a prelude for october

October is actually the month where all of this started. I wrote seven ghost stories for October last month. Later, when I was talking about the ghost stories to a girl I'd never speak to again, she asked if I did something like that for every month. "I do now," I said. I tried to do something for November, but it didn't happen. Then I thought about it, and I decided that I wanted to do this project, with themes and counterpoints. May would be about life and November would be about death; then I filled in the rest of the months and have been tweaking that list ever since.

October didn't get much tweaking. April was always about plans and October was always about results. I don't think I'm using "results" in the typical sense of the word, though, because when I hear the word I think "he gets results!" But the results for these characters you've been getting to know all year aren't always good results, because they don't always make good plans. (Sometimes I'm not even sure good plans really exist.) Results are what happen when plans meet reality. The explosion that follows is sort of like the one that happens when matter comes into contact with antimatter.

doubt, pt. 5

Alex.

I started feeling weird about how I never trusted anyone, so I started hoarding secrets--that way, when someone started asking why I doubted them, I could hand them a secret. "Here," I'd say. "This is for you." And it was mostly just a test. Everything is a test.

It was the same thing with Eris. We'd reached the point where I needed to say "no, I totally trust you," so I dug up one of my buried secrets. "Here, you can have the one about my friend who died in middle school." I wrapped it up neatly and gave it to her in a box. I told her I gave her this because I trusted her, but really it was because I doubted her. Because I wanted to see what she'd do with something so precious to me. So I watched her and I poked and prodded her, and I even got myself to believe I was just proving how much we trusted each other.

Eventually all the little tests, trying to get her to prove that I should still trust her, became a ritual. She never fought back or complained or anything. I built an entire relationship on doubt, and still, when she finally did prove me right, I had no idea it was coming. By the end I doubted she was even capable of betrayal.

It hurt, of course, but part of me was secretly pleased.

doubt, pt. 4

Eleutheria.

Before I fled my old social circles--that festering den of liars that I loved so much--there was a kid I dated, whose primary virtue was that he didn't seem like the rest of the people I knew. He was obsessed with uncertainty and doubt and the ephemeral nature of reality, and for some reason that was relentlessly charming, and made me want to follow him blindly wherever he wanted to lead me.

My sister laughed at me when I told her about him, because she saw herself in my descriptions of him. She said, "You can't trust people like me. We're inherently untrustworthy." And that just sounded like the sort of charmingly self-deprecating thing people like that would say, so I didn't really pay it much heed. But she said something that stuck with me.

"The best thing you can do for someone like that is to doubt them," she told me. "When you've embraced the ephemeral nature of the world we live in, the last thing you need is someone trying to make you into some sort of immovable rock."

I didn't listen, of course, because humans never listen to the good advice. But when my gossamer anchor disintegrated, suddenly the full weight of it struck me. I don't even remember this kid's name, but I do remember how important it is to give in to doubt every now and then.

doubt, pt. 3

Eris.

For most of my life, the people I've been closest to have tried to maintain a careful distance from me, because as far as they're concerned I'm just a ticking time-bomb, waiting to go off and betray any trust they gave me. And that's probably fair, of course, but it made me doubt myself, too. I doubted myself so wholly and completely that it became a part of who I was--a little bit of stability to cling to.

Alex changed all of that, or at least tried to. She trusted me implicitly, and in so doing she robbed me of a carefully constructed identity. Any time I tried to tell her, she tried to reassure me, like I was a child telling her about monsters under my bed. And I just let it happen, because against something so powerful as trust, what could I do? Every effort to revive that doubt failed, no matter how I tried. Her soothing words drowned the self to which I had clung so desperately.

So one evening, as she was whispering about how she wished I could see myself from her eyes, I resolved that there was one weapon against which trust could never stand: betrayal. Her confidence in me would be shattered, and I could finally be free of the tyranny of trust.

doubt, pt. 2

Melissa.

Doubt sort of defined our relationship, didn't it? And really it sort of defines all human relationships--we can't just go around trusting each other, after all. We keep our guard up around random strangers, so why not around people who are close to us? Just because you were important to me was no reason for me to suddenly assume that you had my best interests at heart. I never had your best interests at heart, after all. Anyway, a breach of trust can happen entirely on accident, and if all of our endless fights were any indication, that was bound to happen sooner or later.

So of course I doubted you. I had no reason to do anything else. It's nothing personal, it's just that life is simpler when you operate under the assumption that people are going to let you down. And it's not like I was wrong: you did disappoint me, time and time again. So doubt was just another thing I did in order to survive.

