story smile.

first, i don't why this shit is underlined, but this is a story i was working. the shit in parenthesis are possible word choices except for the words in the title of the chapters.

1 (the first step)

“I’m glad we tried.” The words are audible, but meant more for speaker than the listener. Her voice is light, but the words are so heavy. They fall out of her mouth, and hit the counter in front of her. He doesn’t hear her words, as much as he hears the crash.

“Huh? Glad we tried what?” Before this, he was into the paper he was reading. Not into the words, and what they meant. A blind read, for his mind was somewhere else. Not too far from where he was sitting. Across the table and down the hall. Past the bathroom and the paintings that were once his mothers. Through the living room, looking through the slats of the bi-fold louver doors guarding the study, as the sun rushes through them like an open handful of water. Though the small rivers of light, he can see the second drawer of his desk, but not what lays inside. But he knows. It's a letter. 

She doesn’t respond. She thinks to, but decides against it. For what? The words would be wasted anyway. Not because he wouldn’t care. He cared about everything she has ever done or said since they have known each other. Because anything else said would be an unnecessary distraction from the feeling she has a grasp of. Feelings are fleeting. The ride, no matter how long, is always too short. 

She turns, looks at him and smiles. He hasn’t lifted his head out of his paper. She knows he isn’t really reading. He’s too still. Hands static, arms stiff. He’s off thinking, and she’s fine with that, because she’s know he's on his own rollercoaster.

He closes his eyes briefly, retracing his steps down the hall, back to the kitchen. Carefully, he can’t afford for her to see the trip he has made, to find what lies so still in that desk, in that drawer. It is for her, but not yet. When he finally completes his trip and opens his eyes, he sees her smile, and almost relents. But not for her, not yet.

god, that smile.

“What are you looking at?” That phrase has served him well throughout the years, when he was close to falling into her (eyes).

“Nothing.” Equally time-honored word. But her smile gave it all away. She knows, and he knows.

“You always say that.”

“And you always ask what I’m looking at.” She is looking at him; all he (stands for, and) means to her.

“So why don’t you tell me?” He asks, even though he doesn’t need to hear it. She looks a little longer, turns away and leaves the kitchen. He hears her moving towards the study. He pushes away from the table, and moves behind her, quietly. For the life of him he cannot understand why he is so on edge. He laughs to himself because he knows… she’s probably retracing my steps.

 

2 (past the high grass.)

 

Every year for his father’s birthday, he bought him a book. And his father read absolutely none of them.  Don’t even think he put his catchers glove sized mitts on them. Wasn’t that Big Jones didn’t care, just was past the reading age. He thought for sure that he would read the Dean Smith autobiography. Pops ate the status-quo and shitted Carolina Blue. However every book purchased was read by the son. They all didn’t stick, but Tuesday’s with Morrie did. He wished now he had a Tuesday’s with _______, but he had 19 years with the love of his life, so he wouldn’t complain.

Now, so much life lived later, he thought of a Living Funeral. That’s what Morrie had, and that’s what he wanted. He tried to talk to her about it, but after a few attempts, she would just shake it off.

“It’s just too morbid. I don’t want to think about it.” She closed her eyes, breathed deep, and shook her head. And with the shake, the conversation was sent to oblivion. He didn’t blame her. He knew she thought of it anyway, and in the maze of her thoughts, she could get lost there, and she didn’t want to. So he thought about it for the two of them.

The Winter was approaching. And like the ant, he wanted to be prepared.

So he wrote letters to all of those he loved. To all those he truly loved. Luckily, his momma got hers. The love of a child put on paper. Her eyes welled up, and through the pain of the sickness that thieved her voice away, she mouthed her love to him. He didn’t write to his children. They would get everything he had to offer while he was here. He prayed often that they did.

