another short story i just finished.
--
"burning paper"
It was a little early to be drinking, but what the hell. Seriously. No matter the time of day, there's nothing like the smell of burning paper and a glass of scotch. Oh, fuck it. I threw my $200 stainless steel Parker pen, a gift Lila had given me when I got a story published for the first - and only - time, onto the flames as well, half-wondering if it would actually burn. I thought it would be oddly symbolic if it didn't. I know no one can ever really escape their own words or the reason they were written. I know I can't, anyway.
I pulled my black moleskine out of my back pocket and hesitated. I held it in my right hand, extended towards the fireplace. This notebook was like my brain on paper. Just destroying it, sacrificing it to the Gods of Tongue didn't seem as entirely necessary as the destruction of everything else being eaten by the flames. Technically it wasn't a story or any concrete sort of writing. It was just filled with thoughts, little poems, drawings. Some relics from days I don't really remember, anyway. A dry, pressed leaf. The business card of a restaurant in Manhattan I really enjoyed, with the idea for a story title scribbled on the back. A little note from Lila reading "Dinner 7:45, usual place?" in her small writing that somehow seemed to be an actual echo of herself. That kind of stuff. But then I remembered coming home earlier that day with my mind made up. And this little notebook was undoubtedly filled with little notes and memories of things her and I shared, thoughts I had about us, perhaps even something in her own neat hand that found its way into my little recyclable brain. So I thought of Hemingway writing Sun Also Rises (I don't know why that book, but it was the first title that came to mind) and threw the little notebook onto the fire. I'd already put thousands of words on my makeshift altar, but only with this hundred-some-odd pages of scrawled notes in a shaky hand did I really feel part of myself actually burn and turn to ash along with the paper. It was a very uniquely distinct sensation that I will never forget. The closest thing I can compare it to is seeing someone you love kiss someone else. Someone you gave your heart to give hers to someone else instead. It's definitely not the same thing, and I'm not calling that notebook my lover, but physically, that cold, shivering, sinking feeling that acts like quicksand in your heart, that's what it feels like.
I finished the glass, the ice cubes rattling around in it like a marimba, and picked up the open bottle from the table and took a long swig, shuddering at the gorgeous, warm feeling of the clean amber alcohol dancing down my throat. I really do love the taste. I don't just drink alone to get drunk. I enjoy the drink as a drink. I'd drink a Diet Coke alone, wouldn't I? I wouldn't call myself a cokehead. So I can drink scotch by myself and not be an alcoholic, right? Of course. Of course. I put the bottle down.
Now what?
I felt incredibly empty. I don't know how to describe it. I can only imagine that this is what the inability of expression feels like. When you have no more words, you can't express yourself. Standing there, watching basically every story or poem I had written in the last two years - every word dripping with Lila's calm, passive existence - burn and smolder like someone's best laid plans crumbling to pieces, like love falling apart, I felt this enormous void announce its presence within me. With each crispy sound of fire devouring paper, I felt the void grow larger as my words were destroyed by an all-consuming flame, far more outreaching than the one burning in my fireplace.
I had forgotten to open the flue and thick, black smoke began to creep out of the fireplace and into my apartment. I covered my mouth and eyes with my hand right hand and felt for the lever through the smoke; I found it, opened the flue, and threw the nearest window wide open. In a few minutes, the smoke that had begun to find its way into the room had vanished. I looked at the fireplace, expecting a modestly burning fire to still be melting my words away. But instead, the smoke cleared and the fireplace was empty. No ash, no wood, no sign that anything had been burning there within the last twenty-four hours, let alone couple of minutes. The only indication that anything had really happened was a bit of ash on my left hand from opening the flue and the fact that I felt like I had a million more words than before.
Before what?
28 January 2008
27 January 2008
when i ate smores for dinner
i am here. i am back home.
despite the cold and the rain, things are looking wonderful.
good things to come? it certainly feels like it.
despite the cold and the rain, things are looking wonderful.
good things to come? it certainly feels like it.
22 January 2008
when i sat on a bus and saw my life go by (a short story)
a short story i recently completed.
