The Space in Between (unedited.)

  

The silence that surrounded Lia was just like the kind in movies, she thought as she walked through a thick fog to get to the café where a woman named Myra played once a week. It was the kind of silence that’s intentional (one can only assume, if this had been a movie) where the director is saying, ‘Pay attention to this,’ in a way one may feel more inclined to sit up and listen than if some string arrangement had been chosen. It was not to be taken lightly, that space in between sound, Lia thought as she pushed the door of the café open and her ears were flooded with a sudden wave of noise she could only describe as one too many conversations trapped in the walls of one little place. Perhaps if she left the door open a little while longer the hums, if one had to fit the sounds into one little word, would make their way out and spread upwards to the sky. But as the door quickly shut behind her, all hope of such a thing was lost and the noise was contained like corn in a can.

She headed towards B5, otherwise known as her ‘usual’ table and watched as Myra began to settle herself into place behind her piano. Lia’s coffee came with a mere nod that told the waiter, “Everything would be the same today.” She liked for things to be the same for the most part. Change for the sake of it seemed unnecessary to her when things were quite fine as-is. It was a habit she’d had for ages, she thought as she warmed her hands over the coffee mug’s steam—starting from the pair of pajama pants that literally had to fall apart before she could part with them as a kid; her mother had to insist profusely before Lia eventually gave in as it was getting rather cold during the night with all those holes. But even then she’d kept them in a drawer for “sentimental value” and just recently stuffed them way in the back of another so that no one could visibly accuse her of being somewhat of a nut—they were after all just a pair of raggedy pants for God’s sake! But it was hard to find things that fit just right, and even harder to part with when they no longer did.

 It was the same where everything else was concerned, she supposed. This café. The music. The coffee. This table.  It wasn’t that she consciously chose the same pattern each time. It was just that they fit right, that’s all.

A “la-da-di-da…” revived Lia from thoughts of her old pajamas and worn out habits, reminding her why she had come in the first place. Myra hummed softly along to her usual arpeggio of chords as she warmed up, then announced a couple of minutes later to what must have been a lip reader adjusting the levels on the mixer, “Okay, I’m ready.”

It was her hands Lia enjoyed the most. She watched Myra’s fingers dancing upon the piano keys like little ballerinas. She could fall in love with any pair of beautiful hands. She recalled a boy from 6^th grade who was just horrible (in the eyes of all the wise 11-year-olds) and played the clarinet just as horribly (which could’ve been proven). He was the weird kind that other kids rolled their eyes at, but she was secretly in love with his hands. They were perfect.

The sound of the piano made her heart jerk like electricity had just passed through it.  She figured it must have somehow slipped into her chest, jammed into her heart and the keys had grown from there as the more than decade-old clarinet squeaks from beginning band disoriented her attention.

            She turned to Myra and watched her like a television set.

It all seemed vague, everything around her, at that instant. Perhaps it was due to the fact that a group of people sat at a table near enough for their dialogue to be overheard. It was horrible when people’s loudness spread beyond those intended, especially when it was so blah that it made her want to vomit. She’d much prefer her own company to that any day of the week, which was usually the case. But it suddenly felt odd at that moment, too—if one really thought about it—to be in the same room, just a couple of feet away even, from complete strangers. It was like sitting in one’s house and sharing a couch with a bunch of weirdoes that just happened to drop in off the street ‘cause the door was open and they thought they’d come in and watch a little television. Well, that wasn’t likely to happen, but it sure felt funny if one really thought about it. She raised her eyebrows and watched the loudmouth at the table next to her and imagined him right there on her living room sofa slurping a coke—quickly shaking her head at the thought.

But everything had always felt vague, Lia figured as she returned to where she was last perplexed—as if it were her sole purpose to leave nothing unexplained as she trotted along the streets of her mind looking for the address of a place where it all came together and formed a little sense. She found nothing as Myra began her set and released a sense of familiarity inside her chest that felt like coming home after a long first day in a new place, and it didn’t seem to matter anymore.

The music began filling up the spaces of each face that had wandered off beyond the conversation surrounding them, which—she thought, glancing suspiciously at the guy who’d yet been able to give his mouth a rest, as if he were the reason everything was so wrong in the world—must have failed to reel them in deep enough to care for more.

