Write a 1-page story emulating Torres’ style (diction, prosody, sentence structure, tone, themes, voice, point-of-view, etc.); let the experience of Torres’ story prompt a story from your life, but since you are reading fiction (not nonfiction), take freedoms with fictionalizing the personal. I am especially looking to see how your critical investment in the novella is conveyed through your creative piece.
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I sat grim, flicking my gaze back and forth from their faces to the TV. Collin was mesmerized. Lindsay seemed bored and couldn’t stop shifting around on the couch well big enough for the three of us but somehow not. It sucked us towards the middle as a tired knot of limbs. I’d seen the movie before, knew it would be sad. The girl on screen was so fragile, light enough to ride the wind. Tuberculosis was ruining her. She told her father she was going for a walk, wobbled to the bus stop and disappeared.
“Why did she leave?” Lindsay asked.
She wants to be remembered as she was, answered a new character.
Her husband could feel her absence. He knew somehow that she was gone and turned into the distance, hardened like a soldier. My sister turned from the screen, disgusted. The credits rolled.
We sat still as statues and pretended to study the words gliding up the TV. Collin had a flight back to school at 7 the next morning; mine was at 7:10. The second one of us moved the day would end, so we stayed until the screen faded to black. With a bone-skinny arm around each of us, Lindsay pulled us closer, tighter, until finally my brother’s eyes met mine and he stretched into a stiffness that slid him off the couch. “Great movie, great movie.”
I stood up and rubbed my eyes, wandering from lamp to lamp until I had switched them all off and now it was dark and really over. Lindsay had crawled into bed, and we could see her tiny face peeping out from under her comforter, bed still neat like she wasn’t even lying in it. “Come say goodbye,” she pleaded.
“One sec,” I said, packing. She stared at us from down the hall, watched us fling clothes and books and everything else from the week into our bags. I zipped mine up, sealed it shut, and heard her sniff and start to cry. She was an ugly crier. I almost felt like she was over-doing it, wailing like she was, but Collin and I rushed to pounce onto her bed and wrap her up, hold her until she stopped. He must’ve had the same disbelief as I did because Collin looked over at me after one of her louder screams and started laughing, and then quick as lightning I was laughing too.
“NoooopleaseIdon’twant you to gooooooo,” she belted between sniffles. We stayed like that, “just a little longer,” she said, then woke up still wrapped around her the next morning.
After everything happened in the backcountry, I did everything I thought I was supposed to do. I called my parents and told them what happend. What he said and did first in the crisp high rocky mountains. Then in the tall grass of Colorado. Then in the deep blood red canyons of Utah. We had lived in that group in the backcountry for so long, we had no idea how actions related back to the real world. We are so isolated, and the second that bubble pops, everything changes.
I called my parents and told them what happened. I was in the grocery store parking lot with the heat reflecting off the pavement. The people in Moab, all there in their climbing gear or hiking clothes, took a double take when they caught a line of what I was saying.
My parents said “this is not normal” and I felt my heart racing faster and faster. I knew it wasn’t normal. I knew it wasn’t supposed to happen. That these feelings of fear and isolation and misplacement had no right to be here.
But there they were loud and clear.
I sat on the wooden bleachers filled with bright mums and pumpkins ready for fall sharing my story. I shared my story up the ladder until I was at the very top. At the top, people are supposed to listen. Those are the people in authority, and they have the privilege of being on defense. I didnt think about how much is taken when you are on offense. If I tell people “I need help”, I expect people to do what they are supposed to do, and help you.
But people don’t always do what they are supposed to do.
Sometimes, they say you don’t understand. Like the guy at the very top of the ladder did. I sat in that grocery store parking lot holding hands with the girl in the vest, and he said I was wrong. He used his most lawyer-esc voice and told me “I think you have misunderstood the situation”. I walked around in the shirt I had been wearing for a week with my dirty hiking boots feeling lost. Those words rang through my head.
How could I not understand my own truth?
