[It's come to my attention that I should change this story's POV, mainly because I know jack-shit about psychology or whatever, but also because I am not an authority figure and never have/will identify as such. My stories should be told from the point of view of authority. Oh, and "Dear Diary" is fucking retarded, but whatevs.]
Dear ...,
The universe has decided: I will never be a licensed psychologist, nor, as was made clear today, will I even be allowed to remain a hack psychotherapist.
It should've been obvious that I would never cut it as a mental health professional given the fact that, now at the age of mortgages and husbands and children, I still begin my annual journal entires ("personal progress updates") with an affectionate address to an inanimate object. It's really quite unseemly. In fact, if I saw this written by one of my patients, I would surely turn up my nose and mentally hurl him or her into the pre-Oedipal diagnostic pit along with the thumb-suckers and bed-wetters of the world.
I say "would" because I've never had the chance to be so deliciously dismissive. You see, my dissertation was rejected. Twice. So instead of ensconcing myself in the leather recliners and six-figure neuroses of the Upper East Side like I'd always dreamt, I've been wiling away my daytime hours working as a discount therapist at the nearby community center. For $15 a pop, you could swing by and spend an hour prattling nonstop about your expanding waistline, ungrateful children, and the nefarious implications of your new shoe fetish.
Don't get me wrong: there were serious cases. In fact, you'd be surprised at how many drug addicts and psychotics there are in this one little, leafy suburb. But lacking the qualifications to deal in detox and prescriptions, I was stuck on bored housewife row.
Then--last Tuesday, to be exact--Melody walked into my office.
I admired her from the moment I saw her. She had that artfully bedraggled look that I had tried in vain to pull off in high schoool. A tall, waifish woman, she managed not to look ridiculous in a cut-off tee shirt and low-rise jeans, though from a close distance it was clear she was 38 at the least.
Her hair fell across the left side of her face in a frizzy blonde wave. I could see the thick, liquid eyeliner smudged around her own revealed set of eyelids, making her right eye bulge out as alert and frightened as a raccoon's. A supermodel Cyclops. I attempted to complement her for being the most interesting-looking person to walk through my small, windowless office in months, but she sat down in a huff and got right to the point.
The problem, she said, was that she forgot to take her pills that morning. She and her husband had just lost their home and were staying with her mother-in-law. She had been getting up early to do chores in order to feel useful while her husband got ready for work. She had been out of a job for a year.
It was when she was polishing the crystal in the dining room that she realized her mistake, but by then it was too late. Searching the fragmented globes of a chandelier that did not belong to her with a flannel rag cut from one of her old nightgowns, Melody had said she felt her thoughts slip out the back of her head like rats through a cellar door. She saw them dance along with the dust particles she had liberated and squeeze through the surface of the crystal, where they were reborn on the yellow dining room wallpaper as a thousand magnificent rainbows. Light and unburdened in her newfound emptiness, she didn't feel guilty when she halted her labor to admire these by-products of herself as they tentatively circled around the picture frame of a dead Gray family patriarch.
I interrupted Melody to ask if she obtained her pills from a psychiatrist and she burst into tears. Her mascara dribbled into her crows feet and trickled down her cheek, forming a black stitch connecting her eye and mouth. I handed her a tissue and allowed her to continue telling her story.
She had heard a strange noise coming from the living room. When she entered, she had no idea that the woman glowing in the neon light of a mid-morning religious program was her mother-in-law. With her body cocooned in the folds of a cashmere blanket, the woman's naked white head seemed to sprout from the red velvet trunk of the armchair like an old, withered twig. It fluttered with indignation upon the sight of Melody in the doorway. It demanded Melody open the shades.
At this point the story, Melody stopped talking and descended into a crying fit. She rubbed her eyes, streaking the remaining makeup across her face like mud water.
I asked her why she was so upset.
It was just that the room was so big, she cried. It frightened her. It took near an eternity to journey from the door to the window with the woman's steel blue eyes monitoring her the whole way. In the darkness she tripped over a bear-clawed ottoman and tumbled to the hardwood floor, scattering a week's worth of newspapers from the coffee table that broke her fall. Reaching out to get her bearings, she crashed the lower dusty keys of the as yet untouched piano, letting out a loud, dissonant drone that momentarily drowned out the loop of Hail Marys coming from the television.
The old woman laughed at her. The twig head rolled back and cackled and called Melody a failure at everything.
Still, Melody persevered and brought her bruised body to stand upright at the window, where she suddenly began to remember things. She said that the cold touch of the glass curdled the blood in her fingers and turned her heart to ice.
It was the strongest sensation she had felt in months.
Standing at the window on this February day made her remember the times she used to gaze out the window on the farm where she grew up. Sometimes she would see a hesitant coyote creep out of the woods and saunter towards the chicken coop. She would yell for her father and he would get his gun. As she got older, she began to start getting it herself. She never shot an animal, but she enjoyed firing it into the air, searing away the coyotes and any other intruders.
This time when Melody stopped talking, I found it difficult to remain patient while coaxing her back into the story. We only have a few more minutes, I warned her. She wasn't crying this time. Rather, she remained silent and motionless, fixing her glance on the snow globe village on my desk; it was as though she was toying with me.
"Well," I prodded, "what happened next?"
She smiled and pushed her hair away from the left side of her face, revealing a scratched cheek and a swollen black eye. "I finally killed the coyote," she said.
Dear ...,
The police wouldn't let me view the crime scene even though I was the one who gave them the address. According to the 11 o'clock news, the old woman (her name was Doris Gray) had put up quite a struggle, but was ultimately asphyxiated with a long piece of flannel. The primary suspect is Melody Gray.
Melody's husband, Ira, could not be reached for comment, but is rumored to be amassing an impressive army of doctors and lawyers on his wife's behalf. Some even think the murder was a team effort.
That house of his mother's, a colleague of mine chuckled cynically, is worth a bit of moola. I won't be on Melody's dream team, nor will I play for the offense. I didn't even report the full extent of Melody's confession, partly because I understand it too well.
That night I returned home to my son's dark room and sat on the bed beside his sleeping body. The more I thought about my job, the more the walls around me seemed to dissolve. I felt gusts of air cold enough to stop a heart. I saw the bare pines, clad only in a thin blanket of snow. I heard the coyotes.
it's amateur hour
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
haven, the first version
She was polishing the crystal when she forgot to take her pills. Or at least that was the time she would later report to the police, doctors and lawyers. It was the moment in her day that seemed like the most appropriate time to have forgotten such a thing.
As she searched the fragmented globes of a chandelier that did not belong to her with a flannel rag cut from one of her mother's old nightgowns, Melody said she felt her thoughts slip out the back of her head like rats through a cellar door. She saw them dance along with the dust particles she had liberated and squeeze through the surface of the crystal, where they were then reborn on the yellow dining room wallpaper as a thousand magnificent rainbows.
Light and unburdened in her newfound emptiness, she didn't feel guilty when she halted her labor to admire these by-products of herself as they tentatively circled around the picture frame of a dead Smith family patriarch. By the time the din of the television had snatched her out of her reverie, the all-important reminder had vanished forever under the shadow of a passing cumulous cloud.
