Monday, March 28, 2011
You’re Just Cheap Chocolate (NOT DONE)
You’re Just Cheap Chocolate (NOT DONE)
By Gigi Irvine
Prologue:
Michael could reach out and touch all the sides of his world and that was just how he liked it.
Ever since his mind overheated and burnt to a crisp when he was ten, sick with fever, Michael felt the need to be enclosed. Unable to tolerate open spaces, beyond his capsule, he resided in his closet. While it was a large closet, it was quite a tiny space in which to live out a life.
At first the parents would drag him outside into the light. He would scream, beg, and bite. Once outside he would cry uncontrollably and refuse to open his eyes.
After awhile the parents no longer came to take him. Soon, the only time he saw them was when food was delivered to his room and waste taken away. Once in a rare while his Mother would peek into his closet and stand there watching him. Michael always pretended that he did not see her and continued reading on his bedroll with his legs tucked tight beneath him Indian style.
When Michael turned nineteen the most amazing thing happened--his father brought him a box from Apple. Inside was a laptop with wireless abilities. Now, the whole world was open to him.
That is how he found her…
Meet Dalia:
Just earlier this week, I discovered much to my utter horror, that I was responsible for the nearly 60 earthquakes that have struck Arkansas since Feb. 15, 2011; it was all over the news.
I did not eat for days.
In the light of this development, on the verge of desolation, I am unable to leave my bed. I am certain that there is some inexplicable fissure ripping across my brain. I spend days in too much agony to move, yet in too much pain to stay still.
I think about death without pause, and without being necessarily suicidal.
Unable to sleep, I watch myself shatter. The voices assault on my synapses—abusive and critical— and more often than not bizarre.
“We are all unopened cans”
“Crazy as a pig’s foot”
“You’re just cheap chocolate”
The thoughts are my running commentary. Never leaving me and always taking me away from the strands of sanity. At night they become more insistent.
“Slash your wrist”
“Worthless rotting orange”
“End it”
The medicines no longer work and I have long outlived the patience of my parents.
At nine it began.
I could no longer tolerate the sound and sight of people eating. Each bite an assault on my senses. It was as if my ears could hear at 1000 times the normal decibel level and my eyes could see every tiny crumb fastened to their lips like ants harvesting aphids.
I would plug my ears and close my eyes, but I could still hear the chewing. I took flight to my room and refused to ever come back to the dinner table.
To this day, I have not had another meal with family and have never eaten in a restaurant. The sheer terror of all of those endless open mouths chewing and swallowing threatens to rip my fragile neurons asunder.
“You’re such a fool, a loser, an idiot!”
“They are watching you now”
“You are the eraser”
At first they called it depression. Told my parents that I just needed to grow up and out of these bizarre behaviors. Perhaps some friends, a new school, more socialization would help me.
By twelve, I stopped talking to my family. I took to using the tactics of dogs to get my messages across. I would growl when angry and whine when I needed something. By that summer I was openly suicidal and spending my days and nights at the Resnick Facility in Los Angeles.
It is interesting to be a teen and an inpatient. I tried to think of it as some sort of vacation. I spent much of the time alone. The staff did not talk to me much and only one nurse made an effort to befriend me in order to save my soul…as we all know suicide is a one way ticket to Hell. The nurse thought me a coward.
“We are all stop signs”
“They know you did it”
“Its all underwater now”
They released me with little improvement noted. Home once again to the four corners of my tiny room--trapped inside by endless fears. There are no locks, no mechanized devices to keep out the intruders of the mind. They constantly pursue me, friends turn to enemies and family into demons.
My skull is the dome of the heavens. I feel the stars, like insects beneath my skin.
It is not all bad.
There are such moments of clarity and joy. I am artist with lightening as my pen. Sometimes when the mania hits, I don’t sleep for days just to create. During these times I don’t eat at all and sustain myself by just feasting on my thoughts for energy. I spend endless hours drawing and writing in my journal crafting line after line. A cherry becomes a world and an orange a galaxy.
Then in an instant, the clarity is gone and it all turns—soon someone else is wearing my skin, taking me over, controlling my every emotion and vomiting thoughts out onto my sweater.
Welcome to my world.
I am Dalia.
Point of Convergence:
It was quite unexpected really: a meeting that should have meant nothing, but meant everything.
I was riding high with jodhpurs on and my laptop in gear when I posted my latest entry:
Redcoats, wall louses, mahogany flats, crimson ramblers, and heavy dragoons you fascinate me. Feeding on us warm -blooded victims under the covers of our personal oblivion! Gestating in sheets of our forefathers and living on in the linen creases of rest stops. You resurge into our lives in the motels of the weary and catapult into the beds of the wise. Scourge of a 1000 years and still going strong!