We woke up to the sound of water spitting and gushing and seeping through the cracks under our doors up to the sills on our windows. We were in awe and fear of something we recognized as so pure and essential. Dad opened the door to the storage room in our apartment and out flooded fourteen feet of brown murky water into our living room. Dad kept shoveling and shoveling, buckets filled with water from our kitchen floor; everything was damp and locked full with moisture. Deven was determined to find a fish. I persisted that there were no fish in the Hudson River. We went “fishing”. We sailed our boats. We swam. We made floodgates out of towels, sitting inside the “safe” zone and bordering the disaster away from us.
For the coming weeks, we got to stay at some of our friends’ houses and some hotels. Everyday after school I would feel like a new adventure in a new place that Deven and I could explore. It was a thrill we never got tired of. We wouldn’t allow ourselves to grow bored of this moving; we wouldn’t allow ourselves to complain. The more jovial we stayed, the calmer Mom and Dad were. I wondered if one day it would all end and we could just go home to our beds, to be living our old lives. I wanted to curl back in time, relinquish my anger, and reenter the being I bodied months before the hurricane.
“This is not our home,” Deven said, as we trudged through the mold and moisture in our apartment after returning months later. It was no longer a swimming pool or a fish tank. We were drowning. The sound within the house hymned as it used to; the light struck the same ceiling panels. Yet, nothing was the same. Mom scraped her fingers across the walls, loosening the mold and revealing the melted wood. Dad wouldn’t couldn’t speak and instead gathered his ties and computer cables in his briefcase. “Can you tell me a story,” whispered Deven. I cradled his hand, leading him inside the towel fort we created. We both knew we harnessed the power to keep each other afloat.
I wore pink rubber boots my first day at my new elementary school. Boys scared me. I didn’t want to lose my heart. I wanted to flee the feeling of losing feelings–escape the competitive view of self-worth.
I remembered boys smashing rocks and wrestling and hurting each other. I would watch lost and confused why anyone would want to be hurt.
My new elementary school didn’t have many boys like that.
Later I would meet a boy like that. My mom would hang out with his parents. We did things together to not get bored.
He told stories of his friends. How they’d pee over the neighbor’s fence. We walked up the gravel road and he pointed it out.
“She hated kids,” he said, “sicked her dogs on us”.
He’d try to scare me: “she probably hears my voice right now, I don’t mind, when the dogs come I won’t need to outrun them I’ll just need to outrun you.”
I was terrified of being torn apart by savage teeth. He had longer legs and three years on me. I ran, he caught up and laughed.
Once, he won a fighting video game and cracked his knuckles in my face. I was appalled and confused.
“I don’t think that is very nice.”
“Did I say it was?” he retorted.
Curious, I laced my fingers together and thrust my palms upward towards his mocking grin producing a feeble, barely audible pop. His grin widened into a hateful grimace.
“Let’s go for a ride,” he cooed menacingly. He dragged me outside away from our parents view. The snow shone under the moon with chunks of gray gravel poking up through the matted tire tracks in the drive.
“Tap three times when you want it to stop.” he said, wrapping his arm around my neck. I was mad, I wanted him to get in trouble, wanted him to hurt me so bad that he would. Told myself not to tap. His bicep flexed into my neck and my world erupted into pain. He pulled me off my feet and across the rocky snow by my neck, my head supporting my weight. My vision swam as the pain increased to an unbearable level and I tapped his arm without response. I tapped again and again unable to breathe. I had violated his self worth, challenged his masculinity, committed the ultimate injustice of disrespect.
Hours later as I sat there massaging my neck his father was still yelling. Screaming at him, in his face, all of the punishments he would endure. He was confused.
“That friend group, they put this into me, this is how we always did it” he argued, exhausted, wanting the tirade done with.
A boy’s father hits him, showing him how to hit. His friends kick him until he learns to kick back. These days he sleeps with office supplies having found his subjects. Rising in his exclusive, male-centered, hierarchy. Upholding the rigid standards that grade his humanity.
When we were sisters, when we were all three together, we were fairies. I, the oldest, was a mermaid fairy princess; Bella, the middle child (oh how she despised being the middle child), was half olympic gymnast half fairy; Fifi, the youngest, was fairy one minute then bumblebee the next and then velociraptor the next next. Adorning our hair with napkins and flower pins, we put bandaids on our knees and sunscreen on our noses before journeying to the land of the fairies. Our wings took us only as high as we could jump on the trampoline, our castle was the trampoline, and the dungeons lurked below the trampoline. Our stuffed animals, all of which I still have (because Toy Story 3 traumatized me), were audience to our epic battles, handsome lovers, garden parties, and sisterly squabbles.
