A Night to Remember
“….I honestly don’t know how he could do that to her. God, that’s so awful, right?” She looked at me expectantly.
“Huh? Yeah of course,” I mumbled, coming out of my reverie. Katie had been chatting endlessly about a guy who cheated on her sister or her cousin or something. I had lost track a while ago, and found myself staring out the window of the coffee shop onto the street.
There was a pigeon, sitting quietly on a stop sign, ignoring the bustle of Saturday morning traffic in London. I marveled at its ability to let the world go by, unaffected by the man in the ridiculous Jeep, or the baby in the stroller I heard crying faintly through the glass.
I had a sudden urge to just get up, to stop this charade of listening. I wondered why I agreed to meet her here in the first place. It was clear to me that our relationship wasn’t going anywhere. If only she could catch on too.
I checked my phone, made a face, and started standing up.
“Oh shit, I’m so sorry I have to go, I was supposed to meet somebody 15 minutes ago.”
She looked up at me, startled by my sudden movements after I’d been frozen like a statue for so long.
“Oh. Okay, I guess,” she stuttered, her expression falling to pieces. “See you later?” she said, grasping at my hand, her eyes pleading.
“Yeah sure, whatever.” I practically ran out the place.
The fall air was brisk and the wind blew through my hoodie, but it felt amazing. She saw me through the window with a suspiciously relieved expression on my face. Oh well. I didn’t really care too much about what she thought of me anyway. In the grand scheme of things, what do I matter in her life? What does she matter in mine?
I really didn’t have anywhere to be, but I was just glad to be away from Katie and her drama (which wasn’t even hers!), so my step was light and swift carrying me to whatever stole my fancy. As I was walking, my thoughts drifted to the women I met in the past few months, and all the little relationships that popped up and disappeared again, like the pimples on a teenager’s face. I guess that’s too negative an analogy, seeing as how they were all pleasant and innocent, until for some reason or another it ended, sometimes just as quickly as it started. I remember there was one woman though, Natasha. She really had an effect on me.
Some friends set us up and we got dinner in this quiet Italian place tucked in an old forgotten part of the city. She was tall, probably around 5’8”, with long slightly wavy black hair outlining her cute face. When we met in the restaurant, she had bright red lipstick on which popped against the black of her hair and the short, black dress she wore. But her eyes were most striking of all, they were dark brown, like mine, and twinkled with intelligence.
We spoke of small things first. I learned she was an actress who had performed in most of the major theatres in London, and she was looking to try Paris. I asked her why, and she replied they have better bread. I chuckled at that, ungracefully choking on my wine. She asked me why I dropped out of medical school to play music at a bar three nights a week, I said I just had a feeling.
“A feeling?” she asked, arching an eyebrow inquisitively.
“A feeling that if I stayed there any longer I would have to throw myself into the Thames,” I clarified.
“Ah,” she said and nodded somberly, looking down at her plate. I worried I had been a little too dramatic. I cleared my throat.
“I just wanted a little change of pace, that’s all. In medical school I felt like I wasn’t having the impact I wanted to, and school came at the cost of what’s best in my life.”
“And what’s that?” she piped, perking up a bit.
“You know the usual. Writing songs, learning about the world, going out… Meeting dark mysterious women in Italian restaurants for a bite of food.”
Okay that was dramatic. But she laughed, raising her hand to cover her mouth full of spaghetti.
We finished our bottle of wine, the conversation like a song finding its melody, her voice intertwining and harmonizing with mine. It was effortless. Our wits danced back and forth across our little table against the wall, flickering to and fro like the candle that burned between our plates. She had a humor as dark as mine, and her jokes were twice as good. The little barbs she threw me would be enough to ensnare me in her verbal traps, but I could finagle my way out quickly before I was truly caught (though I got the sense that she sometimes let me gather my wits instead of tearing me apart). What can I say, her lips were so perfect, the red wine wetting them and whetting my growing lust for them. Also, she had a way of leaning forward and ever so subtly offering a view of what she hid under her dress. It was woefully distracting. I’m also sure it was a calculated move to get the upper hand in our back and forths. Realizing this, I was truly in awe. She really did have me ensnared, whether I knew it or not then.
We left around 11pm, the last customers there for a long time before a frustrated waiter politely asked us to leave after offering us the check probably three times. Shortly after leaving the restaurant, we found a small street fair and tried to take a picture together in front of a cute, antique booth. Just as we took our picture, a group of kids swarmed us, sweeping us into their squabble. They were the remnants of a church choir that had performed here earlier in the evening, now bickering about who had the best voice. Natasha commanded their attention instantly. She decisively chose the winner, leaving me (and the children) impressed and delighted by her performance of the somber judge.
We walked through the old city for hours, strolling through quiet courtyards and secluded gardens, talking softly of our past lives and making small jokes with each other. We stole a few prime apples from somebody’s garden and snacked on them while meandering around. I couldn’t help but marvel at how easy it was for me to be around her. We were walking slowly along a long brick wall covered in ivy when she turned and asked me:
“What do you think makes a person good?”
I paused, thinking, looking at her.
“If their thoughts match their actions.”
“Hmm, that’s interesting…” Another pause. “Do you think you’re a good person?”
“No.” I said, honestly.
“Good. I don’t think I’m a good person either,” she said with quiet relief.
“What?” I asked her in surprise. “You seem like an amazing person to me. You are one of the few people I’ve understood myself with in a long while.”
“Yeah, well…” She shrugged and looked down at her feet. She looked back up at me, into my eyes. “Why don’t you think you’re a good person?”
“I don’t know…” I looked around, working out how to word my answer. “Because I’m selfish. It takes a lot for me to care about a person. Too much, I think. And I wish it was easier. But it isn’t. Then again I think to myself, what right do I have to judge? Why am I so special?”
Her eyebrows rose ever so slightly. “Ok… But everybody’s selfish! We all think we’re the stars of our own movies… or in my case, musicals.”
I gave her a wry chuckle. “But if everyone’s selfish, does that make us all any better?”
“I’m not sure…” She looked off into the distance, working her jaw in a way that led my eyes to follow her jawline to her ear, which was small and beautiful.
I gathered myself. “Well why don’t you think you’re a good person?”
She turned back to face me, her sly smile slowly spreading back onto her face.
“Why should I tell you?” Her grin widened. “You’re a “bad person” after all!”
I laughed. “Why indeed?”
She giggled. “Here, how about this. It’s late, and my story would take us into the morning.”
“I’ve got time,” I interjected. She laughed, shaking her head, and placed her hands on my chest.
“How about we meet up tomorrow night around 10 at the Palace gardens? It’s one of my favorite spots in the city. If you bring a nice bottle of wine, maybe I’ll tell you my answer.”
I laughed aloud, wrapping my arms around her waist. “Small price to pay.”
“Oh yeah?” She challenged teasingly, leaning in closer, her eyes catching my lips.
“Yep. Very small.” I said softly, stifling my smile, bowing my head down to hers.
She fought to bring her expression under control before she raised her lips to mine. She smelled like lavender and tasted sweet, like the apples we had been eating earlier. I absentmindedly noticed the echoes of the wine we had so long ago, and decided I really liked that vintage.
When we pulled away, I held her in a close embrace. We both relaxed for the span of a few moments, just breathing, enjoying the feeling of being held. Eventually, we parted until we were just holding hands. She looked up at me, a shy smile peeking out of her face. I kissed the tip of her nose.
“See you tomorrow?” she asked. I nodded. “See you tomorrow.”
She hugged me tightly one more time then turned and walked away. I watched the sleeping city swallow her under the yellow street lamps.
I found myself sitting alone on a stone bench in front of a fountain, staring at the picture of us at the street fair. The picture was blurry, Natasha had turned to look at the oncoming swarm of kids, laughing. Her hair swept across half her face, hiding it from view. But I was still looking at the camera, happy.
The memory of that night with Natasha still puts butterflies in my stomach, but its sweetness has dulled with the bitterness of its aftertaste. She didn’t come to the Palace gardens that next night, and I never saw her again. I don’t know why. Maybe she got caught up with something else and didn’t bother to show up. Maybe she didn’t care. Maybe she really did think I was a bad person. Maybe she’s in France. Ever since that night I wonder what her answer was, why she never came.
I got up, bundled myself in my hoodie, and started walking.
January 28, 1986
The door to the office is open, so Andy must have woken up before me. I can hear the wheezing of ancient processors in dad’s work computer. I can hear Andy trying to control his excited breaths. The muffled clicks. The rehearsed sequence of taps, as Andy moves his tiny finger from one key to the next. A moment of silence.
“So the twenty fifth space shuttle mission is now on the way, after more delays than NASA cares to count. This morning it looked as though they were not going to be able to get off.”
The familiar voice of CNN correspondent Tom Mintier, distorted by cheap speakers, fills the room. I step into the office, careful to avoid the piles of old National Geographic magazines that dad keeps stacked in the corner. The sun hasn’t come up yet. Pale blue light from the monitor is obscured by Andy’s head. He’s small enough to sit cross-legged on the swivel chair, tight-whiteys and a Superman pajama shirt.
“Looks like a couple of the, uh, solid rocket boosters, uh. Blew away from the side of the shuttle in an explosion.” An explosion caught on film sounds like rain.
Page Break
“Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction.”
Pieces of debris fall from the cloud of smoke. Andy’s face is inches from the screen, enamored by a massive white jellyfish with lazy tendrils that extend to the earth. I can hear the muffled concerns of men in ties. The swelling hum of feedback. I can hear Andy’s breath catch, as he tries not to vomit. I wrap my arms around him from behind the chair.
“It’s not your fault,” I whisper. “It’s not your fault.”
Of course it’s not Andy’s fault. He wasn’t even born when the Challenger exploded, a fact pointed out by every incredulous teacher when they call the house. “We’d love to set up a lunch with Ms. Donofrio, at the main office, to discuss some of Andy’s behavior. May I speak to your father? Is Mr. Cohen home?”
But they always miss Mr. Cohen. He just went out on an errand, and will call them back as soon as he gets the chance, and would they like to leave a message? And soon the calls stop, because Andy behaves well when he hasn’t seen the footage in a while, and there’s only so many resources at Cohagen Central School District to go around.
Then the house is quiet. For now, it’s just me and him, and mom’s old dog Baltimore. And Baltimore smells like she might die any day now.
The three meanest girls in the 3rd grade made one collective mass of vocabulary, a negative space of lyrical cruelty. They could look at something as small as a poppy seed and draw out all of its bitterness, as though a seed of that stature has any hand in the elements of its flavor profile. And Martha, the smallest girl in the 3rd grade, had barely any bitterness, but just enough for the three girls to want to dig at the sweet and slow ways about her.
Despite the terrible three made one, Martha was still able to find solace in the trees. That was, until, the Terrible Three sniffed her out during their periodic breaktimes. Talking about disaster, catastrophe, and brutality (but never redemption) really was exhausting. Scheduled breaks were a necessity.
Martha’s favorite spot of solitude was along the tree line of the playground. During recess Martha would take her brown bag of cheese and crackers, sometimes with a salted hard-boiled egg, and wander into the little nooks and crannies that looked the most comfortable and welcoming. Her Mama always complained about the state of her dresses at the end of the school day, “Now, I could see the need for a little bit of dirt but you come home looking like a muddy art project.” Her Mama always said funny things like that, it always made Martha and her Papa laugh.
Today, Martha revisited a tree stump with a fantastic view of the playground. She always considered her potentials stumps from an advertising perspective. “What would this one’s billboard look like,” she wondered. Sometimes, she imagined a jingle to go with the stumpy real estate. This one’s billboard was colorful and fantastical with bright green paint and a welcome mat at the base of its stump. Martha was enamored.
Luckily, she saw the Terrible Three round the playground just in time for her to eat up the last bit of cheese left in her bag. She didn’t want to share today.
“Well, what are you doing?” asked the tallest one (although not much taller than the other two, just by an inch but she always slouched a bit to hide her Imperial impediment.)
“I’ve been praying,” Martha turned up her chill towards their shadow. Her hair looked dark without the bits of mid-day light peeking out through the trees. It hung around the slight slopes of her cheekbones, the wandering strands getting caught between her freckled lips as she spoke.
“Kind of strange that you’re doing that out here,” the rather portly one sneered. Martha’s ears perked, “strange” sounded like a swear across her tongue. She wondered how she learned to say a word so cruelly without a hiccup or a start. Papa always said that the tone of a word could draw out a lot of hurt. It took longer to heal it up, like a bee sting, it could prick and swell depending on the person. That one of the three didn’t seem to know, but Martha wouldn’t tell her. She brought up Papa before and the sneers got louder. Those things she remembered; the things that hurt bigger than herself.
“Well, I was just thinking. My Mama tells me that I don’t need a Jesus to pray as long as I am thinking good thoughts.” Martha ventured. There was dirt in her fingernails, her dress was soiled and damp.
The last one, the one with the nicest face and the widest eyes looked down at Martha, “Well my Mama says that your Mama has never known Jesus, so how could she know?’
Martha considered. She thought of Ms. Link and history. She knew that Jesus was a talker, enough so that his words had to get written down. That’s what happened with all of the names that she read about in Ms. Link’s office and Mama’s library. “It’s one big story,” Mama would say. “It’s about hope, Baby. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of hope.”
Martha saw the Terrible Three and their linear behavior stretched out before her. She thought of them all as grown up girls with painted nails and lipstick. She saw the tallest one with curlers in her hair and the kind-looking one in a pressed, white apron. She thought about them lined up along a church pew, waiting, like their Mamas on a Sunday.
Before the Terrible Three made their way into the tree line, Martha really had been thinking about the day as it rose, her mother making coffee in the morning and the smell of her father’s cologne along the staircase. If history books were teaching her anything they were telling her that the details would disappear. She knew, somehow, that her Mama and her Papa would be forgotten when they went away. She had never considered it before. She always thought that Mama’s hands would always be remembered as smooth, sure, and cool–the perfect melody for making pastries on Sundays. Ms. Link told her that her mind was stretching too far, that it had to breath a bit before she let history take over and find the workings of her heart. Although Martha agreed, she was still trying to understand. How could history find her heart?
Martha wondered if the Three had ever thought about the growth of the trees, if their roots were their bones because they were all buried up in the ground. Martha always saw them coiled up in a tangled mass by, around, under her feet. She knew not to wander about someone’s bones. It was disrespectful, cruel even. But, sometimes she couldn’t help it. The trees and the stumps knew more history than she did. Maybe if she just sat a little bit longer in their solitude, she could soak it all up and share it all with Ms. Link and her Mama.
“My Mama knows a lot of people in a lot of places. She doesn’t need to know Jesus to know where he was and where he’s gonna go.” Martha ventured.
The three faces turned down into a frown and the portly one, the one who was the best at her times tables and raising her hand in class, stuttered, “Well your Mama just knows women, or whatever. My Mama says she knows Ms. Link real well, that your Papa is gonna leave any day now.”
Martha felt a prick in her eye, she didn’t understand. Where would her Papa go? She got up from her stump and ran past the Terrible Three, going straight for the bright red of her favorite teacher’s hair. Ms. Link was looking out at the playground, watching the slide for any hiccups or mishaps. Martha caught her by the hand and pulled her down in a rush. There was a breeze with a chill, bringing a shiver in through Martha’s soiled dress. Her knuckles were white from her grasp on her teacher’s hand.
“Is my Papa gonna leave?” she chattered, “The girls said that Papa is gonna leave and I don’t know where he is gonna go. Mama makes him lunch every day. If he leaves then he won’t have his lunch and–”
Ms. Link shushed her and sunk further down to her eye level. “What is all this Martha? Your Papa isn’t going anywhere.” Her voice had its usual musical lilt to it. Martha always wondered if she was going to break out into song during class. When she and Mama cooked dinner together she always had a new song to sing. Mama’s laughter would bubble up inside of her like a kettle holding up a boil. Martha wait from her seat at the table. Mama’s laughter made everything warmer, the air sweeter.
“Well their Mamas said so.”
Ms. Link sighed and rose up from her crouch. “Those girls and their Mamas are just stirring things up. Let’s go and get you cleaned up. You have a scratch on your knee, we can get a Band-Aid from the office.”
Martha followed Ms. Link away from the playground. When she looked back to the tree line, she saw the Terrible Three and their sure eyes looking out at their progression. Martha tried to tell them apart from so far but she couldn’t break them up. Even the tallest one looked small enough to fit snug within their staring line. Ms. Link tugged at Martha’s hand, turning her away from the tree line. Ms. Link’s face was all caught up in the sunlight as they walked away, making a show of the laughing lines on her cheeks and around her eyes as she led Martha away from the sun and the trees. Martha thought again about the details of the day, how they last. She remembered Mama’s hands when she and Ms. Link last cooked together, reaching. She wondered if Mama ever thought about bones in the soil, if that’s what made her walk so carefully among the trees.
One in the Same
A man sits on an uneven lawn chair. Three plastic legs are intact, but the fourth leg is made of stacked bricks, gathered from the neighboring, decaying buildings. The lawn chair was white for a time but now the brown soot attaches itself to the man’s battered blue jeans as he slowly sinks further into the chair. The sun melts him into the chair.
The chair gets direct sunlight only in the morning. It is positioned in an alleyway, facing southeast. The man’s scratched sunglasses reflect the direct sun into the eyes of morning commuters passing by, blinding each for a moment. One teenager cranes his neck to find the source, stares too long, and slams the breaks to avoid a pedestrian. The man on the chair chuckles.
He won’t stop humming. Sometimes, when the song reaches the chorus, he slips into singing, his breathy voice barely making it out of the alleyway and into the street. But it makes it, and those walking by quicken their pace and lengthen their stride to escape the view of the alleyway, letting the man know they can hear his crooning. So, he sings a bit louder, for them.
His neighbors take issue with his singing. The couple in the second-floor apartment to his left rely on it for a conversation topic at suppers to break their silence. David will place a meatloaf on the collapsing table with the stained tablecloth and say, “Did you hear Harold today? Wouldn’t shut-up when I was trying to nap”, and Rosie will respond, “Yes. I couldn’t nap either”, and David will say, “He was singing Nina Simone, something about Mississippi”, and Rosie will say, “I love Nina Simone”, and the meatloaf won’t be cooked all the way through.
David and Rosie’s daughter, 16-year-old Samantha, frequently insists that Harold’s name is Sam. Her parents had lazily told her to avoid the singing man, don’t pay attention to him. He’s what happens when you mess up. So, Samantha watched him silently and hidden for nine years from behind the blinds of her bedroom window, learning the man’s habits and letting him become a strange marker of her childhood. But at 9 years old, when her childhood curiosity overwhelmed her and her tendency for rebellion surged, she opened her alley side bedroom window to hear to the man’s singing clearly. He heard the slow grumble as she lifted the heavy window and paused. She had never heard him stop singing before. He lifted his sunglasses, the sun glared off the lenses and into her eyes as he did, and he squinted to see into her shaded window. He smiled, his cheeks inflating, his eyes crescents amongst a face of scars and stray gray hairs, and he whispered up to her, “What’s your name?”, as if knowing she was not supposed to be answering this question. His eyes jumped back and forth from her to the entrance of the alleyway.
“Samantha.”
“Well Samantha, wouldn’t you know it, my name is Sam. Looks like we’re one in the same.”
And with that Samantha shoved her window closed and returned to comfort of watching Sam through its protective glass, her curiosity and rebellion dissipating with each hesitant glance to the alleyway.