--
I got on the bus at 32nd and Woodstock. As I was paying my fare, I asked the bus driver where to get off for Fox Towers Movie Theater.
“Fourth and Main?” I asked.
“Yeah, something like that.” Helpful.
The doors closed, the bus lurched forward as the driver put her foot on the gas, and I stumbled backwards, grabbing onto the yellow pole put there for that exact purpose.
“Watch out,” the driver said, her pitch rising on the first syllable. I grumbled a thanks, stumbled into the nearest open seat, pulled out the book I was reading, and opened to the bookmarked page. Every few minutes, the bus would lurch again as it stopped, picked up passengers, and started forth again.
“Really nice homes ‘round here,” the woman sitting across from me said, her voice echoing oddly in the silent, half-full bus.
“Hm,” I replied, nodding but not lifting my eyes from the page. She was right, though. I’d been on this bus plenty of times to know without looking.
I lost track of the number of stops after only about a couple minutes. I wasn’t afraid of missing my stop. I was absorbed in the book I was reading and the music of the passing streets. I wasn’t really going anywhere.
The driver announced the next stop and I looked up. It was right around where I grew up. I turned my waist in my seat and looked at the window behind my head, counting the intersections until the street I’d lived on. When we passed it, time seemed to slow for just a moment as I looked down the road I felt somehow abandoned by. I caught a glimpse of kids playing ball in the cul-de-sac, their parents sitting in some driveway, sipping away on some drinks. Not much different from when I was that age, really. I saw what I knew to be the roof of my old house, just the same as when I lived in it, only a different color on the outside and different people inside. I’d entertained the notion before of whether my old house misses me or the echo of my laughter in its halls. We moved out seven years ago and I haven’t been back to see the house once. My mother told me they left the front doors the same, though. She was happy about that.
The bus stopped at the stop two blocks from where I grew up and the doors opened with a hiss. A lot of people got on. Fourteen. I counted. I was about to resume reading when I saw a shiny black curtain enter the bus and was instantly struck by the ferocious ease of her stance. Her back was erect, her legs long and slender. She leaned most of her weight on her left as she put $1.75 into the machine, its insatiable mouth, constantly hungry for coins. The driver handed her a ticket as she breathed a soft thanks. I pictured her blinking her eyes once, really slow. Pretending to read, I watched her walk by me and chose a seat towards the middle of the bus. And she just sat there. She didn’t take off her hat or her gloves or pull a book out of her bag. She just sat there, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like how you sit alone in a restaurant. What else? I’d call her gaze haughty, but that’s not exactly right. I just can’t think of any other word. Her gaze was haughty, but without the negative connotation. She was such a part of her surroundings yet so incredibly unique. Her beauty contrasted with the unclean fabric that clung like the plague to every seat. It was grand.
Classy. That's a better word. Or just beautiful, maybe. However overused that word may be.
I could no longer pay attention to what I was reading. I was too distracted. Go talk to her, my head urged. But I’m not that kind of person. I’d have preferred it if she came and talked to me. I’m just like that.
I stole many furtive glances at her. I’m sure she noticed. I’m not altogether subtle when it comes to staring at people. I try not to be, though, but that usually only makes it worse. I decided to not look at her for a while. Perhaps look at my book, look out the window, glance at my watch. Actions to make it seem like I was merely looking everywhere, not at her in particular, how silly to think so! I pretended to read my book for a minute or so, I leaned forward and looked at the driver, I turned around and looked out the window. Finally, I stole another glimpse of her, but she must have known it was coming because right there in my eyesight, staring straight at me, were two large, beautiful brown eyes, shaped like almonds. She didn't really wink at me, but I pretended like she did. I wasn't even entirely sure she was looking at me. Perhaps through me, or past me. Did she even see me? I thought about all the ridiculous metaphysical issues I used to struggle with; basically, Do I exist? I used to wonder if the world was still there when I closed my eyes. Sometimes I'd wonder if everyone else really did exist. Is this beautiful, perhaps too beautiful to simply be riding the 19 to downtown, girl actually here? And in that case, is she actually looking at me, processing and acknowledging my existence? And even more, recognizing the fact that I am offering her a gesture by staring at her and her then returning it? But I don't really think that way anymore. I try not to. I finally realized that it really interferes with any interpersonal interaction because I wasn't even sure if I or the other person existed. So instead, our eyes still met in midair, I gave her a warm smile. She looked down and smiled, her smile more like a smirk that really only rose on the right side. But it was lovely, it really was.