When we were sisters, we were heroes and villains. For Bella’s sixth birthday she got her dream job, she was spiderman! Decked out in red, she climbed into a tree twenty feet high only to find out she was not in fact spiderman and the fire department had to be called. Fifi bit people. She bit one of our neighbors once. She was 10 and much too old for biting, but she was a Tasmanian devil and therefore, it was in her nature. Not to worry, I wrapped a silk scarf around our neighbor’s bite mark and told him to ice it- I was good at healing things.
We were healers; we rescued bees from the pool, a vole from a dog’s mouth, and worms from rain-drenched concrete. We were storytellers; we each tried to convince the others of some ridiculous falsehood until soon, we began believing said falsehoods ourselves. We were each other’s protectors; when the tree branch shadows looked a little bit too much like a witch’s finger, we hid beneath blankets together. We were each other’s antagonists; always trying to outdo one another in the jump scare category until one day, Fifi was so consumed by fear that she ran into a glass door whilst in the midst of escaping the people-eating lizard ghosts hiding behind the juniper trees. We were speakers of ‘Cairo;’ Cairo (which at the time we did not know was an Egyptian city) was gibberish but we all pretended to know exactly what the other person was saying.
When we were sisters, when we were all three together, we were each other’s comfort. So when our baby cousin died hours after her birth, only sister hugs could chase away the fear, confusion, and loss we all felt. When our parents argued with each other, only sister glances reminded us that we weren’t completely alone. When we experienced heartbreak, only sisters could turn tears into laughter. When we felt alone, only sisterhood reminded us that we were not.
I pushed down on the car door lock, two of us were already in the car.
“Other side!” I yelled. He pulls on the door handle to no avail and then pulls more forcefully for good measure.
“Unlock the door right now!” Our mother in the front seat snaps.
“It’s not my turn to sit in the middle.”
“Other side!” I repeat through the glass. Peter has no choice but to run around the back of the car to the other door, as if it too is not already locked. Andrew, his twin, looks at him smugly through the window. Peter abuses the door handle. The scowl on mom’s face intensifies. Even when her fave is fully relaxed you can still see the two lines between her eyebrows drawn in thin pencil. She backs up the car.
“You almost ran over my foot!” Peter shrieks. He comes to Andrew’s side again. I smirk because there is no other option but to unlock the door. The air is so humid with our mom’s anger that he would not dare to stand his ground.
“Andrew is the smallest so he should sit in the middle.” Peter proclaims as he jumps into the car. He makes sure to subtly hurt Andrew as much as possible as he clamors about.
“OWWW!!”
“DID YOU SEE THAT MOM?!” Andrew always told and told the loudest. We would make fun of him and hit it for it when he had no one to cry to. Peter spreads out his legs as wide as possible. He attacks Andrew for his size and prods him in the side with bony fingers. Peter was much taller and very skinny although he is actually 15 minutes younger. People often assume they are years apart.
“HEY!”
“HEY!!!” Andrew slaps Peter’s leg, “You are over the line!” he hits his leg again. Peter is not good at controlling his anger, it’s a family trait.
“What the fu-” Peter doesn’t want his mouth to be washed out with soap again this week. His voice is strained through his angry gritted teeth. In a flash he elbows Andrew square in the chest. Hard. Mom is silently fuming in the front. We have only been driving for a minute. She reaches down and cranks the volume up until we can feel and not just it in our ears. She does not want to hear us. Andrews eyes water as he gasps for breath.
“Mo-om!” he chokes, “Help me.”
Everything goes quiet. The painfully loud music does not stop but somehow it too is quiet. There will be no swerving off the road this time. No roadside beatings or bloody napkins. Our mother once said that all she wanted for Christmas was for us to get along. Being the biggest and 3 years older than my brothers she expected the most out of me.
I was only sometimes included in their fights because they knew my strength advantage. The two of them were not even match for me. I was also the most ruthless. My fighting style consisted of hitting once and hitting hard. For this, I would always get in trouble first when we fought.
