in front of me

The first time I saw her, she was standing in front of me at a show. I was afraid to go talk to her, compelled though I was--later on, she said she remembered seeing me, too. We were friends for a while, past tense, had an argument, stopped being friends--my fault, her fault, it doesn't matter. Nobody's mad anymore, is what's important. So it comes back to me that our relationship will end just like it started: she's standing in front of me, but I'm too afraid to talk to her.

classy

A bottle of wine (Chardonnay) is roughly sufficient to accomplish a lot of things, most of which involve forgetting something. I was about a bottle into the evening when a friend of mine came by for an unexpected visit. I was, of course, trying to forget something (a bad day) and told him as much (because I was a bottle of wine into the evening) and he shook his head at me and told me I was like any given white trash getting trashed on a twelve-pack of Bud at the end of the day. I shrugged and told him there's a difference, and he, incredulous, asked me what it was.

With wine, I said, it's classy.

go have fun

I went to a party. It was in my honor. There were lots of things I wasn't sure about: whether I deserved it, whether I should pretend I deserved it, whether I should just say hi to everyone and slip away quietly. And there was a girl, I didn't know her but she knew me, who told me I would go have fun and she told me to go have fun, dammit, and pushed me into the crowd, but I didn't want to. I think she knew that. She was hoping I'd cave under pressure, but instead I just sneaked out, because I was afraid of her. She saw me go. Our eyes met; she looked, not hurt, but disappointed. And we both knew I didn't deserve it.

out, out brief candle

Lately I've been haunted by this feeling I've done something wrong. I couldn't put my finger on it--at first I didn't even understand it. I was upset. Not angry or irritable, but I felt as if the world was wrong, as if my life were going the wrong direction and I caught a glimpse of it. Smiles I once thought were friendly seemed mocking now--were they laughing at me? Had I got it wrong all this time?

That feeling came from somewhere, I knew. I knew I'd done something that led to this. But where? And did I do it recently or did I only just now start to feel it? What caused this feeling of dislocation?

I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure out why nothing made sense anymore--why even my own smile felt forced, uncertain, forbidden. Then the dread took me. I had been wrong about everything. I'd blinded myself, ever since--yes, that was it. In the end, all of my problems went back, some two years prior, when I made the mistake--not the biggest of my life, but the keystone, the mistake that laid the foundation for a hundred others.

The worst of it was, I couldn't stop myself. I had developed such incredible inertia, that though I knew what was happening I had no control over it, as if it were written in the stars--but I was the one who etched it in there, long ago, not understanding the significance of my words, like some mad oracle who spoke cryptic words that only made sense once the event had come to pass.

I curse the black and midnight hags that ever hailed me king--and damned be him that first cries "Hold, enough!"

the internal inconsistency of dreams

I've started keeping a dream journal. At first the results were sketchy at best but I've finally started remembering them and writing down details and one thing has stuck out to me: my dreams are not, in fact, internally consistent. Just lately I had a dream where I was driving a car (and a modern car, at that). Later on we were loading up our horses and--I remember this clearly--at this point my consciousness revolted and said, "These dreams have no internal consistency! I should be driving a car! We don't use horses anymore!"

My subconscious resisted my consciousness's attempt at guiding the dream back into internal consistency. It decided that this was the ideal time to make the dream genre fiction set in a steampunk world. It has become evident to me that my subconscious is willing to peddle any lie, so long as it doesn't have to admit it's wrong.

smile

I once had a friend tell me I was always smiling. She said it looked like something was wrong if I wasn't. I thought that was odd, because I don't smile very often--and I forgot about it for months and now it's bothering me. Maybe something is wrong. Maybe she saw me for one of those few moments something wasn't wrong.

I've started keeping a log of when I smile. The last time was Sunday, 14 October, 2007, 23:43. I smiled several times that weekend. Nothing since then. Sometimes I try. I'll smile in the mirror--those don't count, of course. It doesn't look right. There's something missing. I can't make it look right when I smile but I know something's wrong when I don't.

Lately I'm starting to wonder if I've ever seen myself when I'm smiling. I'm working on it.

dreams of drowning in paper

Work on Thursday: paycheck.
Trip to the bank Friday, before work: cash, deposit slip (discarded).
Lunch break (fast food), Friday: receipt (discarded), change.
Dinner Friday night: receipt (signed, returned with tip, customer copy discarded), napkin (used, discarded).
A birthday party Saturday night: sticky note (with directions, discarded), scrap of old paper (with phone number, given away).
Breakfast Sunday morning: receipt (signed, returned with tip, customer copy discarded), napkin (with poem, left for the waitress).
Lazy on a Sunday afternoon: notebook paper (trying to recall the same poem), journal (fiction, the same poem).
Returning home from work Monday: junk mail (discarded), bank statements (tossed aside, ultimately discarded), a personal letter (disappointed at return address, read briefly, forgotten).

the impossibility of ignoring dreams

All it took was some whispered advice from someone I never trusted anyway to get me started on the dreams again. I have heard the tired speeches from Shakespeare and I agree, I agree--but I am a man desperate for the beautiful, am I not? Yes, yes, I am nearly certain I am wrong, fueled only by wishful thinking--but if I am right?

