Once upon a time there was a story. The beginning of the story was beautiful; perfection. It was so wonderful that you knew there was no way it could turn out as well again in the end, after the trials that happen in the middle of every good story. The first few chapters were intangible weights on the hearts of the readers. The story only grew heavier, page after page.
It got so bad that many couldn’t bear to read another word. They gave up; closed their copies. Some people threw the books off bridges or the tops of buildings. Some burned them, or soaked them with chemicals that ate them up completely, leaving nothing behind but a stench and a vague stain on the ground. Some sliced them up with razor blades; some exploded them with gunpowder so that the ashes rained down, burning the heads of everyone nearby.
Some people wanted to extend it, hoping that by creating more story it would get better. But it didn’t work that way, trying to tack on your own ending. So it seemed that it was too long for some and too short for others, with those contented in between who were accused of apathy.
Still, it was a long story; it took between sixty and ninety years to read from start to finish even though everyone read it every single day.
Some people were good at reading it, their eyes trickling between the letters and down the pages; they move through with relative ease. But for others it was an awful chore, requiring constant effort that seemed only to result in headaches as they dragged themselves over the rough terrain of words, grasping for holds in the cracks and crevasses of the alphabet. Even those who enjoyed reading occasionally suffered migraines from the constant straining.
And there was no break, no stopping to rest, because whether or not you were there to turn the pages, turn they did, and too bad if you missed a few because they couldn’t be turned the other way again. Then you were floundering in the newly confusing plot, transported from the familiar to the completely unknown in a single second.
People talked about the book all the time. In fact, it’s all they ever talked about. Even when they didn’t think they were talking about it, they were. All their talk was of high hopes for the ending, and fear about what the next chapter might hold. Sometimes they wrote stories about the story, and songs and made pictures, grasping for creative synonyms and metaphors. Some were vague, and some were obvious, but really they were all the same: just so many records of people doing everything they could to understand. To simplify.
But no matter how they tried, no one could really understand. They finished and closed it with a million unanswered questions.
Once upon a time there was a story, and it didn’t really have any resolution or anything. It just began, existed, and ended.
Tell me, what do you think the title was?
.
I'd tell them, you know, if they wanted to know. I'd tell them all sorts of things.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
"The Mushroom Life": A Brief Fictional Narrative Pondering the Benefits of Parallels with the Lives of Fungi.
The morning is naked and shivers with the cold of itself, in the same way it makes her to shiver as she dresses and forgets which colors match. Blue isn’t like black or white, she thought. It isn’t a color that they say matches everything. But then they say that everything goes with blue jeans… Then she remembers it doesn’t matter—I have no one to impress, she thinks—and dons camouflage lounge pants under the tie-dye shirt she is already wearing.
There are so many messages on her machine; so many calls to return and just the thought makes her tired. So many messages; so many questions! But then, she calls too, when she has questions.
I am not a fair person, she thinks; not very symbiotic. No, more parasitic, maybe; always taking more than giving.
She feels somber now, thinking of how she might use people. Somber and slightly ashamed and resentful. And since she never returns the calls, the only figure to bear the simmer of these feelings is the one in the mirror.
She looks at her reflection and the stretch marks there on her hips, and the scars. There is the navel piercing that at certain angles creates the illusion of allure, but her figure is average: relatively slender, but needs work. She doesn’t want to work on it.
That is why she pierced her navel. Her therapist told her, “Do something nice for the part of you that you hate the most, to make it feel pretty.” So she had a needle stabbed through it and there was blood and blood and, oh my, more blood than she thought there would be, but she didn’t mind. She didn’t mind bleeding and now she has her piercing. And it does make her feel pretty. It must, she supposes, because when she takes it out and looks at her stomach in the mirror without the jewel dangling in her navel, it seems to her that she is ugly.
Yesterday she dyed her hair red, but it reminds her too much of habits she is trying—I really am trying, she promises herself—to break. So maybe Wednesday it will be blond again, then Thursday purple. But no, today is Thursday, isn’t it? She doesn’t know. And now she has forgotten why she came into the kitchen, the dirty kitchen with the cracked linoleum, and wouldn’t you know every piece of wood that makes the cupboards is fake?