For the longest time you used to send these drunken emails late at night--I assume they were drunken, anyway, because I'm generous--talking about trust. Telling me you trusted me, or saying how much it hurt that I didn't trust you, or asking that I show how much I trust you. Not often, just every couple of months, usually when I'd done something that brought the doubt that formed the seed of our relationship into the foreground. You were fond of swearing that you'd never betray me--as if I even knew what the word meant. I've always been far too sensible for that.

I assume you got your answer, anyway, when I never wrote back. For all of the problems we had, I always thought our relationship went well precisely because I kept my expectations low. Unrealistic hopes have destroyed civilizations and brought empires to their knees. What hope did I have against that?

doubt, pt. 1

Nicholas.

Something about you seemed fundamentally untrustworthy from the moment we met--I think it was a Labor Day barbecue, wasn't it? I can picture it clearly: you complaining about America's lack of appreciation for the labor movement, about how by rights this should be on May Day, about how most Americans simply see it as an excuse to eat hamburgers and get drunk. I can still hear your sarcastic tone, still see your ironic little smirk. I showed up late and didn't know anyone there, but I knew two things as soon as I saw you: I knew that you liked me for some reason, and I knew that was probably a bad thing.

I drank more than I usually do that night. I'm not good at parties, and you were making me uncomfortable. It didn't help. I ended up ducking out back for air after even more people showed up, and I wasn't really surprised that you'd followed me out there. I was surprised that it didn't bother me anymore. Perhaps the alcohol had drowned that little seed of doubt. You asked if I was feeling okay, your tone abruptly lacking the carefully constructed irony from earlier, and that put me on edge again. As if your apparent sincerity could be anything more than artifice.

I answered honestly, because honesty is usually the best way to get rid of someone. But you stayed, and I made what I have often thought of as the worst decision of my life then: I decided to just let you stay around. So long as I kept that seed of doubt alive, so long as I didn't let myself trust you--well, there was no harm in seeing where the evening would take it, was there? I was fairly certain the evening would end with you in my bed, except when we reached my doorstep you simply leaned in close and told me to call you when I was sober.

And that's how I stopped watching the doubt I'd spent all night nurturing: in that moment I was certain I'd misjudged you. I let it grow wild, and from that moment on, the only thing I was uncertain of was myself.

a prelude for september

September always feels like something is ending to me. Or rather, a lot of somethings: summer is ending, and with the coming of fall it becomes official: the year is almost over. That endless period where the sun never sets has gone away, and the days are getting shorter. This isn't a bad thing, of course. Sometimes summer is more dead than the darkest nights of winter. The sharpness of an autumn breeze carries a beautiful new life with it.

I wrote about trust in March, which seems like it was forever ago, in another world. September's stories are about doubt. At some point it was going to be betrayal or something obvious like that, but betrayal isn't much of a counterpoint to trust, is it? It's one of the many possible outcomes of trust. (One of the others is solidarity. The two aren't mutually exclusive.) But doubt--it's that little voice in the back of your head telling you to be on your guard, even when being on your guard could cost you everything. Doubt is a constant companion for a lot of people, I think. The real trick is to make it your friend. It's only a creeping poison if you let it be one.

solidarity, pt. 5

Nicholas.

I managed to talk you into taking public transit that night, because that night was supposed to be some sort of reconciliation, and I wanted a chance to talk. The moment you asked me to go I imagined it: waiting in the thin fog, alone at some bus stop, waiting for a bus that would take forever to come. I'm sure it says more about me than anything else, but people bond over those unpleasant moments, don't they?

I'd be lying if I didn't say the image I'd kept in my mind of that night didn't linger far longer than the actual events. Which is to say: no matter how I tried, I could never convince myself that solitude was preferable to solidarity. The difference, I think, is that solitude is real, and therefore easily dismissed. Solidarity is an idea. God knows you tried, but you can't kill an idea.

Still, sometimes I wait at that bus stop, and the city's beautiful and quiet, and I wish that all your efforts to kill that bond that we shared had succeeded. Sometimes I wish I could think of nothing but the peace of a city sleeping, instead of your ghost coming up to haunt me. But I can't. You can't exorcise the ghost of someone who's not dead. And on some level I know that we'd both be the poorer for it even if we could.

solidarity, pt. 4

Melissa.