I have no plan for that eventuality. So let it happen! A fleeting glance, a tap on the shoulder, a smile, and the hand-off. And then I must plot a course past my dreams.

lying on a hasty exit

She must have just called the cab when we met. She introduced herself, we shook hands, and I stumbled over my introductions--I wasn't nervous so much as I was trying to incorporate what I was carrying into the conversation and it didn't work, she was just confused. I was just about to recover when the cab pulled up. She said that everything was hectic and hurried away, and I watched her and thought to myself, "They certainly are."

caramel and chocolate

I brushed shoulders with an old man in the store. I muttered an apology, but he seemed so sad, so preoccupied; he barely noticed me. When I'd gotten what I came for, I chose the line behind him so I could watch what he'd purchased:

Milk. Eggs. Produce. Ground beef. A bottle of apple juice. A bar of Snicker's.

The missus would never have let him have that last, he said to the girl at the register. I expected a sly wink but he said it with a sigh and a strange sort of smile. It was the smile that comes at the end of a day filled with laughter and conversations with old friends, where the food was perfect and everyone enjoyed themselves and there was enough for seconds and enough time for a long chat over coffee--but now it's getting on in the evening and he wasn't young like he used to be and he was getting tired and the missus had already gone to bed. His smile said: "it's been a wonderful day, but it's time I got some rest."

meditations on a leather-bound journal

I have compiled the entries into the notebook. I hope that whoever you are, whether an old friend or a new visitor, you find this helpful. This was written over the course of December 2006, with the final entry being composed on New Year's Day, 2007.

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII
Part VIII
Part IX
Part X
Part XI
Part XII
Part XIII
Part XIV

urgent

There was a time I would lock myself in my study for hours, poring over scientific tests--desperately looking for the solution to my latest problem, trying to solve all of the world's questions, questing after the theory of everything. I didn't just need answers, I needed them now. Everything I did had a sense of urgency about it. I would write impassioned essays about the results of my experiments. This was important. This mattered.

A few days ago I brought a cup of tea into the study and kept the door open while an old friend of mine sat and chatted with me. I casually looked over the books and wrote some cursory shorthand notes so I could remember later. The next day I compiled a terse summary of my findings. Nothing about why these might be world-shaking. I've long stopped looking for the theory of everything. I'm happy with some questions left unanswered. I was restless; now I'm content.

I'm starting to wonder where the urgency is gone, though I'm not sure I want it back.

and another thing

I was taking the 26 north when I first ran into her. And I do mean 'ran into her.' The bus started moving and I wasn't holding on. I smiled and said I was sorry, and held on to the rail; but it wasn't enough. She started yelling at me. At first she was calling me careless, but she wasn't sure why she was angry--did she think I was just trying to cop a feel, or did she think I was merely clumsy and inconsiderate? But after a few sentences, her ire was no longer directed at me. Weeks, if not months or years, of pent-up frustration were being vented at me. She couldn't hold it in anymore.

I kept smiling at her, even as she started to lose inertia, and the anger faded into a sort of mad desperation. I don't think she was even looking at me. By the time we'd turned onto Latona she'd stopped. It was her stop, apparently. She glared at me one last time, her eyes on the verge of tears. I handed her a slip of paper with my number. "Let me buy you a drink some time."

something wrong

She was hurting and I could tell, but I didn't ask. It's not that I didn't care, but that I never ask 'is something wrong?' I never insist that people tell me their secrets. Anyway, I could tell. Some things you don't need to ask about. So instead, I smiled, I tried to make her laugh. But I couldn't ask, I couldn't find out. Maybe she knew or guessed I wanted her to feel better. I'll never know.

upkeep

At first the road that led here was poorly maintained, overgrown with weeds, trees encroaching on the side, infested with rocks. You wanted a clear path, so I cleared it out. I cleaned up the rocks, I smoothed out the rough parts of the trail, killed the weeds, cut down encroaching branches. And I lovingly maintained it, making sure that the road stayed in a beautiful condition. But you were never satisfied with the dirt road. You asked for gravel.

So I bought enough gravel to cover our road, and laid it out. Still I would go out to maintain the road when I could, smoothing out the washboards, clearing out large rocks. And there was always more gravel to apply, when the rest had been too packed down, or simply scattered through use. It cost me, but I was glad to keep the road up for you. For a while our gravel road made you happy, but in time you seemed dissatisfied.