Melody followed the voice of what sounded like a woman praying to the dark adjacent living room. There she came upon an old woman glowing in the neon light of a mid-morning religious program. With her body entirely cocooned in the folds of a cashmere blanket, the woman's naked white head seemed to sprout from the red velvet trunk of the armchair like an old, withered twig. It fluttered with indignation upon the sight of Melody in the doorway.
"You forgot my toast and juice again!"
Melody turned to go to the kitchen, but a pale thin branch shot out from beneath the blanket to beckon her back.
"Could you open the shades a bit first?"
Melody obediently ventured over to the other side of the room. Much later, in the small confines of a therapist's office, she told me with tears in her eyes how frighteningly big the room seemed to her. It took near an eternity to journey from the door to the window; the woman's steel blue eyes monitored her the whole way. In the darkness she tripped over a bear-clawed ottoman and tumbled to the hardwood floor, scattering a week's worth of newspapers from the coffee table that broke her fall. Reaching out to get her bearings, she crashed the lower dusty keys of the as yet untouched piano, letting out a loud, dissonant drone that momentarily drowned out the loop of Hail Marys coming from the television.
"Life has a nice habit of reminding you when you've been irresponsible," quipped the old woman.
But Melody was too distracted by the television to register the insult. Onscreen a slackjawed figure wearing an eyepatch rocked back and forth, mumbling and gesturing wildly with a set of rosary beads.
It was horrifying.
"Oh, my Lord, is she ok?" gasped Melody.
"No, Mother Magdalena's not long for this world. Had a stroke a few weeks ago. But, bless her heart, she's been doing the show every day since she left the hospital. Don't you remember?"
"Remember..."
"That I watch the Eternity Network every morning! One of these days I'm going to call Ira and tell him that you never remember anything. He won't be happy with you when he gets home. How about opening the shades already?"
Melody was later at pains to describe to me the transformative effect the shades had on her. She went on and on about the thick, lush texture and the hypnotic purple and yellow paisley design. As I patiently waited for her to finish her frenzied description, I wished I had studied more Freud while I was a Ph.D. candidate. All those courses in behaviorism did absolutely nothing to help me make sense of this stark raving mad housewife's preoccupation with home decor. I merely indulged her until she got to the point.
Melody began to remember when she got to the window. She said that the cold touch of the glass curdled the blood in her fingers and turned her heart to ice. It was the strongest sensation she had felt in months. (Of course, these are all her words, not mine. I'm aware that this is a case study and not a Harlequin novel.)
Standing at the window on that February day made her remember the times she used to gaze out the window on the farm where she grew up. Sometimes she would see a hesitant coyote creep out of the woods and saunter towards the chicken coop. She would yell for her father and he would get his gun. As she got older, he would let her get it herself. She never shot an animal, but she enjoyed firing it into the air, scaring away the coyotes and any other intruders. She enjoyed the sound of the most powerful thing in her world.
On this particular day on her suburban street, though, it was not a coyote, but a woman pushing a stroller by her home. She watched the hooded figure trudge through the snow. The weather conditions were treacherous; it had snowed several inches overnight and a morning shower of freezing rain had crusted over the yet-to-be-shoveled snow. Melody feared that something would happen to the woman and the mysterious bundle in the large, black pram.
She didn't want to leave the dry comfort of the living room to go out and help the woman should she slip on the icy sidewalk. She wasn't in the mood to deal with an injured baby.
Nothing happened.
Or, rather, the unexpected did. The woman successfully maneuvered the stroller over the icy snow, past Melody's house and all the way around the cul-de-sac.
Melody watched, breathlessly, until she saw the two figures disappear behind the hemlock tree on the corner.
It was then that Melody remembered who and where she was. It was then that she decided to do what she did next.
As she searched the fragmented globes of a chandelier that did not belong to her with a flannel rag cut from one of her mother's old nightgowns, Melody said she felt her thoughts slip out the back of her head like rats through a cellar door. She saw them dance along with the dust particles she had liberated and squeeze through the surface of the crystal, where they were then reborn on the yellow dining room wallpaper as a thousand magnificent rainbows.
Light and unburdened in her newfound emptiness, she didn't feel guilty when she halted her labor to admire these by-products of herself as they tentatively circled around the picture frame of a dead Smith family patriarch. By the time the din of the television had snatched her out of her reverie, the all-important reminder had vanished forever under the shadow of a passing cumulous cloud.
Melody followed the voice of what sounded like a woman praying to the dark adjacent living room. There she came upon an old woman glowing in the neon light of a mid-morning religious program. With her body entirely cocooned in the folds of a cashmere blanket, the woman's naked white head seemed to sprout from the red velvet trunk of the armchair like an old, withered twig. It fluttered with indignation upon the sight of Melody in the doorway.
"You forgot my toast and juice again!"
Melody turned to go to the kitchen, but a pale thin branch shot out from beneath the blanket to beckon her back.
"Could you open the shades a bit first?"
Melody obediently ventured over to the other side of the room. Much later, in the small confines of a therapist's office, she told me with tears in her eyes how frighteningly big the room seemed to her. It took near an eternity to journey from the door to the window; the woman's steel blue eyes monitored her the whole way. In the darkness she tripped over a bear-clawed ottoman and tumbled to the hardwood floor, scattering a week's worth of newspapers from the coffee table that broke her fall. Reaching out to get her bearings, she crashed the lower dusty keys of the as yet untouched piano, letting out a loud, dissonant drone that momentarily drowned out the loop of Hail Marys coming from the television.
"Life has a nice habit of reminding you when you've been irresponsible," quipped the old woman.
But Melody was too distracted by the television to register the insult. Onscreen a slackjawed figure wearing an eyepatch rocked back and forth, mumbling and gesturing wildly with a set of rosary beads.
It was horrifying.
"Oh, my Lord, is she ok?" gasped Melody.
"No, Mother Magdalena's not long for this world. Had a stroke a few weeks ago. But, bless her heart, she's been doing the show every day since she left the hospital. Don't you remember?"
"Remember..."
"That I watch the Eternity Network every morning! One of these days I'm going to call Ira and tell him that you never remember anything. He won't be happy with you when he gets home. How about opening the shades already?"
Melody was later at pains to describe to me the transformative effect the shades had on her. She went on and on about the thick, lush texture and the hypnotic purple and yellow paisley design. As I patiently waited for her to finish her frenzied description, I wished I had studied more Freud while I was a Ph.D. candidate. All those courses in behaviorism did absolutely nothing to help me make sense of this stark raving mad housewife's preoccupation with home decor. I merely indulged her until she got to the point.
Melody began to remember when she got to the window. She said that the cold touch of the glass curdled the blood in her fingers and turned her heart to ice. It was the strongest sensation she had felt in months. (Of course, these are all her words, not mine. I'm aware that this is a case study and not a Harlequin novel.)
Standing at the window on that February day made her remember the times she used to gaze out the window on the farm where she grew up. Sometimes she would see a hesitant coyote creep out of the woods and saunter towards the chicken coop. She would yell for her father and he would get his gun. As she got older, he would let her get it herself. She never shot an animal, but she enjoyed firing it into the air, scaring away the coyotes and any other intruders. She enjoyed the sound of the most powerful thing in her world.