…
Today, as in all days, Sam spends all day in the chair. The morning wakes him with the trash collectors dragging his delicate chair away from the trash needed collecting. He sits still, pretending to be sound asleep, and lets the sweaty, red-faced boys restack his bricks into the fourth leg of his throne. They finish, and Sam spends some time humming and gazing out of his alleyway, watching women with woven beach bags and large brimmed hats and men with balding heads and neon, whale embroidered swim trunks walk towards the sea. He sings with his chest when he sees a pair of flip-flops, wanting the beach goers to enjoy his rendition of “Born in the U.S.A”. He watches construction trucks and beat-up minivans flock inland, and he blinds drivers with the glare of his sunglasses. Around noon, his stomach rumbles, and he scurries inside his basement level apartment to make himself a plate of cheese and crackers. But his rare exit from his chair is done in Sam’s special way. He stands and shuffles to his left towards his door, never peeling his eyes from the alleyway opening. He keeps humming. He makes it to the building door and disappears from Samantha’s view.
On Saturday’s, Samantha must cross in front of Sam’s alleyway to get to her shift at the deli two blocks down. She waits for Sam to leave the chair and close the door behind him, and she bolts down the stairs and into the street and begins approaching his alleyway. She’s forgotten her uniform hat. She’s lost a precious minute and when she returns to hot pavement, Sam’s breathy voice drifts from the alleyway and seeps into her skin.
She walks fast and serious across the alleyway. Sam is singing Marvin Gaye. She walks past and nothing happens, but Sam’s voice seems to bounce off the walls of the deli as she works, “don’t punish me with brutality”, and she walks the long way home, behind her building and out of view of the alleyway, and walks sluggishly up the stairs and into a kitchen, and atop the collapsing table is a clean tablecloth and a underdone meatloaf.
…
Samantha stops waiting for Sam to get his cheese and crackers. She walks to the deli past the alley, headphones on, and walks from the deli past the alley, headphones on. But Sam’s sunglasses still glint in the corner of her eye.
…
Sam hasn’t been sleeping lately. For maybe a week straight, he’s been humming throughout the night, unnoticed. But tonight, his voice slips through the cracks of Samantha’s window, making the air of her dark room heavy. Suffocating. She’s getting hotter by the moment, an irritating rage she can’t itch. Sam hears the opening of her window, this time it’s a demanding, shrill screech, forcing him to stop singing. He can’t see the through the window, a streetlight sits just beyond the corner of the building, and its harsh light is blinding Sam.
“Shut up. My god, just shut up.”
“But they’ll come for me. They only like my voice. They don’t like me.”
“You’re a fucking nut.”
Samantha slams the window shut and Sam feels the rumble through the brick leg of his chair. He makes no noise and stays staring at the entrance of the alleyway, both usually steady legs shaking, the knife in his right pocket hitting his thigh rhythmically.
…
The trash collectors come the next morning and clear the dumpster. The alleyway is empty when they arrive, and they’re finished quickly, with the plastic chair already out of the way, in the corner. One boy finds sunglasses nested carefully upon the chair, ignoring the dried blood droplets surrounding the chair and leading out of the alleyway, and grins as he faces his coworker, his prize sitting carefully on his nose.
…
Samantha walks past the alleyway, headphones on, stride steady and serious. She pauses as soon as she is hidden by the building and slowly pulls her headphones down around her neck. No glint, no voice. She backs up against the brick building and looks into the reflection of her phone to see the alleyway and an empty white chair. She runs to the chair and looks past smeared blood to see a note, scratched into the grimy plastic arm.
“It’s all yours now, Samantha. You’ll realize. One day they’ll come for you and you’ll want this chair.”
Twelve Mechanical Pencils
Jillian’s fourteen years of life have been extremely disciplined. Her routine for the last three of those years has been formulaic. She wakes up at 6:50 am to her cocker spaniel, Bailey, jumping on her bed. Jillian spent two months in the fifth-grade training her to do so. After a few seconds of kisses and cuddles and wiping the crust from her eyes, Jillian walks to her bathroom, where she brushes her teeth with her electric toothbrush (one of her most beloved possessions), scrubs her face, moisturizes with her face cream (SPF 30, which she deems a must for all seasons), and finishes with a serum on top. She sprays her wrists and the nape of her neck with a perfume she stole from her mother, who has more perfumes than she could ever need. A boy at school once told Jillian she smelled like a baby’s diaper, but she shrugged and reminded herself that he simply didn’t yet understand the elegance of her fragrant accessory, continuing to spritz herself each morning. Jillian then returns to her bedroom to get dressed. She would describe her style as “practical” yet “timeless”, consisting of many neutral sweaters and polka dotted blouses. Jillian grabs her backpack, making sure to double check it contains all items needed for the day, such as homework, calculator, and at least 12 full mechanical pencils. She then skips downstairs, gets a hug from her mom, and heads for the bus stop.
Once Jillian is at school, she is an attentive, eager, and a perfectionist. She is five minutes early to each class, giving her time to take out two mechanical pencils, open her notebook to a fresh page, and reapply her Chapstick. Jillian’s grades are her absolute top priority. Specifically, she wants to be the valedictorian at her eighth-grade graduation. She has wanted it since she was in first grade when she found out what a valedictorian was. Even as a seven-year-old, Jillian wanted nothing more than to be widely recognized for her hard work and intelligence. Jillian’s classmates don’t exactly understand or appreciate her dedication to her education. They don’t seem to want to be her friend or even acquaintance, that is until it’s time to pick partners for a homework assignment. Jillian tells herself she doesn’t care what they think. She likes that they know she is smart and find it intimidating. Still, sometimes it would be nice if she had someone to tell her secrets to or to borrow nail polish from or to listen to music with. Those thoughts are drowned out by concern with studying, classes, and homework. Jillian doesn’t pencil in any time for self-doubt or social anxiety into her monotonous days. Her routine keeps her grounded, and most important of all, focused on her success.
For the first time in three years, today was different. Jillian went to the copy room to print her book report and tastefully eavesdropped on Mrs. Spangler, the lady at the front desk, who was talking to Livia, her old lab partner.
“Congrats!” Mrs. Spangler whispered, “Valedictorian! That’s an incredible honor, Ms. Livia”.
“Oh my gosh, thank you! Yeah, I just found out this morning. I’m pretty stoked”.
Jillian’s heart dropped and dove straight into the deepest pit of her stomach. Her vision turned hazy and her knees locked. Their voices became white noise in the background of her inner monologue of self-pity and sadness. Without moving her eyes from the floor, Jillian grabbed her report, turned it in to Mr. East, and walked home.
Her eyes still glued to the cement in front of her, Jillian’s mind ran through all she had sacrificed for her rigorous and now seemingly pointless lifestyle. All the birthday parties she had missed and stopped being invited to. The meals she spent in an empty classroom doing work. Each tear she had cried over each point she had ever been marked off. Jillian rubbed her damp hands on her knitted tights as she became warmer with every image coming to mind. She turned onto her street and ran up to her bedroom, where she threw her body onto her bed and began to weep. Bailey was quick to report for duty, jumping on the bed and licking her salty cheeks. Jillian recoiled from Bailey’s hot breath and hid under her covers. She sniffled and swallowed her tears, knowing there is a more productive solution to her woes than crying. If Jillian knew one thing, it was how to be productive. She sat up in her bed and decided that she can turn this around. In the midst of her spiraling dizzy of thoughts, she realized that she has not had nearly enough fun. While she was going to bed early and spending hours on Quizlet, her classmates were having slumber parties and lunch dates and their first kisses. Tonight, it would all change.
After making herself tea, Jillian patted and fluffed four pillows into a throne and grabbed her laptop. She sipped her earl grey and scrolled through Netflix. She hadn’t ever “binge-watched” anything before, but she knew it’s what her classmates did for fun. She had no one her age to text and ask what to watch so she asked her mother. Downton Abbey would have to suffice. Jillian furrowed her brow in pursuit of thinking of a way to make her night more exciting. She looked at the clock. It was 4:30. For years Jillian had given herself a strict bedtime of 9:45. She even followed it on the weekends, so as not to fuss with her internal clock. She decided tonight she would stay up until midnight for the first time in her life. Jillian smiled to herself, satisfied with her plan for an outrageous evening. She began her streaming and wiggled her toes with anticipation.
Hours passed and around 11 pm, Jillian’s eyes began to flutter closed. She closed her laptop, her body stiff from melting into her bed, and turned on her side, her pillow throne deflated into a pancake for her head to rest. She scrolled through social media as the brightness of her screen slowly dimmed in the dark room. With each story, post, and picture she tapped, Jillian’s heart felt little heavier. As she mindlessly hopped from app to app, her night of fun felt lonely and pointless. Her empty room seemed to enlarge as she felt smaller and more alone. She couldn’t look away from the posed shots of her classmates at their houses, at the park, at the beach. She blinked and a tear rolled across her nose onto the pillow. She checked the time. 11:42. She couldn’t find the point in spending another eighteen minutes awake and alone. With a click, the illumination of her phone went black, leaving Jillian in the darkness with only her covers to keep her company. She dozed off to comforting thoughts of biology projects and which classroom she would eat lunch in tomorrow.
“Pick up, pick up, pick up.” I’m freaking out, holy shit. I’ve spent the past two hours pacing around my room like some deranged psychopath. Or like a duck in water. Didn’t somebody smart say something about calm ducks paddling in hell? I don’t remember. Bottom line is right now I’m a deranged psychopath hell duck that’s having a meltdown and is attempting to cope by doing weird body things. By weird body things I mean doing impromptu leg stretching exercises on the floor (with pointed toes), or attempting to do the worm and failing spectacularly, or bashing my face into every pillow I can get my hand on, or contorting my body into every single shape humanly possible in every corner of my room. I’m like my friend’s pet mealworm that he had in the first grade. It was kept in a cylinder container and all it would do is run laps, round and round, that’s me. I’m a mealworm track athlete and I–
“It’s only 1 PM Neil, why the fuck are you calling me?” She sounds pissed.
“AJ!”
“I literally told you that Sundays are my sleep-in days dumbass. Do you want me to die early? Cause I will if you keep calling me this early.”
“AJ–”
“I can’t even go back to sleep because I’m so mad, are you happy now?
“Can you listen to me–”
“No, you listen to me. This lack of sleep will snowball throughout the next week and my immune system is going to fail. With the flu going around I’m actually fucked–”
“Oh my god, shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Something crazy happened.” A pause.
“Holy. Shit. You lost your virginity.”
“What? NO. What are you even–“
“Oh my god, this is not a drill. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Give me fifteen, I’m heading over right now. Actually, make that thirty I need to make myself look somewhat presentable. Okay see you soon babe.”
“AJ–” The call ends. I slink down to the floor and screech into the carpeted floor.
***
“W–wait, wait, wait, can you repeat that?” AJ is cackling, tears tickling her eyes. My face is beet red. I’m as small as an ant.
“I… I tried to do a sailor kick, slipped on a patch of ice, and woke up in Harry’s bed with an icepack on my head.” The cackle transforms into a wheeze guffaw. “AJ can you take this seriously.”
“STOP. Stop. Oh my god you’re killing me.” She’s on the floor now. “OW my abs, HELP ME.” I feel steam escape my ears.
“AJ, I’m going to kick you out if you don’t sto–“
“WAIT NO. I’m good. I am good now.” She sits up. “IN HIS BED HA.” She collapses on the floor again, finger pointed in my face. I chuck a pillow at her. “OW.”
I sigh. “Don’t be dramatic.”
“I took a fatal blow to my left boob, I–I don’t think I’m going to make it. What’s that bright light?.” AJ reaches her hand towards the ceiling, half coughing, half laughing.
“AJ can you stop? I’m freaking out right now.”
“Alright, alright. I’m sorry. You’ve gotta admit though, it’s pretty funny how you ended up in the bed of the very person you, and I quote, ‘purged your feelings for.’ And the ‘purging’ was only last week.”
“Hey, the purge was successful, okay? My feelings for him are dead.” I puff out my chest a bit.
“Yeah, uh-huh, totally. Why did you decide that you needed to annihilate your feelings for him again?”
“He’s straight, it’s a waste of time.”
“Okay… And how do you know this?”
“He has a girlfriend.”
“He could be bi.”
“You always say that.”
“Or in the closet.”
“You always say that too.”
“C’mon, you never know.”
“Whatever, it doesn’t matter. He has a girlfriend, and I am not looking to be added to her kill list.”
“Polygamy is always an option.”
“Har har, you’re so funny.”
AJ sighs. “Why do you always want to make yourself so unhappy.”
“I’m not, in fact I’m doing the exact opposite right now. I’m saving myself from a broken heart for once.”
“So you really don’t think it means anything?”
“What do you mean?”
“Use your brain dummy.” AJ sits up. “He cares about you. Way more than a normal friend would.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Fine, stay clueless. I’m getting some cereal.” AJ gets up to raid my snack drawer. Normally I would be tempted to follow, but there’s only one thing on my mind right now. Harry, Harry, Harry.
I met Harry a few months ago when I auditioned for one of the acapella groups on campus. When I first saw him I think I almost caught fire. Blue eyes. Intense, seductive, mischievous. Two drops of cerulean from the sky. Brown hair. A tangled, sexy, deliberate mess. I wanted to run my hands through it. A goofy lopsided mouth. Soft, pink lips. So much life existed in the lines that made him; precise, defined, and imperfect. I wanted to steal him in a photograph, his lines suspended. My eyes were then drawn to the two adorkable dimples stamped in his face. He’s smiling. Shit, he’s smiling at me.
I saw him everywhere after that. On top of acapella rehearsals, we had two classes together, always ate at the same dining hall, and shared a strange obsession of invading music practice rooms late at night with him on the piano and me singing. Within weeks he became my second best friend. At the time, I could tolerate being just friends. Then the ice skating day happened. To preface this, I suck at skating. Imagine a giraffe with buttered hooves on an ice rink and you have me, minus the height.
When Harry asked me to go ice skating, I was mortified, freaking ecstatic, and then mortified again. “Harry I don’t think this is good idea. The last time I skated, I was on the floor 97.8 percent of the time I was there. My butt never recovered.”
“C’mon Neil, you have me to teach you. And I’m a pretty good teacher if I do say so myself.”
“Of course you do,” I grumbled.
“It’ll be fun, trust me.”
“Noooooooooo.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Fine, you leave me no choice. Come ice skating or I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” I smirked
“Be very sad.” Then he flashed his sad emerald eyes and I was a goner.
We got to the rink and I completely wiped out within the first ten seconds. “OW.” I rubbed my poor tailbone. “I told you this was a bad idea.” Harry skated up to me laughing.
“No offense, but you looked like a dying chicken.”
“Haha. Help me up dumbass.” He pulled me up a bit too strong and I landed in his arms. Shit. We didn’t move. I felt his heart pumping against my shoulder. A millennia passed. He unfroze time first.
“Here, grab onto me and we’ll skate together.” I looped my arm around his torso. I hoped he couldn’t see how red I was. His hand found my waist and he pulled me closer. The ice started melting and my heart rate shot through the roof, past the sky, into space, and collided with a star. It was beating faster than a bee wing.
“I’m ready.” We started moving. And then we instantly fell. And of course I landed on top of him. “Fuck, sorry, sorry, are you ok?” I searched his eyes for anger and saw a flash of, affection? It disappeared almost immediately and was replaced with a look mischief. Oh no. In an instant he scooped me up and princess carried me out of the ice rink. I protested, but I didn’t resist. At that moment, I was screwed. I fell for him, hard.
Oh god, I need to restart the purge.
Harry
1 year earlier
Shit, I fucked it all up. I stare at my empty bed, groceries in hand. “Why the hell did I think it was a good idea to bring him back to my bed of all places? Like who wouldn’t be freaked out about that?” I fall on my bed face first. “Why didn’t I just take him back to his room like a normal person?” I answer my own question. “I was worried about him. I… I needed to know that he would be ok.” A pause. “He’s so clumsy, nearly sailor kicked himself into another dimension.” I’m smiling into my bedsheets and something in me clicks. “I need to find him.”
***
I bang on Neil’s door. “Neil are you here?” Five seconds later the door opens. “AJ? What are you doing here?”
“Eatin’ cereal.” She shoves handful of Cheerios in her mouth. A few fall on the floor.
“Never mind, do you know where Neil is?”
“Not sure, he left like thirty minutes ago. Said that he needs to ‘clear his head.’”
“Shit, I need to talk to him now.” AJ eyes me carefully.
“Why?”
“I uh… Well… So basically…”
“Mhm, yeah, very interesting. How long were you going to continue that for?”
“I–”
“Don’t care.” AJ turns to leave and pauses. “Try that spot. You know? His place.” The door closes.
Of course, how am I so stupid?
Neil
1 year earlier
I’m walking along the bank of my favorite river. One small step at a time, like I’m used to. Droplets from the cascading water tickle my ankles. There was a time when it wasn’t so hard to live. A time when it wasn’t so damn difficult to want to live. Back then, Mom was still alive. Back then, Dad still loved me. Back then, AJ didn’t have to be anything other my best friend. Why did everything have to become so bad? Why did I have to become so bad? My thoughts are interrupted by a familiar voice.
“NEIL!” I turn around to see Harry barreling towards me. I dodge too late and he has me locked in a tight hug.
“Harry? What are you doing here?” I laugh into his chest.
“I just thought I messed everything up when you were gone this morning and god I’m so sorry. It must have been so weird to just wake up in my bed like that.”
“Harry it isn’t your fault. I’m the one who went ballistic for no reason. You were just taking care of me and that was really sweet.”
“What do you mean you went ballistic? Are you ok?” His green eyes search mine.
“Trust me, I’m fine.” I smile.
“Okay good, but that’s not the reason I’m here. I need to tell you something?
“What?”
“This.” He grasps my face and kisses me. The sky falls down.
Neil
6 months earlier
“NEIL. Walk out that door and you are actually dead.” I take my hand off the doorknob. “Look, I know you want to see your man but AJ needs her Neil time too.” She sighs. “I feel like I haven’t talked to you at all lately.” Guilt shoots through me. I really have been neglecting her lately. I walk over to the couch and we get into the Neil-AJ sitting position. An excessive amount of blankets is required. Pillow fort is optional, though highly recommended. AJ leans her head on my shoulder. “Tell me about him.”
“I don’t think you’ll be able to tolerate the goop that is going to come out of my mouth AJ.”
“I don’t care bub, I just missed you. Say all the goop you want.” I’m hit with another pang of guilt, but I oblige her.
“Well first off, turns out he never had a girlfriend.” AJ snickers.
“Who was she?” She teases.
“His sister…” AJ snorts triumphantly. “Okay, but in my defense they don’t look alike at all, seriously.”
“I’ll take your word for it conclusion jumper.”
“Whatever.” I’m glad there isn’t any tension. “Anyway, Harry is just the sweetest, and he treats me so good. I really feel like he’s my soulmate.”
“Ugh, gross.”
“I thought you said you would tolerate the goop.”
“I take it back. Tell me the weird stuff. Rapid-fire go.”
“Ok, um, his elementary school nickname was Tubby because he used to be really fat.”
“Oh hell yeah, I’m totally using that.”
“He broke his arm once because he didn’t believe the slippery banana trope in cartoons.”
“Heh, dumbass.”
“Adult Simba was his sexual awakening.”
“That was something I did not need to know.”
“Don’t complain about getting all the juicy stuff.”
“He named his penis J–“
“Okay, okay, that’s more than enough material for blackmail in the future.” I smirk. AJ heaves a sigh of relief.
“It’s Jeb by the way.”
“Can I unsubscribe from this friendship?”
“You love me,” I tease.
“I do.” Her eyes meet mine. “I like this version of you. Not that I dislike the other versions, but this one makes my heart happy.” She rests her head in the crook of my neck
“AJ?”
“Hm?” A pause.
“I’m happy.” I can feel her smile.
Neil
1 month earlier
“That’s disgusting…filthy…it’s all your fault that she’s dead…God took her from me because you think you’re a faggot…get out of my house, you’re no son of mine.” He hits my face. “Get out.”