She peeks in the doorway and thinks it seems darker beyond, though she’d flipped the light switch. Breakfast—yes, that’s what she came for. Her hand brushes over her stomach, a bit flatter with emptiness. Well, I might as well not. No, she likes it like this, and she isn’t really hungry anyway. At least she doesn’t want to be. What a paradox. She walks on to the coffee pot. She doesn’t really need breakfast.
She doesn’t feel like she needs anything anymore. Needs food, needs conversation, needs new things or even some of the old ones. Of course, she didn’t realize that until she noticed that lately she hasn’t had any of those very often and she is still alive, still waking up every morning. And I only miss them a little bit. She thinks. Maybe the days are emptier, but empty is so much simpler. Empty is clean.
Sleep. She thinks, recounting in her mind a list of her minimalist survival, I still need sleep. She seems to sleep an awful lot these days…and now it is noon. Have two hours passed so quickly? She is still standing by the coffee, staring into the neon numbers as if hypnotized.
The mail has arrived. She always checks it—she likes opening the box, which was once empty, to find it full. Even if it is only full of empty things, like magazines she doesn’t remember subscribing to and coupons she will never redeem.
The garden is full, though. Not full of things she put there; she killed nearly everything she planted. It’s full of mushrooms again, She observes. She stops to look at them; crouches down in the half-rotted mulch. She studies the round, creamy caps and gracefully curved stem. She picks one, and her eyes slide in and out of the feather-like grooves underneath. She puts out her hand to pick the rest—such accidents don’t belong in a flower garden—but pauses for stops herself. Accidents. She realizes.They aren’t cared for, pruned or watered. They weren’t specially planted in tilled, nourished soil. They just grew; they are just growing. What do they need but a surface to stand on? What helps them live except to be left alone? They will grow in her pitiful excuse for a garden when nothing else will. How convenient that must be. She pulls back her hand. It’s when they’re neglected that they thrive.
And so she envies the mushrooms, until she realizes how much she has in common with them. What a thing to compare and contrast; the way I live as mushrooms do—needing nothing, and having nothing—with how I lived before—needing so much and having only half. She sits, resting her chin on one hand—her head feels so heavy these days—and twirling her plucked fungus in the fingers of the other. I guess I’d say this is better in the end. She pops the cap from the stem with her thumb; crushes its foamy flesh between her fingers. Yes, I think it's better; this, The Mushroom Life.
There are so many messages on her machine; so many calls to return and just the thought makes her tired. So many messages; so many questions! But then, she calls too, when she has questions.
I am not a fair person, she thinks; not very symbiotic. No, more parasitic, maybe; always taking more than giving.
She feels somber now, thinking of how she might use people. Somber and slightly ashamed and resentful. And since she never returns the calls, the only figure to bear the simmer of these feelings is the one in the mirror.
She looks at her reflection and the stretch marks there on her hips, and the scars. There is the navel piercing that at certain angles creates the illusion of allure, but her figure is average: relatively slender, but needs work. She doesn’t want to work on it.
That is why she pierced her navel. Her therapist told her, “Do something nice for the part of you that you hate the most, to make it feel pretty.” So she had a needle stabbed through it and there was blood and blood and, oh my, more blood than she thought there would be, but she didn’t mind. She didn’t mind bleeding and now she has her piercing. And it does make her feel pretty. It must, she supposes, because when she takes it out and looks at her stomach in the mirror without the jewel dangling in her navel, it seems to her that she is ugly.
Yesterday she dyed her hair red, but it reminds her too much of habits she is trying—I really am trying, she promises herself—to break. So maybe Wednesday it will be blond again, then Thursday purple. But no, today is Thursday, isn’t it? She doesn’t know. And now she has forgotten why she came into the kitchen, the dirty kitchen with the cracked linoleum, and wouldn’t you know every piece of wood that makes the cupboards is fake?
She peeks in the doorway and thinks it seems darker beyond, though she’d flipped the light switch. Breakfast—yes, that’s what she came for. Her hand brushes over her stomach, a bit flatter with emptiness. Well, I might as well not. No, she likes it like this, and she isn’t really hungry anyway. At least she doesn’t want to be. What a paradox. She walks on to the coffee pot. She doesn’t really need breakfast.