Through the years, there were many additions, subtractions, amendments. He started to write them in pencil, but his left handed writing smeared it all to hell. Plus, it looked cheap. So he ended up just doing total re-writes in the best handwriting he could muster, on paper fit for a king’s decrees.  Nine letters. Signed, sealed, some not yet delivered. 

3 (…damn it’s dark.)

All done, except one. This one, he hadn’t even started until early this morning. He liked writing when the world was dark. She may have felt him get out of the bed. Of course she felt him get out of the bed. She was too perceptive, and he was too clumsy. Bed squeak, fishing for his slippers, hitting his little toe (a wonder that it was still there…hit more times than a battered drum), cursing through a forced whisper, and heading to the steps.

 

He pulled out the envelope and paper carefully. Reminded of him of Ronald getting a cigarette. Never rushed, every move deliberate. He didn’t know why he did it that way, (guess all his friends had quirks), but for him, it gave him additional time to think, to sort out his thoughts. Served him well through the years. But, the extra time did him no good now. 50 years of time hadn’t helped him prepare this, so why would 30 seconds? But he placed blind faith into those seconds, hoping that in that time, he would come up with something. Anything.

So there he sat.

3 (into the forest.)

He remembered when he was 25, and made the discovery that books and movies were filled chock to the brim with life. And in a very literal sense. These movies and books that he loved were just the sum of parts of the authors’ lives. The lives of those around him. The imagined lives of those he met. Or imagined he met or would meet. In the imagination, all these various people, ideas could come together in ways that most peoples’ reality would not allow. Otherwise impossible connections could be possible. Your words, your ideas, able to put forth in any manner you chose.Even in those imagined people and the lives that they led, it all had to come back to some sort of reality, something that you based it on. Inside every film reel, underneath every book cover, laid someone else’ thoughts, life…everything. In the story lay a person. And they were his to explore. He could hear the sobbing of a love gone to waste. Feel the laughter of friends in a moment well spent. 

When he discovered this, he was smitten.

Not long after they met, the more he began to see her in the pages of the characters his lexical lover brought to him under the cheap luminescence of a book lamp. Unconciously, he tore out of the stories the bits of her he saw, and stashed them away in his mind. 

they might help me understand (her).

The edges rough, he painstakingly glued the diverse collection of pieces together until those seemingly unrelated excerpts related into a whisper vision of her. Driven on by what he almost saw, and thought he could touch, he relentlessly tore apart and put back together the ideas. After time, he could see her full self beginning to emerge from the motley autostereogram of ideas. And in a ephemeral moment, she was pulled back to the dizzying dots and pieces, rough cuts and fragments. Captive to words that resembled her, but were not of or for her.

His rememberance took him to one night, driving back from his mothers, when he thought the singular darkness would drive him and his car to sleep. He glanced over at her in the passenger seat, nestled in a shift womb, made up of corinthian leather, and a shawl made from her own hand.  

no matter how many times i try.  

Others words would never fit her. Others couldn’t free her from her prison. That could change, and he could do it. One piece that meant more that all his other writings, because the subject…was his life.

So now he thought of that night. Away from his bed, away from his wife. The oaken smell of his desk was not comforting to him now. The draft coming from under the study door wrapped his exposed ankles in a cold, writhing embrace, a like cat coming in from the cold, seeking warmth and taking it away all in the same action. He thought of his wife and he wrote. He would not stop until the letter decided it was finished. Until it stopped him.

Not a letter, but a story.

Her story.

4 (sitting under the tree canopy.)

 

She didn’t go into the study. Thank god. He didn’t want her to see the end without knowing if The End was (near). Only then would she be able to understand. Correction, want to understand. Until then, she would not be able to get past herself. It would seem all too…flighty for half of her. The other half would laugh and cry and smile, think about the story when she was away from it. When she could read it, she would read it in bits, taking in the words she read, being ever so careful to understand, because she knew understanding would make the story smile.

5 (making camp.) 

“…death is only a demon when you relish your life the way a despot relishes suffering. If you are ready to go, then death is an angel, clearing your table of everything you are finished with, and setting you free...”