“I am making them tough.” I would argue back never apologizing or admitting guilt. The scars on our bodies and stubborn personalities show that it worked. Us three tough. What’s more is that our bond is even tougher. We say I love you with a fist to the chest or an arm constricting the neck. No one could ever come between us three. (P.S. I am still the strongest)
My brother and I grew up different. Flipping, treading, and diving, I could spend hours in the water. Dad called me little fish. My brother almost never spent time in the water. The rare times Dad swam with my brother on his back, it was like they were trying to traverse a vault of peanut butter. Most of the time my brother was held in the arms of Dad, head always above the surface.
My brother wanted more. We both knew that. He wanted to gracefully dart between the legs of the uncles chasing after torpedos, like my cousins and I. He wanted to experience the embrace of silken water that had so many times caressed my skin and parted for me like melted butter. He wanted to dive to the bottom of the pool and trace his initials just as I had, and hunt for coins in the pool, the night of the 4th of July, instead of throwing them in with the adults. He wanted to ride the foam boards in the tumultuous waters of Lake Michigan, without being dependent on Dad’s arms to catch him when he inevitably fell. He wanted to instead be caught by the waves and spun in a series of somersaults, before the depths relinquished their grip and vaulted him out into air.
Dad never let him have any of that. Too afraid of my brother drowning, he never let him try to swim.
But then there was that day in Vail. I was 10. He was 8. Dad said just to go the pool. Not to swim until he got there as my brother was going. When we got to the pool I took my brother into my arms and headed for the deep end. Deep enough that his head was under but not deep enough for me to be unable to save him.
He thought it was a game until his head started to go under. Started thrashing and clawing desperately. Arms tightened painfully around me and I let myself get pushed under so he could stay afloat. But then he relinquished himself to the depths like I had so many times. And started to swim.
We broke the surface for air a couple moments later but immediately submerged ourselves again; in an attempt to drown out Dad’s angry screaming of why he was swimming without Dad there.
The trim on Dad’s shop hadn’t been painted in 50 years, but it didn’t matter because he only cared about what was inside of it. One day he told me to follow him inside because he wanted to show me something. He flicked on the light switch, and the fluorescent bulbs that hung overhead sputtered and began to light up the room. His work flannel was rolled up to his elbows, and I could see the grease and sawdust from the day’s work he had just got back from covering his forearm. He pointed to the center of the room, where a row of 2x4s were lined up on the old table saw.
“These are the first boards for that treehouse you and your brother always wanted. I finally decided that you boys ought to have someplace to hang about instead of bothering me and your mother inside all the time with your incessant whining.”
I could tell that he’d been waiting to share this news for a while, what after waiting for the lumber yard to restock the sizes he needed so he could get this project off the ground. Doing things like this–spending time toiling in the shop for hours on end–was how he showed his affection for us, but I could also tell that his ulterior motive was what he said just then. He used to always enjoy spending hour romping around the house, but as he gained put decades the stress of working in the factory on his back and in his joints, I guess it was time for him to utter his last hurrah and finish one last project in the way most familiar to him. I could tell by the way he motioned to the stacks of lumber that his heart was sad it might be the last project, but his body was telling him that the time had come to nearly to an end.
When I was young, I would follow him around the shop holding a wrench in between my small hands, ready to hand it to him whenever the moment called for it. Looking back, he must have been humoring me during those hours, because watching him now made it clear that he knows exactly what he’s doing with all the tools in his bench.
I stand back, watching him eye the sawzaw and kicking the sawdust that had already gathered on the ground.
There was almost nothing I could do. Like tidal waves, helplessness brushes upon me, crashes into me. No, there WAS nothing I could do. “Fuck this.” Looking out to the crescent moon, I feel like a puppet.
Jon was oblivious as always, he was just having fun, on his terms at least. I could tell him, but why bother. No need to distract one who is already distracted. He was too intoxicated to converse with, afterall.
Everything eventually becomes the past, and that leaves me wondering what truly is life. Present is but a mere moment between the anticipation of the future and reminiscence of the past. Everything I feel eventually fades, the good, the bad, the ugly. Perhaps it is a blessing in disguise.