She looked up once more with her head angled slightly towards the floor of the bus, gave me another coy smile, and looked out the window, her entire presence unchanged. Her hair, sleek and black like coal, shiny like a diamond, deep like night, hadn't moved; her hat remained lightly fitted atop her head, her blouse, sweater, and jacket remained as it had been when she sat down. I decided I'd wait until the next stop, let the passengers settle down, and then I'd go up and talk to her. At least say hi or something. There was no way to be smooth and subtle now, anyway.
But I knew I wouldn't do it. I told myself I would and that I should; what's the worst thing that can happen? She (politely) asks me to return to my seat, or declines my advance, or tells me she is already seeing someone. Maybe she'll gently let me down and ask me to sit anyway, and we'll engage in a lovely, deep conversation about literature (I could use the book I was reading as a conversation starter) or...or...glasses! I wore glasses. I could ask her if she did. Or there's always the weather. Or how, with a combination of non-chalance and a good chance of luck, you could use the same bus ticket over and over again, just flash it to the driver, they don't care! Then I wondered if that made me sound like a cheap miser trying to undermine a decent, honest system that relied on the honor of its passengers. It didn't really matter, though, because, despite the fact that I knew no reasons why not to go talk to her, I knew I just wouldn't do it. When I hear the final tick of time in my head and the voice saying "Now!", I freeze. It wasn't that I couldn't talk to girls, or that I came off as awkward or creepy. I was just unable to bring myself to approach a beautiful girl I didn't know. The way I saw her just intimidated me too much. I was too afraid of getting rejected. I don't know why, really, because when I applied some pretty simple reason to the situation, the risk of gain greatly outweighed what I could lose. So she says no! Big deal. But if she lets me flirt with her, who knows what could come out of that!
I mulled all these thoughts over in my mind, all the while listening to the muffled babble of the crazy homeless lady sitting across from me who was still telling about any subject that came to mind. I let myself actually listen to her for a moment and realized that her conversation carried absolutely no semblance of pattern. It was a messy conglomeration of obvious observances coupled with personal facts, about which I cannot imagine anyone caring ("This fabric is patterned! Look how grey it is! My hair is grey. My dog's hair is grey. Grey reminds me of summer because that's when I cash all my welfare checks, which are printed on grey paper."), inappropriately-placed greetings (I must have heard her insert "How do you do?" about seven times in the middle of a story about the mailbox she had as a child), and heavy sighing hums that came from the lower regions of her throat (these she was apt to pronounce at any given time in any given sentence). Blocking out her voice ("My god this city is lovely! Portland. Port-land [she sounded out the two syllables like separate words]. A-hoy, matey! Land ho! Haha! [she let a high-pitched, schoolgirl giggle] I've lived in this city since, hmmmmmmmm, how do you do, hmmmm? I was born. Yup, I was, hmmmm, I was born here. Hmmmmm."), I made a resolution. I will go and talk to this girl. At least find out her name. I didn't give voice to the mouth that normally responds with a "No you won't". To prove my determination to myself, I placed my bookmark on the page I had stopped on, shut the book, and put it in the empty seat next to me. I looked down at the grated metal floor. At the same time, the bus pulled to an unnecessarily loud stop and hissed as the doors opened. My eyes were closed as I thought about what I was going to say and I could hear a lot of footsteps coming in and out and the rattle of coins in the ticket machine. Grunts and thanks were issued with varying degrees of sincerity. I looked up at where she was seated, but she wasn't there anymore. Her seat was now filled by a small old man in an hunting cap and glasses, his hair nearly entirely grey, a pathetic little mustache that looked glued to his sad, wrinkled face. He was alone, his eyes busy with a book. I gave him little thought. My head spun around. I looked towards the exit door of the bus; as the doors began to close, I barely caught a glimpse of a gorgeous head of black hair sweep out onto the street to dance with the cold morning breezes.