The Winter was upon him. He was losing the one thing God undeniably gave to him. He didn’t see it as losing though. Wasn’t a game, so nothing was lost. Dylan Thomas would disagree with him, but he would go gentle. He would not rage, would not shine a light into the dark of the good night. Years of neglecting his temple had come to take its bounty.

He heard angels.

6 (where did he go?)

She was concerned when she heard him getting out of bed to creep to the study. (he was so horrible at it, she wondered if it could be considered a creep…more like a controlled stumble). She knew he was writing, but what? Normally when he was struck with an idea, he would awaken suddenly and throw back the covers, sometime remembering to shield her exposed parts from the cold, and she didn’t give it (much) thought. But now, all this care he suddenly took not to disturb her…why? Yes, she worried about him still, all these years later. So after breakfast, she walked to the study, but didn’t go in. She was unsettled about what could drag her husband out of their bed and make him simuletanously responsible. It wasn't like him.

Worry for him was such a integral part of her, so blended into who she was that she often forgot what it was like not to have it with her. It was behind him all, she knew what few others even saw. Many read his stories, but she felt special because she understood the man behind the pages. He put his heart into every word, a piece of him that would never return. He didn’t say what he didn’t mean and even with that special understanding, she didn’t buy his words. Not even from the beginning of their adventure.

you’re everything i’ve ever wanted.

i look at you, and i see forever.

Didn’t even window shop to avoid the temptation of truthful safety. They looked good, sounded even better. But she didn’t think she could stand the disappointment in filling herself with them only to find them no more satisfying than a meal of clouds. So in the beginning of their adventure, when his strange noises signified his sleep, she would turn and look at him and wonder why she was there. It was in her nature to question everything, because nothing was as it seemed. Living showed her that secret, and once revealed she never let go. So what was it? Of course she wanted to be there, but there were plenty of things in her life that her simply want for did not translate into having.

i have to hold him together.

And that, she had a purpose for her decision. Love mixed with purpose made the former all the more real. Love wasn’t enough.

She had her fill of just love.

Just love was her gift from the one who made her.

Just love left her just as broken as the promises that broke her heart. In bed for days, cured from the salt of her tears, but still ill. She believed in it (love), just not enough for it to be just enough. Not anymore. So when she decided to try with him, it had to be more to it. The one thing he thought she wouldn’t question was the biggest question she had. Not questioning it enough before, she thought, left footprints on her that she thought would never leave. Love’s tattoo.

So no, it was not a storybook romance, even though it had all the makings to be one. Jenny and Forrest all dressed up with no where to go. It was a decision planted in purpose and fed with logic. His words would not be the seed. They would not, they could not.

i won’t be childish and believe.

For if she believed, she would drop her whole heart into him. No, he would get a piece. Not big enough that she wouldn’t be able to leave it behind if drought came. When it came.

She didn’t know if he knew her decision on how she would love him. She tried her hardest for it not to be noticeable; that it would feel as if it was the love they both dreamed of. It being logical didn’t preclude it from real.

did it?

 She hoped that it did not. Her prayer was that if her trespass was discovered that his heart would find understanding for her, coat her guilt in it, and give it a different hue, if not also a different weight.

he would understand, wouldn’t he?

He knows her, and what’s really in her heart. He wasn’t the only one missing out; plenty missed out on what the depths of her heart had in store. She remembered once, when she was in danger of being swept up in the pure rapture of twentysomething exuberance, she planned to go to Africa to love the babies that seemed to be only loved by the flies, who showered them with kisses. She wasn’t going to give away her clothes in an act of materialistic catharsis. She would buy more as to have more to give away, and duck the life that had been stalking her since after her junior year of college. The stale, heatless breath of the listless beast was upon her. 8 hour shifts, 2 weeks paid vacation, submission to the rules of arbitrary overseers, and she wanted no part of it. Her gift stood up tall in her chest against 2+2=4 and won.