I think I told you once that I hated the idea of being alone with my thoughts, and I'm pretty sure you took it literally. It wasn't so much about . . . well, it's like this. The plan, when I got back from London, was to share what had been happening inside my head for the duration of my trip. I'd been, in the strictest sense, alone with my thoughts for most of that time, but I was fine with that. I looked forward to seeing you again. When I told you I hated the idea of being alone with my thoughts, what I really meant is I hated the idea of losing the solidarity we had.

And we kept it through some pretty rough times, didn't we? Even when we hated each other there was always a sense of camaraderie there. You may have been convinced I was history's greatest monster, and you may not have even been that far off, but you still listened to my thoughts. We shared the strange conviction that there is a difference between people who are important to each other, and people who like each other. We'd always been the former; we were only occasionally the latter.

That was a connection that was deeper than anything else. So it never crossed my mind that when I got back, you'd leave me alone with my thoughts, using my carry-on as a pillow, staring at the sterile lines of the empty airport, the feeling of this profound bond we once shared unraveling keeping me from anything remotely resembling sleep.

solidarity, pt. 3

Eris.

When I tell stories about Alex, I'm always sort of a passive character in them. Part of that is because I'm sort of a passive person, but as is the case with all good stories, a lot of it is because I'm lying. On a good day (or bad day, depending on your point of view) I could tell you everything about her, and about our relationship. I'd spent my entire life getting good at observing things, starting with myself and working my way out.

She was the sort of deliberately abrasive person that fancies themselves "brutally honest," so she didn't have any close friends. Just me. And she'd gotten used to the idea that no matter how much abuse she heaped on me, I'd just shrug and deal with it, because we both needed each other--the connection we had was a fucking addiction.

I'd started deliberately needling her, doing the things she always hated. I'm sure I thought it was a good idea at the time. Every time, she'd react the same way--which is to say, badly--and I'd get pissed off and start needling her even more. This went on for longer than I'd care to admit. Eventually all the quiet resentment I'd been building up turned into a white-hot fury, and I drove her away.

When I'd screamed my voice hoarse, I called my sister. She told me stories that made me laugh, and for a while everything was okay. And that was more solidarity than I'd had in years.

solidarity, pt. 2

Alex.

We met in late August, I think, just after her school started. It was one of those summers where it got ridiculously hot later than anyone thought it would, and I remember her in her summer clothes glistening with sweat and sitting on the porch. She looked like she needed a friend, so I went out and said hi. She was a little weirded out by that, but then we got to talking and actually got on pretty well. I told her if she ever happened to be walking by my place again and she saw me she should stop by. I didn't expect that we'd ever actually see each other again, so I didn't ask for her name or anything.

So imagine my surprise when I was sitting out on the porch, one afternoon just after the morning's low clouds had burned off, and there she was walking by. Her face lit up and I couldn't help but smile back--nobody that I knew ever seemed so excited to see me. She hurried over and asked if she could join me, very politely, and I said sure.

She told me her sister usually drove her home, but she was busy, so she decided to walk, but the way she said it, the way she looked when she saw me--she walked by just in case I was there. She was willing to go out of her way to take the chance that she'd run into me again. And the elation I felt at that realization was impossible to contain.

We'd made a connection, I decided, and I would fight like hell to make sure that nothing would ever break that connection.

solidarity, pt. 1

Eleutheria.

I don't remember his name or his face, but I remember the shape of the mark I left on his neck after a night of sloppy drunken kissing on the floor. I also remember the guy sleeping on the couch a few feet away from us, dutifully pretending to sleep--I think I thought about him more than the kid I was making out with, which, in fairness, isn't saying much.

We met again years later, when I was back in town to visit. Everything seemed so different now--which I think had more to do with me than anything else, of course--and there was a party and we ended up out on the front porch. It was one of those hot, muggy days where it felt like a storm was going to break any minute--but it had felt like that for hours, and no storm seemed to be forthcoming. I think I felt a raindrop or two.

There was a silence in our conversation and I apologized for being inconsiderate all those years ago, and he just smiled and laughed and said he wasn't worried about it. Life's too short, he told me, to worry about stupid things like that.

"Doesn't stop me from doing it anyway," I said.

"Hey, me neither."