His comment came across my blog (the first comment ever) at 11:11 am and I knew.
They are most active in those minutes before dawn when we sleep the fittest (or most people do-I rarely sleep). They are also sweet smelling, a pleasant musky odor. M
“Sick ships of pilgrims!” my mind reeled.
Wound up tighter and tighter.
“M…M…MMMMMMM?????”
“Who is he?
“Is it a He?”
How long has he been in my blog? Did he read it all?
“Orange haze and jello shake!”
I did not know what it was, or if it was? My keyboard aflame I set to another entry.
Polymorphously perverse we are. Jutting out of the mouths of babes, lollipops of abandon, our wanton and decadent words linger on ears too willing to imbibe. Guilt ridden and angst driven our eager selves ready for the sublimation.
His comment posted minutes after…hmmm was he waiting????
Object, object of the stage who you be? Will I love you and you me? M
Breath held alight in my chest, I was still. Who was this M?
“Hot butter melts it all”
Awareness:
Michael did not think his heart could beat any faster. His mind was taken with her. Dalia repeated over and over in his neuronal folds.
He scoured the web to find any little scrap that she had posted across the vast network and had her blog open at all times in a tab on his laptop. It was like he could sense when she was on and writing. He could feel her darkness and anticipate her manic light. And always her words found a way to pierce him.
It touched him that she lived right on the edge of desolation. Her only hope the sprinkles of sublime awareness that gifted her world at times.
But what he found most fascinating was that he felt hard when he read her words. He did not know her age, the color of her eyes or the weight of her breasts--it did not matter she was his.
Waves Crash:
"Dalia."
"Dalia."
"Dalia."
"Dalia…die. "
Why even lift my head from my pillow…why even try and live through it. Bloated bodies washing ashore off Sendai, destruction takes its toll, 10,000 more dead because of me… once again. The horrible trembling that my mind causes!
Magnitude ten of guilt makes me reach for the jagged edge of my demise and hold it steely in my sweaty hands.
I must submerge.
"Lousy with it"
"No more than a broken screw"
Migraines threaten, blood sugar drops into abysmal recesses. Retreat from myself to stay alive and not throw myself into oblivion.
No escape from it. No turning my head.
“Bend over and take it”
“Worthless sponge”
Buzzing and tweaking. The pop that threatens. I can’t hold the thoughts inside. They leak out across my dirty floor like plasma from a shattered skull.
Spic and span no more.
Cranium clippers and pruners needed to purge this addled neuron from my mind. Thousands of souls all screaming my name into the depths of Hell.
M forgive me.
Silence:
Dalia's sudden silence chilled Michael.
He thirsted for her words--as each of her written characters served as a languid droplet working to defrost his heart.
Yet nothing came.
Her voice was now only a short circuit, a blown fuse, a lost message in an electronic world. No matter how many times he hit the refresh button on her blog....nothing.
He had spent the majority of his life alone in his safe oblivion and had never been lonely. Yet now for the first time in his life...Michael missed another.
Dalia had become his obsession. She was his air. His only need.
He feared her dead.
He feared her lost to him.
Perhaps even worse, he feared that her mind had finally won and crossed over, taken her prisoner and forever trapped her in the folds of a consciousness with too many cracks and jagged pieces.
One Swallow:
Smooth. So, smooth.
The pills went down without resistance. I was surprised. It seems I have been blessed with above-average epiglottal function.
Light spiraling away from me. Watching my neurons pop and dim-stars burning out in the night one by one.
"Catchphrase complete"
Beautiful really, the last light of a neuron. Just like a sparkler, only without the powdery residue.
Shaky now.
So cold. The voices leave me.
Now, I am alone.
Antiseptic:
Walking the line of death. Teetering between. Mother found me.
Flashing lights.
Pump...one, two, three.
Back in hospital once again. Saddle sores. Antiseptic world, given to making one worse before better.
"Drugged like a lollipop"
"Hole in one"
"Cue ball without a stick"
They try and convince me that its not my fault. I am not a murderer-- a maker of waves, a destroyer. I can't believe them, I know better. New meds to try. More tweaking with my shattered connections.
Just want to go home. Find M. I need to shoot electricity out of my fingertips and write this all down.
SOS:
Michael was startled by the news. He checked her blog, with really no hope of finding anything.
Oblivion retreats. Popped and tweaked till raw and liquid. My soul streams in videos from the afterlife still. Can't they let me go? A coward's way out and all. Mystics had it when they said that the mind's eye is clear and that life is the cloudy way. Still in the big house. Oh, well Day-O and wanna go home.
He read her words and tried to reason what happened. Had she really gotten that close to dying? He felt icy.
Michael posted his comment at 12:01 am
Perhaps it is the living that is the real oblivion and the rest is just imagination. We can never really know what is real. Perhaps you are just a dream I am having here. Was worried about you. M.