***
I turned towards the old lady again and stared blankly out the window, feeling a little emptier than I had when I boarded the bus. I was just thinking about seeing a movie, or perhaps finding a nice chair in a coffee shop and reading. As the bus struggled forward again, I looked up towards the driver's rearview mirror and her eyes met mine. She raised one eyebrow and turned around real quick.
"Weren't you going to Fourth and Main?"
"Yeah, I was." She looked back at the road. Cars were driving past and around the bus. I could see Pioneer Square out of the front windshield, sitting there complacently as always.
"Well, that was your stop then, honey. Looks like you missed it."
I inhaled, nodded, turned towards the window, and watched the city go by.
--
I got on the bus at 32nd and Woodstock. As I was paying my fare, I asked the bus driver where to get off for Fox Towers Movie Theater.
“Fourth and Main?” I asked.
“Yeah, something like that.” Helpful.
The doors closed, the bus lurched forward as the driver put her foot on the gas, and I stumbled backwards, grabbing onto the yellow pole put there for that exact purpose.
“Watch out,” the driver said, her pitch rising on the first syllable. I grumbled a thanks, stumbled into the nearest open seat, pulled out the book I was reading, and opened to the bookmarked page. Every few minutes, the bus would lurch again as it stopped, picked up passengers, and started forth again.
“Really nice homes ‘round here,” the woman sitting across from me said, her voice echoing oddly in the silent, half-full bus.
“Hm,” I replied, nodding but not lifting my eyes from the page. She was right, though. I’d been on this bus plenty of times to know without looking.
I lost track of the number of stops after only about a couple minutes. I wasn’t afraid of missing my stop. I was absorbed in the book I was reading and the music of the passing streets. I wasn’t really going anywhere.
The driver announced the next stop and I looked up. It was right around where I grew up. I turned my waist in my seat and looked at the window behind my head, counting the intersections until the street I’d lived on. When we passed it, time seemed to slow for just a moment as I looked down the road I felt somehow abandoned by. I caught a glimpse of kids playing ball in the cul-de-sac, their parents sitting in some driveway, sipping away on some drinks. Not much different from when I was that age, really. I saw what I knew to be the roof of my old house, just the same as when I lived in it, only a different color on the outside and different people inside. I’d entertained the notion before of whether my old house misses me or the echo of my laughter in its halls. We moved out seven years ago and I haven’t been back to see the house once. My mother told me they left the front doors the same, though. She was happy about that.
The bus stopped at the stop two blocks from where I grew up and the doors opened with a hiss. A lot of people got on. Fourteen. I counted. I was about to resume reading when I saw a shiny black curtain enter the bus and was instantly struck by the ferocious ease of her stance. Her back was erect, her legs long and slender. She leaned most of her weight on her left as she put $1.75 into the machine, its insatiable mouth, constantly hungry for coins. The driver handed her a ticket as she breathed a soft thanks. I pictured her blinking her eyes once, really slow. Pretending to read, I watched her walk by me and chose a seat towards the middle of the bus. And she just sat there. She didn’t take off her hat or her gloves or pull a book out of her bag. She just sat there, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like how you sit alone in a restaurant. What else? I’d call her gaze haughty, but that’s not exactly right. I just can’t think of any other word. Her gaze was haughty, but without the negative connotation. She was such a part of her surroundings yet so incredibly unique. Her beauty contrasted with the unclean fabric that clung like the plague to every seat. It was grand.
Classy. That's a better word. Or just beautiful, maybe. However overused that word may be.
I could no longer pay attention to what I was reading. I was too distracted. Go talk to her, my head urged. But I’m not that kind of person. I’d have preferred it if she came and talked to me. I’m just like that.
