Preface
These stories have been in my head (and have existed as drafts) for about a year, because they’ve been in my life for about a year. They are loosely connected, but connected enough to really be one story, in a way. Not too long ago, I decided to get them out as soon as possible. They are largely inspired by my own life, though not everything in them is a true account.
1. Posture/Writing on the Wall
When he looks in the mirror, he can still see some things from last November. Tears dried on his cheeks, blood staining his face, shadows under his eyes. Evidence that he was alive back then, though he didn’t feel it sometimes. Sometimes something tells him it will all be back. The person that he was may resume control again. It is every day waiting on the other side of the mirror, which has seen everything and holds everything.
Maybe one day soon, his hands will be turning the wheel, and his foot will be on the gas, and then the brake, and then the gas. It’s only driving, but he will move mechanically. He will be trying his hardest to remember how to do it. And then his hand will be closing the door. Two tries because he will push it so weakly the first time. He will be walking across the parking lot like a robot, like someone learning how to move their legs again, like someone who was seriously injured and must repeat the advancements they made as a child. One step at a time. And the wind will push and push and caress, and he won’t feel it. He’ll be so unimpressed by everything. The wind and the sun shining on him and the broken glass on the pavement sending the light every which way. He won’t even see it. And then someone will hold the door for him. He will stare at the ground as he passes through. Then he will fumble with his keys, panic arriving from his chest when the door opens down the hall. Footsteps coming toward him, but he will make it inside. His hand will drop his keys on the way to his face. His ears won’t hear them hit the ground.
Later his knees will be pulled up to his chest. One side of his face touching the floor of the shower and his hands holding onto each other by the little fingers. There will be blood pooling around him. It comes from his nose and his body will block the flow of water to the drain. And as the pool rises, and the water keeps pouring from above, the sound it makes will grow louder and louder. Everything will become automated in the worst way. It will be nothing more than habit that keeps him breathing and blinking. Time will stop existing for a moment, until it reappears to tell him he needs to get up.
Then his elbows will dig into his hips, and the balls of his hands will be stuffed into his eyes. It won’t make a difference though, they will be closed anyways. His right knee will bounce and bounce. It could be an attempt at liftoff. But he can’t go flying up into the air. There’s nothing to come down from, there’s nowhere up to go. The ground is solid, unyielding, the sky unreachable. So his left foot doesn’t come unplanted for hours.
He will lie motionless in bed while the day passes and light and color are sucked from the room. The blankets will cover everything but his face. He will imagine his limbs have become concrete. That’s a good excuse not to move. The room will be so silent. He will be so still. His face will be so smooth. His belly will be so empty as he shivers.
But for now, his left elbow rests on the window sill, and his right hand cradles the bottom of the wheel. He flicks his left hand up from the wrist, letting the wind move through his fingers. When he brings his fingers together, the wind pushes his hand back. It’s like waving, it’s like being taken by the hand. It’s only because of the speed, but it seems so impressive. The wind turns and comes inside the car. His shirt flaps around on his chest. He turns the wheel with assurance, the ease which comes from experience. Muscle memory is one of the best things the body has to offer. He looks at people in the cars next to his, wishing they would look back, talking to them but really to himself. He is parking, sauntering across the lot, holding the door for a neighbor. Oh how lovely is the feeling of the sun on his arms.
For now his feet move quickly, but carefully, so he doesn’t slip on the smooth white shower floor. His hands fly around wildly. They are punching the air, and scrubbing at the soap on his arms. He is tapping his phone to change the song. He pauses to reach down and turn the knob, and as the temperature of the water rises, he’s off again. There is that improbable combination of furious energy and slow caution. Then he is sitting on the railing, leaning back against the outside wall. His left foot swings back and forth. He is stepping out the door into the sun. He’s sitting down on the stoop, examining his hands, tearing away a callous. When he leans back, the light claims new territory on his face. He can feel it through his eyelids, so he drapes a forearm over his brow. He is beginning to sweat, but still he lays basking in the warmth. He is sitting on the bus with his head leaned back against the glass and his eyes cast toward the floor. The sunlight is pounding away at the door and squeezing through the crack at the bottom.