Home Again, Home Again:
Home again, home again...jiggidy jig. Pills flushed and laptop out I am high to write. Had to put the guilt in the gunny sack for now. The wheel on the upward spiral.
“Sprinklers full throttle”
Ruinous the state of things…soon we to be replaced by the synthetic brothers of Geminoid. These A.I. dreamwalkers, born of Japanese and Danish fathers who tinkered them into existence. To act as God…. can never justify the angle. There is no golden mean for the future when we don’t follow the plan. Will they be what we want or will they bring our demise? Will they dream? Will they think? Will they hear the voices as well? But most of all I wonder, will they love?
Michael's comment posted at 7:38pm
It is coming, this replacement or at least cohabitation with the A.I. brethren. Whether it sends us to Hell or not. Already there are machines which discover mathematical hypotheses, paint pictures and compose poems. And I dare say, if they were to read your words Love may be possible. M
I could not reply fast enough to him. Posted 7:49 pm
Who be you, M? Are you always there or do I dream you? You ambled along into my life--a life with voices asunder and thoughts like daggers... all leaving my spirit to bleed out by the side of the river.
His reply posted at 7:49pm. No hesitation.
I am Michael and I am always here. I never leave.
“Hot diggedly damm”
Dentin and the Devil:
Decayed and radial, pulsating with fiery anger, nerve inflamed beyond repair… it was clear the molar needed annihilation.
Michael knew it had to come out. No other choice was an option.
He also knew he was going to do it himself.
Pain like violent stabs of a hot knife deep into his skull was driving him out of his mind. It radiated from his jaw up towards his ear and into his very soul. Sobbing was not even an option; he was well beyond any hope of reprieve. He needed to be able to read Dalia’s words. And right now the pain kept him so jacked that he could not even look at the computer screen.
He could not tell his parents, he feared they would drug him and take him out of the house to have it removed. He could not leave—under any circumstances—he had to manage it on his own.
With needle nose vice grips at the ready, cotton balls, and antiseptic mouthwash he readied himself.
Propping the shaving mirror on the shelf he angled it so he could see the offending prong. Right side, an evil and uneven premolar, blackened with decay and not long for this life now that the pliers were readied. With a deep breath, Michael put pliers to tooth.
“One….two…three.”
Michael yanked at that enamel crusted fiend with everything he had. A sound, more like a crunch than a pop echoed in his cranium, as the molar began to let go from its mandibular resting place.
Fire shot through his whole being.
On the verge of passing out, Michael understood suicide for the first time now. It was such searing pain that Michael was shocked he was still sentient. Finally, with one last turn and yank of the red-handled pliers, the tooth broke free. Michael stood looking at the pulpy mess, as blood dribbled down his chin.
A swig of mouthwash, and he spit out the remnants of his undertaking into an old shoe box ready to be duck taped up smuggled out in the trash. He packed the gapping hole in his head with wads of cotton. All the while thinking to himself that he would begin crafting the new crown with the Friendly Plastic that he had ordered at an online craft store.
With nothing left in him, he sunk to his knees on his bed roll and passed out.
Through the Glass:
Michael listened to the song over and over as he laid on his bedroll. Face swollen and his mind beyond redemption. The pain in his mouth wracking him, twisting him, and holding him trapped in purgatory. It was the song for them. Only thoughts of Dalia kept him holding on.
I'm looking at you through the glass
Don't know how much time has passed
Oh God it feels like forever
But no one ever tells you that forever feels like home
Sitting all alone inside your head
How do you feel? That is the question
But I forget you don't expect an easy answer
When something like a soul becomes initialized
And folded up like paper dolls and little notes
You can't expect a bit of folks
So while you're outside looking in
Describing what you see
Remember what you're staring at is me
How much is real? So much to question
An epidemic of the mannequins, contaminating everything
We thought came from the heart
But never did right from the start
Just listen to the noises
(Null and void instead of voices)
Before you tell yourself
It's just a different scene
Remember it's just different from what you've seen
I'm looking at you through the glass
Don't know how much time has passed
And all I know is that it feels like forever
But no one ever tells you that forever feels like home
Sitting all alone inside your head--by Stone Sour
The Touch
It was beautiful to look at… in a way.
Row after row of objects arranged in precise lines filled the front room of her tidy bungalow. Similar objects grouped, lined up with care and exactness, a mathematician’s play land.
When she began to have that feeling, like a bolt of bees in her belly, getting everything straight helped her cope. It took hours to set the objects just right with the exactness that the compulsion demanded. She knew that it was in the difficulty, in the need for absolutes, that her relief was to be found.