But it was so easy for one to fall victim to distraction, she grinned. It was almost alluring really, to fall into a pretense that the body and mind didn’t have to coincide if one chose for them not to. It was sometimes the only way, really, for one to pretend that they were in fact there in the space their body idly occupied, when they truly were not— they never were. They were flying a million miles away as their head nodded automatically every five seconds on autopilot, if they cared enough to feign any interest for the sake of another in the first place, and hung on only by a string that if cut off would cause their minds to roam even higher into the sky like a balloon freed into the clouds, never to return. 

Myra’s voice resounded in Lia’s ears like poetry, if one found such a nicely grouped set of words flattering, and whatever it was that may have been proceeding beyond table B5 and the short path that led to the red-haired woman behind the black piano became nothing at all. The noise, even that irritating kind that came from not so far to her left, drowned off into the distance and she was sure that this was all that she was in this world for (if she wished to question her existence in that particular instant)—to listen to a few songs.

 It was like jumping off a cliff and finding out she could fly. 

She sank her head back into the chair and whispered along her most recent favorite line, “I put the hood right back where you could taste heaven perfectly.” And she almost could, she thought as she rolled her tongue around in her mouth, searching for heaven which must’ve been just around the corner. The words wrapped around her like a warm blanket on a snowy day until a sudden irritation crept into her back and shook her wide awake. 

As she pulled her head back into its upward position she couldn’t be sure if she had drifted into sleep or if the world truly was dissolving into the background as her eyes turned everything in sight into a blur. She could only hear laughs coming from that stupid table cutting through the right of way the music possessed like a sharp-bladed knife. They weren’t even of the contagious kind, their laughs—the kind one found oneself unconsciously smiling along with. Instead they were the kind that provoked irritated stares that declared nothing was that funny.

But it didn’t matter much, she supposed, now that everyone had turned into vague shadows, like lightly shaded pencil drawings with a tint of color here and there which reminded her of art class in high school when her art teacher used to tell her to press harder with her pencil to make her shading boldly stand out like reality—when she had loved it soft and almost fragile on the paper like daydreams.

Lia blinked violently and rubbed her eyes as if she had just been attacked by a sand storm. The people surrounding her slowly began to resume their former states of being as her eyes went through what seemed to be a water-colored painting which led one through a dark tunnel beyond which the world soon began to resemble itself again—but when the darkness ceased, one found out that it really didn’t. 

The music was there still, flowing like a river that she rode a little canoe upon, lying down and staring at the sky ‘til it tipped over into the ocean and threw her so far down she was sure she’d drown.

The water fell into her lungs like a cool breeze that made her presume she had turned into a mermaid. But as she stared down at her feet and realized she was in fact not, she thought maybe this was that very thin line between this and that, and there was no way she could ever make her way to either side. This would be the place where she would spend the rest of eternity.

 And as she pushed the door open and walked out onto the hazy street again after all that applause resounded in her mind and made her ears feel like they were sure to burst like a couple of used up speakers, the hums crept out from all around her like ants. And when there was nothing left but the silence that became her, she surrendered herself to the fog and faded away inside it. 

24 Candles (unedited)

It seemed like it was only yesterday that Lina was blowing out her 23^rd, 22^nd, and even 21^st   birthday candles. But much had happened to reassure her logic that it was not. And yet here she was again, she thought, as the candles shone brightly and wax melted upon the chocolate frosting beneath her – on the verge of blowing out 24 of them this time. It felt too soon, she hadn’t yet grown into those previous numbers that defined a part of her each year. She had not yet walked in them as though she owned them, as though she knew what each number would signify in the whole scheme of things.

            But what did it matter that she had grown another year older into indefinite adulthood? She thought, staring at her friends and family’s dark and yellow candle-lit faces as they sang the happy birthday song completely out of tune – in three different languages; nonetheless, Arabic, English and French. She clapped along unsteadily in amusement as she smiled at no one in particular. It wouldn’t have been as charming if they sang it in perfect harmony, she thought. She loathed perfection for the most part, except that there was in fact a part of her that liked things to be perfectly flawed – if that were possible. There was something quite tasty in that – just like their singing. But she would probably spend the night in tears, after they had all gone, she just knew. She would sit and stare at the ground and somehow realize and with so much conviction know for certain that she was in fact nothing – had accomplished nothing, and if anything, was really just another person who lacked significance in the world. To top it off – she would be horribly agitated with herself for eating so much cake and would insist that she begin to cut down on sweets – starting tomorrow, when there would be none left over.

