seek by the clothesline. Their property was magic to a small child. Even as fourteen year old, I still enjoyed those slow weekends; watching Grandpa read from his bible while Grandma adjusted the antenna on the television so we could watch Inside Edition with Deborah Norville. At my Grandparents house, life felt simple; they were predictable and debates always swayed in the favor of my sister and me.
On this particular August day, my Grandpa decided to mix up the routine a bit. He sauntered over to the shed and procured a small ladder. He dragged the rickety wooden thing through the yard and perched it under his apple tree. I suppose my sister and I convinced him we were old enough to not kill ourselves on a ladder. He had grown too old to pick the apples for himself and instead would collect the ones that fell to the ground. The sun was really high, but the breeze was cool and inviting. The day was begging to be seized and apparently my Grandpa’s stomach was begging for fresh apples.
“Harley, just eat the apples on the ground!” my Grandma protested in her Southern-Yankee hybrid drawl. She was born and raised in Illinois, but moved to North Carolina when she was just seventeen after marrying my Grandpa.
“Now dush. These gurls want thom fresh apples” he grinned. Grandpa always played around with his words when he was talking to or around my sister and me. It was his own version of baby-talk that persisted long after his two grandchildren had grown. Grandpa was a true country man. Born and raised in eastern Tennessee. He was neighbors with a young Dolly Parton. He doubted she would ever remember him, but he remembered “that scrawny little thang.” He wore a uniform of khaki slacks, crisp white tank tops (that my grandma washed and starched relentlessly), and pastel, collared button ups. My entire life, I was convinced he only owned two pairs of shoes – his black loafers, which he polished by the light of his touch lap every night, and his slippers, which looked exactly like his loafers but instead of leather, were made of suede. Grandpa was always telling stories about his life; he grew up mischievous and poor. As a teenager, he once tied a stick of dynamite to cow’s tail and blew a canyon into a pasture. I like to think that I inherited both his mischievous streak and knack for storytelling. The best part of his storytelling was his laugh; he would hysterically laugh at his own tales to the point of tears, which would always infuriate my Grandma because he “wasn’t tallin’ it right!”
My Grandma rolled her eyes and went into the house, emerging a few moments later carrying an old white bed sheet with thin blue stripes. The sheet would serve as our apple net. Me being the oldest grandchild and hellion that I was, decided I was going to be the one who climbed the ladder. My Grandpa, Grandma, and sister stayed on the ground holding the bed sheet net to catch the apples I picked. Only, I wouldn’t pick the apples. I grabbed whole branches and shook vigorously so that the apples would detach and plummet towards the ground. The three below scrambled around to catch the falling fruit bombs. It was snowing bright green leafs and crisp red McIntosh.
I clambered up to the top rung of the ladder so that I could reach higher branches and feel like I was living dangerously. The four of us were laughing hysterically. I shook one branch a tad too vigorously and a jagged piece of bark tumbled into my eye. The laughter halted in that moment. It’s strange how something so seemingly insignificant can cause such immense pain. It felt as though a canyon was being ripped into the defenseless white of my eye (no dynamite required). Tears immediately began to fill the hole that was being formed as everyone ran towards the tree to help me down the ladder. I ended up with a scratched cornea; it was nothing life-threatening, just annoying. Annoying because I had blurry vision for a week and annoying because our apple harvest was cut so abruptly short. Much like my Grandpa’s life. Life seems to enjoy metaphors. In just a few short years my Grandpa was going to be diagnosed with lung cancer, endure months of chemotherapy, and pass away just two months after I turned eighteen.
Sure, I remember the months of deterioration. The months I avoided visiting the house I spent nearly every weekend and summer in because I couldn’t bear to see my Grandpa wither away like unattended crops; maybe things would have been easier if that piece of bark had blinded me. I remember the last coherent thing he ever said to me, “I love you more than anything.” But my fondest memory, the one that sticks out above all others, is the memory of picking apples with my family and scratching my cornea. Maybe that's the secret to remembering. The scratch on my eye left just enough space for the memory to slip into my sub consciousness. It's blurry and only visible through tears. Years have passed but I can still feel that little piece of bark sneak past my eyelid. It has molded itself into a piece of paper, so that I can write this down and remember. Remember the apples. The thin cotton bed sheet that served as a net. And the smiles of a family who did not sense the coming pain.