For endless hours, sometimes days she sat almost completely still—her mind chaos in the midst of precise order—and counted. Focusing every ounce of her reserve on forming the numbers in her addled mind —a mind that was fighting her at every turn and taking her thoughts and wrapping them around her like an eel around a pole.
“one hundred and twenty thousand, one hundred and twenty thousand and two….”
For some reason she found that counting by evens better, somehow the numbers smoother and rounder…calmer.
”one hundred and twenty thousand and four…”
Today, it had all began by accident.
She had forgotten to put her gloves on before she left for work. Riding the bus in, the driver had hit his brakes hard. She was thrown forward losing her balance and she had been forced to grab onto the overhead pole to keep from falling.
As soon as she touched it she knew…like insects crawling up her flesh, the skin began to tingle. She began to rub her hands furiously … as if she could rub off the contamination. She could feel her mind gearing up and the bees beginning their angry dance inside of her.
“Are you ok?” A teenage boy to her right asked her more out of odd fascination with her actions than any real compassion.
She just ignored him, her mind too focused on the overwhelming dread that was beginning.
She was sure to have caught something; it was right now crossing into her bloodstream perhaps from some small cut in her hand that she could not even see. All the usual suspects filled her mind—she was well versed in every disease that could be caught or transmitted from the smallest amount of bodily fluid.
Looking at that pole, she saw in her mind’s eye the bodily secretions of the hundreds, no thousands of people who had touched it.
Her mind was a pit of snakes now.
She could not go to work. She got off the bus at the next stop and made her way on foot back to her bungalow.
Afraid to even take the keys out of her purse, as the mere touch of her contaminated fingers would spread its insidiousness to the keys, she pulled out a plastic bag, one of many that she always had tucked in her pocket. She adeptly used it to fish the keys out of her purse.
Once inside, she removed all of her clothes while standing on the cold tile floor of the entry. Shivering and naked she made her way down the hall to the bathroom. For the next hour, long after the hot water had turned cold, she scrubbed…her hands becoming raw and sore. When as her final act, she poured the rubbing alcohol over her shredded palms, the pain was so intense it brought tears to eyes.
Even with the scrubbing the thoughts would not back down. Taking a stand against her, they surrounded her.
“You saw it…that homeless man on the bus touched just where you did…he had those sores, he picked at… he has to have something.”
“One hundred and twenty thousand and six…”
“Stop it!”
“One hundred and twenty thousand and eight…”
“Or that boy in the back with the soft walk and long hair, you know he touched it too..he looked almost skeletal”
Her rational mind knew it was all a farce that she was fine, but the thoughts would not stop.
So, into the front room she went.
By midnight another line of objects had been placed with intense care and in her focused precision the thoughts took a break…for awhile.
That brief touch on the bus had caused her brain to begin the journey into the worm hole of her mind. It always started off with the same fears…then turned and twisted into a descent into the inferno.
So much her time and life was lost in these endless compulsions, actions that drove her fingers until they were weary and raw. There was no stopping the images, thoughts, and visions. Ghastly visuals that twisted all who she loved into contaminated demons—and it was always brought on by the touch.
So, she continued to sit alone in her house of rows…and wonder just how high she could count…
Row after row of objects arranged in precise lines filled the front room of her tidy bungalow. Similar objects grouped, lined up with care and exactness, a mathematician’s play land.
When she began to have that feeling, like a bolt of bees in her belly, getting everything straight helped her cope. It took hours to set the objects just right with the exactness that the compulsion demanded. She knew that it was in the difficulty, in the need for absolutes, that her relief was to be found.
For endless hours, sometimes days she sat almost completely still—her mind chaos in the midst of precise order—and counted. Focusing every ounce of her reserve on forming the numbers in her addled mind —a mind that was fighting her at every turn and taking her thoughts and wrapping them around her like an eel around a pole.
“one hundred and twenty thousand, one hundred and twenty thousand and two….”
For some reason she found that counting by evens better, somehow the numbers smoother and rounder…calmer.
”one hundred and twenty thousand and four…”
Today, it had all began by accident.
She had forgotten to put her gloves on before she left for work. Riding the bus in, the driver had hit his brakes hard. She was thrown forward losing her balance and she had been forced to grab onto the overhead pole to keep from falling.
As soon as she touched it she knew…like insects crawling up her flesh, the skin began to tingle. She began to rub her hands furiously … as if she could rub off the contamination. She could feel her mind gearing up and the bees beginning their angry dance inside of her.
“Are you ok?” A teenage boy to her right asked her more out of odd fascination with her actions than any real compassion.
She just ignored him, her mind too focused on the overwhelming dread that was beginning.
She was sure to have caught something; it was right now crossing into her bloodstream perhaps from some small cut in her hand that she could not even see. All the usual suspects filled her mind—she was well versed in every disease that could be caught or transmitted from the smallest amount of bodily fluid.