            Her aunts managed to corner her with their half-eaten cake plates in hand some minutes after the candles were blown out and cake was passed all around. It wasn’t a particularly flattering image they possessed. She cringed as her aunts insisted on conversing with half open mouths as cake and saliva mixed as visibly as one would hope they wouldn’t when standing at arms-length away. It was another thing she dreaded, those talks they insisted on having with her on every family occasion. The ones that reminded her that she was in fact a grown woman now and must act like it, dress like it, and put on a little make up every now and then for God’s sake! It was a dose of misery at its finest – every single time.

Marriage or simply meeting someone were next in line of the frequently visited topics of conversation. Sometimes there was a guy or two they would “love for her to meet!” The kind that went to look for a wife with his mother, she imagined. Going bald and a bit stout, but still insists that he marry a beauty queen as his mother strongly agreed that no “ordinary girl” would be satisfactory enough for her precious son. She sighed so heavily at the thought that she must have relit her aunts dying – let’s make her feel like crap – fire of enthusiasm.

She often screamed inside her head as they talked – it was more like a song really once she got into the groove of it. She tried to see how long she could play it out in order to avoid actually hearing most of what they needed to get off their “it’s only because we care about you and want the best for you” chest. It wasn’t so bad when their voices fell into the background of her screaming song. She had to find ways to make people feel like she was actually listening. She nodded in all the right places for the most part, till a moment came where she got lost in her scream and stared at the ground a little too long and found her mind replaying moments she had forgotten about which made her smile. She always wished she could go back to certain days, to relive them. Things were different then, a couple of years back when she was still in college.  It was a sign she was getting old, she figured – reminiscing of the “good old days.” She liked life then. There were no expectations beyond getting her degree. Everything was laid out clearly enough, even for a scatterbrain like herself. She missed those days – even the heartbreak she endured for so long and had never truly recovered from. She even missed that!

“You’re not paying any attention.” Her aunt’s voice shook her out of her daydream. “I wish you’d get your head out of the clouds once in a while and join the rest of us…” was the last thing she’d heard as she excused herself in the name of tabbouleh – “one can never have enough, you know” she assured them as she left their agitated demeanor to devour the rest of their cake and headed towards the buffet table.  

The clouds seemed the best place to be if only she could get there, she thought as her friend approached her grinning.

“They’re at it again, aren’t they?” her friend laughed.

“You bet!” Answered Lina. “They want to fix me up with this guy who lives I don’t know where and makes a whole lot of money. They know nothing about his personality; of course, but they’re pretty sure he’s a decent guy.” She laughed.

 “Do you think he has a friend? I’m a 23 year old spinster you know…according to my grandmother!” her friend chuckled.

Lina sighed, “Who would’ve thought we’d one day actually grow up? And now here we are at this silly age of having to define the rest of our lives.”

“Yeah, I guess ‘I’m a recent graduate’ won’t cut it anymore!’ her friend laughed, finding amusement in most things.

“No more slacking off…what a drag!” Lina laughed as her friend nodded along, smiling empathetically. “But what kills me is no one leaves you alone. I just want them to get out of my face and stop giving me advice over every little thing I’m not doing right, for a change.”

“It’s okay,” her friend slid in her support in the spaces between Lina’s words, “don’t let them get to you.”

“And you know” Lina carried on, like a leaky faucet unable to stop no matter how hard one turned the knobs, “heaven forbid you miraculously manage to do something they might possibly approve of – they’ll only start thinking of ways for you to do it better! Get a job – so you get one...”

“Ah, that one doesn’t pay enough, get a better one!” her friend mocked.  

 “And then it’s ‘get married’ and if God forbid that should happen…‘what, still no kids?’ Ah! They’re crazy!” she sighed.

Her friend laughed, “You wanna just run off and join the circus?”