He gets off the bus and waits for it to pass, and he waits for some other cars to pass too. He starts off across the wide, black street, not in any crosswalk but confident because the cars he sees coming are far away. Who can tell him where to put his feet?
He walks into his building, stopping before the door for a second, seeing his reflection and the street behind him. The cars passing by. But he goes inside, and inside again, and finally inside again. And he’s standing in front of the mirror, and it stands opposite him. And he knows that somewhere within it are the things from last November. Somewhere within it is the person he was then. Maybe he is mocking, or wanting to come to the front. But the reflection he sees is impassive. The mirror gives nothing away. There is no writing on the wall, there is only writing within him. He places his hands on the sides of the mirror and starts to pull.
For now, he is leaning back on his car, eyes closed and face to the sky. He is being swallowed up by the heavens as the gas pumps. They are still the heavens in the daytime. Getting up to stop the machine, he catches a glimpse of his reflection in the back seat.
Then he’s driving with his elbow on the window again. How many times, he wonders, how many times has he driven with the windows up, locking himself in and the saving grace of nature out? Something in him has changed since last November. The evidence is still in the mirror. Some other people had seen their reflections there. But his would be the last, and it would happen a million times at once as the glass broke into so many pieces. He would be smiling for the grand finale.
Now he has found an empty parking lot. He’s stopping the car, and putting it in park, and getting out, and lifting the mirror from the back seat, and walking a distance from the car, and raising the mirror above his head. The sun is beating down violently. He supposes that if a pilot were to look down from the sky, the reflection might blind him. Is this the kind of thing you think when you’re about to die? He looks up to make sure there are no planes in the sky, no pilots to see themselves in his mirror. Now he begins to bring his arms down.
2. The Consequences
He is an old man who looks like he is just about ready to turn into fine china and shatter on the ground. All but a few months or weeks or days of his life have already been lived and turned into a memory. He thinks about how all the consequences of everything he ever did have brought him here, just like they brought him everywhere else he has been. The consequences. He remembers when they spat him up on an empty beach at night time. The sandy boards under his feet drew him forward, they had his muscles under a spell. The palm fronds that leaned over the handrails beckoned him forth and patted his back as he passed by. The blue and black and gray sky put him in a trance and made him stay awhile. His fondness for the night time, his reverence for the sea. The consequences. They made him lie down in the fetal position in the white, sterile shower. Getting up was sometimes the hardest thing he ever did. But he did it because his friend was waiting to see him. And because he did it, he later discovered some of life’s premier sensations. Like how a mouth full of toothpaste can muffle the sound of the words, but it can’t keep you from gleefully shouting out lyrics in the very same shower. He doesn’t know how he remembers them but he does. Like how the hot summer wind can feel cool because of the sweat on your skin. When he discovered, this he was riding his bike with no hands or feet, his limbs all stretched out like four points of a star as he hurtled downhill. The consequences kept him from crashing. Like how sometimes his hands would smell like cake. Chocolate or lemon or carrot, whichever he had made earlier. All these things his friend gave him, when he said he wanted to see him. So he would send him the song he sang in the shower, and give him his old bike when he got a new one, and give him as much of the cake as he wanted. There was no amount of things the other could ask for that would add up to the gift of the life he has helped the one to live. So whenever his friend asks to borrow something, the answer has invariably been yes. When he tells his friend “what’s mine is yours,” it is more true than either of them knows.
He remembers all this in the span of a few seconds, by himself at a table in a cafe. Does this mean he is dying? But he carries on because he sees a familiar face crossing the room.