Looking at that pole, she saw in her mind’s eye the bodily secretions of the hundreds, no thousands of people who had touched it.
Her mind was a pit of snakes now.
She could not go to work. She got off the bus at the next stop and made her way on foot back to her bungalow.
Afraid to even take the keys out of her purse, as the mere touch of her contaminated fingers would spread its insidiousness to the keys, she pulled out a plastic bag, one of many that she always had tucked in her pocket. She adeptly used it to fish the keys out of her purse.
Once inside, she removed all of her clothes while standing on the cold tile floor of the entry. Shivering and naked she made her way down the hall to the bathroom. For the next hour, long after the hot water had turned cold, she scrubbed…her hands becoming raw and sore. When as her final act, she poured the rubbing alcohol over her shredded palms, the pain was so intense it brought tears to eyes.
Even with the scrubbing the thoughts would not back down. Taking a stand against her, they surrounded her.
“You saw it…that homeless man on the bus touched just where you did…he had those sores, he picked at… he has to have something.”
“One hundred and twenty thousand and six…”
“Stop it!”
“One hundred and twenty thousand and eight…”
“Or that boy in the back with the soft walk and long hair, you know he touched it too..he looked almost skeletal”
Her rational mind knew it was all a farce that she was fine, but the thoughts would not stop.
So, into the front room she went.
By midnight another line of objects had been placed with intense care and in her focused precision the thoughts took a break…for awhile.
That brief touch on the bus had caused her brain to begin the journey into the worm hole of her mind. It always started off with the same fears…then turned and twisted into a descent into the inferno.
So much her time and life was lost in these endless compulsions, actions that drove her fingers until they were weary and raw. There was no stopping the images, thoughts, and visions. Ghastly visuals that twisted all who she loved into contaminated demons—and it was always brought on by the touch.
So, she continued to sit alone in her house of rows…and wonder just how high she could count…
Sunday, March 13, 2011
In Just Four Quartets
Warm updrafts from the heater lifted the window shade upwards like a bird’s wing…gliding lithely in the dusty room. Julia sat alone and unaware of the delicate flicking of the shade, deep in thought, with her hand gripping the pen with too much intensity.
The rumble of the old furnace made the table shake ever so slightly and the water in her glass trembled as if being swept up in a summer squall. It had been a long time since Julia had noticed the little things around her and an eternity since she had been aware of much beyond the dogma of her life devoted to the tangible and the reasonable.
That all was about to change…
Rubber burning on asphalt, too much too late, and soon the ambulance arrived.
The driver of the car had never seen her, never glanced once at the intensity of her light blonde brow furrowed or her firm and steady dark eyes.
Now, lying in the street—crumpled— she looked little more like a child asleep. With her pink hoodie (a shade too bright for her against her pale skin) and her one shoeless foot exposing her bright lime sock, she was a tragic figure—a lost doll.
They packaged her up quickly, secured her head and neck to a stationary board, and began the trip to the ER. Just a few scant minutes into the ride, Julia died. Her heart stopped cold in her chest and refused to be coaxed back into alignment. For breathless minutes, the crew worked on her—nothing. They were ready to call a time of death.
It was just at this exact moment, only a brief hesitation really between her being and becoming finished flesh, that Julia opened her eyes.
Lying on the gurney in the Emergency room, Julia looked around and felt lost. Where was Jim she wondered? He should be here. He would have sensed her being in trouble she was sure. They always did that with each other, knew when the other was having a tough time, a bad day, or an injury. Like twins, born of separate mothers, they had been inseparable since they met. It was hard to imagine him not here. Hours passed and still she was alone, she did not understand. Finally, she got a nurse to call home. The nurse was back shortly and had an odd look on her face.
“Sorry dear, that number is no longer in service…do you have his Cell Number?”
“His Cell?” Julia could not make sense of what the nurse was saying…
“Dear, you really did take a hit to the head didn’t you?” The nurse cooed.
Julia was uncertain. What was going on? She made her way to the restroom and threw water on her red cheeks and then looked in the mirror and screamed.
Her face, when she had last seen it was unlined and freckled. Her lips overly full as only a twenty-year old’s can truly be. Now, she looked at her face and it was not a girl’s—it was a woman’s. While she could still see herself, it was a self she did not recognize.
Faint lines lived under her large dark eyes and her freckles were gone. Her once long hair now shorter—not bad—just different. She looked…older. Her hands went to her body, same hips-curvy and full, and her legs still felt strong. But, her breasts had changed. Gone the girlish peaks from days spent lifting weights and running endless miles. Now, full round breasts met her hands as strangers. Something had happened, she had lost a lot of time.
Back in the hospital room she looked at a stack of clothes that she did not recognize and a purse she had never seen. Cautiously, she opened the purse searching for a wallet or ID. It was then, looking at her drivers license, that she realized—she had just lost twenty-two years of her life.