For now, though, I am stuck with the feeling of powerlessness. Everything I feel seems to be orchestrated by others, leaving me tangled, intertwined in strings pulling upon my joints, dictating my every move, every thought. When did I become so predictable? I stopped shuffling my feet to the beat moments ago, and there I stood, and let the light dance within my eyes.
The vibration of soundwaves penetrated my thoughts, and I am snapped back into this iridescent, manufactured, substance filled reality that everyone enjoyed being a part of. Fire began eating through my heart, fierce, wild, and it was devouring every part of me. Was my anger aimed towards the world or myself? I could not tell. All I know is, I could not lie anymore.
The merciless wind carrying flakes of snow, beating on my face. I stepped carefully, away from the noise, away from lies, into the quiet.
In the beginning, there was just me. The world was colorless. In the backyard after dark, the dim shine of the moon and soft hum of the crickets were my only company. The sun would beat down on just me and the waves would crash and I would drown alone.
Then the next came along. Shorter, curlier hair, and chubbier cheeks, everything was a competition. Everything was a war. The speed at which we ate our bowls of Spongebob mac n’ cheese, the size of our sand castles, how many coloring pages we could finish. All of it was a battle. All of it could either be won or lost, nothing was ever neutral.
But then a third came along. Third? First? I guess it depends on how you look at it. We didn’t see them coming. They were unexpected. But more importantly, they were unpredictable. They didn’t play by the rules. At least they didn’t play by our rules. That was when the first war stopped. That was really all just a game. We were really just bored. That was when we became “we” for the first time.
We spent our days studying them. It? Them? Him? Baby? We weren’t quite sure that summer what to call them. We studied them, hidden behind couch cushions or through the gaps between railing bars on the stairs. But that summer we couldn’t read them, that summer we knew nothing, that summer they were a mystery.
The next summer there were more. And the one after that even more. They kept growing, multiplying, bringing back seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths. Suddenly there were twelve bowls of Spongebob mac n’ cheese instead of two. Suddenly we weren’t sure who to wage our war against. But the first one to come after us seemed to be their ring leader. He was in fact a he, and he was the one to take the first shot.
We didn’t see it coming. It was another day spent just like the last. There was a big gap between our towels and theirs, per usual, and minimal interaction. We played in the waves by ourselves, jumping and splashing and yelling at our Mama to come play sea monster with us. We then decided to build a castle. A great, big, epic, wonderful castle made of pure sand. The entire afternoon was devoted to just that. The sand accumulated under our nails as we dug and sweat dripped down our rosy cheeks as the sun beat down on our backs. Once our sandcastle was taller than Ariel’s castle in the Little Mermaid, it was declared complete. A victory swim was in order. But when we plunged into the water and turned around to yell at our Mama to come play sea monster again, our castle was gone. We looked left, we looked right, we even looked up. It was nowhere to be seen.
We broke into a sprint, splashing water everywhere as our chicken legs kicked their way back to shore. Our hearts pounded as we gasped for air. Then, out of the corner of our eyes, we saw him with them. Standing where our castle was. He stood on a pile of sand, our pile of sand, and had a huge grin plastered across his face. We cracked our knuckles, and tied our hair back. And that was how the new war began.
One March, the world stopped spinning. For everyone else, it was because of a disease that had wrecked the world in physical and emotional ways. We were all staying inside and could not connect with anyone that we didn’t live with. But for me, it was not the global pandemic that wrecked my world. It was the death of my grandmother.
We all knew that it was coming, it was inevitable. She had had cancer for over a year and there was nothing anyone could do. I was so helpless. Like a small child with no voice or say in anything of importance. We all became children during that time. We were reduced to the bare minimum of communication, our emotions bursting out uncontrollably, and unable to control our lives.
I, in particular, became closed off, not speaking to anyone, even my boyfriend at the time. I knew that my grandmother’s death was coming, I could not stop it, and yet it still took me by surprise. I stayed in my room even more quarantined than I was required to be because I could not muster the effort of interacting with people, even my own family going through the same experience.
Many of my relationships died in those next couple of months. I broke up with my long-term boyfriend, talking to my friends became so taxing until I gave up entirely, and all I did was lie in my bed contemplating how my life went so wrong so quickly and how it was all my fault.