I paved it for you. You didn't ask me to, but I knew you would be happiest if our gravel became asphalt. Come winter I would shovel the road, hoping to stave off potholes, to keep the roads from becoming slick. It always did, eventually. And the potholes always came in the spring. It was no matter--I maintained them as I could, filling them with more pavement--there was no problem that couldn't be solved with more time, more resources.

The years went by and the road started to crumble. My back went stiff, my joints wouldn't move. The work got harder and the condition got worse. It was fine for now, but I could see the cracks, the holes, building up, and what could I do about it but hope it wouldn't atrophy? And then you asked me if I remembered our little dirt road.

Yes, I said, I remember it. It was a good little road.

whispered secrets

It had been months since I'd seen her, and I knew this would be our only half hour together for months more. I didn't know what I'd say. Thirty minutes. The length of a mindless television sitcom, if you included the commercials. Not enough for anything substantial.

She was there when I arrived, seated at a table for two. She smiled at me. I waved and sat down, and we talked.

We had thirty minutes. I felt like I should try to inject that time with meaning, with significance--we should get the most out of this little sliver of time. Instead we talked about the weather and the bands we just got into and the movies we were looking forward to. No deep infusions of meaning. No whispered secrets. And I regret only that I spent so much time planning for anything else.

making up stories

It was a few drinks in and, lightweight that I am, the whole of the night was already starting to blur. I met a lot of people, talked to them a little bit. Some part of me always knew I would never remember them. Not really. By morning, when I'd be in a cafe drinking coffee until the headache went away, there would be a some faces--I'd remember a pretty girl with a blue shirt she wore on one shoulder, whose name I never did quite catch, or a guy who talked too much and told stories that I never quite thought were true. I'd remember telling all those stories, and why I only ever tell them when I've been drinking. I'd drink coffee and smile at the waitress and leave her a poem, because--as the morning would so poignantly remind me--I only do things like that for people who are bound to forget me.

everything must go

I'm browsing a thrift store and a broken clock catches my eye. I run a hand along its face, wondering how many family dinners it's seen, ticking away inexorably. How many arguments had happened under its watch? How many emotional breakdowns? How many embraces, how many jokes, how many of those priceless moments? Did it ever remind those who looked at its face that time kept going regardless? Or was it forgotten until the day their father decided to sell it? I could picture them on that day: he is a kind man, reluctant to be rid of this timepiece even though it's broken, even though nobody really paid it much attention even when it worked. It seems like getting rid of it is getting rid of part of his life, however small. But it is broken and he does not have the time nor the energy to fix it anymore. Perhaps some new owner will be able to restore it to function and give it purpose again.

The shopkeeper notices me admiring the clock. It's a great deal, he tells me. Should be easy to fix--he shows me the broken part--I even have one of these you can have, they just wear out sometimes. Easy to replace, and it'll last for years. A genuine antique. It's a real deal.

I tell him I'm not interested and he keeps telling me what a bargain it is. If it was working it'd be worth hundreds, he says. I try to tell him no, that's not what I'm interested in. It's the stories--what's the story behind this clock? He doesn't seem to understand, but I buy it anyway.

I picture the mother worrying when the clock breaks, worrying that giving it to the thrift store isn't the right thing to do, worrying that the kids will be upset--the kids don't talk to them anymore, it seems, and she doesn't notice that it's been since the clock died. She's always worrying. I picture her worrying that the shopkeeper will just discard it, that they could have done something else, that they should make sure he at least sells it.

Now it's on my shelf and I'm picturing the kids talking in the room where the clock used to be. Their mood is somber but they aren't sure why. I install the new part without a problem and hear it tick. Whatever their stories are, the clock keeps going.

true stories

I can't help it. I'm drawn by this feverish and dream-like passion, like every simile which has ever mentioned moths and flames in close proximity together, like every conceit that compares a person to an addiction. It doesn't even feel real--and maybe it isn't. Everything you'd expect from a nightmare is there: dread, compulsion, a sense of the surreal. I should walk away, but I am filled with this sense that if I do, I'll miss something important. I can't explain what I think that could be, other than more lies.

what's in a name?

I never spoke her name for weeks when we first met. It was such a beautiful name and to speak it aloud before I really knew her--it seemed like it would be to invoke it in vain. So I didn't speak it. Not until I was sure it would mean something. I gave her nicknames, so I wouldn't have to defile that beautiful name with my voice. Her name was important.

After weeks, I spoke her name for the first time when pleading with her, hoping to underscore my desperation with that word, that beautiful word. She shook her head and apologized and left, leaving me alone, leaving my invocation useless. I don't think she understood.