The face he sees is that friend from decades past. The consequences of everything they have ever done have led them to the same table, at the same moment. They have saved each other’s lives and been bored by it just so they could sit here together. They are slapping hands for what must be the millionth time. Whenever the smack is loud and sharp, they share a little satisfaction. And this is one of countless things they have shared.
They have shared rooms, both of their childhood rooms, although they both usually preferred for it to be the other’s. They would rather be surrounded by the other one’s things, talk to the other one’s parents for a little while, and play the other one’s games. The consequences of everything they ever did led them to share a twelve by eight foot room with cinder block walls during their first year of college. This is not where they met, but it is where they changed. And it is where they both approved, wordlessly, of the new version of the other. This room is where they did a lot of growing up. They grew up and outward, like trees. Their roots stayed in the same place, close to each other. And so their branches grew farther away and closer still.
As their growing up continued they shared more rooms, a living room and a kitchen. They shared a taste of every drink, a practice they resume now, at this table. They drank the same apple juice and the same chocolate milk, straight from the carton. And if you woke someone up making your smoothie, the least you could do was let them try it. They shared the first beer that they ever bought. They shared bottles of wine and took shots of whiskey with coke at the same time. They shared pizzas and taste tested all the food they made themselves. You should offer a bite to your friend, and they do so even now so many years later.
They also shared a bathroom. In the mornings, they would play rock paper scissors for the first shower.
They shared the same cool air, standing on the porch after the rain, mentioning the chill. And when they grew more accustomed to the chill, they talked about other things, like their girlfriends, whether it was good or bad, and the adulthood that always seemed so far away but was coming toward them faster all the time.
Sometimes one of them would set down some words in front of the other, like the words weighed hundreds of pounds. If they needed help carrying the weight, or wanted it smashed to pieces, it would be done. There was never a need for a preface. Things like “we broke up,” and “I bombed it” were better said without beating around the bush. Other times they had to share hard truths, but these were always better than easy lies. There are things like “You looked better before” and “I don’t think she likes you” that are important to hear so that you believe the things like “It looks good” and “She wants you to text her.” They said all these things with the informality of slapping hands.
They were often the first witnesses to each other’s achievements, the first to know when one took important steps. When one of them started a band, the other drove hours to their first show, to see it and scream out the songs and take pictures so there would be evidence of their small beginnings. When one of them made short films, it was the other who acted for him.
They have given each other doses of the best medicine. When one caught vertigo in the winter time, the other walked with him over icy parking lots to the doctor’s office. And when one had an attack of appendicitis, the other drove him to the hospital and stayed in the waiting room for hours. They have given each other doses of the best medicine. They found themselves laughing all the time, at things that could never be explained.
They often haggled over whose car they would share for the day. It was better to ride passenger, but to fall asleep was betrayal. You had to share the bumps in the road. Now they are haggling again, but much more reservedly, and not about who should drive, but about who should pay the bill, because eventually the time had come to share less. For a long time, the only thing they have shared are memories, the ones they are remembering together at this table, and sometimes text messages and phone calls. They have shared cool spring breezes and biting winter gusts. They have walked home in the snow together, but at the end of today they will go separate ways. They feel they are too old to go to the same roof and keep talking into the night. The possibility will not even occur to them. But if it did they would play rock paper scissors for the first shower like second nature.
3. Message in a Bottle
Night time. My upstairs neighbor has quit stomping around. The party down the hall has faded away. People leaving, people falling asleep, people turning the lights off. There's no one else in my apartment, but still I take time to be quiet with the locks. Fine motor control, like defusing a bomb. There is a soft click when the deadbolt slides out of the way. My bare feet on the tile in the hall and then the sidewalk. My feet outside where all the colors have faded. What was blue, green and pink is all gray fuzziness. There is no sharpness or contrast. I lift my hand up to my face and it could be anyone’s. A little pang in my chest, a little lump in my throat.