My eyes open, I’m in my bed. Light creeps in through the curtains, trying to dispel the dark. I lift my hand to my cheek, I’ve been crying. But why? It hadn’t happened in so long. I thought I was happy. I am aren’t I? Am I becoming bad again? I don’t want to become bad again. I want Harry to stay. I want to be the good version of me for AJ. I need to forget. I cocoon myself in the shape of Mom’s arms. I don’t feel her, I never do.
Harry
3 days earlier
Today’s a lazy day and I’m at Neil’s place. We’re on the couch, my head resting in his lap.
“I think your hair is too perfect.” Neil pouts.
“What do you mean?”
“Every time I try to mess it up it just looks cuter. It isn’t fair.” He tousles it violently.
I giggle. “Superior genes I guess.” Neil rolls his beautiful brown eyes.
We stay like this until the sun sets.
“I love you.”
Neil stays quiet.
Neil
3 days earlier
“Why aren’t you saying it back?” Harry’s emerald eyes are shattering. I tear my gaze away from him. “Neil?” His voice shatters too. I try to say something, anything, but nothing comes out. I’m a prisoner in my own silence.
Everything is muted. I watch Harry take his things and run out the door, blue jewels tumbling down his cheeks. He doesn’t look back at me. My hands start to tremble. Why couldn’t I say anything? I love him don’t I? I run into the bathroom. I look at the stranger at me, his lines are harsh. Disheveled black hair. Creased forehead. No smile lines. Flat, bulbous nose. Dark eyes. A storm is brewing in them. I try to find Mom in my face, but I can only see Dad. I’m Dad. I swing my fist at him. The mirror fractures, a piece of it falling into the sink. A river of red flows between my knuckles. I can’t love.
Harry
1 day earlier
I’m woken by an angry beeping noise. I instinctively rolls over and slap my alarm. The beeping continues. Slap. Slap. Slap. Nothing happens. I force my eyes open and glower at the clock. 10:24 AM is displayed in a disgusting neon yellow. My phone. Recently I’ve been leaving it away far from my bed so my chances of getting out of bed successfully are more probable. It hasn’t been working. I grumble and roll ungracefully out of bed, somehow landing on my feet. My hair is a mess. If I had to describe it, I would say mangled squirrel or butchered birds nest or unlikeable anime character. I run my hands through whatever is on my head and yawn-scream the demons out of my body. Scratching my back, I trudge to my phone and pick up.
“Hello?”
“Harry, is Neil with you?”
“No why?” I try not to sound bitter.
“Shit.” Something’s wrong.
“AJ what’s going on.”
“I tried to call him this morning but he wouldn’t pick up. Did you not spend the day with Neil yesterday?” My heart tightens.
“No, he told me that he was working on a group project.”
“Fuck. Harry I’m worried. The last time he disappeared like this he tried to do something stupid.” I’m on high alert now. “There’s a chance that he’s just moping in his room, but I’m scared.
“AJ we’ll find him. Let’s just try his room first, I’ll see you in fifteen.”
“Okay.”
***
I bang on Neil’s door. “Neil, are you in there?” I look at AJ. She’s staring straight ahead, brow furrowed. Ten seconds later we hear movement.
“Neil, oh my god please let us in.” AJ’s voice breaks. Silence. Then the sound of the lock. The door inches open. AJ and I heave a sigh of relief.
“What are you guys doing here?” Neil won’t meet my eyes.
AJ’s voice is like a cannon. “What are we doing here? We were fucking worried about you Neil. You didn’t answer our calls and we had no idea where you were the past two days. What’s going on?” Neil stares at the floor. “Please, look at me.” He stays quiet. “Neil, we’re going to come in and talk this out. Is that ok?” He nods.
***
The three of us are sitting on Neil’s couch. AJ’s voice cuts through the dead air.
“Neil, talk to us. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, I’m not… wrong. I’m completely fine.” Neil chuckles. “You guys just get too worried sometimes. I’ve been great, awesome even.”
“Neil, something is bothering you.”
“It’s nothing big.” I wince.
“Then tell us.” Neil stays silent. My blood begins to boil.
“It’s not important.” Neil’s voice is beginning to rise. “Stop asking.”
My voice comes out in a whisper. “I told you that I loved you, and you said nothing.” AJ’s head whips around to me. “You didn’t even try to stop me.”
“What are you talking about? Love? Neil, what the hell is going on?”
“Harry is just overreacting that I didn’t say ‘I love you’ back to him. It’s not a big deal.”
“What the fuck are you saying. Are you saying that we aren’t a big deal.” Tears cloud my eyes.
“No! It’s… I can’t… I don’t have to deal with this.” Neil stands up, his face is a shadow.
AJ gets up. “I can’t believe neither of you told me about this. Neil, sit back down. We’re figuring this out right now.”
“Don’t tell me what to do AJ.”
“Excuse me?”
“YOU AREN’T MY MOM!” AJ takes a step back. “Stop acting like you always know what’s good for me, because you don’t. Does it make you uncomfortable that I’m suddenly in charge of my life now? You’re probably just bitter that you don’t have control over me anymore.”
“Neil, you know that isn’t true–”
“AND YOU.” Neil whirls around to me. “Stop acting like you’re so righteous. You always know what’s right, don’t you? Does it feel good to look down on me again. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Neil stop, you’re hurting us.”
“Well isn’t that terrible? Am I not terrible? Isn’t it filthy that I’m hurting the only people that love me? That I want to hurt them? I’m disgusting. And you two are disgusting for wanting to love me.” Neil sinks to the ground. “You think you know me so well, but you don’t know me at all. I’m horrible. I hate the only family I have left because I’m such a gross human being. I don’t just hate him. I want to hurt him.” Neil reveals his bloodied hand. “I want him to suffer, isn’t that evil?” He looks up at us, a wild look in his eyes. AJ and I are too shocked to respond. “See? Now that you know how disgusting I am, you have nothing left to say.” He starts laughing. “I knew this would happen eventually, that I would destroy my own life. Do you know why?” His eyes dart chaotically between us. “It’s because I don’t believe in love. Isn’t that sad? I’ve become the very person that I want to hurt the most. You can’t save broken souls.” He stands up laughing, dark tears staining his face. “Get out. Get out. GET OUT.” He pushes us out and slams the door.
The world feels dead. AJ is broken. I look up and see that the sky has been stolen.
Neil
The day
I threw my heart away. I don’t need it anymore. My hand rests on the doorknob. Why am I so hesitant? I feel a light inside of me. Harry. My hand falls. I need to get rid of it.
I find a piece of paper to safeguard my last bit of hope. Word by word, the light in me slowly transfers to the page. After finishing, I seal it in an envelope and stuff it in my pocket. The light shines through my jeans, ready to die.
There’s nothing holding me back now.
***
The torrent roars in front of me. I take off my shoes and lay them by my side. I close my eyes and let go.
Harry
Two days later
“The paramedics found this letter in your pocket after you tried to kill yourself.” It was addressed to me. The paper feels fragile clutched against my chest, warped from water damage. I watch Neil’s stomach rise and fall. “I haven’t opened it yet. I can’t. You threw yourself in the water knowing this letter was in your pocket. You wanted it to die.” I open the curtains, welcoming the deep and vivid azure of the sky. So deep that if the world were upside down, you could fall through it forever. I place the sunflower I brought on the table next to him. His voice echoes in my memory, “it’s happiness in a flower.” I watch him closely as I leave the room, hoping for anything. A hand twitch, open eyes. I get nothing.
AJ is waiting her turn outside the room. Her voice comes out soft. “I think you should read it Harry. We don’t know if and when he’s going to wake up. There’s no use waiting.”
“It’s rude to eavesdrop.” She shrugs.
“There’s only so much I can block out, Tubby. Anyway, I think you’ve got some reading to do.” She punches my shoulder and walks in to talk to Neil.
***
I find a nice bench outside of the hospital to sit on and retrieve the envelope from my pocket. I slide my finger across the wrinkled top and tear it open. Though the ink is slightly smudged, it’s still intact for the most part. I take a deep breath.
To the boy who stole my heart,
Who gave you the right to wreak havoc on the peace of my melancholy life? Since you showed up, everything’s been a mess; I’ve been a mess. Every second I have to myself is another damn second to think about your handsome, stupid, and adorkable face. And your goofy dimples make it even worse. I just want to punch you with affection. And why do you have eyes that make me feel like the most important person in the world? How can you treat me like I’m your whole world?
One part of me wants to push you away, past the atmosphere and among the stars. That’s where you belong. A spot where I can admire your radiance without dulling it. I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve the delinquent happiness that you make me feel.. I’m too shattered and lost to be good for you. How could I ever return what you want to give to me?
Yet another part of me wants to give itself entirely to you, diving in headfirst without considering the consequences. I want to be with you. I want you to be mine. You give me faith that love hasn’t abandoned me. You make me want to try again.
Do you still remember that night you showed up spontaneously at my apartment and took me to see the stars? You were so cute with your little bowtie, blushing out of your mind. I knew you came because you cared; I hadn’t felt that kind of love in a long time. That night, you sang to me under the stars. Your delicate voice meshed together seamlessly with the gentle strumming of your guitar, beautified by the brilliant luminosity of the endless sky. For a second, the universe was ours. All my fears and doubts dissipated at that moment, and at the heart of it was you.
This is what you told me. “Look up, the stars are always up there shining even if we can’t see them. I’m here. I’ll always be here.”
Since then, I’ve looked up at the sky every day, unable to resist its captivating sapphire. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I choose you. For as long as our love endures, it will always be you.
Truth is, I’m terrified. I don’t know the trajectory of our lives together and I never will. Everything that happens will be unchartered territory for us, and our only choice will be to march forwards despite the odds that we may face.
Do I even understand what love is?
I don’t know. But when I look at you, I realize that it doesn’t matter. You drive me insane.
You took the stars from the night sky and lay them in my hands to keep forever. You are my light and my love. You are my beloved sky boy.
To the only one who puts my mind and heart at ease, I am forever yours.
Neil
Mary and Jack broke up in the autumn of last year under an oakwood tree in their hometown of Auckland, New Zealand. They broke up surrounded by sunny, sapphire skies in broad daylight as the birds chirped and flowers blossomed. The couple held each other in their arms, took deep breaths, looked each other directly in the eyes and had a conversation neither of them was entirely ready for. A conversation that started out slow and civilized, but soon turned loud and disruptive with both individuals crafting sentences made to hurt and nothing else. Their relationship was no longer the same – romantic dates had turned to empty, conversation deprived dinners; long, loving walks to short, tense interactions; and their love to loathing. They would continue to argue for several hours and their words only seemed to stop as the daylight began to subside and the sun began to set. It seemed this would be their last sunset together.
The two had started dating after they were introduced to one another by a mutual friend at birthday party. Mary and Jack didn’t have common interests, or even a similar outlook on most topics. He liked cats, and she was a dog-lover. His favorite food was Chinese, but she couldn’t handle spice. She was a track-star in high school, but the closest he had ever come to doing sports was playing NBA on his Xbox. Fortunately, however, they were alike enough in matters that were crucial. So, while it was certain that they would never agree on what to eat, where to go, or what movie to watch, they did agree on political matters and what it meant to be a good person. These were things that were more important to them, and so the conversation they had on the first day that they met was memorable and they both hit it off. But more importantly, this combination of a commonality in morals and a conflict in interests, was the reason that their arguments were never divisive, and they never really fought. In fact, they did the opposite. They used their dissimilarities as food for their conversation, constantly bantering with and mocking each other, making their love grow stronger and more powerful.
The biggest difference or dissimilarity, perhaps, was that Mary was extroverted, while Jack was an introvert. She was high energy, always looking to meet people, a very happy-go-lucky type of person. And while, Jack was high energy, his energies came out in a very different manner. It came out in the form of strange mannerisms within the comfort of his close friends or ecstatic screaming while being enchanted by the world of video games and TV shows. This seemed to work out perfectly when they were together because they were extremely comfortable with one another allowing their high energies to unite and lead to ridiculousness such as lengthy competitions in things ranging from cooking to racing across the corridors while doing a handstand. On many occasions, the two would pass their time by doing ludicrous acts such as enacting entire movies while watching them (with costumes and everything).
Mary and Jack had fallen in love hard, and they had fallen in love fast. Their world’s revolved around each other. They began to slack on every other aspect of their lives, but they couldn’t care less. For the first time in a long time, they were both immensely happy, the kind of happiness that is indescribable; a feel it to believe it sort of situation.
With time, however, their obsession for one another became clear even to them. They began to see the consequences it was having on their lives. Mary got fired for being consistently late for work, a result of her fooling around with Jack to the early hours of the morning. Jack, on the other hand, managed to keep his work intact due to his workaholic personality, but he lost
other, arguably more important, things. He began to lose the close friends he had cultivated through years of interaction and bonding. They missed him and he had ignored them.
The realizations set in and the couple began to fight as hard, if not harder than they had fallen in love. Rampant arguments, banging doors, crying, shrieking and other emotional reactions to the fighting were followed by periods of silence. With enough time, they’d calm down, the feelings of anger and rage that had consumed their entire being would begin to recede, and there would be a short period of happiness, peace, and conversation until there wasn’t. Then there would more banging doors, more crying, more shrieking; only louder and more painful. It was a vicious cycle, and it continued to repeat until that one day under the Oakwood tree, when the cycle finally broke.
*
Mary and Jack were to meet today at that same friend’s birthday party they had met at, four faithful years ago. The friend was a close friend and there was no avoiding the party, and even if there was, there was a part of each of them that wanted to see the other; to smell them; to hear their voice; to hug them tightly. There was no certainty that any of this would happen, but there was a chance, and that was more than any of them had had in a long time. She was tired of going to the grocery store that she knew he frequented in the hopes of seeing him, and he was tired of scrolling through Instagram minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, in the hopes of seeing her post and getting a glimpse of her life.
The party was at their friend’s house in downtown Auckland. Light green fairy lights wrapped across the letters on her door made the spot difficult to miss. The interiors had an equally funky vibe – the walls were covered with posters of album art, Broadway show flyers and souvenirs from across the world. The host of the party had always had a love for aesthetic, and so it was no surprise that even a small event was made to look so lucrative. The host had put in tons of effort to create an upbeat modern vibe. The room had a plethora of scents travelling through the air – one moment you’d smell rosy perfume and another you’d smell the fresh chicken that had just been taken off the grille. With Christmas just around the corner, it was a happy time, and this was a great place to be.
Jack sat in the corner at the house’s bar with an old buddy of his. He made himself a drink and looked around the room.
Jack knew that sweater. He knew that Mary loved that sweater. She adored that sweater. He realized he didn’t know why she loved that sweater so much. He was curious. He wanted to touch the sweater. He wanted to touch her. His thoughts continued to linger. He thought of the time they travelled to Venice and ate freshly made margarita pizza by the canals, but more than that, he thought of the smaller events – the ridiculous pillow fights, the early morning breakfasts, the late night conversations, the walks in the park in the summer, the cuddling in the winter.
Moments passed and his thoughts turned to questions. He began to wonder what the purpose of it all was; of whether it had meant anything; whether it was real; whether she cared for him; whether she cared about him now. Did she hate him? Did he still mean anything? When she looked at him, did she think about the color of his sweater or was he just another person she had known?
Mary, on the other hand, hadn’t noticed Jack’s arrival yet. She was with a couple of people she had just met. They were singing and dancing. The lyrics “I don’t care I love it” boomed out of her mouth with utmost force. She was consumed by the moment. She flipped her hair from side to side filled by the ecstasy of the moment, and then all at once, her world seemed to stop. He caught her eye, and she felt an overwhelming heaviness weighing down on her. Unlike him she didn’t have questions anymore. She was past that stage. She had come to accept that there was something great there, and that they both had felt it. She was struggling with the moment right now; with how she was going to act in front of him; with whether she should say hi or if she should just say nothing. She wasn’t upset or confused. She was just angry at him; at herself. She was angry at their actions and the potential they had ruined. She thought of that afternoon in the fall of last year when everything she had dreamt of came to an end.
Her eyes lurked and she looked directly at him as he mouthed some words to this girl who had made her way over to talk to him. She felt a hatred towards that girl that she didn’t want to.
She noticed his purple sweater. She knew that one. His mother knit it for him
If Helen asked me to jump off a cliff I would do it.
OK maybe not a cliff but a community pool
looked harmless enough,
only six feet of water between surface air and marble tile,
those blue & white squares that wiggled in bendy zig-zags
when you looked down from above.
“I dare you to touch the floor,” she said,
with her hand—soft, cold—on my shoulder.
I could smell her cherry coke lip gloss when she spoke,
sweet and artificial, she was that close.
I wondered what it would taste like,
cherry coke, and I wondered if maybe after I
touched the bottom of the pool if she would let me borrow her lip gloss,
the same one she used,
and I wondered why the thought of that made my chest gasp and sputter
like my big brother’s shitty car, and then I stopped wondering
because Helen was pinching her brow now,
probably wondering why I was taking so long to answer, maybe wondering
if she should go talk to someone else instead, so I quickly answered,
“OK.”
ok ok ok ok
And then she smiled that smile that made everyone go crazy,
from the mailman to the grocery bagger to the boys in homeroom
who fought and elbowed each other all last spring to be the one to take her to
the eighth grade dance.
Only this smile was for me. All for me.
And with that in mind I fell,
head first, into the water.
A splash, no, a crash. The roar of television static. Then silence, suffocating.
All the air wheezed out of my lungs, spilling in a stream of bubbles out
of my open mouth, and I realized too late that I fell smiling.
I sank like stone, arms extended, the floor rising fast to greet me.
I pictured my skull split open like a present,
ribbons of red brain tissue floating to the surface. All for her.
I didn’t close my eyes.
I wanted to see my hands
touch the floor
so close
fingers
stretched
and
brushed—
I woke up to shouting,
to “Oh my god she’s alive!”
to a heavy pressure
easing off my chest and a flash of lifeguard red,
(“Everyone take two steps back; don’t crowd her.”)
I coughed up chlorine in wet, raspy hacks that burned my throat and sinus and waited
for the ringing in my ears to go away. Heart racing fast it froze
to a stop when I saw her staring at me, huddled in the protective arms of her friends,
face twisted in horror,
eyes narrowed in accusation.
Her lips moved, and I heard her voice, garbled, underwater.
“You never told me you couldn’t swim!”
“Why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t swim?”
1.
She remembered the way the postman’s hollow knock rippled through the stale air, and then the delicious slide of the thick envelope through the mail slot and across her wood floor. “Yes. Today,” she announced to an empty house, her feet jackhammers pounding adrenaline into the stairs as she descended to the front door. Outside, December raged like a scorned lover, hurling snow drifts against the side of her tilting lakefront house in a childish performance of might. Year-rounders usually stayed this far north because they admired the winters, but she had never gotten used to the season’s showiness, the way it called attention to itself and its crystalline purity.
[How is life at the lake? When I’m cooking pasta, I look into the boiling water and think of you.]
Inside the letter, his words were as saturated with longing as she had expected. His sentences trailed across the page in big strides, wrapping her up in the empty places, between his bike wheels spinning through New York City traffic—why did he insist on getting to work that way?—and the streaky red sunset views from his fire escape and the din of the throwback karaoke bar seeping up through his apartment floor. The heavy scrawl of his handwriting nearly poked through to the back of the paper in places, and imagining the physicality of his forearms as he wrote made her grip the letter like a life raft.
[It is so full of everything here. I wish you could feel it.]