Then there was some more silence and several people came out to join us on the porch and, because this is the nature of social gatherings, we didn't talk again. But that moment of solidarity made the whole thing worthwhile.

a prelude for august

I never used to like August very much, though looking back on it I realize that sort of thing isn't really August's fault. I think it's just that it's one of the really dead parts of the year--sometimes high summer is as suffocating and lonely as February, the month where I wrote about isolation. This month I'm writing about solidarity. It was originally going to be 'community,' but that word bothers me, because almost every time someone uses it it means they're a phenomenally insincere human being. It's also just not a very good counterpoint for isolation.

Solidarity, however--sometimes all it takes is knowing that there is one person out there who cares, and suddenly you're not alone anymore. Sometimes we find that solidarity in a community, but sometimes community is the most isolating thing there is. Community is a word that means something to a select group of people--or an isolated group of people, if you will. Solidarity, I think, means something to everyone. Whether or not we admit it, that's what we all crave, isn't it? Sometimes I think human living is nothing more than reaching out blindly, hoping that someone will take our hand and say "I'm with you."

regret, pt. 5

Eleutheria.

I didn't really tell anyone I was leaving when I finally got around to it. Not even the handful of people I actually liked--it was better, I thought, to make a clean escape. Some of them didn't know I was going until I was gone. And it was a good feeling, lying there in the dark on the couch of my new apartment, a hundred miles from the life I'd built for myself, staring at nothing at all. Freedom is always a good feeling, even when it's a little terrifying.

But I'd gotten used to the old life, with all the plans and expectations and projects. I'd never call it comforting, but it was familiar. It had taken a lot of work to build, too, and I'd just abandoned it. I mean, yes, it had been a prison, but it was my prison. I'd designed it in an effort to find meaning in a world that seemed to have none. And abandoning all that work now meant that this quest was fruitless, didn't it? Was it even so bad back there? I could have stayed for a bit longer, made it work out with a little more effort, couldn't I? But going back was impossible.

There's a famous line, mostly used by the hopelessly naive, about how the only things they regret are the things they didn't do. Sadly it's more true than I'm prepared to admit. I've done plenty of things I regret, of course, but the list of things I didn't do? It's practically infinite. And I regret all of them, almost as much as I would have regretted doing things differently than I had.

regret, pt. 4

Alex.

I came home from work one night and Eris was waiting on my front step, along with all the memories I'd managed to bury in the interim years. She gave me the same tentative smile she had when we first met, and seemed to hold me at arm's length even when she wrapped her arms around me. And despite all that, just then, clear as day, I could see this beautiful future unfold.

Except none of that was possible. I didn't know why she was here, and I didn't believe her when she told me. Well, that's a lie. I knew why she was here: she was chasing a dream. It was a dream she didn't believe in, and it was a dream that wasn't going to happen even if she did, but that's why she was here. I knew the look: I'd seen her chase dreams before. I'd seen her stop believing in dreams before. Hell, I'd led her down both of those roads.

She'd led herself here, whatever else was true. We were both powerless to stop it. I knew that in a few moments I'd invite her in and offer her a beer and tell her stories and pretend nothing had ever happened. And she'd go along with it and act like there was still a shot, and that weird false optimism would be as infectious as ever. The vision I'd had of a beautiful future evaporated, and in its place was a moment of real clarity, a glimpse of the real future: this would be just as fucked up as everything else about our relationship had been. We'd rip all of our old wounds open, and for a moment, before the spell took hold, I regretted that I didn't have the strength of will to say no.

regret, pt. 3

Eris.

I made a list of coincidences the day my house was destroyed and I jumped on a bus headed east. For some of them I even did the math for how unlikely that particular chain of events was. My mind was fixed on that: everything that happened up to and including a meteor landing on the house I shared with my roommate was so phenomenally unlikely, the only thing that could possibly explain it was the whims of an angry god.

It had destroyed more than just my home. It had destroyed my entire life--who I was, what I'd done. This was an omen, a sign--I was supposed to do something with this new freedom. This was as much a gift as it was a curse, because bigger than all the coincidences of that day--the meteor, the fact that I survived, and so on--was the biggest coincidence of all: the fact that I existed at all to begin with. The fact that anything existed.

Freedom fell from the heavens on me. I could have done anything, gone anywhere. Instead I went running east, back into Alex's arms, back into a life that had just been destroyed. I could have gone anywhere. Instead I went backwards. And once I realized that my half-mad impulse had locked my course in, what could I do but regret it?

regret, pt. 2

Melissa.