On this particular August day, my Grandpa decided to mix up the routine a bit. He sauntered over to the shed and procured a small ladder. He dragged the rickety wooden thing through the yard and perched it under his apple tree. I suppose my sister and I convinced him we were old enough to not kill ourselves on a ladder. He had grown too old to pick the apples for himself and instead would collect the ones that fell to the ground. The sun was really high, but the breeze was cool and inviting. The day was begging to be seized and apparently my Grandpa’s stomach was begging for fresh apples.
“Harley, just eat the apples on the ground!” my Grandma protested in her Southern-Yankee hybrid drawl. She was born and raised in Illinois, but moved to North Carolina when she was just seventeen after marrying my Grandpa.
“Now dush. These gurls want thom fresh apples” he grinned. Grandpa always played around with his words when he was talking to or around my sister and me. It was his own version of baby-talk that persisted long after his two grandchildren had grown. Grandpa was a true country man. Born and raised in eastern Tennessee. He was neighbors with a young Dolly Parton. He doubted she would ever remember him, but he remembered “that scrawny little thang.” He wore a uniform of khaki slacks, crisp white tank tops (that my grandma washed and starched relentlessly), and pastel, collared button ups. My entire life, I was convinced he only owned two pairs of shoes – his black loafers, which he polished by the light of his touch lap every night, and his slippers, which looked exactly like his loafers but instead of leather, were made of suede. Grandpa was always telling stories about his life; he grew up mischievous and poor. As a teenager, he once tied a stick of dynamite to cow’s tail and blew a canyon into a pasture. I like to think that I inherited both his mischievous streak and knack for storytelling. The best part of his storytelling was his laugh; he would hysterically laugh at his own tales to the point of tears, which would always infuriate my Grandma because he “wasn’t tallin’ it right!”
My Grandma rolled her eyes and went into the house, emerging a few moments later carrying an old white bed sheet with thin blue stripes. The sheet would serve as our apple net. Me being the oldest grandchild and hellion that I was, decided I was going to be the one who climbed the ladder. My Grandpa, Grandma, and sister stayed on the ground holding the bed sheet net to catch the apples I picked. Only, I wouldn’t pick the apples. I grabbed whole branches and shook vigorously so that the apples would detach and plummet towards the ground. The three below scrambled around to catch the falling fruit bombs. It was snowing bright green leafs and crisp red McIntosh.
I clambered up to the top rung of the ladder so that I could reach higher branches and feel like I was living dangerously. The four of us were laughing hysterically. I shook one branch a tad too vigorously and a jagged piece of bark tumbled into my eye. The laughter halted in that moment. It’s strange how something so seemingly insignificant can cause such immense pain. It felt as though a canyon was being ripped into the defenseless white of my eye (no dynamite required). Tears immediately began to fill the hole that was being formed as everyone ran towards the tree to help me down the ladder. I ended up with a scratched cornea; it was nothing life-threatening, just annoying. Annoying because I had blurry vision for a week and annoying because our apple harvest was cut so abruptly short. Much like my Grandpa’s life. Life seems to enjoy metaphors. In just a few short years my Grandpa was going to be diagnosed with lung cancer, endure months of chemotherapy, and pass away just two months after I turned eighteen.
Sure, I remember the months of deterioration. The months I avoided visiting the house I spent nearly every weekend and summer in because I couldn’t bear to see my Grandpa wither away like unattended crops; maybe things would have been easier if that piece of bark had blinded me. I remember the last coherent thing he ever said to me, “I love you more than anything.” But my fondest memory, the one that sticks out above all others, is the memory of picking apples with my family and scratching my cornea. Maybe that's the secret to remembering. The scratch on my eye left just enough space for the memory to slip into my sub consciousness. It's blurry and only visible through tears. Years have passed but I can still feel that little piece of bark sneak past my eyelid. It has molded itself into a piece of paper, so that I can write this down and remember. Remember the apples. The thin cotton bed sheet that served as a net. And the smiles of a family who did not sense the coming pain.