Of course she wished the same. This October had been the worst, full of piercing gusts across the lake and unbearable silences at night after the loons had left for the winter, no longer wailing across the water with her at the ink dripping from the sky, all over the cold geometry of the dock and the pine trees and everything. (She still fell asleep seeing the birds’ red eyes in the dark, bobbing disembodied across the black pane of lake water, calling to other ghosts with cries that started deep in their bellies.) He had left a pair of red socks on her dresser before he left for the last time in July. She couldn’t bring herself to put them away until yesterday, and when she lifted them up, six months of dust ringed the spot like a chalk outline of a murder victim. She left it there.
[Are you still learning guitar?]
Now she flattened the creases of the letter onto her kitchen floor and stared at it from above: a puzzle to solve, a block of ice to melt and stir herself into. She extended her thumb and pointer fingers and fit them around two corners of the paper. The angle was so satisfying. A perfect fit. Looking at the patch of white on the bottom edge of the page, she knew instinctively it was the length of her foot. The longer side would match her upper arm bone. She took a deep breath and filled up her lungs until she could feel the muscle fibers between her ribs stretching and peeling away from each other like string cheese. She ignored the ragged burn spreading across her chest and continued cracking herself open. Her vertebrae began to separate, jumping off her spine and through her skin, kernels of popcorn on high heat. Collapsing to the floor, her ribs fell next, stacking like firewood on top of his letter. She rolled up her legs in little bundles and set them neatly on top of his words. She used her teeth to manage her arms, tucking them around the pile of bones in a static embrace. Then her brain and her heart turned off all at once and softened into a shiny pool, the wet pieces soaking into the paper of his letter and staining it with a streaky red sunset.
2.
The following April, he drives north to pack up the last boxes of her belongings. She owned so many pairs of shoes, and he marvels at the exhaustion of remembering a person so many times, with laces and with smooth leather and with boot treads and with heels and with fleece. Oh, no. The slippers are too much. He steps outside and searches for loons on their return to the lake. On the dock, he is hovering a foot above the surface of the water.
He cannot see it, but right now there is one red-eyed bird gliding around the perimeter of the lake. It is obscured by the weedy spring growth along the shoreline, but tonight after the light slants and disappears it will tell him in echoes what happened to her in December, and he will feel a weight in his belly and an ache in his spine and a burning between his ribs and a sloshing in his skull, because he will never be able to remold her, but more than that he will realize that he has never known love with his whole body and she was the only one who could have shown him how to distill himself down to just a pile of bones and red.
I don’t like giving prefaces but I thought I should on this occasion so that there isn’t any confusion. This is a fictional letter I wrote from two fictional people.
Postmarked Heaven
Owen Mason-Hill
To my dearest Sue,
Water streams down the window panes like tears from a swollen heart. Nothing is the same in your absence. The days drag on with a dull lethargy that leaves my waking hours vast and my dormant ones all too hasty. The coffee tastes bitter. And the bread has gone stale. I know not what to do in my despondent and unwanted isolation. It seems as though I spend every waking moment craving for a dormancy to respite my ailing fatigue, but every night I am tormented by a restless darkness that sucks the air from my lungs and seeps inside like a thick black ink, poisoning me from the inside. I am perpetually growing nearer an existence which I do not know. An existence marked by melancholic stillness and pained consciousness.
Wafts of fresh air rush in from the exposed outdoors; creeping through cracks in the old leaden window frames like an uninvited guest who forgot to knock upon his arrival. Mother Nature has been cruel to me these past weeks, blockading the door
with snow so that I mightn’t be able to leave this prison I have built for myself. I still wear that woolen scarf you gave me last December when the family gathered for the Winter Solstice. Oh, how fond you were of that bonfire we’d built; an immense wall of fallen branches, of old doors and chairs, of year’s end regrets and insufferable longings. We sat by that fire for what must’ve been the better part of four hours, rocking back and forth in our chairs, nursing crisp ciders and reminiscing about the early days when life seemed simpler. It pains me to think of how we’d lost sight of that; how we’d lost sight of us. If only you were here beside me in the rocking chair you were so fond of. Elizabeth likes to sit there now when she does read her books. And more often than not, you can expect to find Beasle tucked right up into a ball in her lap with her velvety ears draped over either knee. You know how much we miss you and wish you were here to share in our lives. If only to hear your laugh one more time I would trade everything. The presence of your smile still echoes through these halls, though fainter than before. Anyways, it’s come time to build that bonfire once more, so I won’t forget to leave a chair and a cup of warm cider waiting for you.
Your Love, now and always,
Arthur
I’m a creator by trade, and take great pride in sharing my work. I like to make others feel when they experience it. The expressions that you can see on their faces are priceless. Something you learn after awhile is that you cannot please everyone.
There is one peer who really likes to scrutinize my work. Whatever I do they say it is wrong. My pancakes are too flat, pants sit too high, and every left I take should be a right. That being the status quo, it is no surprise that when I created an universe, it was generally seen as a mistake. “It’s pretty and all, but what’s the point?” They’d said to me.
I was kinda ticked off at that response. Why do they have to question everything that already is? If they think it’s pointless, then why don’t they not watch it!? That’s my spite talking though, and I’ve been working on ridding myself of that type of negativity for millenniums. You must understand, it’s not that I don’t like negativity, it is quite entertaining, but negativity has a tendency of destroying, and I’m a creator!
In the spirit of staying positive, I tried to engage with them, I asked if they had any suggestions on ‘how I can give the universe a point?’ They told me it needs ‘life’. I asked him, “what about the sun? The sun is clearly alive, look at how much energy that thing emits!” They said, “no, meaningful life.” This confused me, everything in my universe revolves around the sun, which makes the sun the most important thing, it is literally the center of attention. But they told me ‘that doesn’t cut it’ and that ‘true meaningfulness comes from within’ and ‘the sun doesn’t have the consciousness so it can’t define meaning.’ How I interpreted that was, we’re the only ones who matter, but that’s semantics. I said that, “that’s semantics”, he agreed, “It is true, we are the most meaningful beings because we give meaning to everything that is.” So I asked, “you mean I need to create something with consciousness? Something that can discern meaning?” He concurred, actually he said, “it seems so.” A little arrogant, but were still staying positive.
At the time, this made a lot of sense. To make my universe matter, it needed beings that could give it meaning. I started on the task. It was not an easy task, but I figured it out. It took a lot of cross-breeding of organisms. I liked what had become at first, the beings had become intricate, positives and negatives to each one, almost like regulars, much simpler though. And similar to us also, the organisms’ negatives overpower their positives when not kept in check. The whole piece is slowly starting to ruin.
Luckily they’re on a smaller scale and we can learn from what seems to be their degeneration. But studying their downfall doesn’t matter to me as much. I’ll be dead before we can apply anything we learn anyway, no, I’m more concerned about the wrecking of my universe. I think it was perfect as I created it. It had everything agreeable to the senses within it. There was nothing yet everything. Now everything will be nothing all because I took advice from someone who thought my creation was pointless. Quite ironic, really.
So what I learned from all this (and hope you can take away), take advice and suggestions with a grain of salt, it can ruin your creation.
THE ANT MARCH
Hilary Cavell hated ants more than anything else. Her distaste for this creature likely began at the age of four. Hilary and her older brother Tate were on a walk around the block one warm afternoon in June. The pavement had been heated by the sun so Hilary went barefoot; she loved the way the concrete scraped at her padded feet. The siblings had only made it three houses down from their own when they came across a pair of pasty thin white legs sticking out of the thick bush in front of the squat mint green house. The legs were splayed on the sidewalk in a way that they should not have been while the rest of the body remained hidden beneath the knotted branches. Tate ran home to find their mother— she would know what to do— and ordered Hilary to stay with the legs.
Hilary didn’t quite know what to do. So she sat down and watched a line of ants crawl up, up, up the fallen lady. They started at the shoes— a pair of black heeled mary janes— and disappeared into the bush, along with the rest of the body. Hilary had a pressing urge to wipe away the ants, to wipe the legs clean, but she couldn’t bring herself to touch them. Besides, she concluded that they would keep on marching— ants don’t stop for anyone or anything.
By the time Tate and her mom came running down the sidewalk, Hilary had decided that this woman with the white legs was dead. Twenty minutes later the ambulance man decided the same thing.
Perhaps Hilary’s distaste for ants really began the night she spent in the hospital waiting room. She was ten years old and it was her daddy’s birthday, but instead of blowing out candles, he was hooked up to wires and tubes in the ICU; his heart had attacked him. Or at least that is how she understood it. Hilary was wearing her pretty blue dress with white daisies stitched into it and her curly hair was tied into two pigtails on each side of her head. She always got dressed up for her daddy’s birthday. See, Hilary’s daddy was the most special man in the world. She loved to crawl into his lap at night and rub her cheeks against his scratchy beard. They drank hot chocolate in front of the glowing light of the tv and he would tell Hilary how important it was to love and love and love.
In the hospital waiting room, the nurse with the soft brown eyes and crooked smile stroked Hilary for a while and then turned on the television perched in the high corner above the fish tank. The movie that began to play was titled Antz and was about a worker ant who fell in love with the ant colony’s princess. Hilary thought back to the lady in the bush with the white legs and how ants will keep on marching— they don’t stop for anyone or anything. That night Hilary’s daddy died, his heart attacked him on his 48th birthday.
Hilary spent the next 72 years of her life hating ants; she once even moved houses due to an ant infestation in her basement. She also spent the next 72 years of her life loving, just like her daddy told her to. She loved her job, where she served 35 years in the ICU taking care of patients whose hearts had attacked them. She adored her husband, who made her a cup of hot chocolate every single night. She cherished her children, who spent warm summer days running down the sidewalks barefoot. And she absolutely loved her granddaughter, a beautiful and kind six year old girl named Nellie, who usually stained her clothing by digging in the dirt outside.
At 82 years old, Hilary had skin sagging at her elbows and deep smile lines carved around her eyes and lips. Her hair had turned white long ago, and her glasses lenses were so thick they protruded from the frames. Her clothes smelled of a mixture of lavender soap and Estee Lauder Pleasure perfume, and the top of her hands were riddled with sun spots. Hilary’s favorite pastime was sitting on the rocking chair, on the grand white wrap around porch surrounding her yellow house, watching her Nellie poke holes in the ground.
One warm afternoon in June, Nellie had been playing in the backyard when she approached Hilary with cupped hands.
“Nana, do you want to meet my very best newest friend?” Nellie asked.
Hilary quickly obliged, and offered to hold whatever creature lay hidden in Nellie’s little hands.
And so, Nellie opened up her dirt stained palms, and there crawled a singular ant.
Hilary immediately froze; she had experienced and seen so much in her 82 years of life, and yet her kryptonite remained a tiny creature, no bigger than a grain of rice.
Nellie sensed her grandmother’s alarm.
“Oh Nana, I love this little ant, please do hold him,” Nellie said. “I promise he won’t hurt you.”
Hilary looked at her granddaughter who was so full of goodness, and Hilary realized she could not hate anything that Nellie loved.
Cautiously, Hilary held out one finger, and that little ant crawled across this new bridge. And just as Nellie promised, this ant did not hurt her.
That night Hilary thought about those pasty white legs on the sidewalk and she thought about the hard hospital waiting room chairs on her daddy’s 48th birthday. Her room was lit up by the moon river seeping through her open window. Hilary looked for the ants; she found them marching on the edge of her dresser, not stopping for anyone or anything— the danse macabre. Hilary smiled. What a life of loving she had lived. She had even loved the ant in the end.
“See you soon Daddy,” said Hilary, as she closed her eyes.
It is the hottest day of the year. The mountains offer no breeze today; they sweat rivers and streams. The Mediterranean sun has grown to twice its size, exploding like a supernova, shooting runny bits of its yolk across the sky, yellow impressionist brushstrokes among the clouds. Inside the kitchen, fresh bread is rising in the oven. My grandmother has dough under her fingernails, flour on her cheeks. A fly zooms in the open window.
She hands me the flyswatter and yells: “Get that thing out of the kitchen now!”
Having been ordered to do so numerous times before, with one wave of my wrist, the fly is smashed against the wall, its wings never to soar upon the mountain breeze again.
“Tell everyone dinner is ready,” she commands.
I head out onto the balcony, flyswatter still in hand, and call out “la cena è pronta” with the same ardor as the man who drives by early every morning shouting “pesche, pesche, fresche pesche”, stirring me from my sound slumber. I make sure to yell this every couple yards as I walk the entire balcony around the house, past potted plants and ducking under hanging clothes instantly dried from the miserable heat, waving the flyswatter at smiling neighbors bustling out of their own houses, eager and hungry to sit at the table which my grandmother has generously prepared. Green tablecloth handsewn by her own grandmother, my great-great grandmother, with delicate white-and-yellow chamomile flowers interspersed throughout.
In early spring every year, my grandmother and I drive the winding roads into the mountains, park in the shade of a large beech tree, and walk the trails deep into the forest. It is ten degrees cooler up in the mountains, all sunlight blocked by the towering beech branches, and we pull our light sweaters tighter around us. I spot a couple strawberries blushing beneath their green cover, but they are early and not ripe enough to be picked. We will come back for them in late April when they are a bold red. My grandmother wanders off trail; she’s spotted them. A clump of chamomile flowers snuggled together for warmth. Neither premature nor droopy, the flowers are ready to be harvested. Grandmother plucks each flower, stem and all, and drops them in a basket by her feet. As it gets darker and colder, we choose to abandon our hunt, not without a filled basket of flowers though. She hands over the flowers to me with the task of pinching off each flower head, the only valuable part needed to make the tea. I discard the stem and petals on the trail behind me; if I didn’t have my grandmother to guide me out of these dense woods, someone could find me.
Laid upon that tablecloth are eight sparkling white plates wiped clean, eight wine glasses, two bottles of Cirò, cloth napkins embroidered with blackberries—a common delicacy around here—forks and spoons, and a basket of fresh bread losing heat in the heart of the table. The first person to enter the dining room is Maria, the lady who owns the cigarette shop down the street and is known for taking in stray cats; having been invited into her home just yesterday, I saw that she is raising six kittens. She is desperate to give them away, and I would love to take one off her hands, but grandmother would never allow it. She has more than enough mouths to feed. The next person to enter is my uncle, Tomaso, who is the only person in town to own a motorcycle; it is bright red and glows when the sunlight hits it, just like my grandmother’s hair. Some of the villagers think he is a snob, flashing his newly acquired wealth, but he has always offered me, as well as the other children, rides when he sees us walking in the dead heat of day to carry out our chores while our parents and grandparents are enjoying their siesta. The mayor, Salvatore, appears then, humbly choosing not to sit at the head of the table, giving and receiving the customary two kisses on both cheeks as though he is family. My cousin, Andrea, follows with the same striking red hair as grandmother; he is greeted with longer hugs and firm kisses rather than pecs since he has been in Rome for the past couple months working as an actor. Everyone is anxious to speak with him, including the mayor, because many have not left the town in years, and know little of what is happening in other parts of Italy. Only the richest people in town—those who own a lot of land—are able to afford a television and keep up with the news. My grandmother, being one of these rare few, never has an empty house as there are always visitors: visitors who dine with us and drink our wine, visitors who lay on our sofa and watch our television, visitors who ask for bread, milk, and eggs to bring home to their own hungry families because they couldn’t afford to go to the store this week. My grandmother keeps all the windows on the balcony open; if anyone calls to her, she will hear them and answer their prayers. The next visitor is my other cousin, Paolo, who is struggling to find work and often hides in the shadow of his older brother, the dazzling red-haired actor. Paolo is quiet and does not speak with the same eagerness and ease as the rest of us, only offering his voice when directly asked a question. Despite his timidness, he is always the first to help clear the dishes after a meal, and so for that kind act he is noticed. The last guest to enter is the woman, Natalia, who lives on the floor above us; last year, during strawberry season and right before the festival of the strawberries, she invited me in and presented a glass goblet full of tiny bleeding red strawberries sprinkled with sugar and ice snowflakes. Having been freshly frozen, they soothed my tongue itching from the May heat. The latest town gossip says that she is losing her memory, but I will never forget her generous gift to me.
Finally, nearly everyone is seated, Andrea at one head of the table so that everyone can see him, though he’s certainly hard to miss with that fire atop his head. The seat at the opposite end of the table is reserved for grandmother, who refuses to sit down until everyone is served with a two-person serving of spaghetti and red sauce, at least three slices of bread to wipe the bowl clean, a wine glass filled to the brim with red wine, and a mouth too full to request something more.
I wish there were two more seats at the table, two more plates and glasses of wine for my father and my mother. I know it’s selfish of me to want them here, with my mother at home pregnant with two needy five-year old twins. She has already had three miscarriages and so is desperate to keep these ones alive. She sent me off to live with grandmother so that she could devote all her attention to her young ones and the unborn baby; she said I was strong and didn’t need to be taken care of anymore. My father packed up and left for the North two years ago in search of a better paying job and we haven’t seen him since. There’s no work down here in the South. There are only boys here; all the men are in the North. The only way we know he’s alive is when we get the money in the mail every couple months. Grandmother reminds me that he is with us; she sees him in my eyes, the color of chestnuts roasting over a fire.
The conversation, like I suspected, focuses primarily on Andrea and the most recent plays he has starred in. He describes one play in which he is the lover of a married man, and then when that man dies, he becomes the lover of the dead man’s wife. Everyone at the table falls silent, horrified not at the adultery, for that is very common in all parts of Italy, but horrified at the idea of two men being together.
Grandmother breaks the silence: “Dessert, anyone?”
Paolo, grandmother, and I clear the spotless bowls and empty wine bottles. We bring out ten plates, a bottle of limoncello, ten cloudy shot glasses which had been chilling in the fridge, and a basket of fruit, including peaches which had been bought from the annoying vendor yelling “pesche, pesche, fresche pesche” early this morning.
When the fruit is eaten or stored in pockets for later and the limoncello is warming full bellies, Grandmother invites each guest one by one into the kitchen and sends them home with whatever they desire. Maria says she needs meat to feed her cats and so she is sent home with soppressata. Tomaso asks for nothing for he has everything he could ever desire and zooms away on his motorcycle. Salvatore asks for eggs since his chicken coop was broken into by wolves and he lost all his chickens. Andrea says he needs shampoo to take care of his hair so that he will not be fired as an actor and so he is sent home with shampoo.
Paolo refuses to ask for anything despite grandmother’s prompting and so he is sent home with a handful of euros; “for a drink and a snack at the bar” grandmother says with a smile.
Natalia wanders into the kitchen last and says absentmindedly, “I forgot what I was going to ask for.”
Grandmother gives her a small box of chamomile flower heads and an unopened package of cookies.
Grandmother says slowly and clearly, “Steep the heads in boiling water to make the tea. Dip these cookies in it; it’s my favorite evening snack. If you remember that you need anything else, just call my name.”
“Thank you, Margherita, you are the kindest soul. I may forget some things, but I will never forget this kindness,” and with that she left, closing the door softly behind her, her footfalls silent as a shadow.
Only Grandmother and I were left.
“Is there anything you need?” she asks me.
There are a lot of things I want. I want to get on a train to the North and go to work with my father; I wonder if he looks different now and if he likes the North. I worry that he may like it better than the South and never come back for us, for me. I want to visit my mother and see my siblings; I want to be there when the next baby is born. I want to go to Maria’s shop and buy a pack of cigarettes and puff smoke like the old men that play cards outside the bar. I want to ask Tomaso for a ride on his motorcycle and clutch those shiny handlebars, the freedom to go wherever whenever I please. I want Andrea to take me with him to Rome and show me the Colosseum and Julius Caesar’s grave, and maybe even let me star in one of his plays. If he’s an actor, then surely I could be one too. I don’t tell Grandmother any of these things.
“No, there is nothing I need.”
A Night to Remember
“….I honestly don’t know how he could do that to her. God, that’s so awful, right?” She looked at me expectantly.