Her mind reeled-she could remember everything that had happened to her this morning…well a morning twenty-two years ago. She had woken up in the bed she shared with Jim. The bedclothes tangled and everywhere. They had made love in the urgent way that they did, when it felt as if they could not get enough of each other fast enough, which was often. She had rushed off to work the morning shift at the coffee shop and he had gone back to sleep. She had even tripped over the cat on her way out the door and he went screeching indignantly into the hall. Next thing she knew she was laying on the gurney in the hospital hallway.
Released from the hospital, with little hint on her physical self that she had been dead for six minutes just a few hours ago, Julia stood at the exit and wondered where to go now. She had a driver’s license with an unfamiliar address and a set of keys. Searching the strange bag for money she found a twenty and hoped it was enough for a cab ride to the address.
The cab let her off in front of a non-descript brown apartment house. Julia made her way up the stone stairs to the front door. She scanned the mailboxes for her name and found nothing—no Julia Davidson. Her driver’s license read apartment #312, and on the mailbox someone named J. Andrews lived there. Trying the small key from her ring on the mailbox lock on #312 she heard a click and the little metal door popped open to reveal a stack of bills.
She stood there staring at the envelopes when a large ruddy-faced woman came barreling out of the building and rammed right into her. The mail scattered on the pavement.
“Oh shit, honey I hope I didn’t nail you with my umbrella to hard.” The flustered woman moaned.
“No...I’m fine.” Julia recovered and picked up the scattered envelopes.
Julia looked up at the older woman, then thought again if that was even true anymore—she may be the older one now, and wondered if they knew each other.
“Honey you look a little dazed…are you lost?” There was a look of genuine concern on the woman’s face.
“No, I don’t think so. I am looking for apartment #312.” Julia said faintly and a little disappointed that the woman did not know her.
“Third floor all the way at the end…here I got the door for you. But I doubt you’ll have much luck, no one has seen that hermit once since she moved in-like she’s a ghost or something.” And with that she was off bounding down the stairs, her large brightly colored housedress swinging behind her like a superhero’s flamboyant cape.
Julia moved into the hallway and up the stairs. She made it to the third floor and to the end of the hall. She tried one of the keys in the lock and the click told her she had hit pay dirt. Slowly she opened the door and looked into the dark and dusty room. It was one large room with a single twin bed with a faded yellow bedspread. The shades were drawn and the air still. A table with a pad of paper and a glass of water stood in the far left corner. There was no artwork, personal touches, nothing that said “she” had lived here. It was just a dark empty room. Julia went to the table and found that the pad was filled with calculations. Page after page of complex work-she did not think she could do such a thing she was just a waitress with no formal mathematical training.
There was a small closet to the right. She opened it and found five pink hoodies exactly like the one she was wearing and five pairs of dark blue jeans lined up perfectly in the closet. It was eerie. Julia was getting very concerned and could not believe this was her life. She was vibrant-an artist. She painted all the time, loved big bold color. She loved to act and be involved with the world—how could this sad life be hers. Where was Jim? There was no way that they would have broken up. He was sure to be famous by this time in life, his novel should have sold many times over by now-they should be living the good life.
Julia turned on a light and sat down on the bed. The bedside table had a drawer and she opened it up. There was a single leather volume inside. She opened it up and a photograph fell to the floor. It was one of her and Jim on stage. They had been both performing in a comedy show when they met their first month at school. The worn photo showed Jim, always the clown, wearing a hat and trying to order “Dog-Foo Young” in a Korean BBQ joint from Julia who was the horrified cashier. Julia laughed sadly recalling the moment and a new wave of missing Jim washed over her.
The leather volume was TS Elliot’s Four Quartets, a gift from her father on her 18th birthday. She opened it up randomly:
Where is there an end of it, the soundless wailing,
The silent withering of autumn flowers
Dropping their petals and remaining motionless;
Where is there and end to the drifting wreckage,
The prayer of the bone on the beach, the unprayable
Prayer at the calamitous annunciation?
How dark the words were-she had forgotten that about this little book, which she had treasured more as a gift than as art. She now felt like a flower, motionless and with petals falling. The book slipped out of her hand and fell to the floor. A tiny yellowed piece of paper found its way out and onto the floor. Julia stared down at it. It had a small picture of Jim. Her heart nearly stopped once again. It was an obituary and it was dated the very day that she remembered. He had been hit by a car that afternoon at noontime, after they had made love and she had rushed off to work. Julia felt the hot tears running down her cheeks.
This life, this now, was unbearable. It could not be. The sheer loneliness of the dark little room threatened to quash her soul-it was a room where even the sane would contemplate dark acts.