She doesn’t feel like she needs anything anymore. Needs food, needs conversation, needs new things or even some of the old ones. Of course, she didn’t realize that until she noticed that lately she hasn’t had any of those very often and she is still alive, still waking up every morning. And I only miss them a little bit. She thinks. Maybe the days are emptier, but empty is so much simpler. Empty is clean.
Sleep. She thinks, recounting in her mind a list of her minimalist survival, I still need sleep. She seems to sleep an awful lot these days…and now it is noon. Have two hours passed so quickly? She is still standing by the coffee, staring into the neon numbers as if hypnotized.
The mail has arrived. She always checks it—she likes opening the box, which was once empty, to find it full. Even if it is only full of empty things, like magazines she doesn’t remember subscribing to and coupons she will never redeem.
The garden is full, though. Not full of things she put there; she killed nearly everything she planted. It’s full of mushrooms again, She observes. She stops to look at them; crouches down in the half-rotted mulch. She studies the round, creamy caps and gracefully curved stem. She picks one, and her eyes slide in and out of the feather-like grooves underneath. She puts out her hand to pick the rest—such accidents don’t belong in a flower garden—but pauses for stops herself. Accidents. She realizes.They aren’t cared for, pruned or watered. They weren’t specially planted in tilled, nourished soil. They just grew; they are just growing. What do they need but a surface to stand on? What helps them live except to be left alone? They will grow in her pitiful excuse for a garden when nothing else will. How convenient that must be. She pulls back her hand. It’s when they’re neglected that they thrive.
And so she envies the mushrooms, until she realizes how much she has in common with them. What a thing to compare and contrast; the way I live as mushrooms do—needing nothing, and having nothing—with how I lived before—needing so much and having only half. She sits, resting her chin on one hand—her head feels so heavy these days—and twirling her plucked fungus in the fingers of the other. I guess I’d say this is better in the end. She pops the cap from the stem with her thumb; crushes its foamy flesh between her fingers. Yes, I think it's better; this, The Mushroom Life.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Note to Self/Etcetera, Whatever.
Note to Self
Look at what you’ve done;
Just watch our hands shake—
I think you revel in the way
This weakness shames me.
Our clumsy feet trip because
You shuffle like a corpse;
Dead weight, nothing more.
You hold hostage
My thoughts from our tongue;
You just love to taunt me,
Don’t you?
Everything I try to do,
You drag me down;
Why won’t you cooperate?
You parasite—
You crippled foreigner—
I can hear you laughing.
I hate the way
You tell me “sit” and “stay”,
Knowing I have no choice
But to consent,
And be disgusted
By my own submission.
I wish I could punish you—
Oh, to exact revenge—
But, as everything I do
To you I also do to me,
I’m expected to treat you well;
Because apparently I am God’s,
And not my own.
I guess He likes to collect
Broken things.
Sometimes I wonder why no one really seems to get that this is still hard to deal with; that it is constantly simmering and occasionally has to boil over.
Then I realize that they don’t understand because I never tell them. Because when I boil over, I do it alone. When the excess is all burned away, I clean up and go back out into the world, leaving behind no evidence but some vague stains of cynicism.
So here’s some evidence. Here in the city there’s not enough space around me to hold everything that spills, but the internet is awfully big so I guess it’s as good as anything to catch the overflow. I guess that's kind of what a blog's for, anyway.
Now I’m going to go put my big-girl panties on and deal with it, cause we’ve all got problems and I do have many blessings etcetera, whatever. Toodles.
Look at what you’ve done;
Just watch our hands shake—
I think you revel in the way
This weakness shames me.
Our clumsy feet trip because
You shuffle like a corpse;
Dead weight, nothing more.
You hold hostage
My thoughts from our tongue;
You just love to taunt me,
Don’t you?
Everything I try to do,
You drag me down;
Why won’t you cooperate?
You parasite—
You crippled foreigner—
I can hear you laughing.
I hate the way
You tell me “sit” and “stay”,
Knowing I have no choice
But to consent,
And be disgusted
By my own submission.
I wish I could punish you—
Oh, to exact revenge—
But, as everything I do
To you I also do to me,
I’m expected to treat you well;
Because apparently I am God’s,
And not my own.
I guess He likes to collect
Broken things.
Sometimes I wonder why no one really seems to get that this is still hard to deal with; that it is constantly simmering and occasionally has to boil over.