“Life in the circus ain’t easy, but the folks on the outside don’t know!” Lina sang and they continued to laugh. At least she had this, she thought, the ability to be whatever she pleased, when she pleased, in the company of her friend.

“What are you two girls giggling about?” one of her aunts came for a refill, with remnants of cake still encompassing her mouth.

“Easy on those sweets, your metabolism’s not what it used to be” she said pinching Lina’s behind and startling her into a state of mortification as she walked off, “you don’t want to end up with a hiney like your aunt’s!” She raised an eyebrow in her sister’s direction and laughed. 

Lina sighed, shooting herself with her imaginary index finger and thumb gun, as her friend tried to refrain from laughter.

“You have to admit, she’s pretty funny!”

“Hilarious.” Lina stated sarcastically.

            There was something about birthdays that caught up with her moments later as she threw herself upon the vacant couch cushions in her family’s living room. Everyone had talked to her just enough in light of the occasion and she was now free to wander off in silence.

            It was silence she needed to reflect upon her life ‘til now. The voices of those surrounding her, and had been surrounding her for as long as she could remember, droned into the background upon which her thoughts flowed like notes upon music staff.  The truth was she had never felt so old before. Her mother would have laughed at her, having had two kids by the time she was her age. She hadn’t yet begun to experience that kind of responsibility and had doubted she’d ever want to.

            The thing was, no matter how ridiculous her family’s words seemed to her mind’s comprehension – they still managed to get her down somehow (the ones that made their way past her screaming song, anyway). It wasn’t that she wanted what they were feeding her, it was just that – down the road, she might understand certain aspects of life better than she did at that moment. She would want different things that the person she was then would have deprived her from in years to come – maybe. But why did they have to make everything sound so stupid and overwhelming? She thought, irritated. And to think, when she was younger, she had imagined herself at 24…life was supposed to be figured out by now, and she was supposed to look different. Only it wasn’t and she had only gotten a little taller.

 Maybe she’ll have it figured out in her 30s? She thought laughing quietly at her obsession of trying to understand what “it” was. Was she the only one who thought about this sort of craziness and never reached a conclusion? She stared around the room and wondered what was proceeding inside the heads of all those present. “Do you have it figured out?” she wanted to ask her aunts who always seemed to have something to say on every occasion. “Well, I don’t…” she whispered to herself, finally feeling pleased at knowing something for certain. She got up and approached those who were there to celebrate her birth, knowing that even if she turned 90…she probably wouldn’t have figured anything out still, except that maybe it just wouldn’t matter if she did or not.

Clearside

            If you hang around long enough, you may still manage to find a shredded piece of an old mask under some pile of dirt here or there. The local museum picked up most of what it could and locked it up behind some glass that requires an entrance fee to get to. Stick some dead bugs behind locked glass and you’d probably have people lining up with money in their hands to look at them. Some people are really suckers; we’ve seen all sorts. We work there at the museum. Something to keep us out of trouble for the summer, our parents figured. We’re the ones that rip your ticket in half when you walk in.

            Legend has it that this one guy put on a mask after some girl rejected him badly when he told her he loved her. We’ve heard the story so many times that we’ve started repeating it in our sleep. He was in his twenties and some kind of loser, the kind who always felt bad about himself.  The messed-up kind whose feelings you constantly had to worry about hurting. We had one like him in our class. Our teacher always made us act nice to him because he wore these thick glasses that made his eyes look like they were about to pop out.  We didn’t like to look directly at them. We’d feel our eyes getting bigger. You always had to pretend you didn’t see what was right there in front of you when something was wrong with someone—until you get to know them, I guess, and then you stop noticing.

Now this guy with the mask, we’re not sure if he’s still around.  His family wasn’t too bad off where money was concerned, but he didn’t turn out all that swell lookin’ and was pretty crabby about it. Something about his face was disproportioned or something. No one ever really said anything to him about it—folks were nicer those days—but he blamed all that went wrong on that. Everyone had to be nice to him, just like “pop-eyes” in our class. So when he told this girl, who was a pretty thing apparently, she didn’t run away screaming or anything, but really looked like she wanted to.