On this particular day on her suburban street, though, it was not a coyote, but a woman pushing a stroller by her home. She watched the hooded figure trudge through the snow. The weather conditions were treacherous; it had snowed several inches overnight and a morning shower of freezing rain had crusted over the yet-to-be-shoveled snow. Melody feared that something would happen to the woman and the mysterious bundle in the large, black pram.
She didn't want to leave the dry comfort of the living room to go out and help the woman should she slip on the icy sidewalk. She wasn't in the mood to deal with an injured baby.
Nothing happened.
Or, rather, the unexpected did. The woman successfully maneuvered the stroller over the icy snow, past Melody's house and all the way around the cul-de-sac.
Melody watched, breathlessly, until she saw the two figures disappear behind the hemlock tree on the corner.
It was then that Melody remembered who and where she was. It was then that she decided to do what she did next.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
some reflections on this little mess
* i have been following a (very loose, unorthodox, undemanding) writing regimen for two weeks. this is remarkable.
* i have completed, in seven parts, my first shitty draft of a story i intend on publishing someday. this is splendid.
* i am presently sun-soaked and lazy with sorrow at the prospect of summer drawing to a close...not the best frame of mind in which to be pondering goals for future glorious writing career. i intend to get more serious about goal-setting after the labor day weekend. in the meantime, i think it's realistic to expect to keep this blog as practice for a year before even attempting at publishing something for realies. though it disturbs me how little i know myself after we have spent twenty-six years together, i know that, if anything, i am the slow-and-steady type. i need a good year of doodling before attempting to paint the mona lisa.
* that said, i have an epic novel on the backburner that probably won't see the light of day before i'm 30. i would like to have a story collection by the time i'm 28-29. screenplays are also a medium of interest.
* a journalism career would be the sweetest of day jobs. i fully understand the naivete in this economic/political climate, but i still suffer a burning desire to engage with the day-to-day world in a concrete way. i don't think this yearning can be satisfied solely in the ethereal world of fiction or creative nonfiction.
* goodnight and good luck.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
mcgt part 7
She returned to his room the next morning and they immediately got to work.
He first did a background sketch of the room and her figure in the center of it. "Alright, my dear," he announced, upon completion of these preliminaries, "It's show time."
He had specifically requested a frontal pose, but she turned around and slowly rolled her kimono down to her shoulders and froze.
"It's alright, my dear, just take your time," he assured.
She inhaled sharply and let the kimono drop to the floor. She heard an audible gasp from the other side of the room. She felt the tears well up, swift and sudden. She crouched down to pick up her kimono.
"Wait! Stop!" he cried.
"Is something wrong, Mr. Symon?"
"No, absolutely nothing," he breathed.
She turned around. He was sitting bolt upright on his artist's stool by the window, charcoal in hand. The morning sun shone through the window, bathing his astonished face in a halo of pure, white light.
"You are Marie Curie!"
He first did a background sketch of the room and her figure in the center of it. "Alright, my dear," he announced, upon completion of these preliminaries, "It's show time."
He had specifically requested a frontal pose, but she turned around and slowly rolled her kimono down to her shoulders and froze.
"It's alright, my dear, just take your time," he assured.
She inhaled sharply and let the kimono drop to the floor. She heard an audible gasp from the other side of the room. She felt the tears well up, swift and sudden. She crouched down to pick up her kimono.
"Wait! Stop!" he cried.
"Is something wrong, Mr. Symon?"
"No, absolutely nothing," he breathed.
She turned around. He was sitting bolt upright on his artist's stool by the window, charcoal in hand. The morning sun shone through the window, bathing his astonished face in a halo of pure, white light.
"You are Marie Curie!"
Thursday, August 26, 2010
the creature from middle management
she is very small. and squat. with wide, fat-padded hips. if she knelt down in the right way, she would look like a bullfrog ready to spring.
at the moment she looks exactly this, having knelt down, searching desperately for something in her purse. it is a nice purse. were it not, were it a garbage bag or something of the sort, you might think she was a bag lady. i mean, you might think she was crazy.
tissues, pennies, lipsticks, little ibuprofen bottles are flying everywhere. she is yelling at someone...an invisible person?
ah, the bluetooth.
let us look closer.
one of those short haircuts that say "respectable older woman." bowl cut on top, near crew cut in the back. a little tadpole tail at the nape of the neck.
she is not only this. she is not only this time and place. she is other things to other people, to herself. but right now she is this. and i wonder how she feels about it, what she thinks of it...
at the moment she looks exactly this, having knelt down, searching desperately for something in her purse. it is a nice purse. were it not, were it a garbage bag or something of the sort, you might think she was a bag lady. i mean, you might think she was crazy.
tissues, pennies, lipsticks, little ibuprofen bottles are flying everywhere. she is yelling at someone...an invisible person?
ah, the bluetooth.
let us look closer.
one of those short haircuts that say "respectable older woman." bowl cut on top, near crew cut in the back. a little tadpole tail at the nape of the neck.
she is not only this. she is not only this time and place. she is other things to other people, to herself. but right now she is this. and i wonder how she feels about it, what she thinks of it...
mcgt part 6
After receiving the Nobel Prize, he decided to go to Japan. For years he had beaten back the army and their waves of requests for commission work. Now it would be near impossible to keep them away. It was time to take a much-needed vacation.
He felt relaxed in the presence of the hostess. She spoke excellent English and possessed an unassuming beauty. Her body was so small and slender. Unlike, he thought, the big, loud American women who had increasingly begun to enroll in his lectures. He appreciated the servile manner with which she presented his meal. He even liked her name--it reminded him of an ice cream flavor he had tried once.
"Tell me, dear, what is the name of this dish, again?"
He was sitting on the floor of his hotel room, thoroughly enjoying the exotic dinner she had brought him.
She murmured something sweetly in Japanese.
"Mmmm...right. I think I might have had that before. Never this good, though."
He saw her smile as she fluffed his pillow. Satisfied with this reaction, he busied himself with wolfing down his delicious dinner.
It was odd how at ease she felt with this man. It were as though she were meeting a long-lost relative for the first time. His rambling, long-winded propensity for storytelling reminded her of her father.
As she knelt down next to him, Ben was struck by the fact that she might not be as young as he had at first supposed. Her sharp black eyes were embedded in the folds of lightly lined skin and her long dark hair appeared coarse and brittle up close. There was a disconcerting pink blotch that bordered her hairline like a melted crown. But, rather than take away from her beauty, these flaws seemed to add a special quality.
He noted her long, regal neck and the delicate hands she held clasped politely in her lap.
"Darling, I'm about to ask you a very strange question."
She did not flinch at this intimacy.
"I doubt you could ask me something stranger than I've already heard."
"I'm hoping you'll let me draw you."
"Why, Mr. Symon," she gasped. She fluttered her eyelashes cartoonishly. "I thought you were a scientist."
"I'm an artist, too. And you're the perfect model for my new painting: Madame Curie Discovers Radium, part 2: The East."
She gathered his dishes.
"I don't see how I could refuse."
He felt relaxed in the presence of the hostess. She spoke excellent English and possessed an unassuming beauty. Her body was so small and slender. Unlike, he thought, the big, loud American women who had increasingly begun to enroll in his lectures. He appreciated the servile manner with which she presented his meal. He even liked her name--it reminded him of an ice cream flavor he had tried once.
"Tell me, dear, what is the name of this dish, again?"