She laid back on the narrow twin bed and could feel the metal springs gnaw into her spine. Tears rolled down her cheeks for a life lost, a life unlived. She cried for the paintings she would not make, the adventures she would not have, and for the man who was lost forever to her.
She fell into an exhausted sleep. When she awoke, it was fuzzy and her eyes could not focus. Someone was leaning over her, shaking her shoulders ever so lightly.
“Juila..., come on wake up.” She bolted up, still believing herself to be trapped in that lifeless little desolate room. Jim was looking at her, with that crazy cat grin and his bright mischievous eyes.
“We still have time before your shift” his arms were around her and pulling her to him.
He began to kiss her neck, and for the first time ever, she did not respond. She was shaking.
She was afraid. She was right back to where she started and there was no way she was going to let this happen. She grabbed Jim around the neck and kissed him hard.
“Lets spend the day in bed.” She said a bit too urgently.
“You have work and I have to get the manuscript to the publisher by noon.” He said, though he hated to be the voice of reason.
Juila, just kissed him and knew that what it ever it took… he was not leaving that bed till far later than noon.
The rumble of the old furnace made the table shake ever so slightly and the water in her glass trembled as if being swept up in a summer squall. It had been a long time since Julia had noticed the little things around her and an eternity since she had been aware of much beyond the dogma of her life devoted to the tangible and the reasonable.
That all was about to change…
Rubber burning on asphalt, too much too late, and soon the ambulance arrived.
The driver of the car had never seen her, never glanced once at the intensity of her light blonde brow furrowed or her firm and steady dark eyes.
Now, lying in the street—crumpled— she looked little more like a child asleep. With her pink hoodie (a shade too bright for her against her pale skin) and her one shoeless foot exposing her bright lime sock, she was a tragic figure—a lost doll.
They packaged her up quickly, secured her head and neck to a stationary board, and began the trip to the ER. Just a few scant minutes into the ride, Julia died. Her heart stopped cold in her chest and refused to be coaxed back into alignment. For breathless minutes, the crew worked on her—nothing. They were ready to call a time of death.
It was just at this exact moment, only a brief hesitation really between her being and becoming finished flesh, that Julia opened her eyes.
Lying on the gurney in the Emergency room, Julia looked around and felt lost. Where was Jim she wondered? He should be here. He would have sensed her being in trouble she was sure. They always did that with each other, knew when the other was having a tough time, a bad day, or an injury. Like twins, born of separate mothers, they had been inseparable since they met. It was hard to imagine him not here. Hours passed and still she was alone, she did not understand. Finally, she got a nurse to call home. The nurse was back shortly and had an odd look on her face.
“Sorry dear, that number is no longer in service…do you have his Cell Number?”
“His Cell?” Julia could not make sense of what the nurse was saying…
“Dear, you really did take a hit to the head didn’t you?” The nurse cooed.
Julia was uncertain. What was going on? She made her way to the restroom and threw water on her red cheeks and then looked in the mirror and screamed.
Her face, when she had last seen it was unlined and freckled. Her lips overly full as only a twenty-year old’s can truly be. Now, she looked at her face and it was not a girl’s—it was a woman’s. While she could still see herself, it was a self she did not recognize.
Faint lines lived under her large dark eyes and her freckles were gone. Her once long hair now shorter—not bad—just different. She looked…older. Her hands went to her body, same hips-curvy and full, and her legs still felt strong. But, her breasts had changed. Gone the girlish peaks from days spent lifting weights and running endless miles. Now, full round breasts met her hands as strangers. Something had happened, she had lost a lot of time.
Back in the hospital room she looked at a stack of clothes that she did not recognize and a purse she had never seen. Cautiously, she opened the purse searching for a wallet or ID. It was then, looking at her drivers license, that she realized—she had just lost twenty-two years of her life.
Her mind reeled-she could remember everything that had happened to her this morning…well a morning twenty-two years ago. She had woken up in the bed she shared with Jim. The bedclothes tangled and everywhere. They had made love in the urgent way that they did, when it felt as if they could not get enough of each other fast enough, which was often. She had rushed off to work the morning shift at the coffee shop and he had gone back to sleep. She had even tripped over the cat on her way out the door and he went screeching indignantly into the hall. Next thing she knew she was laying on the gurney in the hospital hallway.
Released from the hospital, with little hint on her physical self that she had been dead for six minutes just a few hours ago, Julia stood at the exit and wondered where to go now. She had a driver’s license with an unfamiliar address and a set of keys. Searching the strange bag for money she found a twenty and hoped it was enough for a cab ride to the address.
The cab let her off in front of a non-descript brown apartment house. Julia made her way up the stone stairs to the front door. She scanned the mailboxes for her name and found nothing—no Julia Davidson. Her driver’s license read apartment #312, and on the mailbox someone named J. Andrews lived there. Trying the small key from her ring on the mailbox lock on #312 she heard a click and the little metal door popped open to reveal a stack of bills.