5/1/2016
Soulmates and Shortcomings
She sat on the edge of her wooden chair, legs crossed, clutching her mojito glass. This was her favorite table in the restaurant; back left corner, adjacent to the bar and the entrance. She always requested this table. Holding her cocktail close to her mouth, she chewed on the thin black straw and began assessing the crowd. Leather jacket, at ten o’ clock. Long, lean legs with a strong upper body – or are there shoulder pads in that jacket? Do they even make jackets with shoulder pads these days? He’s drinking Jack Daniels – scotch would seem more appropriately rebellious. Dirty blonde, shoulder grazing hair, and a five o’clock shadow. Now he’s putting his hair up into a knot. God, that’s so hot. Well, his manbun is more like boybun; his hair looked way thicker than that when it was down. He probably works for an indie record label, has a recreational cocaine habit, and grunts a lot during sex – very Tarzan like. I could be Jane . . . for about three months. Nah, he’s not it.
She sighed, nibbled her straw to reopen it, and took a long sip from her drink. Her eyes never leaving the crowd within the restaurant. Red beanie and non-prescription Ray Ban readers at two o’clock. Where’s Waldo? Pretty sure I found him reading “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto.” He’s also drinking coffee, probably black, at ten p.m.. At least he’s reading; he’s probably the moody, educated type. We could go on a few dates, and then I wouldn’t hear from him for six weeks because he flew to London to finish his memoir. When we reunited, there would be some slow motion make-up sex while The Smiths droned on in the background. I bet he’d write a poem about me, maybe even a book of poetry. He’d say my freckles were constellations and I’d find out that he was bisexual and had been having an affair with an older scholar in London – Dorian Gray, much? I am all for sexual freedom, but I cannot and will not be shared. He’ll write a novel about the strong-minded girl who got away; I’ll find the book in the Barnes and Noble discount bin years later. Pass.
She picked one of the lime wedges from her empty glass and began nibbling on the sour fruit. A black business suit entering the restaurant caught her eye. Jet black hair pairs nicely with his suit and tie – if it weren’t for the briefcase he could be a pallbearer or filming a “Men in Black” remake. A little on the short side, but his Italian good looks make up for any shortcomings. He’s probably very strict in the boardroom, and in the bedroom. Christian Grey has nothing on this Italian Stallion. We could go on trips in his private jet; he would fly me to Naples to meet his family. His Italian grandmother would call me “nipotina” and teach me where to buy the highest quality prosciutto in the village. Wine induced make-out sessions would probably turn into wine induced diarrhea and his short temper would get the best of him. I would say “arrivederci” to my Italian Stallion, but his grandmother and I would stay in touch. Not a lifelong romance.
She sighed and winced as she bit into an obnoxiously sour part of her lime. She tossed the fruit back into her glass and sipped the watery remnants of her beverage. While slurping, an older man a few tables over caught her eye. His face was very red and sweaty; he was using the cloth napkin as a handkerchief. There were two place settings at his table. For a business acquaintance? No, probably his twenty-something girlfriend. He’s obviously married, or recently divorced. Nerves explain the sweat, and high blood pressure explains the red face. He’ll order a steak and she’ll order a salad. He’ll call her his little –
“Cameron?”
“Huh? What?” She snapped out of her daydream.
“Were you even listening to my story?”
“Oh, yeah, of course I was. Keep going, honey.” She finally acknowledged the big blue eyes that were sitting across from her.
“Anyway, I was telling Dennis if he could negotiate a better mortgage, we’d probably go ahead and buy the house; the little yellow one on Pine Street – the one with the fence you liked?”
“Definitely liked that fence, it just needed repainting. I’m not sold on the neighborhood yet though, it just doesn-“
“Cameron, we’ve looked at so many houses. You can’t be so picky. I’m starting to think you just don’t want to move in with me,” he smirked.