My feet on the beach now, sinking into the sand with every step. My restlessness is overbearing. It wants to come out through my fists, so I pound it into the sand and don’t feel better. The ache in my hands subsides. That was something. I feel that my thoughts disappear from me once I voice them. If I put them out, I will forget them. The tide will pull them away. There’s a bottle in my hand now. There's a letter inside with most of my secrets. I hope someone will read them one day. I hope they reach a foreign coast and are snatched up by a stranger. Maybe they can read English. Maybe they can’t speak it. I’ll probably tell someone else about what’s in the bottle before it reaches the other side of the world. But across the ocean, someone will be the only person on their continent to know how I felt when I thought I was falling to pieces. Maybe by then I will be put back together again.
My feet getting a little wet now. The sand finds its way between my toes whenever I take a step. I pray to not feel anything sharp or slimy. The waves are smacking against my shins now. I can’t see anything in front of me but the white crests endlessly rushing forward. The waves are breaking against the bottom of the bottle now. If I turn around, I’ll see some lights in the distance. There are lights from homes, lights from cars, lights for the streets. There are lights that should have been turned off. I’ll have to go back eventually to where things are bright and the ground is hard under my feet. I feel the water pushing against my thighs now, trying to prevent me from walking farther. And I feel other water on my ankles pulling me out. I have to turn and walk parallel to the shore for a while to get away from the riptide. This much I remember from my first time here. Down the beach, I can see a bonfire with silhouettes moving around it. That’s where I’ll go. Soon the waves start hitting my knees again, and then my shins, and I am free. Faces turn from the bonfire to me. My arrival must inspire many questions, but the first one I hear is what’s that in your hand? I’m still holding the bottle. My letter is unsent and this cannot stand, so off I go into the water again. I’ll be very tired when this is over.
My feet in the water again, the same old thing. The waves splashing around my waist. I’m drawing my arm back, and swinging it forward, and loosening my fingers. In this motion I let go thousands of words and tell a stranger many things about myself. There is a splash hardly loud enough to hear over the ocean and the air that is thick and heavy in my ears. Now my back is turned on the things I wrote, and I can see the lights in the distance. I’m walking and the bottle is floating in the opposite direction. For the last time, the water falls from my waist to my ankles and my feet touch dry sand. Then I’m on my back on the beach. I wish the night sky would fall and cover me up like a sheet. I feel there are a million possibilities. I can do anything. I would pull the sky over my head and sleep until the stars stop shining. I would rip the stars out of the dark blue fabric, eat them and glow from the inside out. I would stretch the sky flat and nail it to the ceiling in my room. I would fashion it into a kite, find the wind and fly a light year away. But now I try to touch the sky and I can’t reach it. My arms stretch out above me like they belong to some alien creature, and I barely know him at all. I’ve seen these arms reach for tissues when my nose was bleeding. I’ve seen them ice a cake at midnight. I’ve seen them tremble and give away my faintness of heart. I’ve seen other hands slip out of mine. If I could pull the sky down to me, I think it would lay heavily on me and help me rest. It would not be like that other weight that has been coming and going for so long. It would not be like the one that has sat on the corners of my mouth, and rounded off my shoulders, which once were square. It has forced me to do all sorts of things, but now my mouth is turning up and my shoulders are square again. I had to square them to push through the tide. And so it was the pain from which I wrought my words that has caused my return to form. I turn myself over and start doing pushups. When I can’t keep going, I give a kiss to the ground that has been so worthy of my trust. I return the kisses of the wind which has been so kind to me. Now I start walking toward one of those lights in the distance.
Acknowledgments
There are people without whom you would not have read this. My parents who took me to the beach. My siblings who knew I was sneaking out to stand in front of the ocean at 1 a.m., but didn’t follow me. My friends who I have shared life with for around a decade, the one I have shared a home with for four years. The ones who listen when our conversations turn into my message in a bottle. Anyone who has ever read my writing—that means you, and especially the ones who liked it. Thank you.