Then I realize that they don’t understand because I never tell them. Because when I boil over, I do it alone. When the excess is all burned away, I clean up and go back out into the world, leaving behind no evidence but some vague stains of cynicism.
So here’s some evidence. Here in the city there’s not enough space around me to hold everything that spills, but the internet is awfully big so I guess it’s as good as anything to catch the overflow. I guess that's kind of what a blog's for, anyway.
Now I’m going to go put my big-girl panties on and deal with it, cause we’ve all got problems and I do have many blessings etcetera, whatever. Toodles.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
"How to Break a Heart in 160 Characters": A Brief, Fictional Narrative.
I am shrinking, I think, or growing without the room to grow, like a reptile in a terrarium far too small.
There are people all around, everywhere everywhere all the time and they are talking—always talking. The words take up so much room in the air; the voices clog it and I can’t breathe anymore. I tried to add my part. I tried to think of it as music. But it isn’t. There was no harmony; I didn’t know how to make my words fit together with everyone else’s.
It feels strange, not speaking. It’s been nearly four weeks now since I’ve said a word, and the scabs are slowly turning into scars. Maybe I will say something when the red is all gone. Maybe then I’ll speak. Can words be blades? Each one opening a fresh new gash as they fall from my mouth, bleeding me dry? Maybe then I will speak.
I can’t quiet all the other voices, but I can quiet my own. Hush, hush; I croon to myself in my mind. Shh, it doesn’t matter. It reduces some of the oppressive noise, and I guess that’s something.
It’s hardest in the office of my therapist. It is so quiet there, as she waits for me to speak, but for a full hour I can’t even fill the void with my usual lies. I think my silence might hold more truth in it than words ever did.
I write, when I need to. Pass a note, send a text. The scratch of pen on paper, the click of keys beneath my fingers—they are not nearly as abrasive as the sound of my own words retching so clumsily from my throat.
And I don’t come down from my room; not anymore.
Once upon a time, I liked to be outside. Once upon a time, I liked people. A person. Once, we walked the back streets of down town and he kissed me under the bridge on 2nd Avenue, my back against the graffiti on the wall as his echoing whispers made me realize how profound such profanity can be.
Once upon a time I sang songs, and somehow every one of them molded themselves to his form in my mind. I don’t know if I remember them now, the molded songs; I haven’t sung any of them in so long.
I only know one for sure; the one my phone sings when he texts me. It’s playing now.
I miss you. He says. I miss him, too. But all I say is, I’m sorry.
I love you. He replies. I love him, too, but again I say, I’m sorry.
Am I ever going to see you? He asks. I begin picking at the scabs on my leg.
Not for a while, probably. I respond. I don’t want him to see me like this. And I don’t plan to be anything else any time soon.
You have to let me see you. I can help. I can at least be there for you. You don’t have to talk; just sit with me?
He’s trying, he really is. I know he is. I wish he wouldn’t. I wish he wouldn’t force me to break his heart. He knows better; he knows I’m a hopeless case.
I want to tell him, Don’t you see I’ll leave you bleeding? Get so close our wounds touch and start to grow together, heal to each other. The scab will form hard, and then we’d better tear apart quick or scar tissue will grow and then cutting that bond—and it will be cut—will prove far too painful. Recovery time too long, risk of infection too great. And the scar it would leave...one so thick that years from now it’d still ache when the weather’s right. I know that. Known it all along, every time. Knew I wouldn’t stay close enough to conjoin. I’m nothing like you think I am; nowhere, nowhere nowhere even close. Don’t you see I’ll leave you bleeding? Bleeding out.
But I want to say as little as possible; keep the text to one page in length. How do you break a heart—sever forever all arteries that pulse hope—in one-hundred and sixty characters? I’ll try.
I’m sorry; wish I could. I type and letters flicker onto the screen. But even if I did do everything you want I could never make you happy. I would drag you down. I can’t do that. I am so sorry. Goodbye.
I rise from my place on the floor, leaving my phone behind. It is so cold in me, and my rumpled bed looks like it might provide at least some false sense of solace. It is hard to breathe with the covers pulled down tight over my head, but I stay there anyway.