I stole many furtive glances at her. I’m sure she noticed. I’m not altogether subtle when it comes to staring at people. I try not to be, though, but that usually only makes it worse. I decided to not look at her for a while. Perhaps look at my book, look out the window, glance at my watch. Actions to make it seem like I was merely looking everywhere, not at her in particular, how silly to think so! I pretended to read my book for a minute or so, I leaned forward and looked at the driver, I turned around and looked out the window. Finally, I stole another glimpse of her, but she must have known it was coming because right there in my eyesight, staring straight at me, were two large, beautiful brown eyes, shaped like almonds. She didn't really wink at me, but I pretended like she did. I wasn't even entirely sure she was looking at me. Perhaps through me, or past me. Did she even see me? I thought about all the ridiculous metaphysical issues I used to struggle with; basically, Do I exist? I used to wonder if the world was still there when I closed my eyes. Sometimes I'd wonder if everyone else really did exist. Is this beautiful, perhaps too beautiful to simply be riding the 19 to downtown, girl actually here? And in that case, is she actually looking at me, processing and acknowledging my existence? And even more, recognizing the fact that I am offering her a gesture by staring at her and her then returning it? But I don't really think that way anymore. I try not to. I finally realized that it really interferes with any interpersonal interaction because I wasn't even sure if I or the other person existed. So instead, our eyes still met in midair, I gave her a warm smile. She looked down and smiled, her smile more like a smirk that really only rose on the right side. But it was lovely, it really was.
She looked up once more with her head angled slightly towards the floor of the bus, gave me another coy smile, and looked out the window, her entire presence unchanged. Her hair, sleek and black like coal, shiny like a diamond, deep like night, hadn't moved; her hat remained lightly fitted atop her head, her blouse, sweater, and jacket remained as it had been when she sat down. I decided I'd wait until the next stop, let the passengers settle down, and then I'd go up and talk to her. At least say hi or something. There was no way to be smooth and subtle now, anyway.
But I knew I wouldn't do it. I told myself I would and that I should; what's the worst thing that can happen? She (politely) asks me to return to my seat, or declines my advance, or tells me she is already seeing someone. Maybe she'll gently let me down and ask me to sit anyway, and we'll engage in a lovely, deep conversation about literature (I could use the book I was reading as a conversation starter) or...or...glasses! I wore glasses. I could ask her if she did. Or there's always the weather. Or how, with a combination of non-chalance and a good chance of luck, you could use the same bus ticket over and over again, just flash it to the driver, they don't care! Then I wondered if that made me sound like a cheap miser trying to undermine a decent, honest system that relied on the honor of its passengers. It didn't really matter, though, because, despite the fact that I knew no reasons why not to go talk to her, I knew I just wouldn't do it. When I hear the final tick of time in my head and the voice saying "Now!", I freeze. It wasn't that I couldn't talk to girls, or that I came off as awkward or creepy. I was just unable to bring myself to approach a beautiful girl I didn't know. The way I saw her just intimidated me too much. I was too afraid of getting rejected. I don't know why, really, because when I applied some pretty simple reason to the situation, the risk of gain greatly outweighed what I could lose. So she says no! Big deal. But if she lets me flirt with her, who knows what could come out of that!