She forced a smile and began biting a piece of skin on her thumb. She looked at his perfectly groomed hair, clean-shaven face, and simple gray sweater. For three years, he had sported the same haircut and he only wore that sweater on their date nights. Could you even trust your twenty-one year old self’s judgment when getting into a relationship? Things were fine in college – we’d go out once a month to the pizza joint on 6th. Every Friday night we’d run to Redbox and rent the latest horror flick while getting tipsy on boxed wine. His mom loved me – she let me help out with Thanksgiving meal prep; cooking was a big deal to her. It was essentially like being blessed by the butter god herself, Paula Deen. The Redbox runs have all but ceased thanks to late nights at the office; and he has developed lactose intolerance so pizza is out of the question. His mother became a vegan after becoming a diehard Ellen fan, and we’ve been munching on Tofurky ever since. Is this monogamy or purgatory? Cameron reached for her empty glass and he grabbed her hand, stroking it gently.
“Look, I know this is a big change, but we’re ready. We’re in love, and this is the next step for us.” His big blue eyes beamed up at her. “Where is our server? Let’s get you another drink.” He released her hand and grabbed her glass.
“Thanks,” she said, brushing a piece of hair behind her ear. As he began scanning the room for their waiter, she resumed scanning the room for someone else.
She sighed, nibbled her straw to reopen it, and took a long sip from her drink. Her eyes never leaving the crowd within the restaurant. Red beanie and non-prescription Ray Ban readers at two o’clock. Where’s Waldo? Pretty sure I found him reading “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto.” He’s also drinking coffee, probably black, at ten p.m.. At least he’s reading; he’s probably the moody, educated type. We could go on a few dates, and then I wouldn’t hear from him for six weeks because he flew to London to finish his memoir. When we reunited, there would be some slow motion make-up sex while The Smiths droned on in the background. I bet he’d write a poem about me, maybe even a book of poetry. He’d say my freckles were constellations and I’d find out that he was bisexual and had been having an affair with an older scholar in London – Dorian Gray, much? I am all for sexual freedom, but I cannot and will not be shared. He’ll write a novel about the strong-minded girl who got away; I’ll find the book in the Barnes and Noble discount bin years later. Pass.
She picked one of the lime wedges from her empty glass and began nibbling on the sour fruit. A black business suit entering the restaurant caught her eye. Jet black hair pairs nicely with his suit and tie – if it weren’t for the briefcase he could be a pallbearer or filming a “Men in Black” remake. A little on the short side, but his Italian good looks make up for any shortcomings. He’s probably very strict in the boardroom, and in the bedroom. Christian Grey has nothing on this Italian Stallion. We could go on trips in his private jet; he would fly me to Naples to meet his family. His Italian grandmother would call me “nipotina” and teach me where to buy the highest quality prosciutto in the village. Wine induced make-out sessions would probably turn into wine induced diarrhea and his short temper would get the best of him. I would say “arrivederci” to my Italian Stallion, but his grandmother and I would stay in touch. Not a lifelong romance.
She sighed and winced as she bit into an obnoxiously sour part of her lime. She tossed the fruit back into her glass and sipped the watery remnants of her beverage. While slurping, an older man a few tables over caught her eye. His face was very red and sweaty; he was using the cloth napkin as a handkerchief. There were two place settings at his table. For a business acquaintance? No, probably his twenty-something girlfriend. He’s obviously married, or recently divorced. Nerves explain the sweat, and high blood pressure explains the red face. He’ll order a steak and she’ll order a salad. He’ll call her his little –
“Cameron?”
“Huh? What?” She snapped out of her daydream.
“Were you even listening to my story?”
“Oh, yeah, of course I was. Keep going, honey.” She finally acknowledged the big blue eyes that were sitting across from her.
“Anyway, I was telling Dennis if he could negotiate a better mortgage, we’d probably go ahead and buy the house; the little yellow one on Pine Street – the one with the fence you liked?”
“Definitely liked that fence, it just needed repainting. I’m not sold on the neighborhood yet though, it just doesn-“
“Cameron, we’ve looked at so many houses. You can’t be so picky. I’m starting to think you just don’t want to move in with me,” he smirked.