He was sitting on the floor of his hotel room, thoroughly enjoying the exotic dinner she had brought him.
She murmured something sweetly in Japanese.
"Mmmm...right. I think I might have had that before. Never this good, though."
He saw her smile as she fluffed his pillow. Satisfied with this reaction, he busied himself with wolfing down his delicious dinner.
It was odd how at ease she felt with this man. It were as though she were meeting a long-lost relative for the first time. His rambling, long-winded propensity for storytelling reminded her of her father.
As she knelt down next to him, Ben was struck by the fact that she might not be as young as he had at first supposed. Her sharp black eyes were embedded in the folds of lightly lined skin and her long dark hair appeared coarse and brittle up close. There was a disconcerting pink blotch that bordered her hairline like a melted crown. But, rather than take away from her beauty, these flaws seemed to add a special quality.
He noted her long, regal neck and the delicate hands she held clasped politely in her lap.
"Darling, I'm about to ask you a very strange question."
She did not flinch at this intimacy.
"I doubt you could ask me something stranger than I've already heard."
"I'm hoping you'll let me draw you."
"Why, Mr. Symon," she gasped. She fluttered her eyelashes cartoonishly. "I thought you were a scientist."
"I'm an artist, too. And you're the perfect model for my new painting: Madame Curie Discovers Radium, part 2: The East."
She gathered his dishes.
"I don't see how I could refuse."
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
mcgt part 5
She asked him why he was leaving as he packed his things.
"I will be back after I find work," he assured her.
She waited. She didn't hear from him for two weeks. Then she made other plans.
Through the hospital where she now worked as a nurse's assistant, she entered a contest for girls where the winner was to be flown to the United States for state-of-the-art reconstructive surgery.
She became one of the ten girls ultimately chosen.
On the flight, she asked the girl sitting next to her, who was missing most of her nose, if this was the same kind of airplane that dropped the bomb.
The girl snorted derisively through her gaping nostril.
They didn't have surgery immediately due to insufficient funds. It turned out there first stop was an American talk show, where the girls were placed behind a screen so that their well-coifed, traditionally-costumed silhouettes could be seen on television.
She disliked the itchy synthetic material of the makeshift kimono, and she despised the announcer with his stiff hair and embarrassing pleas with the television audience to "be generous on behalf of these lovely young women, who deserve a second chance at life."
But when the spotlight shone on her, she smiled her brightest smile, even though she knew it was unseen by anyone watching. She smiled in the face of the white light that nearly blinded her before it moved on to the next victim and left her in darkness.
The surgery was mostly successful, leaving her with only a large scar on the side of her face and an unseemly bald scalp. These defects, however, were easily concealed with makeup and a wig. What could not be helped, said the doctor in a voice as faultless and pure as his white mask, were the marks on her back, where the extreme heat from the blast had branded the design of the dress she had worn that day into her back.
She demanded a mirror. After much pleading, the doctor assented and allowed her a glimpse at her reflection, which revealed an obscene outline of a rose bouquet reaching from her shoulder blades to her tailbone.
She stared at the ghastly flowers for a moment, and then breathed: "Beautiful."
The doctor asked her if something was wrong, but she ignored him, continuing to stare transfixed at the image in the mirror.
"It is alright," she finally told him in English. "I will never take my clothes off again."
Upon her return home, she quickly found work in a luxury hotel.
"I will be back after I find work," he assured her.
She waited. She didn't hear from him for two weeks. Then she made other plans.
Through the hospital where she now worked as a nurse's assistant, she entered a contest for girls where the winner was to be flown to the United States for state-of-the-art reconstructive surgery.
She became one of the ten girls ultimately chosen.
On the flight, she asked the girl sitting next to her, who was missing most of her nose, if this was the same kind of airplane that dropped the bomb.
The girl snorted derisively through her gaping nostril.
They didn't have surgery immediately due to insufficient funds. It turned out there first stop was an American talk show, where the girls were placed behind a screen so that their well-coifed, traditionally-costumed silhouettes could be seen on television.
She disliked the itchy synthetic material of the makeshift kimono, and she despised the announcer with his stiff hair and embarrassing pleas with the television audience to "be generous on behalf of these lovely young women, who deserve a second chance at life."
But when the spotlight shone on her, she smiled her brightest smile, even though she knew it was unseen by anyone watching. She smiled in the face of the white light that nearly blinded her before it moved on to the next victim and left her in darkness.
The surgery was mostly successful, leaving her with only a large scar on the side of her face and an unseemly bald scalp. These defects, however, were easily concealed with makeup and a wig. What could not be helped, said the doctor in a voice as faultless and pure as his white mask, were the marks on her back, where the extreme heat from the blast had branded the design of the dress she had worn that day into her back.
She demanded a mirror. After much pleading, the doctor assented and allowed her a glimpse at her reflection, which revealed an obscene outline of a rose bouquet reaching from her shoulder blades to her tailbone.
She stared at the ghastly flowers for a moment, and then breathed: "Beautiful."
The doctor asked her if something was wrong, but she ignored him, continuing to stare transfixed at the image in the mirror.
"It is alright," she finally told him in English. "I will never take my clothes off again."
Upon her return home, she quickly found work in a luxury hotel.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
mcgt part 4
As in part 2 (and really this whole goddamn thing), massive edits are anticipated in the future.
After the war, he was courted by several prestigious universities offering handsomely-paying teaching positions. He eventually settled on a prominent technical school in Southern California, where, as he put it, he could do "all science, all the time." However, it was there that he discovered his true calling: he was an artist.
After a fire drill in the building hosting the physics department canceled one of his lectures, he decided to take a stroll over to the anemic liberal arts building, where budding the budding Einsteins took all their pass/fail courses.
This place is always begging for mischief, he thought. So far, his greatest hits included sitting in on a discussion of Robert Frost poems, where he made a persuasive argument that "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" was about bestiality. Another time, at a packed seminar, he asked the dean of the philosophy department to explain the eternal dilemma of "hustle vs. bustle." This time, he decided to drop in and see what he could do for Drawing I.
Miss Barone, the art teacher, was beside herself when she saw Ben standing in the doorway of her classroom.
"Does Professor Symon really wish to grace us with his presence?!" she gasped.
"It is, and I do," he replied with a wink.
"Joy of joys!" she cried, handing him a charcoal and paper.
"Forget it," he rejoined, "the only thing I ever get is physics." But he couldn't resist the pleas of the students, many of whom, he knew, had idolized him since the day they got their first chemistry set.
It was the beginning of multiple failures in a variety of mediums before he eventually created his oil on canvas masterpiece: "Madame Curie discovers radium." It was modeled partly on an ancient photograph of Ms. Curie and partly on Playboy's Miss August 1955. He made sure to use the most striking white-yellow he could find on the gamma rays he created shooting out of Madame Curie's crotch. To balance this harsh embellishment he added another; he festooned her generous mound of pubic hair with several pink roses, endowing her with that earth-mother look that he felt had been missing from the real-life M. Curie.
He was forced to part with his life's work after his second wife vindictively donated it to an auction during their divorce proceedings. He was able to track down the buyer, a wealthy, elderly British matron living in Bel Air, but she refused to sell it back to him.
He tried to convince her that she'd been robbed: "How could you have paid $10,000 for such a piece of trash?" he cried, gesticulating wildly at the garden of fireworks around M. Curie's nether regions.