I mulled all these thoughts over in my mind, all the while listening to the muffled babble of the crazy homeless lady sitting across from me who was still telling about any subject that came to mind. I let myself actually listen to her for a moment and realized that her conversation carried absolutely no semblance of pattern. It was a messy conglomeration of obvious observances coupled with personal facts, about which I cannot imagine anyone caring ("This fabric is patterned! Look how grey it is! My hair is grey. My dog's hair is grey. Grey reminds me of summer because that's when I cash all my welfare checks, which are printed on grey paper."), inappropriately-placed greetings (I must have heard her insert "How do you do?" about seven times in the middle of a story about the mailbox she had as a child), and heavy sighing hums that came from the lower regions of her throat (these she was apt to pronounce at any given time in any given sentence). Blocking out her voice ("My god this city is lovely! Portland. Port-land [she sounded out the two syllables like separate words]. A-hoy, matey! Land ho! Haha! [she let a high-pitched, schoolgirl giggle] I've lived in this city since, hmmmmmmmm, how do you do, hmmmm? I was born. Yup, I was, hmmmm, I was born here. Hmmmmm."), I made a resolution. I will go and talk to this girl. At least find out her name. I didn't give voice to the mouth that normally responds with a "No you won't". To prove my determination to myself, I placed my bookmark on the page I had stopped on, shut the book, and put it in the empty seat next to me. I looked down at the grated metal floor. At the same time, the bus pulled to an unnecessarily loud stop and hissed as the doors opened. My eyes were closed as I thought about what I was going to say and I could hear a lot of footsteps coming in and out and the rattle of coins in the ticket machine. Grunts and thanks were issued with varying degrees of sincerity. I looked up at where she was seated, but she wasn't there anymore. Her seat was now filled by a small old man in an hunting cap and glasses, his hair nearly entirely grey, a pathetic little mustache that looked glued to his sad, wrinkled face. He was alone, his eyes busy with a book. I gave him little thought. My head spun around. I looked towards the exit door of the bus; as the doors began to close, I barely caught a glimpse of a gorgeous head of black hair sweep out onto the street to dance with the cold morning breezes.
***
I turned towards the old lady again and stared blankly out the window, feeling a little emptier than I had when I boarded the bus. I was just thinking about seeing a movie, or perhaps finding a nice chair in a coffee shop and reading. As the bus struggled forward again, I looked up towards the driver's rearview mirror and her eyes met mine. She raised one eyebrow and turned around real quick.
"Weren't you going to Fourth and Main?"
"Yeah, I was." She looked back at the road. Cars were driving past and around the bus. I could see Pioneer Square out of the front windshield, sitting there complacently as always.
"Well, that was your stop then, honey. Looks like you missed it."
I inhaled, nodded, turned towards the window, and watched the city go by.
20 January 2008
pitter patter go my words
all these people drinking lover's spit.
fork in hand, i cut off pieces of your body and feed them to the lion of lovers, roses growing in his teeth. as my mother and brother argue on a far-off plane - the city street at night - i hear broken echoes of a scene i tried but failed to forget: you sitting at a coal-black piano your hair in loose, limp curls, pounding away, drinking lover's spit. your eyeswere like balloons in the moon - light and as we smoked our first cigarettes together i felt the ashes of my former existence burn in air, flicked to the floor by Time's forefinger. can you retain the emptiness of this atmosphere, or will we have to fill it with the skin of our hands, bare as bones? and i wonder what sound your trumpet will make come Judgement Day.
tell me, do you think these same things? are you also drowning in lover's spit? am i?
like an airplane stuck on the ground, i have nowhere to go. like a moon without a tide, i don't now where my feet will take me.
so i stick my head in the dragon's mouth, set myself on fire, and figure things wil be better the second time around.
fork in hand, i cut off pieces of your body and feed them to the lion of lovers, roses growing in his teeth. as my mother and brother argue on a far-off plane - the city street at night - i hear broken echoes of a scene i tried but failed to forget: you sitting at a coal-black piano your hair in loose, limp curls, pounding away, drinking lover's spit. your eyeswere like balloons in the moon - light and as we smoked our first cigarettes together i felt the ashes of my former existence burn in air, flicked to the floor by Time's forefinger. can you retain the emptiness of this atmosphere, or will we have to fill it with the skin of our hands, bare as bones? and i wonder what sound your trumpet will make come Judgement Day.
tell me, do you think these same things? are you also drowning in lover's spit? am i?
like an airplane stuck on the ground, i have nowhere to go. like a moon without a tide, i don't now where my feet will take me.
so i stick my head in the dragon's mouth, set myself on fire, and figure things wil be better the second time around.
11 January 2008
cars and telephones
a flash while you are getting dressed,
a memory that needs to be repressed.
i'll just wait until it's over.
a memory that needs to be repressed.
i'll just wait until it's over.
06 January 2008
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