She forced a smile and began biting a piece of skin on her thumb. She looked at his perfectly groomed hair, clean-shaven face, and simple gray sweater. For three years, he had sported the same haircut and he only wore that sweater on their date nights. Could you even trust your twenty-one year old self’s judgment when getting into a relationship? Things were fine in college – we’d go out once a month to the pizza joint on 6th. Every Friday night we’d run to Redbox and rent the latest horror flick while getting tipsy on boxed wine. His mom loved me – she let me help out with Thanksgiving meal prep; cooking was a big deal to her. It was essentially like being blessed by the butter god herself, Paula Deen. The Redbox runs have all but ceased thanks to late nights at the office; and he has developed lactose intolerance so pizza is out of the question. His mother became a vegan after becoming a diehard Ellen fan, and we’ve been munching on Tofurky ever since. Is this monogamy or purgatory? Cameron reached for her empty glass and he grabbed her hand, stroking it gently.
“Look, I know this is a big change, but we’re ready. We’re in love, and this is the next step for us.” His big blue eyes beamed up at her. “Where is our server? Let’s get you another drink.” He released her hand and grabbed her glass.
“Thanks,” she said, brushing a piece of hair behind her ear. As he began scanning the room for their waiter, she resumed scanning the room for someone else.
3/2/2016
Appalachian Sun
The sight of the Appalachian sun rising over the Blue Ridge Mountains is like the first sip of southern sweet tea; it illuminates all of your sensory organs and awakens something dormant within you. The change, however, is a leisurely one. Time moves slower in the South. Words taste sweeter; so they linger in the mouth and roll off the tongue like thick molasses. The sun takes its time kissing each azure peak and gently makes its way into the hollers and through the pines. The warmth rushes over you, just as the sugar finds its way into your veins, dilating capillaries and expanding palates.
The sun rises in the east, which is fitting; southerners are early risers. Neighbors start their tractors with the first light of dawn. Marge, at the old country store, sells fried bologna biscuits to mill workers, lawyers and everyone in-between. Pat and Bess swap stories while squeezing loaves of bread at the discount bakery. Jim loads feed from the local Farm Supply into his Carolina blue pickup. In the summer, that Appalachian sun will swelt you faster than a preacher can say “fire and damnation.” In the fall, the mountains turn a truer gold than the sun itself. Winter brings life to a peaceful standstill; glossy white clings precariously to tree limbs and power lines. The sweet aroma of honeysuck brings back the bees and the thawing comfort of spring. That Appalachian sunrise awakens everyone’s inner southerner; the person who stops to appreciate the wonder of life, and never orders unsweet tea.
The sun rises in the east, which is fitting; southerners are early risers. Neighbors start their tractors with the first light of dawn. Marge, at the old country store, sells fried bologna biscuits to mill workers, lawyers and everyone in-between. Pat and Bess swap stories while squeezing loaves of bread at the discount bakery. Jim loads feed from the local Farm Supply into his Carolina blue pickup. In the summer, that Appalachian sun will swelt you faster than a preacher can say “fire and damnation.” In the fall, the mountains turn a truer gold than the sun itself. Winter brings life to a peaceful standstill; glossy white clings precariously to tree limbs and power lines. The sweet aroma of honeysuck brings back the bees and the thawing comfort of spring. That Appalachian sunrise awakens everyone’s inner southerner; the person who stops to appreciate the wonder of life, and never orders unsweet tea.
3/20/2014
Park Bench
They sat there. Trying to be friendly. Everything that once was so familiar felt foreign. Her arms felt odd crossed over her chest; they should be stroking his arm, searching for a hand to hold. Her body felt so cold, numb, sitting so far from him, instead of tucking herself neatly under his shoulder. Conversation seemed like a waste of lips. Their lips were made to communicate the palpable passion and love that resided within them.
She sat there, staring at the man she once knew better than she knew herself. How can time make two people strangers? Everything about the moment felt off. Something was out of place. Could they have possibly outgrown one another? Is time so powerful that it can completely change a human being? Or was it still there? Somewhere. Buried deep within them. That love. That trust. Perhaps the warped reality before them was simply that, warped, twisted, wrong. Nothing in that moment felt right because it wasn't. They were not made to sit casually on a park bench, fourteen inches apart. They were made to throw the earth off it's axis with a single kiss. They were made to love with all the fervor of every lover who had come before them. They were made to be one. One soul, two bodies. Not two strangers on a single park bench.
