He approached the urinal and saw a watering can below it.
I hope no one pees in the watering can, he thought.
Good Lord, the watering can thought. I hope he doesn’t pee in me.
As he peed, the man kicked the watering can under the sink. So no one would pee in it.
Fuck, thought the can, which had been creeping along the floor for the better part of a week. I’ll be late for the party.
Today, I decided I would try again. I packed a lunch and made the calls. I took the day for myself and went looking. About 10 markers in I parked the car and moved off between the trees. In an hour, I was there.
I ate my sandwich on the rocks and thought over the last time - what I’d tried, what had happened. I noticed the season and the changes in the place; the color of the door so slightly lighter than I remember but probably the same. I saw the metal and the wood and the rock and the knob and the hole and the leaves. I licked my fingers and I got to work.
With my hand around the knob, I whispered to the door. I said the sorts of things that came to mind at first. I said nonsense, I found myself. Every so often, I’d hear again the whispers coming back. At first they were very quiet, a trick, wind in the trees above me, but then louder, more certainly there. I felt the warmth in the knob, the other hand across from mine. Wherever that was.
I’d been this far before. The first time. The time with the “team” (S., G., Mm., Mk.). The time early in the summer. The time with the second “team” (S., Mm., R.) and the last time; the time a week later. Which was forever ago. I’d done all this before and been rewarded.
I looked through the hole. Red. Which was different than black.
I stayed there and whispered til my throat was raw and my breath was clear before my eyes and they it wasn’t. It’d been like this the first time too, when the knob seemed to grow warmer, but, really, my body was growing colder.
I thought I heard something, late, late. I heard my voice and I realized I was not speaking. For how long my dry and useless throat had been open and silent I did not know. I heard myself, from earlier, on the other end. I heard what I thought I’d been saying hours before. To be honest, I’m not sure what I’d said when, or if I’d said it.
Through the hole there came the song and it was exactly the same as before. Someone was having a party. I heard the dishes and the music and the dulled movement and voices on the other end. And finally, finally, the voice at the door says, “do you want to come in?”
And I go in. I need to stop doing that.
Had anyone expected this?
I don’t know, I don’t know. Nobody ever asks me anything, so why start now?
I’ve been reading more lately, though I don’t know if I’m the better for it. I certainly feel more aware and awake, my mind is definitely at work - scratching at surfaces, applying itself.
Maybe that’s the problem. I keep imagining better endings for the books I read, and I keep seeing these endings played out. For real.
Just the other day I was finishing a book about a detective. I didn’t like the ending at all. I thought about all the ways it could have ended better - in particular, how the crime was solved had bugged me. I wanted more build up.
Throughout the day, I saw crimes solved in different ways; small crimes mostly, though some were big. They played out on the street, in the cafe; wherever I was. It made me uncomfortable, all the crimes. They were mine. They were almost all small, sure, but someone was hurt each time. Many people, if you considered that the guilty party wasn’t really guilty - me having dreamed their part for them. At least it wasn’t as bad as with the war books. I’ve tried to stop reading the war books.
I can’t stop reading all together, though. People tell me it’s good for me, and I haven’t been good to myself much. It’s a habit. I let things go. I wouldn’t brush my teeth or exercise if people didn’t tell me it was good for me.
At night, I shiver when it comes reading time. I brush my teeth real slow, I take extra time with my sit-ups. Eventually though, always, I’m in bed, ready to go, and I can’t help but relate the stack of books on my bedside table to an ammunition depot.
I went back, or at least I tried. It was strange to see the place, distorted like that. No one there seemed to notice. They didn’t remember the way it was, or, more importantly probably, the way it would be. Was it me?
Everything was at an angle, and I could see all the wires stretching forward and back - saw my own. I questioned cutting it for a second, but then I thought about things too complex even for me, and left it as it was.
Into the mountains they drove. The plants were changing all around them, and now there were animals; living, not infected. The road was no longer the arrow leading straight across the flats, but a continuous curl, a question mark urging them on, around and around. Boulders marked the path, but each was the same as the next and each was as same as the last until they had to wonder if they’d entered some closed loop somehow, been trapped by the mountain - clearly some foreign thing, living, hungry.
They hadn’t spoken since sunrise, another world ago. When first light had sent away the black and was raising it’s drowsy head above the far off hills, she’d turned to him and asked, “where are we headed?” He’d shrugged, surprised by the question. It hadn’t occurred to him to ask where the arrow pointed. The thought made him nervous, and he glanced in the rear view. Still empty. “Over the mountain.” He coughed out the answer, surprising himself. There were mountains this way, yes?
It was getting dark now; he turned the headlights on. Moths and dust became clear in the space ahead. They were moving slowly now between the trees, the bends coming like a flurry of tiny punches, the fatigue of their navigation weighing on their speed. The road became more gravel than asphalt. There was a sharp bend to their left and suddenly, they were there. Somewhere. A town - if it was large enough to call it that.
They both looked spent and used, like toothpaste tubes - squeezed out and near empty. You could maybe take a guess at what had eaten them, but not me. In the wrinkles I wager I could have seen life lived, but all I saw were bones and possibly heroin. They didn’t look made for one another, but they look like they’d made due - they’d arrived at the same point at some point; immediately, obviously closer than I’d ever been to any other thing ever.
I never knew a man like him, which was strange, because he was me, and I knew everyone I knew pretty damn well. He was elusive, and I only got the thought of him once he’d left. Goddamn, I’d think. Duh.
Too many birds crowd the sky, from the the old blind tree, up up up. Too many birds cloud the sky, and drop feathers on here our sleep. I awoke and with you still asleep thought on their flight, knowing I hadn’t a chance of understanding even one thing ever.
Unsure herself, she did it, and would later claim it made her better. And that’s fine for her, he supposes, unable ever again to think of her the same way. There’s nothing wrong with that, he supposes, never free of that weight again. Some times he’d kill himself if he could see the reaction. Most times he just eats Fritos and masturbates in his dad’s basement.
Before there was wasn’t there was, and only was, and this was how most chose to see.
And there was there was there was!
Permisson becomes abstraction, though,
And some suns become old and soon some thought they’d done each thing there was under them.
And they made wasn’t and they made don’t and they made done and they made old.
But before there wasn’t there was, and only was.
[Note on Street. (Once Creased, Now Crumpled.)]
Maggie.
I want you to know how much you mean to me. That is why I farted on this piece of paper.
Eat shit.
Michael
It appeared over the smokestacks, and from every direction people would claim it was miles away but just beyond the slim, puffing chutes. Eerie, it was jelly-like, with long smooth tendrils weaving through the autumn sky, down but never touching a thing. It was as if a screen had been placed over the eyes of the town, and some horrible cinema’s mistake was painting the morning this awful shade.
Large bits of concrete cascaded from above, out of the ceiling and into the common area. The gathered each remarked on the spontaneity of such an event, save Dave, who just lay there.
At the very last possible moment, POW, there was the change, and I can’t tell you if anyone was the better for it. Like it or not, however, the moment was, without a doubt, the watermark of your absence.
