Words, Bound in Paper, last half
Apr 15 '04
The Bottom Line Copyright 2004 David MacDonald
first half
http://www.epinions.com/content_3869483140
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Comments, please!
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“But.....”, he uttered, comprehending your words, “... I thought that we had something special.......”
“That was just a dream, my friend.”, you say, sorrowfully. “It was your dream, and you’ve been dreaming it for the last six months. But it’s not real. And you can never make it real in the way that you’re going about it....”
He was breaking apart in front of your eyes. He was crumbling slowly, like grains of sand squeezing through an hourglass.
You continued to dissect his motivations. “I can see.... that I could be anyone in your eyes. You just need someone to fill that hole inside of you.......”
He gazes confusingly. He appeared mystified, that she would dare undervalue his motives for wanting her.
“You need to fill a void and I can understand that..... “, you filled in, “I mean, none of us want to be empty.”
“Hey, this isn’t right.”, he carefully insisted. “I like you. I like you a lot! Why can’t you see that.... you’re a beautiful person to me!”
“... but why am I beautiful?”, you ask, believing yourself to be helpful. “Am I beautiful because of who I am? Or am I beautiful because I’m here right now talking to you? Am I beautiful because I’m here at the right place at the right time?”
“Now you’re the one who’s not respecting my feelings!”, he retorted, stronger became his manner. “You make me sound like I’m easy. That I’ll go for anyone with a nice pair of legs and a pretty smile......”
His light sarcasm was a shield, insulating the raw emotion that screamed to escape, that protested that he was wronged.
“I know how I felt about you.”, he insisted. “You made me feel things that I never thought I’d ever feel! How many people can I say made me feel ---- made me feel physically weak? When I kissed you..... I.... I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep.....”
You understood that he was telling the truth. It was by the way his arms shook, like someone with tremors.
“..... before I met you, I knew other women. They acted like my friends, and I didn’t question that..... because I didn’t know any better. These women were weak. They were manipulative. And frankly, they were even crazier than I am now.......”
He was revealing broken parts of his past, pieces that were scattered for so long. But your gaze, your interest, fused the pieces together in front of your eyes.
“And then, that night when I met you, I saw for the first time, someone who seemed like she was stable. Mature. Intelligent. Decent. And she was interested in me.......”
You got it. You knew what his motivations were.
“... well, I thought that she was interested in me. She was. She was for a brief time. But her interest wasn’t strong enough. It, and her, slipped away.” He paused. “.... and for the past few months, I was trying... and failing.... to gather up those feelings, and convince her that they were worth keeping.......”
You brushed your cheek with your hand, wiping away invisible tears.
“Ah well....”, he concluded. “but that’s to be expected. She proved to me that even the best ones will never love me.”
Now you wanted to strike him. Strike him on the shoulder. Yell at him. Anything so he wouldn’t drown in his self-pity, his loneliness.
“Don’t say that!”, you cried. “Don’t say that!!”
“Why shouldn’t I?”, he said. “I just have to face up to the facts.”
“You’ll find someone, someday!”, you pleaded with him. “You’ll find someone, no question. You’re a great guy, somebody is going to see that.”
“Don’t fool me like that!”, he groaned. “It’s cruel to say sh*t like that to people.....”
You felt a wound sliced inside your chest.
“Why do people always tell everyone else that there will be someone for you... “, he asks, directing his words beyond the specific presence of yourself, and to the general environment, “.....that everyone will find a soulmate. That everyone will find that special person in their lives -- but it’s a lie. Not everyone has exactly the same abilities. Not everyone is qualified to do the same things. And... it’s the same when it comes to -- “love”.”
“Oh, don’t say that.”, you sob. You want to cry, but you didn’t need to. He seemed very willing to do that for himself, although he did his best to restrain the mindless physical reactions of his body.
“Well, look at me.”, he demanded of you. “I’m not a little kid anymore. I’m an adult. And where am I? I’m not where I want to be. My life has stood still for three decades. I haven’t been able to enjoy the things that everyone else has been able to take for granted -- I just don’t know how to do that. I think that they ought to give us courses into how to develop a relationship... because I know that I can’t seem to do it. I can’t get through to anyone. After thirty years or so on this planet, I might as well be a teenager struggling through high-school when it comes to stuff like this.......”
Your head began to ache. All of his words were like deep and heavy thorns, having been embedded into your skull. You were crucified for the sins of the lonely, disarrayed souls just like the one sitting across from you.
“No!”, you claimed. “You... just gotta change your approach..... that’s all. You’re a great person..... people just have to see that.....”
“They’ve been seeing it forever...... so what do you want me to change. My entire personality? The things that I like to do? The things that I’m interested in?”
He looked deeper into your eyes. “If someone were to tell you to change everything about yourself, could you do it?”
The saliva in your mouth evaporated. The words you wanted to say scratched the base of your throat, and you didn’t want to experience more pain than you already were at this moment.
“...... no, you couldn’t.”, he said. “How could you just change everything that you are? It would be like a betrayal of yourself. That whole “changing” thing that you’re talking about -- it’s a smokescreen. People.... just aren’t interested.......”
You felt yourself backed into a corner. Sure, he probably was feeling it too. But the mood that you were in right now was too overwhelming for you, the one whose voice alienated sadness and melancholy, the one whose manner was like a magnet for others to feel more comfortable about themselves.
Perhaps that was all this was. You were a magnet for him as well. Before you came along, all of his pain would have been clawing at the bars of its prison, crying to escape. But you had the key, and you unlocked the door. And it was too late to push the pain back inside.........