“Huh? Yeah of course,” I mumbled, coming out of my reverie. Katie had been chatting endlessly about a guy who cheated on her sister or her cousin or something. I had lost track a while ago, and found myself staring out the window of the coffee shop onto the street.
There was a pigeon, sitting quietly on a stop sign, ignoring the bustle of Saturday morning traffic in London. I marveled at its ability to let the world go by, unaffected by the man in the ridiculous Jeep, or the baby in the stroller I heard crying faintly through the glass.
I had a sudden urge to just get up, to stop this charade of listening. I wondered why I agreed to meet her here in the first place. It was clear to me that our relationship wasn’t going anywhere. If only she could catch on too.
I checked my phone, made a face, and started standing up.
“Oh shit, I’m so sorry I have to go, I was supposed to meet somebody 15 minutes ago.”
She looked up at me, startled by my sudden movements after I’d been frozen like a statue for so long.
“Oh. Okay, I guess,” she stuttered, her expression falling to pieces. “See you later?” she said, grasping at my hand, her eyes pleading.
“Yeah sure, whatever.” I practically ran out the place.
The fall air was brisk and the wind blew through my hoodie, but it felt amazing. She saw me through the window with a suspiciously relieved expression on my face. Oh well. I didn’t really care too much about what she thought of me anyway. In the grand scheme of things, what do I matter in her life? What does she matter in mine?
I really didn’t have anywhere to be, but I was just glad to be away from Katie and her drama (which wasn’t even hers!), so my step was light and swift carrying me to whatever stole my fancy. As I was walking, my thoughts drifted to the women I met in the past few months, and all the little relationships that popped up and disappeared again, like the pimples on a teenager’s face. I guess that’s too negative an analogy, seeing as how they were all pleasant and innocent, until for some reason or another it ended, sometimes just as quickly as it started. I remember there was one woman though, Natasha. She really had an effect on me.
Some friends set us up and we got dinner in this quiet Italian place tucked in an old forgotten part of the city. She was tall, probably around 5’8”, with long slightly wavy black hair outlining her cute face. When we met in the restaurant, she had bright red lipstick on which popped against the black of her hair and the short, black dress she wore. But her eyes were most striking of all, they were dark brown, like mine, and twinkled with intelligence.
We spoke of small things first. I learned she was an actress who had performed in most of the major theatres in London, and she was looking to try Paris. I asked her why, and she replied they have better bread. I chuckled at that, ungracefully choking on my wine. She asked me why I dropped out of medical school to play music at a bar three nights a week, I said I just had a feeling.
“A feeling?” she asked, arching an eyebrow inquisitively.
“A feeling that if I stayed there any longer I would have to throw myself into the Thames,” I clarified.
“Ah,” she said and nodded somberly, looking down at her plate. I worried I had been a little too dramatic. I cleared my throat.
“I just wanted a little change of pace, that’s all. In medical school I felt like I wasn’t having the impact I wanted to, and school came at the cost of what’s best in my life.”
“And what’s that?” she piped, perking up a bit.
“You know the usual. Writing songs, learning about the world, going out… Meeting dark mysterious women in Italian restaurants for a bite of food.”
Okay that was dramatic. But she laughed, raising her hand to cover her mouth full of spaghetti.
We finished our bottle of wine, the conversation like a song finding its melody, her voice intertwining and harmonizing with mine. It was effortless. Our wits danced back and forth across our little table against the wall, flickering to and fro like the candle that burned between our plates. She had a humor as dark as mine, and her jokes were twice as good. The little barbs she threw me would be enough to ensnare me in her verbal traps, but I could finagle my way out quickly before I was truly caught (though I got the sense that she sometimes let me gather my wits instead of tearing me apart). What can I say, her lips were so perfect, the red wine wetting them and whetting my growing lust for them. Also, she had a way of leaning forward and ever so subtly offering a view of what she hid under her dress. It was woefully distracting. I’m also sure it was a calculated move to get the upper hand in our back and forths. Realizing this, I was truly in awe. She really did have me ensnared, whether I knew it or not then.
We left around 11pm, the last customers there for a long time before a frustrated waiter politely asked us to leave after offering us the check probably three times. Shortly after leaving the restaurant, we found a small street fair and tried to take a picture together in front of a cute, antique booth. Just as we took our picture, a group of kids swarmed us, sweeping us into their squabble. They were the remnants of a church choir that had performed here earlier in the evening, now bickering about who had the best voice. Natasha commanded their attention instantly. She decisively chose the winner, leaving me (and the children) impressed and delighted by her performance of the somber judge.
We walked through the old city for hours, strolling through quiet courtyards and secluded gardens, talking softly of our past lives and making small jokes with each other. We stole a few prime apples from somebody’s garden and snacked on them while meandering around. I couldn’t help but marvel at how easy it was for me to be around her. We were walking slowly along a long brick wall covered in ivy when she turned and asked me:
“What do you think makes a person good?”
I paused, thinking, looking at her.
“If their thoughts match their actions.”
“Hmm, that’s interesting…” Another pause. “Do you think you’re a good person?”
“No.” I said, honestly.
“Good. I don’t think I’m a good person either,” she said with quiet relief.
“What?” I asked her in surprise. “You seem like an amazing person to me. You are one of the few people I’ve understood myself with in a long while.”
“Yeah, well…” She shrugged and looked down at her feet. She looked back up at me, into my eyes. “Why don’t you think you’re a good person?”
“I don’t know…” I looked around, working out how to word my answer. “Because I’m selfish. It takes a lot for me to care about a person. Too much, I think. And I wish it was easier. But it isn’t. Then again I think to myself, what right do I have to judge? Why am I so special?”
Her eyebrows rose ever so slightly. “Ok… But everybody’s selfish! We all think we’re the stars of our own movies… or in my case, musicals.”
I gave her a wry chuckle. “But if everyone’s selfish, does that make us all any better?”
“I’m not sure…” She looked off into the distance, working her jaw in a way that led my eyes to follow her jawline to her ear, which was small and beautiful.
I gathered myself. “Well why don’t you think you’re a good person?”
She turned back to face me, her sly smile slowly spreading back onto her face.
“Why should I tell you?” Her grin widened. “You’re a “bad person” after all!”
I laughed. “Why indeed?”
She giggled. “Here, how about this. It’s late, and my story would take us into the morning.”
“I’ve got time,” I interjected. She laughed, shaking her head, and placed her hands on my chest.
“How about we meet up tomorrow night around 10 at the Palace gardens? It’s one of my favorite spots in the city. If you bring a nice bottle of wine, maybe I’ll tell you my answer.”
I laughed aloud, wrapping my arms around her waist. “Small price to pay.”
“Oh yeah?” She challenged teasingly, leaning in closer, her eyes catching my lips.
“Yep. Very small.” I said softly, stifling my smile, bowing my head down to hers.
She fought to bring her expression under control before she raised her lips to mine. She smelled like lavender and tasted sweet, like the apples we had been eating earlier. I absentmindedly noticed the echoes of the wine we had so long ago, and decided I really liked that vintage.
When we pulled away, I held her in a close embrace. We both relaxed for the span of a few moments, just breathing, enjoying the feeling of being held. Eventually, we parted until we were just holding hands. She looked up at me, a shy smile peeking out of her face. I kissed the tip of her nose.
“See you tomorrow?” she asked. I nodded. “See you tomorrow.”
She hugged me tightly one more time then turned and walked away. I watched the sleeping city swallow her under the yellow street lamps.
I found myself sitting alone on a stone bench in front of a fountain, staring at the picture of us at the street fair. The picture was blurry, Natasha had turned to look at the oncoming swarm of kids, laughing. Her hair swept across half her face, hiding it from view. But I was still looking at the camera, happy.
The memory of that night with Natasha still puts butterflies in my stomach, but its sweetness has dulled with the bitterness of its aftertaste. She didn’t come to the Palace gardens that next night, and I never saw her again. I don’t know why. Maybe she got caught up with something else and didn’t bother to show up. Maybe she didn’t care. Maybe she really did think I was a bad person. Maybe she’s in France. Ever since that night I wonder what her answer was, why she never came.
I got up, bundled myself in my hoodie, and started walking.
January 28, 1986
The door to the office is open, so Andy must have woken up before me. I can hear the wheezing of ancient processors in dad’s work computer. I can hear Andy trying to control his excited breaths. The muffled clicks. The rehearsed sequence of taps, as Andy moves his tiny finger from one key to the next. A moment of silence.
“So the twenty fifth space shuttle mission is now on the way, after more delays than NASA cares to count. This morning it looked as though they were not going to be able to get off.”
The familiar voice of CNN correspondent Tom Mintier, distorted by cheap speakers, fills the room. I step into the office, careful to avoid the piles of old National Geographic magazines that dad keeps stacked in the corner. The sun hasn’t come up yet. Pale blue light from the monitor is obscured by Andy’s head. He’s small enough to sit cross-legged on the swivel chair, tight-whiteys and a Superman pajama shirt.
“Looks like a couple of the, uh, solid rocket boosters, uh. Blew away from the side of the shuttle in an explosion.” An explosion caught on film sounds like rain.
Page Break
“Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction.”
Pieces of debris fall from the cloud of smoke. Andy’s face is inches from the screen, enamored by a massive white jellyfish with lazy tendrils that extend to the earth. I can hear the muffled concerns of men in ties. The swelling hum of feedback. I can hear Andy’s breath catch, as he tries not to vomit. I wrap my arms around him from behind the chair.
“It’s not your fault,” I whisper. “It’s not your fault.”
Of course it’s not Andy’s fault. He wasn’t even born when the Challenger exploded, a fact pointed out by every incredulous teacher when they call the house. “We’d love to set up a lunch with Ms. Donofrio, at the main office, to discuss some of Andy’s behavior. May I speak to your father? Is Mr. Cohen home?”
But they always miss Mr. Cohen. He just went out on an errand, and will call them back as soon as he gets the chance, and would they like to leave a message? And soon the calls stop, because Andy behaves well when he hasn’t seen the footage in a while, and there’s only so many resources at Cohagen Central School District to go around.
Then the house is quiet. For now, it’s just me and him, and mom’s old dog Baltimore. And Baltimore smells like she might die any day now.
Informed Advertising
The three meanest girls in the 3rd grade made one collective mass of vocabulary, a negative space of lyrical cruelty. They could look at something as small as a poppy seed and draw out all of its bitterness, as though a seed of that stature has any hand in the elements of its flavor profile. And Martha, the smallest girl in the 3rd grade, had barely any bitterness, but just enough for the three girls to want to dig at the sweet and slow ways about her.
Despite the terrible three made one, Martha was still able to find solace in the trees. That was, until, the Terrible Three sniffed her out during their periodic breaktimes. Talking about disaster, catastrophe, and brutality (but never redemption) really was exhausting. Scheduled breaks were a necessity.
Martha’s favorite spot of solitude was along the tree line of the playground. During recess Martha would take her brown bag of cheese and crackers, sometimes with a salted hard-boiled egg, and wander into the little nooks and crannies that looked the most comfortable and welcoming. Her Mama always complained about the state of her dresses at the end of the school day, “Now, I could see the need for a little bit of dirt but you come home looking like a muddy art project.” Her Mama always said funny things like that, it always made Martha and her Papa laugh.
Today, Martha revisited a tree stump with a fantastic view of the playground. She always considered her potentials stumps from an advertising perspective. “What would this one’s billboard look like,” she wondered. Sometimes, she imagined a jingle to go with the stumpy real estate. This one’s billboard was colorful and fantastical with bright green paint and a welcome mat at the base of its stump. Martha was enamored.
Luckily, she saw the Terrible Three round the playground just in time for her to eat up the last bit of cheese left in her bag. She didn’t want to share today.
“Well, what are you doing?” asked the tallest one (although not much taller than the other two, just by an inch but she always slouched a bit to hide her Imperial impediment.)
“I’ve been praying,” Martha turned up her chill towards their shadow. Her hair looked dark without the bits of mid-day light peeking out through the trees. It hung around the slight slopes of her cheekbones, the wandering strands getting caught between her freckled lips as she spoke.
“Kind of strange that you’re doing that out here,” the rather portly one sneered. Martha’s ears perked, “strange” sounded like a swear across her tongue. She wondered how she learned to say a word so cruelly without a hiccup or a start. Papa always said that the tone of a word could draw out a lot of hurt. It took longer to heal it up, like a bee sting, it could prick and swell depending on the person. That one of the three didn’t seem to know, but Martha wouldn’t tell her. She brought up Papa before and the sneers got louder. Those things she remembered; the things that hurt bigger than herself.
“Well, I was just thinking. My Mama tells me that I don’t need a Jesus to pray as long as I am thinking good thoughts.” Martha ventured. There was dirt in her fingernails, her dress was soiled and damp.
The last one, the one with the nicest face and the widest eyes looked down at Martha, “Well my Mama says that your Mama has never known Jesus, so how could she know?’
Martha considered. She thought of Ms. Link and history. She knew that Jesus was a talker, enough so that his words had to get written down. That’s what happened with all of the names that she read about in Ms. Link’s office and Mama’s library. “It’s one big story,” Mama would say. “It’s about hope, Baby. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of hope.”
Martha saw the Terrible Three and their linear behavior stretched out before her. She thought of them all as grown up girls with painted nails and lipstick. She saw the tallest one with curlers in her hair and the kind-looking one in a pressed, white apron. She thought about them lined up along a church pew, waiting, like their Mamas on a Sunday.
Before the Terrible Three made their way into the tree line, Martha really had been thinking about the day as it rose, her mother making coffee in the morning and the smell of her father’s cologne along the staircase. If history books were teaching her anything they were telling her that the details would disappear. She knew, somehow, that her Mama and her Papa would be forgotten when they went away. She had never considered it before. She always thought that Mama’s hands would always be remembered as smooth, sure, and cool–the perfect melody for making pastries on Sundays. Ms. Link told her that her mind was stretching too far, that it had to breath a bit before she let history take over and find the workings of her heart. Although Martha agreed, she was still trying to understand. How could history find her heart?
Martha wondered if the Three had ever thought about the growth of the trees, if their roots were their bones because they were all buried up in the ground. Martha always saw them coiled up in a tangled mass by, around, under her feet. She knew not to wander about someone’s bones. It was disrespectful, cruel even. But, sometimes she couldn’t help it. The trees and the stumps knew more history than she did. Maybe if she just sat a little bit longer in their solitude, she could soak it all up and share it all with Ms. Link and her Mama.
“My Mama knows a lot of people in a lot of places. She doesn’t need to know Jesus to know where he was and where he’s gonna go.” Martha ventured.
The three faces turned down into a frown and the portly one, the one who was the best at her times tables and raising her hand in class, stuttered, “Well your Mama just knows women, or whatever. My Mama says she knows Ms. Link real well, that your Papa is gonna leave any day now.”
Martha felt a prick in her eye, she didn’t understand. Where would her Papa go? She got up from her stump and ran past the Terrible Three, going straight for the bright red of her favorite teacher’s hair. Ms. Link was looking out at the playground, watching the slide for any hiccups or mishaps. Martha caught her by the hand and pulled her down in a rush. There was a breeze with a chill, bringing a shiver in through Martha’s soiled dress. Her knuckles were white from her grasp on her teacher’s hand.
“Is my Papa gonna leave?” she chattered, “The girls said that Papa is gonna leave and I don’t know where he is gonna go. Mama makes him lunch every day. If he leaves then he won’t have his lunch and–”
Ms. Link shushed her and sunk further down to her eye level. “What is all this Martha? Your Papa isn’t going anywhere.” Her voice had its usual musical lilt to it. Martha always wondered if she was going to break out into song during class. When she and Mama cooked dinner together she always had a new song to sing. Mama’s laughter would bubble up inside of her like a kettle holding up a boil. Martha wait from her seat at the table. Mama’s laughter made everything warmer, the air sweeter.
“Well their Mamas said so.”
Ms. Link sighed and rose up from her crouch. “Those girls and their Mamas are just stirring things up. Let’s go and get you cleaned up. You have a scratch on your knee, we can get a Band-Aid from the office.”
Martha followed Ms. Link away from the playground. When she looked back to the tree line, she saw the Terrible Three and their sure eyes looking out at their progression. Martha tried to tell them apart from so far but she couldn’t break them up. Even the tallest one looked small enough to fit snug within their staring line. Ms. Link tugged at Martha’s hand, turning her away from the tree line. Ms. Link’s face was all caught up in the sunlight as they walked away, making a show of the laughing lines on her cheeks and around her eyes as she led Martha away from the sun and the trees. Martha thought again about the details of the day, how they last. She remembered Mama’s hands when she and Ms. Link last cooked together, reaching. She wondered if Mama ever thought about bones in the soil, if that’s what made her walk so carefully among the trees.
One in the Same
A man sits on an uneven lawn chair. Three plastic legs are intact, but the fourth leg is made of stacked bricks, gathered from the neighboring, decaying buildings. The lawn chair was white for a time but now the brown soot attaches itself to the man’s battered blue jeans as he slowly sinks further into the chair. The sun melts him into the chair.
The chair gets direct sunlight only in the morning. It is positioned in an alleyway, facing southeast. The man’s scratched sunglasses reflect the direct sun into the eyes of morning commuters passing by, blinding each for a moment. One teenager cranes his neck to find the source, stares too long, and slams the breaks to avoid a pedestrian. The man on the chair chuckles.
He won’t stop humming. Sometimes, when the song reaches the chorus, he slips into singing, his breathy voice barely making it out of the alleyway and into the street. But it makes it, and those walking by quicken their pace and lengthen their stride to escape the view of the alleyway, letting the man know they can hear his crooning. So, he sings a bit louder, for them.
His neighbors take issue with his singing. The couple in the second-floor apartment to his left rely on it for a conversation topic at suppers to break their silence. David will place a meatloaf on the collapsing table with the stained tablecloth and say, “Did you hear Harold today? Wouldn’t shut-up when I was trying to nap”, and Rosie will respond, “Yes. I couldn’t nap either”, and David will say, “He was singing Nina Simone, something about Mississippi”, and Rosie will say, “I love Nina Simone”, and the meatloaf won’t be cooked all the way through.
David and Rosie’s daughter, 16-year-old Samantha, frequently insists that Harold’s name is Sam. Her parents had lazily told her to avoid the singing man, don’t pay attention to him. He’s what happens when you mess up. So, Samantha watched him silently and hidden for nine years from behind the blinds of her bedroom window, learning the man’s habits and letting him become a strange marker of her childhood. But at 9 years old, when her childhood curiosity overwhelmed her and her tendency for rebellion surged, she opened her alley side bedroom window to hear to the man’s singing clearly. He heard the slow grumble as she lifted the heavy window and paused. She had never heard him stop singing before. He lifted his sunglasses, the sun glared off the lenses and into her eyes as he did, and he squinted to see into her shaded window. He smiled, his cheeks inflating, his eyes crescents amongst a face of scars and stray gray hairs, and he whispered up to her, “What’s your name?”, as if knowing she was not supposed to be answering this question. His eyes jumped back and forth from her to the entrance of the alleyway.
“Samantha.”
“Well Samantha, wouldn’t you know it, my name is Sam. Looks like we’re one in the same.”
And with that Samantha shoved her window closed and returned to comfort of watching Sam through its protective glass, her curiosity and rebellion dissipating with each hesitant glance to the alleyway.