 It didn’t matter how nice her words were after that, because the guy was half way across town sobbing like a maniac before she could even finish the sentence. Some people don’t deal with that kind of thing all that well. It could’ve just been that he had a rotten personality. There are always people who don’t mind an ugly face, right? Anyway, no one has seen what he looks like except the old folks—he burned all his pictures before sentencing himself to exile—but their minds are too worn out by time to give you a decent description. We all figured it differently from what they’ve said and put up drawings of him in the back room of the museum. Nobody really remembers what his real name was. Everyone just calls him Ugby.

            It was never hard for a story to spread in our town, because people did nothing much but talk. At some point kids even started making games out of it. They would reenact the whole scene and whoever played the part of Ugby would have to run away. The other, who played the part of the girl, had to catch them. If they weren’t caught, they would get to wear the mask, which meant they won. They enjoyed it, we’d heard. Heck, we even tried it ourselves—it was a blast!

            It wasn’t far away, where Ugby went. His family had this cabin some miles away near an abandoned neighborhood where nobody ever went. Now everybody goes there just to see where it all happened. It’s become somewhat of a tourist attraction, you might say. The local folks started taking pictures of it and making crappy post cards that sold out. Really, people surprise you with what they’re willing to buy.

            That’s how it started anyway.  The place of exile was called “Clearside.” Whoever came up with it wanted it to be clever or something, though I don’t see how. It turned into a world of its own. They even put a fence around it to keep all the nosy folks out. They used to egg their houses for choosing to put on the mask—your house always got egged when you did something different. We didn’t understand why—it’s just a waste of eggs to let someone know you think they suck—but we didn’t really care what anyone did as long as they weren’t hurting anyone.

            So what happened was that people just started to head out that way and cover up their faces with those masks all the time. A lot of people will blame things going wrong on their faces. Most of them had faces that hadn’t done them any good, we supposed.  It got so populated that they had to build more apartments so everyone could fit. Lots of people just seemed to want to hide their faces all of a sudden.

            Once you were there you had to follow one rule: you could never take off the mask if someone else could see you. The only time you could was when you were sure no one else was around. It’s the only thing Ugby asked when others followed him into exile. It was the only time he ever spoke to them. He was rarely seen after that. He might have changed his mask when no one was watching, although someone was always watching out for him. People always needed someone to follow, someone to admire. Like older kids at school who don’t notice you’re there but you want to be just like them all the same. They’re so cool. We don’t know why—they just are.  

            The thing is, this carried on for years. In fact, so many years that children were born into it. People still got married—somehow. We supposed they didn’t care what was behind the mask. They never saw what the other really looked like, but that was probably the whole point. We supposed that was one of the things that gave people whose faces people hadn’t cared much to look at a chance at getting hitched. They had certain ways of doing things since they couldn’t tell who was who on the street. They would meet where they had previously arranged or just at home.  Most people changed their masks a lot so they wouldn’t be recognized with time. They figured if they wore the same one it would be the same as having the same face all the time—and what would be the point?

            The kids that grew up there had known no other way. They’re a bit old now.  They come in from time to time to tell people who are curious about Clearside what it was like to be born into it. For them it had been pretty fascinating to see what real faces looked like and their own in the mirror. Mirrors were something you couldn’t find anywhere in Clearside—one of the unspoken rules. You would somehow shame everybody that way. But some residents eventually started sneaking them in, which is when all the trouble started, they told us. There’s always the few that ruin something for everybody else.

            It was the kids that started it all, the downfall of Clearside as they call it. Their parents had made sure to explain that one rule very well. But “You know kids…” people will tell you. They don’t want to be told what rules to follow—they’ll do whatever the heck they want. Well, we don’t always follow the rules either.  

            What happened was that they began to meet in secret to take off their masks and show their faces to each other. One of the ladies we talked to said it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen when she first saw a real one, with the skin and the eyes and the nose and lips and all their different colors. She had never known anything like it. It was a work of art to her. She even cried. We shrugged our shoulders at that; we supposed artists were just more easily brought to tears by those sorts of things. We only cry when something hurts.