But it didn’t last. Feeling was freakishly strong, but only for a moment, and logic…if logic had one thing on its side, it was stamina. And her family.

“But why would you want to do such a thing?” her mother asked without looking at her, keeping her Saturday house cleaning stride.

“Ma…” her eyes welled as they followed her mother around the living room, in them a pleading for a glance. if she would just look at me, she would see the answer. But ma never heard her, never returned the glance, and with that, she tucked that plea behind the cold, steady brick and mortar of her mind. The wall wasn’t complete, but high enough to contain back the flood of sad water. And when the water dried, she then saw the true manifestation of a dream deferred. No, it did not exploded, or crust in the sun. But it was ugly and mean, ready to seperate soul from body, if given the room.

And when the wall was complete, she would tell no one of its whereabouts. It would be the perfect cage for her and the beast to become acquainted. To drown out the shouts of those who unknowingly clamored for her gift, and to contain her guilt.

And now, the slates of the study doors reminded her of bars. She stared at the desk as if a key lay inside.

7 (lying down, but not afraid.)

 

He was proud of himself. Tailing his wife was a feat not to be taken lightly, and from the looks of it, he was successful. She knew he thought this, so she didn’t let on that he was made as soon as she left the kitchen. When he touched her, she gave him what he wanted.

“Damn. You have to stop sneaking up me like that…you know my heart can’t take it.” She sold it well. Long exhale at the beginning, hand on her chest, eyes closed with the head tilted back. He bought it all.

“I don’t know much that your heart can’t take”. He rested his hand over his own heart. “But mine, well, it’s a little weaker” as he tapped lightly on his chest. Between the second and third tap, he saw in her face what road this conversation was about to take. It was an old familiar friend of his, once packed dirt worn down to malleable dust from use. He could see her digging in, getting her footing…and here comes the lean…

“It wouldn’t be so bad if actually went to go see Dr. Osborne, instead of lying about going to see Dr. Osborne. What about those pills she gave you on last time you did actually go and see her? Have you gotten the prescription filled?” Hands crossed in front of her, right below the bosom and to the uninitiated, it looks so benign. But he saw the signs:

First, she started in the “I don’t want no trouble” standing straight up position. But with every word, she slowly leaned more and more forward, until she was almost in the “I dare you to say some stupid shit…oooiswearif…ooooh……………….

 

say something.”

 

Then, he always watched for the constant movement. Could be a leg, could be the tapping of a pen. Maybe the cobra head sway. This time, it was her foot. That’s where the anger is hiding, loaded like a spring coil. Under normal circumstances, he would have put on his boots and strapped them up, ready to fight at the mouth of the road or to talk her down it, until the loaded anger relaxed. It was an old routine, filled with an amount of effort that he no longer had in reserves. From this point on, everything he did had to count towards getting her ready for what was coming, as ready as he could. 

He chuckled and smiled at her. Not a “Say Cheese!” or even a Duchenne but a smile with no name that he had given her so many times before. However as with many things, the meaning was lost to her until she was ready to find it. 

“What’s wrong with you?" she asked, but there was little kindness to be found in her words.

He looked at her as he turned and walked away. Air forced through her nose with no choice and with that sound without even looking at her he knew what she was feeling had lay siege to her face, contorting her face into a mask of malcontent. Her heart rode in hard and fast won the battle for her legs. He walked upstairs to their bedroom and she followed. Her heart had won her legs, but the feeling that controlled her face moved in quickly for control of her mouth, and before he could even put one foot into the room, the new ruler compelled it to strike.

 

“Have you been back to the doctor?”

 

“No.”

 

“So what’s wrong?

“I didn’t say anything was wrong.”

More forced air. the air bully. my wife, the carburetor. She wouldn’t find one second of that to be funny.

“You didn’t have to say anything was wrong. I know you. I know something is wrong.”