She searched his face for any sign that he had realized the truth along with her. But she searched in vain. His face, that of a marble statue; unbelievably lifelike, yet devoid of any true life. She had done it. She had missed her window. Time does not change people. People simply change over time. He, who was once so open, had now shut himself off completely from her. His action was justifiable; she had broken his heart. When it happened though, she had no way of knowing that her heart would be the greatest casualty. So she sat on that bench. Inches away from the only person she had ever loved, and could ever love. Friendly, yet not familiar. Ghosts haunting a bench with the story that could have, but never will be.
She sat there, staring at the man she once knew better than she knew herself. How can time make two people strangers? Everything about the moment felt off. Something was out of place. Could they have possibly outgrown one another? Is time so powerful that it can completely change a human being? Or was it still there? Somewhere. Buried deep within them. That love. That trust. Perhaps the warped reality before them was simply that, warped, twisted, wrong. Nothing in that moment felt right because it wasn't. They were not made to sit casually on a park bench, fourteen inches apart. They were made to throw the earth off it's axis with a single kiss. They were made to love with all the fervor of every lover who had come before them. They were made to be one. One soul, two bodies. Not two strangers on a single park bench.
She searched his face for any sign that he had realized the truth along with her. But she searched in vain. His face, that of a marble statue; unbelievably lifelike, yet devoid of any true life. She had done it. She had missed her window. Time does not change people. People simply change over time. He, who was once so open, had now shut himself off completely from her. His action was justifiable; she had broken his heart. When it happened though, she had no way of knowing that her heart would be the greatest casualty. So she sat on that bench. Inches away from the only person she had ever loved, and could ever love. Friendly, yet not familiar. Ghosts haunting a bench with the story that could have, but never will be.
12/15/2013
Treading Water
I feel like I'm treading water. Just making it through each day uses every bit of energy I can muster. I go to bed every night, terrified. I can't sleep because I'm afraid that when I wake up, I'm going to finally run out of energy. I won't be able to keep my head above the water. I can no longer fight the current that constantly tries to drag me under.
Each day is a battle between fight and fear. I just wish this ocean in my soul could transform itself into a placid lake. I want nothing more than to be able to lay my head upon the water and float, effortlessly on my back. Face towards the sun. All of my troubles beneath me. Sinking to the bottom of this endless lake. Never to be seen again.
Each day is a battle between fight and fear. I just wish this ocean in my soul could transform itself into a placid lake. I want nothing more than to be able to lay my head upon the water and float, effortlessly on my back. Face towards the sun. All of my troubles beneath me. Sinking to the bottom of this endless lake. Never to be seen again.
9/17/2013
Love and War
After spending just one day together, the day before he left to go to away to training camp, and eventually the war in Iraq, he stopped her cold. While walking back to his truck, he said, "I can feel you getting closer to me." She knew he didn't mean in proximity.
"Well, is that a bad thing?" she implored.
"I don't know." He said it staring blankly ahead. She always thought that he'd say three words to her one day, three words that would change everything for them, those just weren't the three words she expected. The walk back to his truck was silent. She hoisted herself up into the cartoonishly large truck's passenger seat. They drove in silence for a while; both just staring at the long road ahead. "I just. . . I just don't know what's going to happen, y'know?"
"None of us do. It's called life: The Great Uncertain." She tried to make a small joke and seem nonchalant. That was her special gift. She could have a hurricane raging inside her soul, and a tidal wave ready to rip through her eyelids, but on the surface, she could look like she was on vacation in a tropical paradise.
"I'm serious" he uttered, still looking straight ahead.
"So am I! None of us know where we're going to be tomorr - "
"I know exactly where I'm going to be tomorrow."
"Not what I meant. Look, the thing is. . ."