…
Today, as in all days, Sam spends all day in the chair. The morning wakes him with the trash collectors dragging his delicate chair away from the trash needed collecting. He sits still, pretending to be sound asleep, and lets the sweaty, red-faced boys restack his bricks into the fourth leg of his throne. They finish, and Sam spends some time humming and gazing out of his alleyway, watching women with woven beach bags and large brimmed hats and men with balding heads and neon, whale embroidered swim trunks walk towards the sea. He sings with his chest when he sees a pair of flip-flops, wanting the beach goers to enjoy his rendition of “Born in the U.S.A”. He watches construction trucks and beat-up minivans flock inland, and he blinds drivers with the glare of his sunglasses. Around noon, his stomach rumbles, and he scurries inside his basement level apartment to make himself a plate of cheese and crackers. But his rare exit from his chair is done in Sam’s special way. He stands and shuffles to his left towards his door, never peeling his eyes from the alleyway opening. He keeps humming. He makes it to the building door and disappears from Samantha’s view.
On Saturday’s, Samantha must cross in front of Sam’s alleyway to get to her shift at the deli two blocks down. She waits for Sam to leave the chair and close the door behind him, and she bolts down the stairs and into the street and begins approaching his alleyway. She’s forgotten her uniform hat. She’s lost a precious minute and when she returns to hot pavement, Sam’s breathy voice drifts from the alleyway and seeps into her skin.
She walks fast and serious across the alleyway. Sam is singing Marvin Gaye. She walks past and nothing happens, but Sam’s voice seems to bounce off the walls of the deli as she works, “don’t punish me with brutality”, and she walks the long way home, behind her building and out of view of the alleyway, and walks sluggishly up the stairs and into a kitchen, and atop the collapsing table is a clean tablecloth and a underdone meatloaf.
…
Samantha stops waiting for Sam to get his cheese and crackers. She walks to the deli past the alley, headphones on, and walks from the deli past the alley, headphones on. But Sam’s sunglasses still glint in the corner of her eye.
…
Sam hasn’t been sleeping lately. For maybe a week straight, he’s been humming throughout the night, unnoticed. But tonight, his voice slips through the cracks of Samantha’s window, making the air of her dark room heavy. Suffocating. She’s getting hotter by the moment, an irritating rage she can’t itch. Sam hears the opening of her window, this time it’s a demanding, shrill screech, forcing him to stop singing. He can’t see the through the window, a streetlight sits just beyond the corner of the building, and its harsh light is blinding Sam.
“Shut up. My god, just shut up.”
“But they’ll come for me. They only like my voice. They don’t like me.”
“You’re a fucking nut.”
Samantha slams the window shut and Sam feels the rumble through the brick leg of his chair. He makes no noise and stays staring at the entrance of the alleyway, both usually steady legs shaking, the knife in his right pocket hitting his thigh rhythmically.
…
The trash collectors come the next morning and clear the dumpster. The alleyway is empty when they arrive, and they’re finished quickly, with the plastic chair already out of the way, in the corner. One boy finds sunglasses nested carefully upon the chair, ignoring the dried blood droplets surrounding the chair and leading out of the alleyway, and grins as he faces his coworker, his prize sitting carefully on his nose.
…
Samantha walks past the alleyway, headphones on, stride steady and serious. She pauses as soon as she is hidden by the building and slowly pulls her headphones down around her neck. No glint, no voice. She backs up against the brick building and looks into the reflection of her phone to see the alleyway and an empty white chair. She runs to the chair and looks past smeared blood to see a note, scratched into the grimy plastic arm.
“It’s all yours now, Samantha. You’ll realize. One day they’ll come for you and you’ll want this chair.”
Twelve Mechanical Pencils
Jillian’s fourteen years of life have been extremely disciplined. Her routine for the last three of those years has been formulaic. She wakes up at 6:50 am to her cocker spaniel, Bailey, jumping on her bed. Jillian spent two months in the fifth-grade training her to do so. After a few seconds of kisses and cuddles and wiping the crust from her eyes, Jillian walks to her bathroom, where she brushes her teeth with her electric toothbrush (one of her most beloved possessions), scrubs her face, moisturizes with her face cream (SPF 30, which she deems a must for all seasons), and finishes with a serum on top. She sprays her wrists and the nape of her neck with a perfume she stole from her mother, who has more perfumes than she could ever need. A boy at school once told Jillian she smelled like a baby’s diaper, but she shrugged and reminded herself that he simply didn’t yet understand the elegance of her fragrant accessory, continuing to spritz herself each morning. Jillian then returns to her bedroom to get dressed. She would describe her style as “practical” yet “timeless”, consisting of many neutral sweaters and polka dotted blouses. Jillian grabs her backpack, making sure to double check it contains all items needed for the day, such as homework, calculator, and at least 12 full mechanical pencils. She then skips downstairs, gets a hug from her mom, and heads for the bus stop.
Once Jillian is at school, she is an attentive, eager, and a perfectionist. She is five minutes early to each class, giving her time to take out two mechanical pencils, open her notebook to a fresh page, and reapply her Chapstick. Jillian’s grades are her absolute top priority. Specifically, she wants to be the valedictorian at her eighth-grade graduation. She has wanted it since she was in first grade when she found out what a valedictorian was. Even as a seven-year-old, Jillian wanted nothing more than to be widely recognized for her hard work and intelligence. Jillian’s classmates don’t exactly understand or appreciate her dedication to her education. They don’t seem to want to be her friend or even acquaintance, that is until it’s time to pick partners for a homework assignment. Jillian tells herself she doesn’t care what they think. She likes that they know she is smart and find it intimidating. Still, sometimes it would be nice if she had someone to tell her secrets to or to borrow nail polish from or to listen to music with. Those thoughts are drowned out by concern with studying, classes, and homework. Jillian doesn’t pencil in any time for self-doubt or social anxiety into her monotonous days. Her routine keeps her grounded, and most important of all, focused on her success.
For the first time in three years, today was different. Jillian went to the copy room to print her book report and tastefully eavesdropped on Mrs. Spangler, the lady at the front desk, who was talking to Livia, her old lab partner.
“Congrats!” Mrs. Spangler whispered, “Valedictorian! That’s an incredible honor, Ms. Livia”.
“Oh my gosh, thank you! Yeah, I just found out this morning. I’m pretty stoked”.
Jillian’s heart dropped and dove straight into the deepest pit of her stomach. Her vision turned hazy and her knees locked. Their voices became white noise in the background of her inner monologue of self-pity and sadness. Without moving her eyes from the floor, Jillian grabbed her report, turned it in to Mr. East, and walked home.
Her eyes still glued to the cement in front of her, Jillian’s mind ran through all she had sacrificed for her rigorous and now seemingly pointless lifestyle. All the birthday parties she had missed and stopped being invited to. The meals she spent in an empty classroom doing work. Each tear she had cried over each point she had ever been marked off. Jillian rubbed her damp hands on her knitted tights as she became warmer with every image coming to mind. She turned onto her street and ran up to her bedroom, where she threw her body onto her bed and began to weep. Bailey was quick to report for duty, jumping on the bed and licking her salty cheeks. Jillian recoiled from Bailey’s hot breath and hid under her covers. She sniffled and swallowed her tears, knowing there is a more productive solution to her woes than crying. If Jillian knew one thing, it was how to be productive. She sat up in her bed and decided that she can turn this around. In the midst of her spiraling dizzy of thoughts, she realized that she has not had nearly enough fun. While she was going to bed early and spending hours on Quizlet, her classmates were having slumber parties and lunch dates and their first kisses. Tonight, it would all change.
After making herself tea, Jillian patted and fluffed four pillows into a throne and grabbed her laptop. She sipped her earl grey and scrolled through Netflix. She hadn’t ever “binge-watched” anything before, but she knew it’s what her classmates did for fun. She had no one her age to text and ask what to watch so she asked her mother. Downton Abbey would have to suffice. Jillian furrowed her brow in pursuit of thinking of a way to make her night more exciting. She looked at the clock. It was 4:30. For years Jillian had given herself a strict bedtime of 9:45. She even followed it on the weekends, so as not to fuss with her internal clock. She decided tonight she would stay up until midnight for the first time in her life. Jillian smiled to herself, satisfied with her plan for an outrageous evening. She began her streaming and wiggled her toes with anticipation.
Hours passed and around 11 pm, Jillian’s eyes began to flutter closed. She closed her laptop, her body stiff from melting into her bed, and turned on her side, her pillow throne deflated into a pancake for her head to rest. She scrolled through social media as the brightness of her screen slowly dimmed in the dark room. With each story, post, and picture she tapped, Jillian’s heart felt little heavier. As she mindlessly hopped from app to app, her night of fun felt lonely and pointless. Her empty room seemed to enlarge as she felt smaller and more alone. She couldn’t look away from the posed shots of her classmates at their houses, at the park, at the beach. She blinked and a tear rolled across her nose onto the pillow. She checked the time. 11:42. She couldn’t find the point in spending another eighteen minutes awake and alone. With a click, the illumination of her phone went black, leaving Jillian in the darkness with only her covers to keep her company. She dozed off to comforting thoughts of biology projects and which classroom she would eat lunch in tomorrow.
The Way the Sky Breaks
Neil
1 year earlier
“Pick up, pick up, pick up.” I’m freaking out, holy shit. I’ve spent the past two hours pacing around my room like some deranged psychopath. Or like a duck in water. Didn’t somebody smart say something about calm ducks paddling in hell? I don’t remember. Bottom line is right now I’m a deranged psychopath hell duck that’s having a meltdown and is attempting to cope by doing weird body things. By weird body things I mean doing impromptu leg stretching exercises on the floor (with pointed toes), or attempting to do the worm and failing spectacularly, or bashing my face into every pillow I can get my hand on, or contorting my body into every single shape humanly possible in every corner of my room. I’m like my friend’s pet mealworm that he had in the first grade. It was kept in a cylinder container and all it would do is run laps, round and round, that’s me. I’m a mealworm track athlete and I–
“It’s only 1 PM Neil, why the fuck are you calling me?” She sounds pissed.
“AJ!”
“I literally told you that Sundays are my sleep-in days dumbass. Do you want me to die early? Cause I will if you keep calling me this early.”
“AJ–”
“I can’t even go back to sleep because I’m so mad, are you happy now?
“Can you listen to me–”
“No, you listen to me. This lack of sleep will snowball throughout the next week and my immune system is going to fail. With the flu going around I’m actually fucked–”
“Oh my god, shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Something crazy happened.” A pause.
“Holy. Shit. You lost your virginity.”
“What? NO. What are you even–“
“Oh my god, this is not a drill. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Give me fifteen, I’m heading over right now. Actually, make that thirty I need to make myself look somewhat presentable. Okay see you soon babe.”
“AJ–” The call ends. I slink down to the floor and screech into the carpeted floor.
***
“W–wait, wait, wait, can you repeat that?” AJ is cackling, tears tickling her eyes. My face is beet red. I’m as small as an ant.
“I… I tried to do a sailor kick, slipped on a patch of ice, and woke up in Harry’s bed with an icepack on my head.” The cackle transforms into a wheeze guffaw. “AJ can you take this seriously.”
“STOP. Stop. Oh my god you’re killing me.” She’s on the floor now. “OW my abs, HELP ME.” I feel steam escape my ears.
“AJ, I’m going to kick you out if you don’t sto–“
“WAIT NO. I’m good. I am good now.” She sits up. “IN HIS BED HA.” She collapses on the floor again, finger pointed in my face. I chuck a pillow at her. “OW.”
I sigh. “Don’t be dramatic.”
“I took a fatal blow to my left boob, I–I don’t think I’m going to make it. What’s that bright light?.” AJ reaches her hand towards the ceiling, half coughing, half laughing.
“AJ can you stop? I’m freaking out right now.”
“Alright, alright. I’m sorry. You’ve gotta admit though, it’s pretty funny how you ended up in the bed of the very person you, and I quote, ‘purged your feelings for.’ And the ‘purging’ was only last week.”
“Hey, the purge was successful, okay? My feelings for him are dead.” I puff out my chest a bit.
“Yeah, uh-huh, totally. Why did you decide that you needed to annihilate your feelings for him again?”
“He’s straight, it’s a waste of time.”
“Okay… And how do you know this?”
“He has a girlfriend.”
“He could be bi.”
“You always say that.”
“Or in the closet.”
“You always say that too.”
“C’mon, you never know.”
“Whatever, it doesn’t matter. He has a girlfriend, and I am not looking to be added to her kill list.”
“Polygamy is always an option.”
“Har har, you’re so funny.”
AJ sighs. “Why do you always want to make yourself so unhappy.”
“I’m not, in fact I’m doing the exact opposite right now. I’m saving myself from a broken heart for once.”
“So you really don’t think it means anything?”
“What do you mean?”
“Use your brain dummy.” AJ sits up. “He cares about you. Way more than a normal friend would.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Fine, stay clueless. I’m getting some cereal.” AJ gets up to raid my snack drawer. Normally I would be tempted to follow, but there’s only one thing on my mind right now. Harry, Harry, Harry.
I met Harry a few months ago when I auditioned for one of the acapella groups on campus. When I first saw him I think I almost caught fire. Blue eyes. Intense, seductive, mischievous. Two drops of cerulean from the sky. Brown hair. A tangled, sexy, deliberate mess. I wanted to run my hands through it. A goofy lopsided mouth. Soft, pink lips. So much life existed in the lines that made him; precise, defined, and imperfect. I wanted to steal him in a photograph, his lines suspended. My eyes were then drawn to the two adorkable dimples stamped in his face. He’s smiling. Shit, he’s smiling at me.
I saw him everywhere after that. On top of acapella rehearsals, we had two classes together, always ate at the same dining hall, and shared a strange obsession of invading music practice rooms late at night with him on the piano and me singing. Within weeks he became my second best friend. At the time, I could tolerate being just friends. Then the ice skating day happened. To preface this, I suck at skating. Imagine a giraffe with buttered hooves on an ice rink and you have me, minus the height.
When Harry asked me to go ice skating, I was mortified, freaking ecstatic, and then mortified again. “Harry I don’t think this is good idea. The last time I skated, I was on the floor 97.8 percent of the time I was there. My butt never recovered.”
“C’mon Neil, you have me to teach you. And I’m a pretty good teacher if I do say so myself.”
“Of course you do,” I grumbled.
“It’ll be fun, trust me.”
“Noooooooooo.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Fine, you leave me no choice. Come ice skating or I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” I smirked
“Be very sad.” Then he flashed his sad emerald eyes and I was a goner.
We got to the rink and I completely wiped out within the first ten seconds. “OW.” I rubbed my poor tailbone. “I told you this was a bad idea.” Harry skated up to me laughing.
“No offense, but you looked like a dying chicken.”
“Haha. Help me up dumbass.” He pulled me up a bit too strong and I landed in his arms. Shit. We didn’t move. I felt his heart pumping against my shoulder. A millennia passed. He unfroze time first.
“Here, grab onto me and we’ll skate together.” I looped my arm around his torso. I hoped he couldn’t see how red I was. His hand found my waist and he pulled me closer. The ice started melting and my heart rate shot through the roof, past the sky, into space, and collided with a star. It was beating faster than a bee wing.
“I’m ready.” We started moving. And then we instantly fell. And of course I landed on top of him. “Fuck, sorry, sorry, are you ok?” I searched his eyes for anger and saw a flash of, affection? It disappeared almost immediately and was replaced with a look mischief. Oh no. In an instant he scooped me up and princess carried me out of the ice rink. I protested, but I didn’t resist. At that moment, I was screwed. I fell for him, hard.
Oh god, I need to restart the purge.
Harry
1 year earlier
Shit, I fucked it all up. I stare at my empty bed, groceries in hand. “Why the hell did I think it was a good idea to bring him back to my bed of all places? Like who wouldn’t be freaked out about that?” I fall on my bed face first. “Why didn’t I just take him back to his room like a normal person?” I answer my own question. “I was worried about him. I… I needed to know that he would be ok.” A pause. “He’s so clumsy, nearly sailor kicked himself into another dimension.” I’m smiling into my bedsheets and something in me clicks. “I need to find him.”
***
I bang on Neil’s door. “Neil are you here?” Five seconds later the door opens. “AJ? What are you doing here?”
“Eatin’ cereal.” She shoves handful of Cheerios in her mouth. A few fall on the floor.
“Never mind, do you know where Neil is?”
“Not sure, he left like thirty minutes ago. Said that he needs to ‘clear his head.’”
“Shit, I need to talk to him now.” AJ eyes me carefully.
“Why?”
“I uh… Well… So basically…”
“Mhm, yeah, very interesting. How long were you going to continue that for?”
“I–”
“Don’t care.” AJ turns to leave and pauses. “Try that spot. You know? His place.” The door closes.
Of course, how am I so stupid?
Neil
1 year earlier
I’m walking along the bank of my favorite river. One small step at a time, like I’m used to. Droplets from the cascading water tickle my ankles. There was a time when it wasn’t so hard to live. A time when it wasn’t so damn difficult to want to live. Back then, Mom was still alive. Back then, Dad still loved me. Back then, AJ didn’t have to be anything other my best friend. Why did everything have to become so bad? Why did I have to become so bad? My thoughts are interrupted by a familiar voice.
“NEIL!” I turn around to see Harry barreling towards me. I dodge too late and he has me locked in a tight hug.
“Harry? What are you doing here?” I laugh into his chest.
“I just thought I messed everything up when you were gone this morning and god I’m so sorry. It must have been so weird to just wake up in my bed like that.”
“Harry it isn’t your fault. I’m the one who went ballistic for no reason. You were just taking care of me and that was really sweet.”
“What do you mean you went ballistic? Are you ok?” His green eyes search mine.
“Trust me, I’m fine.” I smile.
“Okay good, but that’s not the reason I’m here. I need to tell you something?
“What?”
“This.” He grasps my face and kisses me. The sky falls down.
Neil
6 months earlier
“NEIL. Walk out that door and you are actually dead.” I take my hand off the doorknob. “Look, I know you want to see your man but AJ needs her Neil time too.” She sighs. “I feel like I haven’t talked to you at all lately.” Guilt shoots through me. I really have been neglecting her lately. I walk over to the couch and we get into the Neil-AJ sitting position. An excessive amount of blankets is required. Pillow fort is optional, though highly recommended. AJ leans her head on my shoulder. “Tell me about him.”
“I don’t think you’ll be able to tolerate the goop that is going to come out of my mouth AJ.”
“I don’t care bub, I just missed you. Say all the goop you want.” I’m hit with another pang of guilt, but I oblige her.
“Well first off, turns out he never had a girlfriend.” AJ snickers.
“Who was she?” She teases.
“His sister…” AJ snorts triumphantly. “Okay, but in my defense they don’t look alike at all, seriously.”
“I’ll take your word for it conclusion jumper.”
“Whatever.” I’m glad there isn’t any tension. “Anyway, Harry is just the sweetest, and he treats me so good. I really feel like he’s my soulmate.”
“Ugh, gross.”
“I thought you said you would tolerate the goop.”
“I take it back. Tell me the weird stuff. Rapid-fire go.”
“Ok, um, his elementary school nickname was Tubby because he used to be really fat.”
“Oh hell yeah, I’m totally using that.”
“He broke his arm once because he didn’t believe the slippery banana trope in cartoons.”
“Heh, dumbass.”
“Adult Simba was his sexual awakening.”
“That was something I did not need to know.”
“Don’t complain about getting all the juicy stuff.”
“He named his penis J–“
“Okay, okay, that’s more than enough material for blackmail in the future.” I smirk. AJ heaves a sigh of relief.
“It’s Jeb by the way.”
“Can I unsubscribe from this friendship?”
“You love me,” I tease.
“I do.” Her eyes meet mine. “I like this version of you. Not that I dislike the other versions, but this one makes my heart happy.” She rests her head in the crook of my neck
“AJ?”
“Hm?” A pause.
“I’m happy.” I can feel her smile.
Neil
1 month earlier
“That’s disgusting…filthy…it’s all your fault that she’s dead…God took her from me because you think you’re a faggot…get out of my house, you’re no son of mine.” He hits my face. “Get out.”