I was dying too. Slowly wilting away like a flower that has not been watered in far too long. Slowly losing petal after petal until there is just the shriveled stem of what used to be is left.
“Hey, do you girls need a ride?”
I turn to my left and come face to face with a pair of sunglasses and a bright white smile. A man with leathery, snake-like skin that reflected the countless hours he has probably spent in the sun was staring directly at my friend and me. His hair was slicked back into a man bun with not a single strand of hair out of place. He seemed a little too put together. His smile, a little too fake. I glance into the interior of his truck and see piles of sand and trash littering the floor. I see my friend Jillian making the same judgements as well.
I let out a quick, “No, we are fine, we can walk!” Though, as I say it, I feel a drop of sweat roll down my spine. The Puerto Rican sun was unforgiving, not to mention the steep, daunting hills that we had been climbing for the past hour contributed to this heat.
The man blurts out, “No, it’s fine! I literally own four businesses in this town.” Is this a challenge? A challenge to see how dumb we are? I watch this man’s defensive expression turn into satisfaction, like a snake playing with its food, as he watches us consider his offer. I, for one, am not about to get into that truck.
Jillian quick turns her head in my direction and gives me a questioning look and before I can respond, says, “Sure.”
I feel my eyes widen in surprise because that was not the answer that I was expecting her to say. Jillian motions to me with her head to get into the car. I feel a wave of anger wash through me as she didn’t even wait for my opinion. But that was how it always was with Jillian. Never has she once considered an opinion that wasn’t her own.
We throw our surf boards in the back and climb into the back seats. Travis, the man who offered us a ride presses hard on the gas and speeds up the hill. He begins to talk to us about his life and Puerto Rico, while at the same time, glancing in the rear-view mirror to make eye contact with us. I begin to stress as I notice he spends more time looking in the mirror than the actual narrow and curvy roads in front of him.
“As I was saying, there are too many goddamn rich gringos in this town.” Though, he is white himself. “I met one the other day who was from New York and lives here six months of the year. You know why he lives here for six months?” We don’t respond. “Because he now doesn’t have to pay any of his fucking taxes! That rich mother fucker taking money from native Puerto Ricans!!”
I already know all of this. After all, I am a native Puerto Rican. Jillian and I were neighbors and attended the same high school in Santurce. Both of our parents work in the tourist industry and own a crumbling tourist shop in Old San Juan. This business has caused so much stress for my parents that I promised myself that I would never be a part of it when I am older. In fact, Jillian convinced me to drop out of high school before our senior year because as she says it, “There is no point.” You can receive the highest amount of education in Puerto Rico and still not be able to find a job. The past couple of months since then has been us bouncing around the island, doing odd jobs like cleaning hotels, walking dogs, and watering plants. These jobs do not pay a lot, and we are constantly scrambling to find money for food. We sleep in hammocks on the beach and each night I fall asleep with one eye open, watching for sex traffickers. But this is all I know. Jillian is my only friend, the only person I trust.
Finally, after about fifteen minutes, Travis pulls into the parking lot for Domes Beach. Jillian and I hop out and grab our boards before Travis can say anything more. We run to the beach and immediately attach our surfboard leashes around our ankles. We wade in and begin paddling towards the surging waves where the crashes echo across the beach like a lion’s roar. Immediately, I spot a large wave begin to crest and I begin to paddle extremely fast and push up to stand. I ride the wave for a minute, before it becomes too big and crests over the top of me. I roll upside-down, becoming disoriented to the point where I do not know which way is up or down. I feel my ankle get pulled harshly in the direction I think is up as my board floats back to the surface.
We continue to surf for the next couple of hours until my eyes burn from the salt and my back is burnt to a crisp. As we climb out of the ocean, Jillian pulls my arm. “Look,” she points. I follow her finger to two beach chairs with a small table set in the middle. On the table was two piña coladas and a half eaten bag of chips. “I’m hungry, let’s grab it,” she says licking her cracked lips. I am not too keen on the idea of stealing food from people that were clearly still eating it, but I couldn’t deny the fact that my stomach is rumbling at just the sight of the chips.