She stood there staring at the envelopes when a large ruddy-faced woman came barreling out of the building and rammed right into her. The mail scattered on the pavement.
“Oh shit, honey I hope I didn’t nail you with my umbrella to hard.” The flustered woman moaned.
“No...I’m fine.” Julia recovered and picked up the scattered envelopes.
Julia looked up at the older woman, then thought again if that was even true anymore—she may be the older one now, and wondered if they knew each other.
“Honey you look a little dazed…are you lost?” There was a look of genuine concern on the woman’s face.
“No, I don’t think so. I am looking for apartment #312.” Julia said faintly and a little disappointed that the woman did not know her.
“Third floor all the way at the end…here I got the door for you. But I doubt you’ll have much luck, no one has seen that hermit once since she moved in-like she’s a ghost or something.” And with that she was off bounding down the stairs, her large brightly colored housedress swinging behind her like a superhero’s flamboyant cape.
Julia moved into the hallway and up the stairs. She made it to the third floor and to the end of the hall. She tried one of the keys in the lock and the click told her she had hit pay dirt. Slowly she opened the door and looked into the dark and dusty room. It was one large room with a single twin bed with a faded yellow bedspread. The shades were drawn and the air still. A table with a pad of paper and a glass of water stood in the far left corner. There was no artwork, personal touches, nothing that said “she” had lived here. It was just a dark empty room. Julia went to the table and found that the pad was filled with calculations. Page after page of complex work-she did not think she could do such a thing she was just a waitress with no formal mathematical training.
There was a small closet to the right. She opened it and found five pink hoodies exactly like the one she was wearing and five pairs of dark blue jeans lined up perfectly in the closet. It was eerie. Julia was getting very concerned and could not believe this was her life. She was vibrant-an artist. She painted all the time, loved big bold color. She loved to act and be involved with the world—how could this sad life be hers. Where was Jim? There was no way that they would have broken up. He was sure to be famous by this time in life, his novel should have sold many times over by now-they should be living the good life.
Julia turned on a light and sat down on the bed. The bedside table had a drawer and she opened it up. There was a single leather volume inside. She opened it up and a photograph fell to the floor. It was one of her and Jim on stage. They had been both performing in a comedy show when they met their first month at school. The worn photo showed Jim, always the clown, wearing a hat and trying to order “Dog-Foo Young” in a Korean BBQ joint from Julia who was the horrified cashier. Julia laughed sadly recalling the moment and a new wave of missing Jim washed over her.
The leather volume was TS Elliot’s Four Quartets, a gift from her father on her 18th birthday. She opened it up randomly:
Where is there an end of it, the soundless wailing,
The silent withering of autumn flowers
Dropping their petals and remaining motionless;
Where is there and end to the drifting wreckage,
The prayer of the bone on the beach, the unprayable
Prayer at the calamitous annunciation?
How dark the words were-she had forgotten that about this little book, which she had treasured more as a gift than as art. She now felt like a flower, motionless and with petals falling. The book slipped out of her hand and fell to the floor. A tiny yellowed piece of paper found its way out and onto the floor. Julia stared down at it. It had a small picture of Jim. Her heart nearly stopped once again. It was an obituary and it was dated the very day that she remembered. He had been hit by a car that afternoon at noontime, after they had made love and she had rushed off to work. Julia felt the hot tears running down her cheeks.
This life, this now, was unbearable. It could not be. The sheer loneliness of the dark little room threatened to quash her soul-it was a room where even the sane would contemplate dark acts.
She laid back on the narrow twin bed and could feel the metal springs gnaw into her spine. Tears rolled down her cheeks for a life lost, a life unlived. She cried for the paintings she would not make, the adventures she would not have, and for the man who was lost forever to her.
She fell into an exhausted sleep. When she awoke, it was fuzzy and her eyes could not focus. Someone was leaning over her, shaking her shoulders ever so lightly.
“Juila..., come on wake up.” She bolted up, still believing herself to be trapped in that lifeless little desolate room. Jim was looking at her, with that crazy cat grin and his bright mischievous eyes.
“We still have time before your shift” his arms were around her and pulling her to him.
He began to kiss her neck, and for the first time ever, she did not respond. She was shaking.
She was afraid. She was right back to where she started and there was no way she was going to let this happen. She grabbed Jim around the neck and kissed him hard.
“Lets spend the day in bed.” She said a bit too urgently.
“You have work and I have to get the manuscript to the publisher by noon.” He said, though he hated to be the voice of reason.
Juila, just kissed him and knew that what it ever it took… he was not leaving that bed till far later than noon.
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