I want to say I regretted calling you immediately, but that's not entirely true. It crept up on me like a fever. Every ounce of hope that I allowed myself to have--maybe running really did fix everything, maybe you weren't angry at me for disappearing, maybe you really would pick me up and we could act like things had never changed--vanished like fairy gold, leaving nothing in my hand but dried up old leaves, which I promptly threw on the fires of my regret.

I regretted that I called you, I regretted that you agreed to pick me up, and most of all I regretted that I still clung to that tiny shred of hope that kept me from calling again and saying that I'd try to find someone else to pick me up. I regretted the cold certainty that you'd see through that lie, and that even if you didn't, nobody would be there at the airport. I'd driven everyone away, except you--including you, really, and that was the problem.

Most of all, I regretted that I'd dug up a past that I knew was dead, to make sure that not even fond memories remained. By the time I got on the plane back home, I regretted all of these idiotic notions that the world had changed, or that I had changed--nothing ever changes. But I knew I was right about one thing: when I got back we'd act like nothing had changed. We'd be guilty and bitter, and by the time we were done with each other we'd regret even the most beautiful moments.

regret, pt. 1

Nicholas.

Memory plays funny tricks on you if you aren't paying attention. Or even if you are. You left without warning, so of course I didn't know that the last time we met would be the last time we met, but suddenly that night loomed large in my mind. You seemed subdued, fidgety, nervous--not the breezy, confident woman I knew. Not the girl who was as annoying as she was enchanting. The girl I was drinking with that night seemed defeated.

I didn't dare ask what was wrong, because you had taught me that this sort of thing was usually a trap. But the trap never sprung. The night wore on and you became increasingly agitated, and after we left, rather than wait for the bus like we usually did, you insisted on walking, and as we walked you talked endlessly, gesticulating wildly. You were a little drunk, and you were talking very fast, and you tripped over your words or used the wrong ones, and didn't stop to correct yourself. And I thought: this isn't you. This is someone else entirely.

We reached the door to my house you looked like you had something you wanted to say, something you'd been trying to say or build up to all this time, and for a moment I swear you were looking at me like you needed help. I smiled and said "did you forget where your house is?" and suddenly, effortlessly, the woman I knew you as returned, smiled charmingly, and said, "No, I was just making sure you remembered how to work the doorknob." When I demonstrated that I did, you grinned and left.

And that's how I remember that evening. For the first time since I'd known you, you were vulnerable, and I just played the same stupid game we were always playing. Rather than try to help you--someone I cared deeply about, despite all evidence that this was a terrible idea--I decided to treat you the way you'd always treated me. I'd take it back if I could.

a prelude for july

It's hard to believe we're actually halfway through this extended conceit I'm putting you through. This is an example of a lie, the sort of lie we tell all the time because we don't know how to properly mark something as significant or noteworthy. So we pretend we're having difficulty believing it, when the opposite is usually true. It's far harder to disbelieve than it is to believe.

This is where hope comes from--humans will never have a hard time believing something, even when we have no evidence for it. Hope was the theme of my stories from January, you may recall. This month is their counterpoint. This month, the stories are about regret.

I was tempted to make the counterpoint to hope something like nostalgia, but that isn't properly the opposite, is it? Hope is thinking of the past with positive thoughts; nostalgia is like hope, except pointed backwards. There's still positivity there. Regret, on the other hand, is hope's truest companion.

It may be helpful to read January's stories before you read this month's stories. This is the part of this project where I start writing variations on the stories I've been telling for the first half of it, and I suppose that makes it the part where we find out whether my hopes for the project ultimately turn into regrets.

eternity, pt. 5

Nicholas.

I used to use words like "forever" because I thought every eternity was like that first summer we spent together. I doubt you even remember that road trip we took across the mountains. There was an early heat wave, but you were always in your element in the burning sun. You navigated some small town I don't even remember the name of like you'd been there your whole life, talking to people I didn't recognize like they were old friends. I guess for you it was just stepping back in time.

We slept on the floor of your friend's apartment that night, and I told you how surreal this had all been, and of course you just laughed and said the heat must have addled my brain. You laughed at everything back then, of course. I imagine you still do. But even at the time I remember that day stretching on forever, an endless chain of people and places. It was strange and magical and wonderful, and I used words like "forever" because I imagined days with you would always be like this.

Now, of course, that day is an eternity ago, and I realize that "forever" is as much a threat as a promise. Several summers on, you were still making the days stretch on forever, except now it was exhausting just trying to keep up. I would have given anything to make those days end, except, of course, you were my ride. So you never stopped, and I never realized that I could have gotten off at any time.