"No, you look!" he interrupted her, this time with what appeared to be boiling rage. "Tomorrow I'm going to be shipped off to training camp, and held hostage there for a while. They're going to tell me all about the five thousand different ways I can be killed, or maimed enough to wish I had been killed over there. Then, with that ray of sunshine in my life, they're going to drop me off in the middle of the desert, with a sniper rifle and a prayer. Then they get to watch me try to survive for a year. If I do, great! They can just ship me off somewhere else before I can even get my boots off back home. What kind of life is that? Not for me, I signed up for this shit, but for you. You didn't sign up for it, but here you are trying to!" he slammed on the breaks, through the truck into park and stopped dead in the middle of the old dirt road. He gripped the steering wheel so tightly she could see his knuckles turn white. He then loosened his grip on the wheel and turned to look at her. She could see the tidal wave that he had been holding back swell behind his eyes. He cupped her face in his hands, and pulled it closer to his. "I can't put you through this." She could taste every word he said and feel his breath on her lips as he spoke. "I know you'd wait on me. I know you'd put up with all this bullshit, but I don't want you to. You deserve so much better than that. Why do you think I've never asked you out on a real date? I mean, damn, we've known each other for over three years. Do you think I just never wanted to date you? I did. I really did. I do. But I know you deserve so much more than me. The only consistency in life is the fact that it's inconsistent and then there's you. You've always been there for me. When I'm having a terrible day, I know I can call you and you'll make me laugh within five seconds. You're like no one I've ever known before. You're smart, so smart. You make me feel like a fucking idiot, which would usually piss me off, but I love it, because you keep me on my toes. You're beautiful. Not beautiful in that you hoist your tits up to heaven and wear enough makeup to scare a circus clown, you're really beautiful. Your smile makes me smile instantly. And you're sexy. Damn, you fucking turned me on at a Thanksgiving dinner once, with a text message! Who does that? You're everything I've ever wanted and could ever need, but I'm not what you need. You need someone who can be there for you. Physically and emotionally. I can't. Definitely not right now, but maybe never. I don't want to leave you tomorrow and leave you with a 'maybe'. I couldn't do that to you." He just stared into her eyes.
She didn't know what to say back. He was still holding her face in his hands. She already thought she loved him, but what he just said confirmed that she did. Still at a loss for words, she did the only thing she could think to do. She kissed him. She expected him to pull away, but he didn't. It was like one of those dramatic kisses you'd see in a movie, but different. In movies, they always say that time stands still when you kiss the person you love. In reality, time jumps into hyper-drive. Every second that passed meant she was that much closer to having to give him up. She had spent the last three years imagining what it would be like to kiss him. Now she knew, and it was such a bittersweet revelation. While they kissed, and time flew by around them, galaxies were being consumed by black holes, Pluto was trying to decide if it felt like being a planet today, trees were producing oxygen, people were producing carbon dioxide, blood was pumping through all of her vital organs, and she swore that she could feel her soul escaping her body.
She had no idea how long they kissed. Eventually they broke the seal on their lips and pulled away from each other, just enough to look into one another's eyes. The tidal waves had now broken down both of their defenses. Tears rolled down both of their cheeks. "What the fuck is wrong with us?" she quietly laughed.
"I have no idea."
"I love you." she whispered while wiping a tear from her cheek.
"I love you, too." he said, running his index finger over her opposite cheek to remove a tear.
"We'll get through this. You know I'm stubborn. I won't let anything come between me and what - who - I want!" He knew she meant it. She was extremely stubborn; a trait he loved to hate about her.
"Are you sure?"
"Don't be stupid."
He laughed. "Damn, I can't believe I have to leave tomorrow. Things are just starting to get good. I finally got you to kiss me."
"Oh my god, I hate you." she tried to hide her smile as she said it.
"Sure you do. . ." He pulled her closer and kissed her once more. He put the truck back into drive and they were headed down a familiar dirt road into uncharted territory.
"Well, is that a bad thing?" she implored.
"I don't know." He said it staring blankly ahead. She always thought that he'd say three words to her one day, three words that would change everything for them, those just weren't the three words she expected. The walk back to his truck was silent. She hoisted herself up into the cartoonishly large truck's passenger seat. They drove in silence for a while; both just staring at the long road ahead. "I just. . . I just don't know what's going to happen, y'know?"
"None of us do. It's called life: The Great Uncertain." She tried to make a small joke and seem nonchalant. That was her special gift. She could have a hurricane raging inside her soul, and a tidal wave ready to rip through her eyelids, but on the surface, she could look like she was on vacation in a tropical paradise.