"I'm sorry," she replied, "but I can never resist a lovely bit of foliage."
After the war, he was courted by several prestigious universities offering handsomely-paying teaching positions. He eventually settled on a prominent technical school in Southern California, where, as he put it, he could do "all science, all the time." However, it was there that he discovered his true calling: he was an artist.
After a fire drill in the building hosting the physics department canceled one of his lectures, he decided to take a stroll over to the anemic liberal arts building, where budding the budding Einsteins took all their pass/fail courses.
This place is always begging for mischief, he thought. So far, his greatest hits included sitting in on a discussion of Robert Frost poems, where he made a persuasive argument that "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" was about bestiality. Another time, at a packed seminar, he asked the dean of the philosophy department to explain the eternal dilemma of "hustle vs. bustle." This time, he decided to drop in and see what he could do for Drawing I.
Miss Barone, the art teacher, was beside herself when she saw Ben standing in the doorway of her classroom.
"Does Professor Symon really wish to grace us with his presence?!" she gasped.
"It is, and I do," he replied with a wink.
"Joy of joys!" she cried, handing him a charcoal and paper.
"Forget it," he rejoined, "the only thing I ever get is physics." But he couldn't resist the pleas of the students, many of whom, he knew, had idolized him since the day they got their first chemistry set.
It was the beginning of multiple failures in a variety of mediums before he eventually created his oil on canvas masterpiece: "Madame Curie discovers radium." It was modeled partly on an ancient photograph of Ms. Curie and partly on Playboy's Miss August 1955. He made sure to use the most striking white-yellow he could find on the gamma rays he created shooting out of Madame Curie's crotch. To balance this harsh embellishment he added another; he festooned her generous mound of pubic hair with several pink roses, endowing her with that earth-mother look that he felt had been missing from the real-life M. Curie.
He was forced to part with his life's work after his second wife vindictively donated it to an auction during their divorce proceedings. He was able to track down the buyer, a wealthy, elderly British matron living in Bel Air, but she refused to sell it back to him.
He tried to convince her that she'd been robbed: "How could you have paid $10,000 for such a piece of trash?" he cried, gesticulating wildly at the garden of fireworks around M. Curie's nether regions.
"I'm sorry," she replied, "but I can never resist a lovely bit of foliage."
Monday, August 23, 2010
what can you have to attach you so strongly to life?
from The Hunchback of Notre Dame
"What then? Why she will do out wearing your clothes, and you will stay behind with hers. You may get hanged perhaps, but she will be saved."
Gringoire scratched his ear and grimaced seriously.
"Well!" he said, "that's an idea that never would have crossed my brain."
At Dom Claude's unexpected proposal the open and benign countenance of the poet had become instantly overcast, like a smiling Italian landscape when a chance gust of wind suddenly dashes a cloud across the sun.
"Well, Gringoire, what do you say to the plan?"
"I say, master, that I shall not be hanged perhaps, but that I shall be hanged indubitably."
"That does not concern us."
"The deuce it doesn't!"
"She saved your life. You are repaying a debt."
"But there are many debts that I don't pay."
"Master Pierre, you must do it!"
The archdeacon spoke imperatively.
"Listen, Dom Claude," replied the poet in consternation, "You may cling to that idea, but you are wrong. I don't see why I should get myself hanged instead of another."
"What can you have to attach you so strongly to life?"
"Ah, a thousand attachments!"
"What are they, pray tell."
"What are they? The air, the sky, the morning, the evening, the moonlight, my good friends the Truands, our romps with the good-natured damsels, the beautiful architectural works of Paris to study, three big books to write, one of them against the bishop and his mills--I know not what else. Anaxagoras used to say he had been put in the world just to admire the sun. And then, I have the happiness of passing all my days, from morning till evening, with a man of genius, who is me, and that's very pleasant."
"Oh, you rattlebrain!" grumbled the archdeacon. Then he continued, "Well, tell me, that life you make out to be so charming, who saved that life for you? To whom are you indebted for air to breathe, for the sky to see, for being still able to amuse your larklike spirit with trash and foolery? But for her, where would you be? Would you have her die, she, by whom you live? Would you have her die, that creature, so lovely, so sweet, so adorable--a creature necessary to the light of the world--more divine than divinity itself--while you, half philosopher, half fool, a mere sketch of something, a kind of vegetable which fancies it walks and thinks, would continue to live with the life you have stolen from her, as useless as a taper at noonday? Come, Gringoire, a little pity! Be of generous mind. She has set an example for you!"
The priest was vehement. Gringoire listened to him at first with an air of indecision, then became moved and concluded by pouting, which likened his wan face to that of a small baby in a seizure of colic.
"You sound very pathetic!" he said, wiping away a tear. "Well, let me think about it. It's a queer idea of yours. After all," he pursued, after a pause, "who knows? Perhaps they won't hang me; there's many a slip between the cup and the lip. When they find me in that cell, so grotesquely muffled in cap and skirt, perhaps they'll roar with laughter. And then, if they do hang me, oh well, the rope is a death like any other. Or rather, it's not a death like any other. It's a death worthy of a philosopher who has been oscillating all his life, a death marked with Pyrrhonism and hesitation, which holds the middle between heaven and earth, which leaves on in suspense. It's a philosopher's death, and perhaps I was predestined to it. It is fine to die as one has lived."
The priest interrupted him. "Agreed?"
"After all, what is death?" continued Gringoire still in a burst of enthusiasm. "An upleasant moment, a toll, a passage form little to nothing. When someone asked Cercidas of Megalopolis if he would die willingly, 'Why not?' he replied, 'for after death I shall meet those great men, Pythagoras, among the philosophers, Hecataeus, among the historians, Homer, among the poets, and Olympus, among the musicians.'"
The archdeacon held out his hand. "Then, we are agreed? You will come tomorrow?"
This gesture brought Gringoire back to reality.
"Faith, no!" he said, with the tone of a man just awaking. "Be hanged! That's too absurd! I will not."
mcgt part 3
From the time she had married him, she always remembered him waking up at night with phantom pains. He would take his crutches and a packet of cigarettes and go out to sit alone on a stoop in the garden. For the first few weeks after their honeymoon, she tried to make him more comfortable. She would offer massages and hot towels and alcohol and sex to no avail. When she tried to follow him outside, he would simply hold up his arm like a locked gate.
She would stand at the window and watch him smoking fitfully under the dogwood, betraying his torment to the air in little gray puffs. She wondered if what she felt watching him was what it meant to be married. Soon, she was able to sleep through the night, oblivious to his comings and goings.
After their home was gone, they moved to the capital to live with his brother's family. It was her, now, who was waking up every night, pulled out of sleep with the feeling that someone was clawing the flesh off her back. Crammed into the guest room with a number of other refugee relatives, they were denied the privacy needed to conceal pain.
They made a tacit agreement to share their misery with each other.
At midnight, they would soundlessly slip out of bed and tiptoe over the sleeping bodies strewn about on mats on the floor. Arm in arm, they set out among the burned-black city, sometimes not returning until dawn. They never spoke a word.
Many years following the divorce, she began to associate him with a foreign musical she watched once by herself in a cinema on a rainy afternoon. It was the scene where the star-crossed lovers frolicked in a field of Swiss tulips. The scene right before the male lover kills himself.