His song plays—muffled tones rising up from the floor, pushing their treble-tendrils between the bed sheets to wrap around my eardrums; poking at the wrinkles in my brain to set loose any memories caught there. I let it play; let it poke and prod. I won’t read the words that prompted the music. I don’t want to know. I won’t go downstairs in the morning for breakfast; I won’t let my mother drag me to therapy.
Because I have nothing left to say, not to anyone. Except God. Maybe I'll talk to Him.
There are people all around, everywhere everywhere all the time and they are talking—always talking. The words take up so much room in the air; the voices clog it and I can’t breathe anymore. I tried to add my part. I tried to think of it as music. But it isn’t. There was no harmony; I didn’t know how to make my words fit together with everyone else’s.
It feels strange, not speaking. It’s been nearly four weeks now since I’ve said a word, and the scabs are slowly turning into scars. Maybe I will say something when the red is all gone. Maybe then I’ll speak. Can words be blades? Each one opening a fresh new gash as they fall from my mouth, bleeding me dry? Maybe then I will speak.
I can’t quiet all the other voices, but I can quiet my own. Hush, hush; I croon to myself in my mind. Shh, it doesn’t matter. It reduces some of the oppressive noise, and I guess that’s something.
It’s hardest in the office of my therapist. It is so quiet there, as she waits for me to speak, but for a full hour I can’t even fill the void with my usual lies. I think my silence might hold more truth in it than words ever did.
I write, when I need to. Pass a note, send a text. The scratch of pen on paper, the click of keys beneath my fingers—they are not nearly as abrasive as the sound of my own words retching so clumsily from my throat.
And I don’t come down from my room; not anymore.
Once upon a time, I liked to be outside. Once upon a time, I liked people. A person. Once, we walked the back streets of down town and he kissed me under the bridge on 2nd Avenue, my back against the graffiti on the wall as his echoing whispers made me realize how profound such profanity can be.
Once upon a time I sang songs, and somehow every one of them molded themselves to his form in my mind. I don’t know if I remember them now, the molded songs; I haven’t sung any of them in so long.
I only know one for sure; the one my phone sings when he texts me. It’s playing now.
I miss you. He says. I miss him, too. But all I say is, I’m sorry.
I love you. He replies. I love him, too, but again I say, I’m sorry.
Am I ever going to see you? He asks. I begin picking at the scabs on my leg.
Not for a while, probably. I respond. I don’t want him to see me like this. And I don’t plan to be anything else any time soon.
You have to let me see you. I can help. I can at least be there for you. You don’t have to talk; just sit with me?
He’s trying, he really is. I know he is. I wish he wouldn’t. I wish he wouldn’t force me to break his heart. He knows better; he knows I’m a hopeless case.
I want to tell him, Don’t you see I’ll leave you bleeding? Get so close our wounds touch and start to grow together, heal to each other. The scab will form hard, and then we’d better tear apart quick or scar tissue will grow and then cutting that bond—and it will be cut—will prove far too painful. Recovery time too long, risk of infection too great. And the scar it would leave...one so thick that years from now it’d still ache when the weather’s right. I know that. Known it all along, every time. Knew I wouldn’t stay close enough to conjoin. I’m nothing like you think I am; nowhere, nowhere nowhere even close. Don’t you see I’ll leave you bleeding? Bleeding out.
But I want to say as little as possible; keep the text to one page in length. How do you break a heart—sever forever all arteries that pulse hope—in one-hundred and sixty characters? I’ll try.
I’m sorry; wish I could. I type and letters flicker onto the screen. But even if I did do everything you want I could never make you happy. I would drag you down. I can’t do that. I am so sorry. Goodbye.
I rise from my place on the floor, leaving my phone behind. It is so cold in me, and my rumpled bed looks like it might provide at least some false sense of solace. It is hard to breathe with the covers pulled down tight over my head, but I stay there anyway.
His song plays—muffled tones rising up from the floor, pushing their treble-tendrils between the bed sheets to wrap around my eardrums; poking at the wrinkles in my brain to set loose any memories caught there. I let it play; let it poke and prod. I won’t read the words that prompted the music. I don’t want to know. I won’t go downstairs in the morning for breakfast; I won’t let my mother drag me to therapy.
Because I have nothing left to say, not to anyone. Except God. Maybe I'll talk to Him.
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