 

He lay down on the bed and chopped the pillow in its midsection, and it doubled over. Before it could right itself, he dropped his head on it. got you champ.

 

He relished the comfort a bit before responding, muscles relaxing one by one until he resembled a body on that cold slab. His eyes closed. “So you tell me?

 

“Excuse me?” as she stood in the threshold of the doorway.

 

“You said you know me, and know something is wrong. So you tell me what’s wrong.”

 

“Please don’t start. I’m not in the mood.”

 

“Neither am I.” With his hands at his sides, he began to drum out a beat on the comforter, and she rushed over and sat beside him to quiet his hands. With her touch, he opened his eyes.

“Then tell me what’s wrong.”

 

“You know what’s wrong. You know better than me what’s wrong. Seems like I can’t help but to rush to the finish. And I know what you’re about to say, and your right. I could do something to stop it. But it’s too late.”

 

“It’s never too late…you’re just saying that because you don’t want to take respon…” With this, he sat up, with his back against the headboard and pulled her close until both of their backs rested on the carved wood behind them. One arm that started around her shoulders, and ended up around her waist. She felt his head rest on hers, and slowly turn until his mouth was near her ear. nope.

 

“I don’t want to hear it. I don’t.”

 

“You not hearing it doesn’t make it any less true. It’s too late, I think.”

 

“You think? You mean you don’t know for sure?”

 

“If you mean did the doctor tell me, nah. Doctor said what he always says. Take your medicine, no more spicy foods, you know. I honestly think he has a script he reads to people. I wouldn’t feel that badly about it if he personalized mine. Made it interesting.”

 

“What are you talking…never mind…It’s not a script…and you know it’s not a script. No matter what he told you to do, even it was to save your life, you wouldn’t have done it. Unless it involved drinking Johnny Walker out of jars, and eating barbeque, then, shit, you would be the bill of health.” She scooted out of his embrace and moved towards the dresser, grabbing one his mason jars and tossed it at him in a feigned attempt at exasperation. He caught it, tucked it for a second, and crashed back on the bed, arms extended over his head, with his hands holding the jar over the edge. two seconds left, and I broke the plane. touchdown.

 

but she’s still not ready.

 

“Those are two great things, I gotta tell you. And did you see the grab? Tried to tell you I got hands. Where is my cheer for the extra-effort score?”

 

“You are a selfish bastard, you know that?”

 

“And I just started the black label/jar combo. Before then, I was a lowball glass man. You don’t remember the set you got for me? That shit was fantastic.”

 

“Are you ignoring me?”

 

“I hear you, but I’m not going to talk about it. Not until you’re ready to talk.”

 

“You hear me talking? I’m ready now.”

 

“See…now, you’re ready to fuss. We got past the nagging; now we’re into the fussing. If we hold fast, with conviction comrade, we will soon be at the “I’m not talking to you”. Then after, I figure, you’ll be ready to talk.”

 

“Okay ‘oh GREAT master sage’.’”  She slammed her hands at her sides, and bowed slowly. As she rose she whipped out her middle finger switchblade fast, using her thumb to hold down her index and ring finger for maximum extension, and she hoped, for maximum effect.

 

“Damn, that’s a little harsh don’t you think?”

 

“You know I can’t stand being treated like a child, and you do it anyway. You deserve that and more.” She wanted so badly to leave the room, but couldn’t. Her body and heart knew something that her mind refused to. Her mind, acting out of concert, was keeping her away from an inevitable something that she never allowed herself to be near. It had pulled itself from countless jettisons into oblivion to come back one final time, and it would not be denied. It couldn’t be denied any longer, no matter how strong the her mind had become

getting started

I figure the best way to get this rolling is to just throw some material out there and see what happens. So here is an episode I wrote a while ago that I was telling you all about that's kinda open ended so it should be able to help us get started if you want to add or take away something. Maybe we don't even end up using it but it's a start so it can't hurt.