"I'm serious" he uttered, still looking straight ahead.
"So am I! None of us know where we're going to be tomorr - "
"I know exactly where I'm going to be tomorrow."
"Not what I meant. Look, the thing is. . ."
"No, you look!" he interrupted her, this time with what appeared to be boiling rage. "Tomorrow I'm going to be shipped off to training camp, and held hostage there for a while. They're going to tell me all about the five thousand different ways I can be killed, or maimed enough to wish I had been killed over there. Then, with that ray of sunshine in my life, they're going to drop me off in the middle of the desert, with a sniper rifle and a prayer. Then they get to watch me try to survive for a year. If I do, great! They can just ship me off somewhere else before I can even get my boots off back home. What kind of life is that? Not for me, I signed up for this shit, but for you. You didn't sign up for it, but here you are trying to!" he slammed on the breaks, through the truck into park and stopped dead in the middle of the old dirt road. He gripped the steering wheel so tightly she could see his knuckles turn white. He then loosened his grip on the wheel and turned to look at her. She could see the tidal wave that he had been holding back swell behind his eyes. He cupped her face in his hands, and pulled it closer to his. "I can't put you through this." She could taste every word he said and feel his breath on her lips as he spoke. "I know you'd wait on me. I know you'd put up with all this bullshit, but I don't want you to. You deserve so much better than that. Why do you think I've never asked you out on a real date? I mean, damn, we've known each other for over three years. Do you think I just never wanted to date you? I did. I really did. I do. But I know you deserve so much more than me. The only consistency in life is the fact that it's inconsistent and then there's you. You've always been there for me. When I'm having a terrible day, I know I can call you and you'll make me laugh within five seconds. You're like no one I've ever known before. You're smart, so smart. You make me feel like a fucking idiot, which would usually piss me off, but I love it, because you keep me on my toes. You're beautiful. Not beautiful in that you hoist your tits up to heaven and wear enough makeup to scare a circus clown, you're really beautiful. Your smile makes me smile instantly. And you're sexy. Damn, you fucking turned me on at a Thanksgiving dinner once, with a text message! Who does that? You're everything I've ever wanted and could ever need, but I'm not what you need. You need someone who can be there for you. Physically and emotionally. I can't. Definitely not right now, but maybe never. I don't want to leave you tomorrow and leave you with a 'maybe'. I couldn't do that to you." He just stared into her eyes.
She didn't know what to say back. He was still holding her face in his hands. She already thought she loved him, but what he just said confirmed that she did. Still at a loss for words, she did the only thing she could think to do. She kissed him. She expected him to pull away, but he didn't. It was like one of those dramatic kisses you'd see in a movie, but different. In movies, they always say that time stands still when you kiss the person you love. In reality, time jumps into hyper-drive. Every second that passed meant she was that much closer to having to give him up. She had spent the last three years imagining what it would be like to kiss him. Now she knew, and it was such a bittersweet revelation. While they kissed, and time flew by around them, galaxies were being consumed by black holes, Pluto was trying to decide if it felt like being a planet today, trees were producing oxygen, people were producing carbon dioxide, blood was pumping through all of her vital organs, and she swore that she could feel her soul escaping her body.
She had no idea how long they kissed. Eventually they broke the seal on their lips and pulled away from each other, just enough to look into one another's eyes. The tidal waves had now broken down both of their defenses. Tears rolled down both of their cheeks. "What the fuck is wrong with us?" she quietly laughed.
"I have no idea."
"I love you." she whispered while wiping a tear from her cheek.
"I love you, too." he said, running his index finger over her opposite cheek to remove a tear.
"We'll get through this. You know I'm stubborn. I won't let anything come between me and what - who - I want!" He knew she meant it. She was extremely stubborn; a trait he loved to hate about her.
"Are you sure?"
"Don't be stupid."
He laughed. "Damn, I can't believe I have to leave tomorrow. Things are just starting to get good. I finally got you to kiss me."
"Oh my god, I hate you." she tried to hide her smile as she said it.
"Sure you do. . ." He pulled her closer and kissed her once more. He put the truck back into drive and they were headed down a familiar dirt road into uncharted territory.