“..... hey.....”, you sighed, breaking the long silence. “.....I.... I’m sorry.....”
“Look....there’s nothing for you to be sorry about......”, he said. “It’s not your fault..... that’s just the way it is.”
You folded the paper, the scrawling of his thoughts, quietly into your palm. Your fingers pressed the texture of the sheets, the results of pulp and water and all of the other elements that formed the object that he was able to vent his emotions toward. You dropped the bound sheets into the folds of the small pocket of your kitbag, where it would stay for many weeks, as you attempt to brush clean this visceral, spiritually bloody encounter.
You returned your gaze to him, and reached your hand out to his, the fingertips still resting, still wanting to mindlessly tap at the pale-brown surface of the wooden table. You touched his hand, not sensuously, but in a wordless recognition that you gave yourself, a few hours of your time, to him.
Then you embraced him quietly. You felt the side of his head rest upon your shoulder. How many times did he wish that he could do that? How many times did he wish that he could run his hand through your hair, and not have to concern himself with anything else, except the touch of your hair, the curve of your shoulder, the presence of your body?
And after this moment, all he’d ever be able to do, concerning you, is to sort out the belongings of his memory, and regard them, nostalgically.
“..... I... I’m going to have to go.....”, you said, gently releasing your body from his.
“.... okay...”, he whispered.
You squeezed his hand as it regretfully released itself from the curve of your hip. “Now you keep in touch, okay?”, you insisted. But you would not truly insist on it.
You picked up your kitbag and hung it over your shoulder, the shoulder where he rested his head for a brief moment. “..... I should go.... God knows, I could have a parking ticket by now.....”, you joked.
“Sure..... don’t you hate parking in Charlottetown!”, he smiled. “It’s almost better never to drive down to this area......”
You smiled sadly, your rounded cheeks surrounding your mouth. The face you gave turned out to be more bittersweet than others were willing to witness. You knew yourself, that if you were to look in the mirror, that perhaps the people around you didn’t quite understand you like they thought they did.
“.... yea, it sucks.”, you said.
You twisted the brass doorknob, opening the door to the outside air. The sky remained blisteringly sunny, defiant of the storm clouds within his living room.
“I.... I’ll see you around, okay..... take care of yourself?”, you quietly parted with him, with this episode of your friendship with him. You shut the door, and stepped out into the sidewalk.
*
*
*
*
You left him alone to take stock of his aberrant state of mind.
Your skin, your bittersweet face, felt the oven-heat of the April sun blistering its pale terrain. You were touched by a pleasant afternoon, with only a few clouds congealing, lightly staining the blue sky. But you could only think of the weather going on in his part of the world. He was underneath a gray, sour day, unrelenting gallons of acidic water pelting over his life. Yet he would not do the sensible thing and find shelter from the rain.
He let himself get soaked, by the poisonous memories of past relationships, by the fantasies he had about you. By the silly dreams of him accompanying you, or, more likely, of you accompanying him, to places where he wanders to alone. Of daydreaming about the things that you would say to him if you were at those places where he wanders to alone.
And you, in this real life, could not help him. Only he would know when to get out of the rain.......
..... you noticed something sticking out from underneath your windshield wiper.
Sh*t. A parking ticket.
You spent more than your allotted time at his place. But what the hell. It was only five bucks. And besides, with your new job and all, you could afford such a small expense. It was no issue to sacrifice five bucks into the clutches of city hall.
You got into the car, realizing that your friend was surely going to be waiting for you to return it to her.
Nervousness. It came out at you, surprising you. Your limbs became clumsy, and awkward. A cold sweat broke out under your armpits; the drops trickling beneath the strap of your bra just like the biting itches did two an a half hours ago. Your heart drummed out more blood to your shivering limbs.
Man, you never realized how much physical strength this situation would bleed out of you. Thank God you didn’t have a shift tonight at work. You felt your eyes blur, as the imagining within you drew itself over the concrete reality in front of you.
Only a zombie would have maneuvered the car like you did at this moment. Methodically turning the ignition forward. Mindlessly shifting the gear shift. Pressing on the gas pedal.
Crunch.
The sound barely gouged you out of your mental spasm, but the abrupted surprise of the voice outside did.
“Jesus Christ!”. The voice was faint, seeping through the protective transparency of the glass. The person broke off his casual walking, and he appeared mystified at this obstruction across the sidewalk.
You had not paid attention, and shifted your gear to “drive” instead of “reverse”. The front end of your friend’s car pressed itself hard against the steel pole that held the parking meter. The curious vocal tones of the sidewalk players were all that kept you connected to the real world. You barely traced the outlines of those speakers as they hovered near the minor havoc of metal against metal.
You remained frozen, like a catatonic. You merely looked through the windshield, as if looking vicariously at a Cinemascope screen of Charlottetown, but never quite living in the town. The people outside wondered if the car was all right, before figuring out that there was a person inside the driver’s seat. They became uncertain as to whether you needed help. And you were too stunned to answer.
Passively, you watched these strange people. You were unable to move, to escape this cold, suffocating slab of metal. You felt trapped from within, and unable to express yourself in a way that would make others understand.
Nobody would get you. Nobody would be able to successfully dissect what transpired to get you to this point. And nobody ever would..........
END
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Member: David Macdonald
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Alice, a story in nine parts, posted on Sept 24, 2008 - http://www.epinions.com/content_5241348228
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