They had tried to make that space. For a brief moment, between the angry, dish-breaking marriage and the quiet drifting apart, there was a flash of light. She drew the trolley to a halt and flew out the window like a stage actor on a string until she reached the roof of the post office where he was waiting for her. They danced for thirty seconds and then died in the blast before they were brought back with the power of radiation, like mutants, into their present sleepwalking lives.
She would stand at the window and watch him smoking fitfully under the dogwood, betraying his torment to the air in little gray puffs. She wondered if what she felt watching him was what it meant to be married. Soon, she was able to sleep through the night, oblivious to his comings and goings.
After their home was gone, they moved to the capital to live with his brother's family. It was her, now, who was waking up every night, pulled out of sleep with the feeling that someone was clawing the flesh off her back. Crammed into the guest room with a number of other refugee relatives, they were denied the privacy needed to conceal pain.
They made a tacit agreement to share their misery with each other.
At midnight, they would soundlessly slip out of bed and tiptoe over the sleeping bodies strewn about on mats on the floor. Arm in arm, they set out among the burned-black city, sometimes not returning until dawn. They never spoke a word.
Many years following the divorce, she began to associate him with a foreign musical she watched once by herself in a cinema on a rainy afternoon. It was the scene where the star-crossed lovers frolicked in a field of Swiss tulips. The scene right before the male lover kills himself.
They had tried to make that space. For a brief moment, between the angry, dish-breaking marriage and the quiet drifting apart, there was a flash of light. She drew the trolley to a halt and flew out the window like a stage actor on a string until she reached the roof of the post office where he was waiting for her. They danced for thirty seconds and then died in the blast before they were brought back with the power of radiation, like mutants, into their present sleepwalking lives.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
the court of miracles
from The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Gringoire, frightened and still pursued by his three persecutors, not knowing well what was going to happen, walked on among the others. He bumped into lepers, stumbled over the paralytics, his feet entangled in that anthill of cripples, like the English captain who found himself beleaguered by a legion of crabs.
The idea occurred to him to try to go back. But it was too late. This whole legion had closed in behind him, and the three beggars were all clutching at him. He went on, therefore, urged simultaneously by that irresistible flood, by fear, and by a dizziness which made it all seem like some kind of a horrible dream.
At last he reached the end of the street. It opened on an immense square where a thousand scattered lights flickered in the thick fog of the night. Gringoire ran into this mist, hoping to escape by his own speed these three diseased specters who had leeched on to him.
"Onde vas, hombre!" cried the cripple, throwing aside his crutches, and running after him with as good a pair of legs as ever measured a geometrical pace upon the pavements of Paris.
Meanwhile the paralytic, standing erect upon his really good feet, bonneted Gringoire with his heavy iron-sheathed bowl, and the blind man stared at him with his large flaming eyes.
"Where am I?" said the terrified poet.
"In the Court of Miracles," answered a fourth specter who had joined them.
"O my soul," rejoined Gringoire, "I see the blind who look and the crippled who run; but where is the Saviour?"
They all answered with a burst of demonic laughter.
The poor poet looked around him. Indeed, he was in that terrible Court of Miracles, which no honest man had ever penetrated at such an hour; a magic circle where the officers of the Chatelet and the sergeants of the provosty who ventured there disappeared like crumbs; the city of thieves, a hideous wart on the face of Paris; a sewer from which there escaped every morning, and to which there returned every night to stagnate that stream of vice, poverty, and vagrancy that ever flows through the streets of capitals; a monstrous hive, to which there came every night all the bees of society with their evil spoils; a sham hospital, where the gypsy, the unfrocked monk, the discredited scholar, the good-for-nothings of every nation--Spaniards, Italians, Germans--of every religion--Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, idolaters--covered with painted sores, beggars in the daytime, transformed themselves at night into robbers; in short, an immense dressing room, where dressed and undressed that time all the actors of this eternal comedy which robbery, prostitution, and murder enact on the pavements of Paris.
It was a vast square, irregular in shape and badly paved, as all the squares of Paris were then. Fires, around which as all the squares of Paris were then. Fires, around which swarmed strange groups, were blazing here and there. All was commotion, confusion, and shouting. One heard shrieks of laughter, the wailing of children, and the high-pitched voices of women. the hands and heads of this crowd, silhouetted against a luminous background, made a thousand fantastic gestures. Now and then, on the ground, where the light of the fires danced, mixed with large undefined shadows, passed a dog resembling a man, or a man resembling a dog. Racial characteristics seemed to be effaced in this city as in a pandemonium. Men, women, beasts, age, sex, health, sickness--everything seemed to be in common among these people; everything went together, mingled, confused, super-imposed; each one took part in everything.
The faint and flickering light of the fires enabled Gringoire to distinguish, in spite of his predicament, all around this immense square, a hideous frame of old houses whose decayed, worm-eaten, and stooping fronts, each pierced by one or two lighted windows, seemed to him, in the dark, like enormous old women's heads, ranged in a circle, monstrous and crabbed, and winking upon the diabolical witchery.
It was to him a new world, incomprehensible, deformed, creeping, crawling, fantastic.
Gringoire, growing more and more frightened, held by the three beggars as if by three vises, deafened by a crowd of other faces that bleated and barked around him--the unfortunate Gringoire tried to regain his presence of mind and to recollect whether this was Saturday or not. But his efforts were vain; the thread of his memory and his thoughts was broken, and doubting everything--floating between what he saw and what he felt--he asked himself this insoluble question: "If I exist, can this be? If this be so, do I exist?"
acceptance
it takes her breath away. yes, he says he loves her. but this means nothing.
it is, this thing that knocks her over like the holy spirit when it hits her brain, acceptance. acceptance beyond acceptance. love for what she is.
love for the thing that has been a problem for as long as she can remember. the thing that was sick, that slowed her down, when, as a child, she was not thinking of her appearance, but dreaming of swinging from the trees like a monkey in the rainforest. and when she first became heavy from the medication, and when she continued to medicate herself from food long after her body was the problem (the sickness moved from her lungs to her brain, strangling her from inside her sick soul).
her body.
he loved her body. did not tolerate. did not settle.
he loved her body with a radical acceptance she had never, even in her wildest, most narcissistic fantasy, imagined possible.
he was in the bathroom putting on a condom. she squeezed the plastic container of lube thick like petrolatum jelly. it came out cold with a loud, fecal squelch. she massaged it roughly into her vagina, a tight bitter mouth.
why could she not accept him in return?
it is, this thing that knocks her over like the holy spirit when it hits her brain, acceptance. acceptance beyond acceptance. love for what she is.
love for the thing that has been a problem for as long as she can remember. the thing that was sick, that slowed her down, when, as a child, she was not thinking of her appearance, but dreaming of swinging from the trees like a monkey in the rainforest. and when she first became heavy from the medication, and when she continued to medicate herself from food long after her body was the problem (the sickness moved from her lungs to her brain, strangling her from inside her sick soul).
her body.
he loved her body. did not tolerate. did not settle.
he loved her body with a radical acceptance she had never, even in her wildest, most narcissistic fantasy, imagined possible.
he was in the bathroom putting on a condom. she squeezed the plastic container of lube thick like petrolatum jelly. it came out cold with a loud, fecal squelch. she massaged it roughly into her vagina, a tight bitter mouth.
why could she not accept him in return?
mcgt part 2
The following must receive a massive re-write--a time warp, if you will. Placed here with only minor edits for context.