            Anyway, after all these kids all saw each other’s faces, they started to want to see their own. Someone managed to sneak in a mirror. That lady who cried when she first saw someone else’s face cried some more when she saw her own. She thought it was even more beautiful how her eyes changed colors with her tears. I guess some people could think dirt was beautiful. But she said it in a way that made us want to get beat up just so we could cry and stick our faces in front of a mirror to see what she was talking about.

            It wasn’t all that bad what they did. Well, we didn’t think so anyway. We would have probably done it too if we’d lived in Clearside. The older folks who lived there, though, started catching them during their meetings. So the kids would change their meeting spot every time. But an alert was issued throughout Clearside. It was a pretty quiet alert since no one wanted Ugby to find out about anything. But the more they cornered the kids with demands of what they shouldn’t do “or else,” the more the kids wanted to do it—just like all kids everywhere.

            Their small, quiet fascination with their faces turned into a riot when the kids started getting locked in rooms all by themselves. The older folks just wanted to keep the situation under control, thinking things might perhaps settle down. Those who hadn’t been caught found ways around this. They started running through the streets and grabbing at people’s masks until they pulled them off and exposed the person’s face in front of everyone. They’d scream for everyone to look away, but it was sometimes too late—some faces were seen and couldn’t be forgotten. We figured it was the same as when a kid in our school had his pants pulled down by an older kid, showing everyone his dinosaur underwear. We laughed.  He cried.  And then we felt pretty bad when he never came back again.

            Those people didn’t take it well, either, the Clearsiders whose masks were torn off. It wasn’t long after that they would pack their things and head off back to town or even further away. It didn’t seem to matter to them that they could put the masks on again; they felt they had already been exposed. No one would ever forget what they really were under their masks. What was the point? It would never be the same. Some people liked for things to stay the same.

            No one really knows if Ugby knew what was going on. They said it didn’t seem to matter after that, that it wasn’t about him anymore. Their spirits had been shattered and eventually the fence was torn down. More and more people kept leaving until there were hardly any left. They assumed that Ugby stayed behind, but it no longer mattered once they got back to their old lives and faces. They told us that they were all pretty quiet after that.

            Most of the people who were married in Clearside went their separate ways. They didn’t like to be reminded of it, probably. They said it wasn’t easy for them to see each other as they really were. It wasn’t how they had wanted it to be. You’d think it would have made things easier, but the folks we’ve spoken to told us we’d understand when we got older. Some people will tell you that a lot. Maybe it was just a way to get us off their backs.

            We sometimes go down to Clearside in the evenings and watch the cabin for a while. We put on masks at times, just for the heck of it. We like to pretend we were living there and play around. One time we thought we saw smoke coming out of Ugby’s chimney. We dared each other to go closer and maybe see what he looks like or if he’s dropped dead, but no one really wanted to. It wasn’t that we were scared—we just figured we’d leave him alone and that he’d come out on his own if he ever wanted to. But when he doesn’t, we just go on home instead.

             

Rattling In Its Cage

The screams on 5th street could be heard miles away as Nathe flopped to his side and pulled his pillow above his ears. It was no use – he was forced out of bed at 3 am again. His heart had also fallen out – third time this week. He got up and picked it up off the floor. The redness was wearing off – with all the dust invading it beneath his bed. He blew upon it till the redness became somewhat more visible and stuck it back into his chest. He would have to get better tape, he thought, as he pulled at a strip of brown paper tape and stuck it above his dusty heart. It’ll have to hold till morning, he wasn’t about to go out and grab a decent adhesive at this time of night.

            When he awoke – was it 7:45? His eyes were still blurry to tell as he picked up his watch and stared at it for a whole minute. He sighed when he looked down and saw that his heart had bled through the tape again. It was turning into somewhat of a hassle – and if only it weren’t so hot. The heat just made it sticky and smelly. It might have frozen in place till he got a decent night’s sleep had it been winter. But it was summer and had there been any air it might have blown through the open window which inhabited the dreary wall two feet away from his bed.  

            At 8, he was finally out of bed and standing in the shower. He laid his heart out on the side – one could never be sure what should mix with water. Even the cold water was hot. Getting dressed afterwards only made him sweat. He had to wear long sleeved shirts to work. They had air-conditioning at the office, but the walk there beneath the sun was unbearable. It was still early, but that summer they were experiencing heat like never before. He covered his heart with fresh tape and hoped it would hold till the store near his office opened so that he could get the better kind.