My eyes open, I’m in my bed. Light creeps in through the curtains, trying to dispel the dark. I lift my hand to my cheek, I’ve been crying. But why? It hadn’t happened in so long. I thought I was happy. I am aren’t I? Am I becoming bad again? I don’t want to become bad again. I want Harry to stay. I want to be the good version of me for AJ. I need to forget. I cocoon myself in the shape of Mom’s arms. I don’t feel her, I never do.
Harry
3 days earlier
Today’s a lazy day and I’m at Neil’s place. We’re on the couch, my head resting in his lap.
“I think your hair is too perfect.” Neil pouts.
“What do you mean?”
“Every time I try to mess it up it just looks cuter. It isn’t fair.” He tousles it violently.
I giggle. “Superior genes I guess.” Neil rolls his beautiful brown eyes.
We stay like this until the sun sets.
“I love you.”
Neil stays quiet.
Neil
3 days earlier
“Why aren’t you saying it back?” Harry’s emerald eyes are shattering. I tear my gaze away from him. “Neil?” His voice shatters too. I try to say something, anything, but nothing comes out. I’m a prisoner in my own silence.
Everything is muted. I watch Harry take his things and run out the door, blue jewels tumbling down his cheeks. He doesn’t look back at me. My hands start to tremble. Why couldn’t I say anything? I love him don’t I? I run into the bathroom. I look at the stranger at me, his lines are harsh. Disheveled black hair. Creased forehead. No smile lines. Flat, bulbous nose. Dark eyes. A storm is brewing in them. I try to find Mom in my face, but I can only see Dad. I’m Dad. I swing my fist at him. The mirror fractures, a piece of it falling into the sink. A river of red flows between my knuckles. I can’t love.
Harry
1 day earlier
I’m woken by an angry beeping noise. I instinctively rolls over and slap my alarm. The beeping continues. Slap. Slap. Slap. Nothing happens. I force my eyes open and glower at the clock. 10:24 AM is displayed in a disgusting neon yellow. My phone. Recently I’ve been leaving it away far from my bed so my chances of getting out of bed successfully are more probable. It hasn’t been working. I grumble and roll ungracefully out of bed, somehow landing on my feet. My hair is a mess. If I had to describe it, I would say mangled squirrel or butchered birds nest or unlikeable anime character. I run my hands through whatever is on my head and yawn-scream the demons out of my body. Scratching my back, I trudge to my phone and pick up.
“Hello?”
“Harry, is Neil with you?”
“No why?” I try not to sound bitter.
“Shit.” Something’s wrong.
“AJ what’s going on.”
“I tried to call him this morning but he wouldn’t pick up. Did you not spend the day with Neil yesterday?” My heart tightens.
“No, he told me that he was working on a group project.”
“Fuck. Harry I’m worried. The last time he disappeared like this he tried to do something stupid.” I’m on high alert now. “There’s a chance that he’s just moping in his room, but I’m scared.
“AJ we’ll find him. Let’s just try his room first, I’ll see you in fifteen.”
“Okay.”
***
I bang on Neil’s door. “Neil, are you in there?” I look at AJ. She’s staring straight ahead, brow furrowed. Ten seconds later we hear movement.
“Neil, oh my god please let us in.” AJ’s voice breaks. Silence. Then the sound of the lock. The door inches open. AJ and I heave a sigh of relief.
“What are you guys doing here?” Neil won’t meet my eyes.
AJ’s voice is like a cannon. “What are we doing here? We were fucking worried about you Neil. You didn’t answer our calls and we had no idea where you were the past two days. What’s going on?” Neil stares at the floor. “Please, look at me.” He stays quiet. “Neil, we’re going to come in and talk this out. Is that ok?” He nods.
***
The three of us are sitting on Neil’s couch. AJ’s voice cuts through the dead air.
“Neil, talk to us. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, I’m not… wrong. I’m completely fine.” Neil chuckles. “You guys just get too worried sometimes. I’ve been great, awesome even.”
“Neil, something is bothering you.”
“It’s nothing big.” I wince.
“Then tell us.” Neil stays silent. My blood begins to boil.
“It’s not important.” Neil’s voice is beginning to rise. “Stop asking.”
My voice comes out in a whisper. “I told you that I loved you, and you said nothing.” AJ’s head whips around to me. “You didn’t even try to stop me.”
“What are you talking about? Love? Neil, what the hell is going on?”
“Harry is just overreacting that I didn’t say ‘I love you’ back to him. It’s not a big deal.”
“What the fuck are you saying. Are you saying that we aren’t a big deal.” Tears cloud my eyes.
“No! It’s… I can’t… I don’t have to deal with this.” Neil stands up, his face is a shadow.
AJ gets up. “I can’t believe neither of you told me about this. Neil, sit back down. We’re figuring this out right now.”
“Don’t tell me what to do AJ.”
“Excuse me?”
“YOU AREN’T MY MOM!” AJ takes a step back. “Stop acting like you always know what’s good for me, because you don’t. Does it make you uncomfortable that I’m suddenly in charge of my life now? You’re probably just bitter that you don’t have control over me anymore.”
“Neil, you know that isn’t true–”
“AND YOU.” Neil whirls around to me. “Stop acting like you’re so righteous. You always know what’s right, don’t you? Does it feel good to look down on me again. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Neil stop, you’re hurting us.”
“Well isn’t that terrible? Am I not terrible? Isn’t it filthy that I’m hurting the only people that love me? That I want to hurt them? I’m disgusting. And you two are disgusting for wanting to love me.” Neil sinks to the ground. “You think you know me so well, but you don’t know me at all. I’m horrible. I hate the only family I have left because I’m such a gross human being. I don’t just hate him. I want to hurt him.” Neil reveals his bloodied hand. “I want him to suffer, isn’t that evil?” He looks up at us, a wild look in his eyes. AJ and I are too shocked to respond. “See? Now that you know how disgusting I am, you have nothing left to say.” He starts laughing. “I knew this would happen eventually, that I would destroy my own life. Do you know why?” His eyes dart chaotically between us. “It’s because I don’t believe in love. Isn’t that sad? I’ve become the very person that I want to hurt the most. You can’t save broken souls.” He stands up laughing, dark tears staining his face. “Get out. Get out. GET OUT.” He pushes us out and slams the door.
The world feels dead. AJ is broken. I look up and see that the sky has been stolen.
Neil
The day
I threw my heart away. I don’t need it anymore. My hand rests on the doorknob. Why am I so hesitant? I feel a light inside of me. Harry. My hand falls. I need to get rid of it.
I find a piece of paper to safeguard my last bit of hope. Word by word, the light in me slowly transfers to the page. After finishing, I seal it in an envelope and stuff it in my pocket. The light shines through my jeans, ready to die.
There’s nothing holding me back now.
***
The torrent roars in front of me. I take off my shoes and lay them by my side. I close my eyes and let go.
Harry
Two days later
“The paramedics found this letter in your pocket after you tried to kill yourself.” It was addressed to me. The paper feels fragile clutched against my chest, warped from water damage. I watch Neil’s stomach rise and fall. “I haven’t opened it yet. I can’t. You threw yourself in the water knowing this letter was in your pocket. You wanted it to die.” I open the curtains, welcoming the deep and vivid azure of the sky. So deep that if the world were upside down, you could fall through it forever. I place the sunflower I brought on the table next to him. His voice echoes in my memory, “it’s happiness in a flower.” I watch him closely as I leave the room, hoping for anything. A hand twitch, open eyes. I get nothing.
AJ is waiting her turn outside the room. Her voice comes out soft. “I think you should read it Harry. We don’t know if and when he’s going to wake up. There’s no use waiting.”
“It’s rude to eavesdrop.” She shrugs.
“There’s only so much I can block out, Tubby. Anyway, I think you’ve got some reading to do.” She punches my shoulder and walks in to talk to Neil.
***
I find a nice bench outside of the hospital to sit on and retrieve the envelope from my pocket. I slide my finger across the wrinkled top and tear it open. Though the ink is slightly smudged, it’s still intact for the most part. I take a deep breath.
To the boy who stole my heart,
Who gave you the right to wreak havoc on the peace of my melancholy life? Since you showed up, everything’s been a mess; I’ve been a mess. Every second I have to myself is another damn second to think about your handsome, stupid, and adorkable face. And your goofy dimples make it even worse. I just want to punch you with affection. And why do you have eyes that make me feel like the most important person in the world? How can you treat me like I’m your whole world?
One part of me wants to push you away, past the atmosphere and among the stars. That’s where you belong. A spot where I can admire your radiance without dulling it. I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve the delinquent happiness that you make me feel.. I’m too shattered and lost to be good for you. How could I ever return what you want to give to me?
Yet another part of me wants to give itself entirely to you, diving in headfirst without considering the consequences. I want to be with you. I want you to be mine. You give me faith that love hasn’t abandoned me. You make me want to try again.
Do you still remember that night you showed up spontaneously at my apartment and took me to see the stars? You were so cute with your little bowtie, blushing out of your mind. I knew you came because you cared; I hadn’t felt that kind of love in a long time. That night, you sang to me under the stars. Your delicate voice meshed together seamlessly with the gentle strumming of your guitar, beautified by the brilliant luminosity of the endless sky. For a second, the universe was ours. All my fears and doubts dissipated at that moment, and at the heart of it was you.
This is what you told me. “Look up, the stars are always up there shining even if we can’t see them. I’m here. I’ll always be here.”
Since then, I’ve looked up at the sky every day, unable to resist its captivating sapphire. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I choose you. For as long as our love endures, it will always be you.
Truth is, I’m terrified. I don’t know the trajectory of our lives together and I never will. Everything that happens will be unchartered territory for us, and our only choice will be to march forwards despite the odds that we may face.
Do I even understand what love is?
I don’t know. But when I look at you, I realize that it doesn’t matter. You drive me insane.
You took the stars from the night sky and lay them in my hands to keep forever. You are my light and my love. You are my beloved sky boy.
To the only one who puts my mind and heart at ease, I am forever yours.
Neil
The Color Of Your Sweater
Mary and Jack broke up in the autumn of last year under an oakwood tree in their hometown of Auckland, New Zealand. They broke up surrounded by sunny, sapphire skies in broad daylight as the birds chirped and flowers blossomed. The couple held each other in their arms, took deep breaths, looked each other directly in the eyes and had a conversation neither of them was entirely ready for. A conversation that started out slow and civilized, but soon turned loud and disruptive with both individuals crafting sentences made to hurt and nothing else. Their relationship was no longer the same – romantic dates had turned to empty, conversation deprived dinners; long, loving walks to short, tense interactions; and their love to loathing. They would continue to argue for several hours and their words only seemed to stop as the daylight began to subside and the sun began to set. It seemed this would be their last sunset together.
The two had started dating after they were introduced to one another by a mutual friend at birthday party. Mary and Jack didn’t have common interests, or even a similar outlook on most topics. He liked cats, and she was a dog-lover. His favorite food was Chinese, but she couldn’t handle spice. She was a track-star in high school, but the closest he had ever come to doing sports was playing NBA on his Xbox. Fortunately, however, they were alike enough in matters that were crucial. So, while it was certain that they would never agree on what to eat, where to go, or what movie to watch, they did agree on political matters and what it meant to be a good person. These were things that were more important to them, and so the conversation they had on the first day that they met was memorable and they both hit it off. But more importantly, this combination of a commonality in morals and a conflict in interests, was the reason that their arguments were never divisive, and they never really fought. In fact, they did the opposite. They used their dissimilarities as food for their conversation, constantly bantering with and mocking each other, making their love grow stronger and more powerful.
The biggest difference or dissimilarity, perhaps, was that Mary was extroverted, while Jack was an introvert. She was high energy, always looking to meet people, a very happy-go-lucky type of person. And while, Jack was high energy, his energies came out in a very different manner. It came out in the form of strange mannerisms within the comfort of his close friends or ecstatic screaming while being enchanted by the world of video games and TV shows. This seemed to work out perfectly when they were together because they were extremely comfortable with one another allowing their high energies to unite and lead to ridiculousness such as lengthy competitions in things ranging from cooking to racing across the corridors while doing a handstand. On many occasions, the two would pass their time by doing ludicrous acts such as enacting entire movies while watching them (with costumes and everything).
Mary and Jack had fallen in love hard, and they had fallen in love fast. Their world’s revolved around each other. They began to slack on every other aspect of their lives, but they couldn’t care less. For the first time in a long time, they were both immensely happy, the kind of happiness that is indescribable; a feel it to believe it sort of situation.
With time, however, their obsession for one another became clear even to them. They began to see the consequences it was having on their lives. Mary got fired for being consistently late for work, a result of her fooling around with Jack to the early hours of the morning. Jack, on the other hand, managed to keep his work intact due to his workaholic personality, but he lost
other, arguably more important, things. He began to lose the close friends he had cultivated through years of interaction and bonding. They missed him and he had ignored them.
The realizations set in and the couple began to fight as hard, if not harder than they had fallen in love. Rampant arguments, banging doors, crying, shrieking and other emotional reactions to the fighting were followed by periods of silence. With enough time, they’d calm down, the feelings of anger and rage that had consumed their entire being would begin to recede, and there would be a short period of happiness, peace, and conversation until there wasn’t. Then there would more banging doors, more crying, more shrieking; only louder and more painful. It was a vicious cycle, and it continued to repeat until that one day under the Oakwood tree, when the cycle finally broke.
*
Mary and Jack were to meet today at that same friend’s birthday party they had met at, four faithful years ago. The friend was a close friend and there was no avoiding the party, and even if there was, there was a part of each of them that wanted to see the other; to smell them; to hear their voice; to hug them tightly. There was no certainty that any of this would happen, but there was a chance, and that was more than any of them had had in a long time. She was tired of going to the grocery store that she knew he frequented in the hopes of seeing him, and he was tired of scrolling through Instagram minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, in the hopes of seeing her post and getting a glimpse of her life.
The party was at their friend’s house in downtown Auckland. Light green fairy lights wrapped across the letters on her door made the spot difficult to miss. The interiors had an equally funky vibe – the walls were covered with posters of album art, Broadway show flyers and souvenirs from across the world. The host of the party had always had a love for aesthetic, and so it was no surprise that even a small event was made to look so lucrative. The host had put in tons of effort to create an upbeat modern vibe. The room had a plethora of scents travelling through the air – one moment you’d smell rosy perfume and another you’d smell the fresh chicken that had just been taken off the grille. With Christmas just around the corner, it was a happy time, and this was a great place to be.
Jack sat in the corner at the house’s bar with an old buddy of his. He made himself a drink and looked around the room.
Jack knew that sweater. He knew that Mary loved that sweater. She adored that sweater. He realized he didn’t know why she loved that sweater so much. He was curious. He wanted to touch the sweater. He wanted to touch her. His thoughts continued to linger. He thought of the time they travelled to Venice and ate freshly made margarita pizza by the canals, but more than that, he thought of the smaller events – the ridiculous pillow fights, the early morning breakfasts, the late night conversations, the walks in the park in the summer, the cuddling in the winter.
Moments passed and his thoughts turned to questions. He began to wonder what the purpose of it all was; of whether it had meant anything; whether it was real; whether she cared for him; whether she cared about him now. Did she hate him? Did he still mean anything? When she looked at him, did she think about the color of his sweater or was he just another person she had known?
Mary, on the other hand, hadn’t noticed Jack’s arrival yet. She was with a couple of people she had just met. They were singing and dancing. The lyrics “I don’t care I love it” boomed out of her mouth with utmost force. She was consumed by the moment. She flipped her hair from side to side filled by the ecstasy of the moment, and then all at once, her world seemed to stop. He caught her eye, and she felt an overwhelming heaviness weighing down on her. Unlike him she didn’t have questions anymore. She was past that stage. She had come to accept that there was something great there, and that they both had felt it. She was struggling with the moment right now; with how she was going to act in front of him; with whether she should say hi or if she should just say nothing. She wasn’t upset or confused. She was just angry at him; at herself. She was angry at their actions and the potential they had ruined. She thought of that afternoon in the fall of last year when everything she had dreamt of came to an end.
Her eyes lurked and she looked directly at him as he mouthed some words to this girl who had made her way over to talk to him. She felt a hatred towards that girl that she didn’t want to.
She noticed his purple sweater. She knew that one. His mother knit it for him
YOUR FIRST CRUSH WILL KILL YOU
If Helen asked me to jump off a cliff I would do it.
OK maybe not a cliff but a community pool
looked harmless enough,
only six feet of water between surface air and marble tile,
those blue & white squares that wiggled in bendy zig-zags
when you looked down from above.
“I dare you to touch the floor,” she said,
with her hand—soft, cold—on my shoulder.
I could smell her cherry coke lip gloss when she spoke,
sweet and artificial, she was that close.
I wondered what it would taste like,
cherry coke, and I wondered if maybe after I
touched the bottom of the pool if she would let me borrow her lip gloss,
the same one she used,
and I wondered why the thought of that made my chest gasp and sputter
like my big brother’s shitty car, and then I stopped wondering
because Helen was pinching her brow now,
probably wondering why I was taking so long to answer, maybe wondering
if she should go talk to someone else instead, so I quickly answered,
“OK.”
ok ok ok ok
And then she smiled that smile that made everyone go crazy,
from the mailman to the grocery bagger to the boys in homeroom
who fought and elbowed each other all last spring to be the one to take her to
the eighth grade dance.
Only this smile was for me. All for me.
And with that in mind I fell,
head first, into the water.
A splash, no, a crash. The roar of television static. Then silence, suffocating.
All the air wheezed out of my lungs, spilling in a stream of bubbles out
of my open mouth, and I realized too late that I fell smiling.
I sank like stone, arms extended, the floor rising fast to greet me.
I pictured my skull split open like a present,
ribbons of red brain tissue floating to the surface. All for her.
I didn’t close my eyes.
I wanted to see my hands
touch the floor
so close
fingers
stretched
and
brushed—
I woke up to shouting,
to “Oh my god she’s alive!”
to a heavy pressure
easing off my chest and a flash of lifeguard red,
(“Everyone take two steps back; don’t crowd her.”)
I coughed up chlorine in wet, raspy hacks that burned my throat and sinus and waited
for the ringing in my ears to go away. Heart racing fast it froze
to a stop when I saw her staring at me, huddled in the protective arms of her friends,
face twisted in horror,
eyes narrowed in accusation.
Her lips moved, and I heard her voice, garbled, underwater.
“You never told me you couldn’t swim!”
“Why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t swim?”
WRITING TO YOU IN BONE:
1.
She remembered the way the postman’s hollow knock rippled through the stale air, and then the delicious slide of the thick envelope through the mail slot and across her wood floor. “Yes. Today,” she announced to an empty house, her feet jackhammers pounding adrenaline into the stairs as she descended to the front door. Outside, December raged like a scorned lover, hurling snow drifts against the side of her tilting lakefront house in a childish performance of might. Year-rounders usually stayed this far north because they admired the winters, but she had never gotten used to the season’s showiness, the way it called attention to itself and its crystalline purity.
[How is life at the lake? When I’m cooking pasta, I look into the boiling water and think of you.]
Inside the letter, his words were as saturated with longing as she had expected. His sentences trailed across the page in big strides, wrapping her up in the empty places, between his bike wheels spinning through New York City traffic—why did he insist on getting to work that way?—and the streaky red sunset views from his fire escape and the din of the throwback karaoke bar seeping up through his apartment floor. The heavy scrawl of his handwriting nearly poked through to the back of the paper in places, and imagining the physicality of his forearms as he wrote made her grip the letter like a life raft.
[It is so full of everything here. I wish you could feel it.]