We grab the bag and drinks and Jillian walks back up the beach to find a spot to sit. As I am reaching down for my board, I feel a hand close around my upper arm.
“What do you think you are doing? Those are not yours.”
I turn around quickly and see two young women staring at me with their arms crossed.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize,” I blurt, trying to play the dumb card.
“Give those back and leave,” the woman angrily says.
I quite literally run away. Not only was I feeling the sunburn on my back, but I felt the burn of embarrassment. I can’t even afford to buy my own bag of chips. With my cheeks still red, I find Jillian sitting on a fence near the parking lot of the beach, licking the rim of the empty piña colada cup. As I watch her lick the rim, I feel a sense of loss and identity. I do not want to live the rest of my life sleeping on the beach and stealing food to eat. But as I watch Jillian, I realize that she is familiar, she is family. This life, this is what I know.
Pirates
Grammy, my grandmother, was dying. I knew she didn’t have much time left, so when dad told us she was getting taken off life support it was no shock. On that day we gathered at my Aunt’s and Uncle’s house with every cousin and family member in attendance. Among the adults the mood was bleak, but we were young, too young to think about death. Instead of reminiscing about Grammy’s unrelenting kindness and infamous wit we imagined. We imagined we were pirates. In this act we ran, we fell, we bled, and we bruised, but neither me nor my brothers nor my cousins minded because in our imagined world we were invincible.
Eventually, the time came to go to the hospital to say goodbye. Aunt Amanda came to us with a choice. Go with the adults to see our thin, pale, and, unresponsive Grammy one final time, or send her our love and goodbyes from home. It was an easy decision. In our imagined world, we were stoic, we had control, and death only lasted a matter of seconds. In the hospital none of these things were true. We were young, so we stayed.
As my parents, aunts, uncles, and grandpa departed in Dad’s green Toyota we too departed on our imagined ship into our imagined world. We fought with branches and whipped my little brother for his mutiny. He didn’t care because he was a pirate, and pirates neither felt pain nor fear. That afternoon bathed in sweat and covered in dirt we were no longer young. We were infused with the excitement of our grown-up battles, filled with spirit and passion and life. It was that afternoon that Grammy died.
It was the tenth day that my mind nearly strangled my will.
ok, day ten… so that meant eighteen days left. well, nineteen if you count the last morning. but does that really count? i mean, you’ll have to hike eight miles. so i guess it does. but you’ll shower and be done that day too, so maybe not. no, ya, no, let’s say eighteen days. so, in only four days, you’ll be halfway done: closer to the end than the beginning. ya, in four days, you can’t go back. you definitely can’t then. so, four days and you are basically done.
I hadn’t seen the sun since California. I missed California. All that is crisp and fresh and clean, all that is easy. I wanted to wake to stripes of sun decorating my floor, sneaking through the cracks, from outside in. I wanted to turn away and sink back into dark warm sleep, or at least trick the sun into thinking such. It was our little game but the sun always won. Eventually, they teased me out of bed, those thin stripes of sun, and as I raised the blind, they melted into a flood. I welcomed the sun. I loved the sun. I lived for, and in, and as the sun.
In Alaska, there was no sun. There was light–summer days didn’t know life without light–but light and sun are not the same. It was day ten and I hadn’t felt the sun on or in me. I woke to gray light, I slept to gray light, I hiked to gray light, I ate to gray light. It was blurry, this gray light, and I forgot life without it.
When the sun kissed my cheek on day eighteen, I felt a love I had never known. Imagine a world this stripped and pure and free–where you desire nothing more and can be satisfied by nothing else. To be anonymous among the rivers, the mountains and the trees: with time left behind and every step through the brush lulling me deeper into myself. My hair was greasy and matted, my skin pale and flaking. I wasn’t fat, but dense. Dense. And unkempt. I felt ugly. I was ugly. But the uglier I got, the happier I felt. I let myself fold so far into me until I flipped inside out.
It was not easy. Thirty days of gray light and granite. But this life, it opened me, ripped me open… until I found peace in the rawness of nothing and it became my everything. I surrendered to the woods and the light, I let myself feel small…so problemless, so happy, so ugly.
To miss the sun you must know life without it.