That first successful test would later be immortalized in dozens of awestruck accounts, with the first sight of the mushroom cloud and the big guy quoting the Bhagdivad Gita: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
More like destroyer of a good time, he thought.
In his downtime while working on the project, he had become the champion lockpicker of Los Alamos. A math whiz from childhood, his uncanny ability (and generous offers) to fix everyone's radios proved to the neighborhood kids of Schenectady that he was not some effete intellectual to be ignored. He moved onto locks in highschool; he didn't go a week without breaking into someone's locker after sophomore year, usually replacing their textbooks with comics and girly mags.
Now he was the terror of the Manhattan project. He relished the thought that all those self-important army guys were waking up at 4 a.m. in a cold sweat, paralyzed with fear that they might be the next victim whose briefcase of presentation materials was replaced with a pack of dirty playing cards. Fear, not anger. They couldn't get too mad at him, because the next day they would have to come to him with a big scary problem for their big, scary bomb. He was going to pick the big guy's safe today, but got called away to attend the test.
This was it. All those years of deciphering equations for some mammoth purpose he didn't understand had come down to a drive through the desert at dawn with a gaggle of his glum-faced colleagues. Though he couldn't help but be impressed by the big, red fireball (which he could see plainly because he refused to wear those stupid dark glasses they handed out) and the undeniable shockwave that swept him off his feet, he still would have much rather been picking the big guy's lock. He never would have seen it coming.
That first successful test would later be immortalized in dozens of awestruck accounts, with the first sight of the mushroom cloud and the big guy quoting the Bhagdivad Gita: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
More like destroyer of a good time, he thought.
In his downtime while working on the project, he had become the champion lockpicker of Los Alamos. A math whiz from childhood, his uncanny ability (and generous offers) to fix everyone's radios proved to the neighborhood kids of Schenectady that he was not some effete intellectual to be ignored. He moved onto locks in highschool; he didn't go a week without breaking into someone's locker after sophomore year, usually replacing their textbooks with comics and girly mags.
Now he was the terror of the Manhattan project. He relished the thought that all those self-important army guys were waking up at 4 a.m. in a cold sweat, paralyzed with fear that they might be the next victim whose briefcase of presentation materials was replaced with a pack of dirty playing cards. Fear, not anger. They couldn't get too mad at him, because the next day they would have to come to him with a big scary problem for their big, scary bomb. He was going to pick the big guy's safe today, but got called away to attend the test.
This was it. All those years of deciphering equations for some mammoth purpose he didn't understand had come down to a drive through the desert at dawn with a gaggle of his glum-faced colleagues. Though he couldn't help but be impressed by the big, red fireball (which he could see plainly because he refused to wear those stupid dark glasses they handed out) and the undeniable shockwave that swept him off his feet, he still would have much rather been picking the big guy's lock. He never would have seen it coming.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
other people's parcels
your roommate is tall, dark and handsome. she's from the suburbs but speaks with a thick boston accent. her mother, she tells you, is salvadoran and her father is an asshole. when her boyfriend spends the night, you lay awake and listen to his ungodly snoring. you cry yourself to sleep thinking about taking the french midterm after a sleepless night only to be reawakened by another nasal warcry. you try to count sheep like ernie, but the bert in you knows you don't have a chance.
one time you walk in on them having sex. or at least you assume that is what they are doing in the dark with the one desk lamp lit beside the bed. you don't look, of course. you walk over to your side of the room, grab your books and leave. you don't feel bad. at this point, you can only feel a little more awkward.
when she is gone to spend her weekend hostessing at a steakhouse, you live on her side of the room. you wear her bathrobe, watch her movies, play with her makeup. you pride yourself in being so sneaky, so good at putting everything back in its right place.
but one monday she returns, hands you the pair of dirty underwear you left on her bed, and delivers the fateful words:
"i feel like someone's been touching my stuff."
one time you walk in on them having sex. or at least you assume that is what they are doing in the dark with the one desk lamp lit beside the bed. you don't look, of course. you walk over to your side of the room, grab your books and leave. you don't feel bad. at this point, you can only feel a little more awkward.
when she is gone to spend her weekend hostessing at a steakhouse, you live on her side of the room. you wear her bathrobe, watch her movies, play with her makeup. you pride yourself in being so sneaky, so good at putting everything back in its right place.
but one monday she returns, hands you the pair of dirty underwear you left on her bed, and delivers the fateful words:
"i feel like someone's been touching my stuff."
Monday, August 16, 2010
amy hempel
Last week I reread "In the Cemetary Where Al Jolson is Buried." I love this story in a primal sort of way. I love it the way I love the ocean--that same awful, mammoth mass that lies beyond the sunbathing teenagers in "Cemetary," lying in wait to swallow them one by one in their oblivious, "aggressive health."
I love this story for what isn't on the page. I love the empty spaces, the holes between paragraphs, sentences, images, the craters left gaping for the reader to climb into. I love it's remoteness, second-handedness. I love that I despise the protagonist. Isn't she a coward? Who, no really, who doesn't stay by their best friend's side as they are dying? Who is such a stranger to loss? Who hides behind the most trivial of the most questionable, bizarre trivia ("Bob Dylan's mother invented Wite-Out" wtf??)? Who moves further into this twilight zone of trivia the closer she gets to the actual truth, until she finally arrives at the heartbreaking chimp grotesque. "Baby, drink milk," signs the chimp to its dead baby. Who is this?
Oh.
I learn so much from this story each time I read it. Today, I've learned probably the most important reason why "Madame Curie's Got Tits" is truly a shitty, shitty first draft. As Hempel shows us, the unutterable is just that. We need a truly masterful craft to flesh out the true experiences that our minds try to protect us from, the pain and the horror that cannot be contained in the tin can of language.
I love this story for what isn't on the page. I love the empty spaces, the holes between paragraphs, sentences, images, the craters left gaping for the reader to climb into. I love it's remoteness, second-handedness. I love that I despise the protagonist. Isn't she a coward? Who, no really, who doesn't stay by their best friend's side as they are dying? Who is such a stranger to loss? Who hides behind the most trivial of the most questionable, bizarre trivia ("Bob Dylan's mother invented Wite-Out" wtf??)? Who moves further into this twilight zone of trivia the closer she gets to the actual truth, until she finally arrives at the heartbreaking chimp grotesque. "Baby, drink milk," signs the chimp to its dead baby. Who is this?
Oh.
I learn so much from this story each time I read it. Today, I've learned probably the most important reason why "Madame Curie's Got Tits" is truly a shitty, shitty first draft. As Hempel shows us, the unutterable is just that. We need a truly masterful craft to flesh out the true experiences that our minds try to protect us from, the pain and the horror that cannot be contained in the tin can of language.
mcgt part 1
At first she thought it was all her fault. She woke up on her back staring at a black sky. The roof of the trolley was gone and the car was a cistern of black water. Black raindrops hit her face, outlining the beads of glass that had burrowed in her skin like vengeful ticks. She lifted a shard of metal and rolled over to see that every building within her sight had been demolished. A fire licked at what used to be the post office, her husband's place of work and her last stop.