Of course she wished the same. This October had been the worst, full of piercing gusts across the lake and unbearable silences at night after the loons had left for the winter, no longer wailing across the water with her at the ink dripping from the sky, all over the cold geometry of the dock and the pine trees and everything. (She still fell asleep seeing the birds’ red eyes in the dark, bobbing disembodied across the black pane of lake water, calling to other ghosts with cries that started deep in their bellies.) He had left a pair of red socks on her dresser before he left for the last time in July. She couldn’t bring herself to put them away until yesterday, and when she lifted them up, six months of dust ringed the spot like a chalk outline of a murder victim. She left it there.
[Are you still learning guitar?]
Now she flattened the creases of the letter onto her kitchen floor and stared at it from above: a puzzle to solve, a block of ice to melt and stir herself into. She extended her thumb and pointer fingers and fit them around two corners of the paper. The angle was so satisfying. A perfect fit. Looking at the patch of white on the bottom edge of the page, she knew instinctively it was the length of her foot. The longer side would match her upper arm bone. She took a deep breath and filled up her lungs until she could feel the muscle fibers between her ribs stretching and peeling away from each other like string cheese. She ignored the ragged burn spreading across her chest and continued cracking herself open. Her vertebrae began to separate, jumping off her spine and through her skin, kernels of popcorn on high heat. Collapsing to the floor, her ribs fell next, stacking like firewood on top of his letter. She rolled up her legs in little bundles and set them neatly on top of his words. She used her teeth to manage her arms, tucking them around the pile of bones in a static embrace. Then her brain and her heart turned off all at once and softened into a shiny pool, the wet pieces soaking into the paper of his letter and staining it with a streaky red sunset.
2.
The following April, he drives north to pack up the last boxes of her belongings. She owned so many pairs of shoes, and he marvels at the exhaustion of remembering a person so many times, with laces and with smooth leather and with boot treads and with heels and with fleece. Oh, no. The slippers are too much. He steps outside and searches for loons on their return to the lake. On the dock, he is hovering a foot above the surface of the water.
He cannot see it, but right now there is one red-eyed bird gliding around the perimeter of the lake. It is obscured by the weedy spring growth along the shoreline, but tonight after the light slants and disappears it will tell him in echoes what happened to her in December, and he will feel a weight in his belly and an ache in his spine and a burning between his ribs and a sloshing in his skull, because he will never be able to remold her, but more than that he will realize that he has never known love with his whole body and she was the only one who could have shown him how to distill himself down to just a pile of bones and red.
I don’t like giving prefaces but I thought I should on this occasion so that there isn’t any confusion. This is a fictional letter I wrote from two fictional people.
Postmarked Heaven
Owen Mason-Hill
To my dearest Sue,
Water streams down the window panes like tears from a swollen heart. Nothing is the same in your absence. The days drag on with a dull lethargy that leaves my waking hours vast and my dormant ones all too hasty. The coffee tastes bitter. And the bread has gone stale. I know not what to do in my despondent and unwanted isolation. It seems as though I spend every waking moment craving for a dormancy to respite my ailing fatigue, but every night I am tormented by a restless darkness that sucks the air from my lungs and seeps inside like a thick black ink, poisoning me from the inside. I am perpetually growing nearer an existence which I do not know. An existence marked by melancholic stillness and pained consciousness.
Wafts of fresh air rush in from the exposed outdoors; creeping through cracks in the old leaden window frames like an uninvited guest who forgot to knock upon his arrival. Mother Nature has been cruel to me these past weeks, blockading the door
with snow so that I mightn’t be able to leave this prison I have built for myself. I still wear that woolen scarf you gave me last December when the family gathered for the Winter Solstice. Oh, how fond you were of that bonfire we’d built; an immense wall of fallen branches, of old doors and chairs, of year’s end regrets and insufferable longings. We sat by that fire for what must’ve been the better part of four hours, rocking back and forth in our chairs, nursing crisp ciders and reminiscing about the early days when life seemed simpler. It pains me to think of how we’d lost sight of that; how we’d lost sight of us. If only you were here beside me in the rocking chair you were so fond of. Elizabeth likes to sit there now when she does read her books. And more often than not, you can expect to find Beasle tucked right up into a ball in her lap with her velvety ears draped over either knee. You know how much we miss you and wish you were here to share in our lives. If only to hear your laugh one more time I would trade everything. The presence of your smile still echoes through these halls, though fainter than before. Anyways, it’s come time to build that bonfire once more, so I won’t forget to leave a chair and a cup of warm cider waiting for you.
Your Love, now and always,
Arthur
On Critics – a Personal Account
I’m a creator by trade, and take great pride in sharing my work. I like to make others feel when they experience it. The expressions that you can see on their faces are priceless. Something you learn after awhile is that you cannot please everyone.
There is one peer who really likes to scrutinize my work. Whatever I do they say it is wrong. My pancakes are too flat, pants sit too high, and every left I take should be a right. That being the status quo, it is no surprise that when I created an universe, it was generally seen as a mistake. “It’s pretty and all, but what’s the point?” They’d said to me.
I was kinda ticked off at that response. Why do they have to question everything that already is? If they think it’s pointless, then why don’t they not watch it!? That’s my spite talking though, and I’ve been working on ridding myself of that type of negativity for millenniums. You must understand, it’s not that I don’t like negativity, it is quite entertaining, but negativity has a tendency of destroying, and I’m a creator!
In the spirit of staying positive, I tried to engage with them, I asked if they had any suggestions on ‘how I can give the universe a point?’ They told me it needs ‘life’. I asked him, “what about the sun? The sun is clearly alive, look at how much energy that thing emits!” They said, “no, meaningful life.” This confused me, everything in my universe revolves around the sun, which makes the sun the most important thing, it is literally the center of attention. But they told me ‘that doesn’t cut it’ and that ‘true meaningfulness comes from within’ and ‘the sun doesn’t have the consciousness so it can’t define meaning.’ How I interpreted that was, we’re the only ones who matter, but that’s semantics. I said that, “that’s semantics”, he agreed, “It is true, we are the most meaningful beings because we give meaning to everything that is.” So I asked, “you mean I need to create something with consciousness? Something that can discern meaning?” He concurred, actually he said, “it seems so.” A little arrogant, but were still staying positive.
At the time, this made a lot of sense. To make my universe matter, it needed beings that could give it meaning. I started on the task. It was not an easy task, but I figured it out. It took a lot of cross-breeding of organisms. I liked what had become at first, the beings had become intricate, positives and negatives to each one, almost like regulars, much simpler though. And similar to us also, the organisms’ negatives overpower their positives when not kept in check. The whole piece is slowly starting to ruin.
Luckily they’re on a smaller scale and we can learn from what seems to be their degeneration. But studying their downfall doesn’t matter to me as much. I’ll be dead before we can apply anything we learn anyway, no, I’m more concerned about the wrecking of my universe. I think it was perfect as I created it. It had everything agreeable to the senses within it. There was nothing yet everything. Now everything will be nothing all because I took advice from someone who thought my creation was pointless. Quite ironic, really.
So what I learned from all this (and hope you can take away), take advice and suggestions with a grain of salt, it can ruin your creation.
THE ANT MARCH
Hilary Cavell hated ants more than anything else. Her distaste for this creature likely began at the age of four. Hilary and her older brother Tate were on a walk around the block one warm afternoon in June. The pavement had been heated by the sun so Hilary went barefoot; she loved the way the concrete scraped at her padded feet. The siblings had only made it three houses down from their own when they came across a pair of pasty thin white legs sticking out of the thick bush in front of the squat mint green house. The legs were splayed on the sidewalk in a way that they should not have been while the rest of the body remained hidden beneath the knotted branches. Tate ran home to find their mother— she would know what to do— and ordered Hilary to stay with the legs.
Hilary didn’t quite know what to do. So she sat down and watched a line of ants crawl up, up, up the fallen lady. They started at the shoes— a pair of black heeled mary janes— and disappeared into the bush, along with the rest of the body. Hilary had a pressing urge to wipe away the ants, to wipe the legs clean, but she couldn’t bring herself to touch them. Besides, she concluded that they would keep on marching— ants don’t stop for anyone or anything.
By the time Tate and her mom came running down the sidewalk, Hilary had decided that this woman with the white legs was dead. Twenty minutes later the ambulance man decided the same thing.
Perhaps Hilary’s distaste for ants really began the night she spent in the hospital waiting room. She was ten years old and it was her daddy’s birthday, but instead of blowing out candles, he was hooked up to wires and tubes in the ICU; his heart had attacked him. Or at least that is how she understood it. Hilary was wearing her pretty blue dress with white daisies stitched into it and her curly hair was tied into two pigtails on each side of her head. She always got dressed up for her daddy’s birthday. See, Hilary’s daddy was the most special man in the world. She loved to crawl into his lap at night and rub her cheeks against his scratchy beard. They drank hot chocolate in front of the glowing light of the tv and he would tell Hilary how important it was to love and love and love.
In the hospital waiting room, the nurse with the soft brown eyes and crooked smile stroked Hilary for a while and then turned on the television perched in the high corner above the fish tank. The movie that began to play was titled Antz and was about a worker ant who fell in love with the ant colony’s princess. Hilary thought back to the lady in the bush with the white legs and how ants will keep on marching— they don’t stop for anyone or anything. That night Hilary’s daddy died, his heart attacked him on his 48th birthday.
Hilary spent the next 72 years of her life hating ants; she once even moved houses due to an ant infestation in her basement. She also spent the next 72 years of her life loving, just like her daddy told her to. She loved her job, where she served 35 years in the ICU taking care of patients whose hearts had attacked them. She adored her husband, who made her a cup of hot chocolate every single night. She cherished her children, who spent warm summer days running down the sidewalks barefoot. And she absolutely loved her granddaughter, a beautiful and kind six year old girl named Nellie, who usually stained her clothing by digging in the dirt outside.
At 82 years old, Hilary had skin sagging at her elbows and deep smile lines carved around her eyes and lips. Her hair had turned white long ago, and her glasses lenses were so thick they protruded from the frames. Her clothes smelled of a mixture of lavender soap and Estee Lauder Pleasure perfume, and the top of her hands were riddled with sun spots. Hilary’s favorite pastime was sitting on the rocking chair, on the grand white wrap around porch surrounding her yellow house, watching her Nellie poke holes in the ground.
One warm afternoon in June, Nellie had been playing in the backyard when she approached Hilary with cupped hands.
“Nana, do you want to meet my very best newest friend?” Nellie asked.
Hilary quickly obliged, and offered to hold whatever creature lay hidden in Nellie’s little hands.
And so, Nellie opened up her dirt stained palms, and there crawled a singular ant.
Hilary immediately froze; she had experienced and seen so much in her 82 years of life, and yet her kryptonite remained a tiny creature, no bigger than a grain of rice.
Nellie sensed her grandmother’s alarm.
“Oh Nana, I love this little ant, please do hold him,” Nellie said. “I promise he won’t hurt you.”
Hilary looked at her granddaughter who was so full of goodness, and Hilary realized she could not hate anything that Nellie loved.
Cautiously, Hilary held out one finger, and that little ant crawled across this new bridge. And just as Nellie promised, this ant did not hurt her.
That night Hilary thought about those pasty white legs on the sidewalk and she thought about the hard hospital waiting room chairs on her daddy’s 48th birthday. Her room was lit up by the moon river seeping through her open window. Hilary looked for the ants; she found them marching on the edge of her dresser, not stopping for anyone or anything— the danse macabre. Hilary smiled. What a life of loving she had lived. She had even loved the ant in the end.
“See you soon Daddy,” said Hilary, as she closed her eyes.
GRANDMOTHER’S TABLE
It is the hottest day of the year. The mountains offer no breeze today; they sweat rivers and streams. The Mediterranean sun has grown to twice its size, exploding like a supernova, shooting runny bits of its yolk across the sky, yellow impressionist brushstrokes among the clouds. Inside the kitchen, fresh bread is rising in the oven. My grandmother has dough under her fingernails, flour on her cheeks. A fly zooms in the open window.
She hands me the flyswatter and yells: “Get that thing out of the kitchen now!”
Having been ordered to do so numerous times before, with one wave of my wrist, the fly is smashed against the wall, its wings never to soar upon the mountain breeze again.
“Tell everyone dinner is ready,” she commands.
I head out onto the balcony, flyswatter still in hand, and call out “la cena è pronta” with the same ardor as the man who drives by early every morning shouting “pesche, pesche, fresche pesche”, stirring me from my sound slumber. I make sure to yell this every couple yards as I walk the entire balcony around the house, past potted plants and ducking under hanging clothes instantly dried from the miserable heat, waving the flyswatter at smiling neighbors bustling out of their own houses, eager and hungry to sit at the table which my grandmother has generously prepared. Green tablecloth handsewn by her own grandmother, my great-great grandmother, with delicate white-and-yellow chamomile flowers interspersed throughout.
In early spring every year, my grandmother and I drive the winding roads into the mountains, park in the shade of a large beech tree, and walk the trails deep into the forest. It is ten degrees cooler up in the mountains, all sunlight blocked by the towering beech branches, and we pull our light sweaters tighter around us. I spot a couple strawberries blushing beneath their green cover, but they are early and not ripe enough to be picked. We will come back for them in late April when they are a bold red. My grandmother wanders off trail; she’s spotted them. A clump of chamomile flowers snuggled together for warmth. Neither premature nor droopy, the flowers are ready to be harvested. Grandmother plucks each flower, stem and all, and drops them in a basket by her feet. As it gets darker and colder, we choose to abandon our hunt, not without a filled basket of flowers though. She hands over the flowers to me with the task of pinching off each flower head, the only valuable part needed to make the tea. I discard the stem and petals on the trail behind me; if I didn’t have my grandmother to guide me out of these dense woods, someone could find me.
Laid upon that tablecloth are eight sparkling white plates wiped clean, eight wine glasses, two bottles of Cirò, cloth napkins embroidered with blackberries—a common delicacy around here—forks and spoons, and a basket of fresh bread losing heat in the heart of the table. The first person to enter the dining room is Maria, the lady who owns the cigarette shop down the street and is known for taking in stray cats; having been invited into her home just yesterday, I saw that she is raising six kittens. She is desperate to give them away, and I would love to take one off her hands, but grandmother would never allow it. She has more than enough mouths to feed. The next person to enter is my uncle, Tomaso, who is the only person in town to own a motorcycle; it is bright red and glows when the sunlight hits it, just like my grandmother’s hair. Some of the villagers think he is a snob, flashing his newly acquired wealth, but he has always offered me, as well as the other children, rides when he sees us walking in the dead heat of day to carry out our chores while our parents and grandparents are enjoying their siesta. The mayor, Salvatore, appears then, humbly choosing not to sit at the head of the table, giving and receiving the customary two kisses on both cheeks as though he is family. My cousin, Andrea, follows with the same striking red hair as grandmother; he is greeted with longer hugs and firm kisses rather than pecs since he has been in Rome for the past couple months working as an actor. Everyone is anxious to speak with him, including the mayor, because many have not left the town in years, and know little of what is happening in other parts of Italy. Only the richest people in town—those who own a lot of land—are able to afford a television and keep up with the news. My grandmother, being one of these rare few, never has an empty house as there are always visitors: visitors who dine with us and drink our wine, visitors who lay on our sofa and watch our television, visitors who ask for bread, milk, and eggs to bring home to their own hungry families because they couldn’t afford to go to the store this week. My grandmother keeps all the windows on the balcony open; if anyone calls to her, she will hear them and answer their prayers. The next visitor is my other cousin, Paolo, who is struggling to find work and often hides in the shadow of his older brother, the dazzling red-haired actor. Paolo is quiet and does not speak with the same eagerness and ease as the rest of us, only offering his voice when directly asked a question. Despite his timidness, he is always the first to help clear the dishes after a meal, and so for that kind act he is noticed. The last guest to enter is the woman, Natalia, who lives on the floor above us; last year, during strawberry season and right before the festival of the strawberries, she invited me in and presented a glass goblet full of tiny bleeding red strawberries sprinkled with sugar and ice snowflakes. Having been freshly frozen, they soothed my tongue itching from the May heat. The latest town gossip says that she is losing her memory, but I will never forget her generous gift to me.
Finally, nearly everyone is seated, Andrea at one head of the table so that everyone can see him, though he’s certainly hard to miss with that fire atop his head. The seat at the opposite end of the table is reserved for grandmother, who refuses to sit down until everyone is served with a two-person serving of spaghetti and red sauce, at least three slices of bread to wipe the bowl clean, a wine glass filled to the brim with red wine, and a mouth too full to request something more.
I wish there were two more seats at the table, two more plates and glasses of wine for my father and my mother. I know it’s selfish of me to want them here, with my mother at home pregnant with two needy five-year old twins. She has already had three miscarriages and so is desperate to keep these ones alive. She sent me off to live with grandmother so that she could devote all her attention to her young ones and the unborn baby; she said I was strong and didn’t need to be taken care of anymore. My father packed up and left for the North two years ago in search of a better paying job and we haven’t seen him since. There’s no work down here in the South. There are only boys here; all the men are in the North. The only way we know he’s alive is when we get the money in the mail every couple months. Grandmother reminds me that he is with us; she sees him in my eyes, the color of chestnuts roasting over a fire.
The conversation, like I suspected, focuses primarily on Andrea and the most recent plays he has starred in. He describes one play in which he is the lover of a married man, and then when that man dies, he becomes the lover of the dead man’s wife. Everyone at the table falls silent, horrified not at the adultery, for that is very common in all parts of Italy, but horrified at the idea of two men being together.
Grandmother breaks the silence: “Dessert, anyone?”
Paolo, grandmother, and I clear the spotless bowls and empty wine bottles. We bring out ten plates, a bottle of limoncello, ten cloudy shot glasses which had been chilling in the fridge, and a basket of fruit, including peaches which had been bought from the annoying vendor yelling “pesche, pesche, fresche pesche” early this morning.
When the fruit is eaten or stored in pockets for later and the limoncello is warming full bellies, Grandmother invites each guest one by one into the kitchen and sends them home with whatever they desire. Maria says she needs meat to feed her cats and so she is sent home with soppressata. Tomaso asks for nothing for he has everything he could ever desire and zooms away on his motorcycle. Salvatore asks for eggs since his chicken coop was broken into by wolves and he lost all his chickens. Andrea says he needs shampoo to take care of his hair so that he will not be fired as an actor and so he is sent home with shampoo.
Paolo refuses to ask for anything despite grandmother’s prompting and so he is sent home with a handful of euros; “for a drink and a snack at the bar” grandmother says with a smile.
Natalia wanders into the kitchen last and says absentmindedly, “I forgot what I was going to ask for.”
Grandmother gives her a small box of chamomile flower heads and an unopened package of cookies.
Grandmother says slowly and clearly, “Steep the heads in boiling water to make the tea. Dip these cookies in it; it’s my favorite evening snack. If you remember that you need anything else, just call my name.”
“Thank you, Margherita, you are the kindest soul. I may forget some things, but I will never forget this kindness,” and with that she left, closing the door softly behind her, her footfalls silent as a shadow.
Only Grandmother and I were left.
“Is there anything you need?” she asks me.
There are a lot of things I want. I want to get on a train to the North and go to work with my father; I wonder if he looks different now and if he likes the North. I worry that he may like it better than the South and never come back for us, for me. I want to visit my mother and see my siblings; I want to be there when the next baby is born. I want to go to Maria’s shop and buy a pack of cigarettes and puff smoke like the old men that play cards outside the bar. I want to ask Tomaso for a ride on his motorcycle and clutch those shiny handlebars, the freedom to go wherever whenever I please. I want Andrea to take me with him to Rome and show me the Colosseum and Julius Caesar’s grave, and maybe even let me star in one of his plays. If he’s an actor, then surely I could be one too. I don’t tell Grandmother any of these things.
“No, there is nothing I need.”