How could one girl, barely in her twenties, cause so much destruction? He would have a very good answer. He would yell at her that night--if she made it home that night--about not paying attention during her training. I should have known, he would say, not to let a silly girl drive a train. He would make her recount her tragic mistake in great detail. I was about to turn a sharp corner, she would whisper. And then there was this white light...the sun must have got in my eyes and then.... How was it that she could not perform the smallest job for the war effort without causing a disaster when he had so loyally served the emperor in the army for so long, giving his leg and almost his leg? She crumbled to the soot-covered, debris-strewn ground, crying in shame.
And then she saw the creatures without skin.
"Water, water!" they hissed in unison. Only one, the leader, looked vaguely human. Naked, his body was charred black. He held his intestines as he ambled towards her. The others, their eyeballs dangling like pocket watches, their flesh melted off to reveal bone, followed the sound of his voice and bumped into things. The shortest one fell at her feet, a scorched black ball tumbling from her back.
"Water. For my child," she murmured, feeling for the lifeless bundle. "I need water for my child."
"No. No water. I don't have any. I'm sorry. Please don't hurt me," she cried, drawing back. Had she become like them? Was she looking in a mirror? She checked to see that her legs still worked. She, too, was mostly naked, with only a few rags of clothes stuck to her skin. She attempted to cover herself, curling her limbs out in front of her. An intense pain in her back halted this attempted movement.
The people without skin stopped moving, too. They seemed to have frozen where they lay on the ground that she could now see was littered with corpses. Something had happened, but--she was now certain--it was not her fault. It was someone else, someone who would not be scolded for it. She closed her eyes against the realization and leaned back against the bare steel frame of the trolley. Flinching in pain again, she felt her back for the source of her injury. The touch itself did not incur pain. It was like dipping your hand into a wad of gooey, sun-warmed seaweed. She pulled away with a shudder in time to see her husband limping towards her, his face twisted in a contortion of horror. Not a member of the skinless army, his smooth skin and able body were a revelation among a world of the dead. Still crisp in his work clothes, his only apparent injury was a single scratch by his left eye. Silently, he bent to help her up, but she recoiled in pain.
"I know it hurts, but you must get up. We must find help."
"No, you go. I can't. Please leave me."
"Oh..." He dropped to his knees beside her. He was openly weeping now.
"It is alright. You can come for me later."
He touched her face and moved his hand up to stroke her hair. A chunk of it came off in his hands.
How could one girl, barely in her twenties, cause so much destruction? He would have a very good answer. He would yell at her that night--if she made it home that night--about not paying attention during her training. I should have known, he would say, not to let a silly girl drive a train. He would make her recount her tragic mistake in great detail. I was about to turn a sharp corner, she would whisper. And then there was this white light...the sun must have got in my eyes and then.... How was it that she could not perform the smallest job for the war effort without causing a disaster when he had so loyally served the emperor in the army for so long, giving his leg and almost his leg? She crumbled to the soot-covered, debris-strewn ground, crying in shame.
And then she saw the creatures without skin.
"Water, water!" they hissed in unison. Only one, the leader, looked vaguely human. Naked, his body was charred black. He held his intestines as he ambled towards her. The others, their eyeballs dangling like pocket watches, their flesh melted off to reveal bone, followed the sound of his voice and bumped into things. The shortest one fell at her feet, a scorched black ball tumbling from her back.
"Water. For my child," she murmured, feeling for the lifeless bundle. "I need water for my child."
"No. No water. I don't have any. I'm sorry. Please don't hurt me," she cried, drawing back. Had she become like them? Was she looking in a mirror? She checked to see that her legs still worked. She, too, was mostly naked, with only a few rags of clothes stuck to her skin. She attempted to cover herself, curling her limbs out in front of her. An intense pain in her back halted this attempted movement.
The people without skin stopped moving, too. They seemed to have frozen where they lay on the ground that she could now see was littered with corpses. Something had happened, but--she was now certain--it was not her fault. It was someone else, someone who would not be scolded for it. She closed her eyes against the realization and leaned back against the bare steel frame of the trolley. Flinching in pain again, she felt her back for the source of her injury. The touch itself did not incur pain. It was like dipping your hand into a wad of gooey, sun-warmed seaweed. She pulled away with a shudder in time to see her husband limping towards her, his face twisted in a contortion of horror. Not a member of the skinless army, his smooth skin and able body were a revelation among a world of the dead. Still crisp in his work clothes, his only apparent injury was a single scratch by his left eye. Silently, he bent to help her up, but she recoiled in pain.
"I know it hurts, but you must get up. We must find help."
"No, you go. I can't. Please leave me."
"Oh..." He dropped to his knees beside her. He was openly weeping now.
"It is alright. You can come for me later."
He touched her face and moved his hand up to stroke her hair. A chunk of it came off in his hands.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
where life is a dress rehearsal
Dear World,
I have recently fallen under the spell of a crippling depression that I like to blame on the fact that I will soon turn 26. More specifically, I will soon become a 26-year-old unpublished writer.
I like that typing this on the internet makes it seem less awful, silly even. I suddenly feel like I have time. It isn't a question of age so much as a question of endurance. How long are you willing to chase a dream that probably seems banal, childish and hopeless to everyone but you?
I've decided to lug out a whopper I cranked out a couple years back. I didn't title it at the time, but lately I've been thinking of it as "Madame Curie's Got Tits." What kind of awful, awful excuse for a writer comes up with a story title like this? Me apparently. (Although, I admit I like it slightly better after finally seeing it in print.) It isn't an idea I can get rid of. It's been percolating in the nooks and crannies of my brain. I wake up with it on the tip of my tongue: "madame curie's got tits madame curie's got tits madame curie's got tits..." Then I gape in horror at my bitch-slapped alarm clock before making the mad dash to work.
So I've decided to honor my psyche's wish to produce a re-vamped shitty first draft (there is no way in hell this is a "revision" yet) in the hopes of creating the beginnings of a publishable piece. That and getting the worms out of my brain.
Most sincerely,
canoli
I have recently fallen under the spell of a crippling depression that I like to blame on the fact that I will soon turn 26. More specifically, I will soon become a 26-year-old unpublished writer.
I like that typing this on the internet makes it seem less awful, silly even. I suddenly feel like I have time. It isn't a question of age so much as a question of endurance. How long are you willing to chase a dream that probably seems banal, childish and hopeless to everyone but you?
I've decided to lug out a whopper I cranked out a couple years back. I didn't title it at the time, but lately I've been thinking of it as "Madame Curie's Got Tits." What kind of awful, awful excuse for a writer comes up with a story title like this? Me apparently. (Although, I admit I like it slightly better after finally seeing it in print.) It isn't an idea I can get rid of. It's been percolating in the nooks and crannies of my brain. I wake up with it on the tip of my tongue: "madame curie's got tits madame curie's got tits madame curie's got tits..." Then I gape in horror at my bitch-slapped alarm clock before making the mad dash to work.
So I've decided to honor my psyche's wish to produce a re-vamped shitty first draft (there is no way in hell this is a "revision" yet) in the hopes of creating the beginnings of a publishable piece. That and getting the worms out of my brain.
Most sincerely,
canoli
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