            His feet splashed in a pool of crimson as he walked out of his apartment building and onto the street. The stench was unbearable. He covered his mouth and nose with his hand – the smell of other people’s blood made his stomach queasy. He wished people would bleed somewhere else in the middle of the night – in private. This was just ridiculous! He’d have to use the water hose to clean up his shoes; otherwise he’d be sick all day.

It was a cubicle in which Nathe spent eight hours of his day, typing away in front a computer screen. One day he’d go mad and smash it into pieces he figured. He’d seen it happen before. His old colleague, Jep, had “cracked” (as they had referred to it) last summer– he never found out what happened to him after. “He needed some quiet,” was all that they said pitifully. Everyone had their breaking point, he figured. His would come one of these days – he was already falling apart, somewhat.

            At 10 O’clock, Nathe was sure the store across the street would now be open as he walked out of the building and ran quickly to the other side. He picked up a thick invisible tape and some tissues and was back inside and in the men’s room before anyone really noticed he was gone. He cleaned up what mess had been made and sealed his rattling heart into place again. Luckily, he was wearing a dark shirt and whatever leaked through would hardly be visible unless one stuck their head right into it – which no one was likely to do.

            It was quite hard for one to really focus on the work itself when the environment invited his mind to wander and head off in different directions every now and then. The good thing about his cubicle was that he had enough privacy to sit back and stare at the ceiling if he wanted – as he often did, and could hear approaching footsteps and resume to look busy at work when need be. The air vent above him also made it more tolerable on some days – just enough to breathe when he really needed to. That was all he could ask for at times – for it all to be tolerable enough. Just enough to keep his heart in place.

            His wasn’t the only heart fumbling inside his chest – he knew this for a fact. But one could never really be sure who else was troubled by it. He assumed the mouths of the screams throughout the night might have had difficulty with theirs. His never really pained him as he assumed theirs had – to result in screams. One never wanted to be out so late as to know why theirs made them suffer to such extent. Alcohol must have been involved, (it makes it burn like crazy) no one really wants others to know that their heart’s not quite in its place otherwise. Sometimes he’d see someone with a spot here or there that had gone unnoticed – but he could never be sure.

            It usually snaps when one felt something inside it beat differently for the first time – he remembered reading when it all began and wasn’t too sure how normal it was for his heart to behave in such a way. “After the initial snap, it never falls into place again” – he recited quietly to himself as if it were a speech he were about to give. His parents had insisted that no child of theirs had such a feeble heart when he began to tell them of his. It was all part of his imagination – his heart was well in place and would always be where they were concerned. “But listen…” he would say as it snapped violently inside even as they spoke and begged them to press their ears against his chest, “don’t you hear that? It’s coming apart!” He would try to persuade them, but they wouldn’t have it. He was sure they heard it, but they never wanted to acknowledge it – not of their son anyway. A man’s heart was supposed to stay in its place.

 Such a thing led him further away from them than he had ever thought possible as a child – when he thought the world of them. He couldn’t imagine what his heart would have turned into otherwise. It was already out of place too soon – he didn’t want to be seen as those kinds whose hearts bled uncontrollably in public. He hated what he’d heard others say about them. There’s only so much one could control to stay in – “they can’t help it,” he’d try to say, but they’d shake their heads in disgust. Once it begins to fall out, the blood flow just becomes worse and worse. He supposed that that was why he couldn’t handle the sight of too much of it all that well himself. It was just something he had grown up with.  

           Something wasn’t sitting right in his stomach as his lunch break was approaching – that morning’s smells had not left his recollection. It wasn’t too bad at first, but something inside had just gone wrong all of a sudden. He was starting to feel sick. He couldn’t bear staying inside any longer and left earlier – not that he had much of an appetite for food. He just needed to get out. The uneasiness that had grown in his stomach mixed with the soft hums of the office, the telephone calls, the voices and the air-conditioning above him, that had usually been a good thing, only made him feel worse.  

            He was outside and vomiting in a pile of dirt before he could regain a normal sense of being. He hated getting sick where others could see him, but what was inside had really wanted out. Luckily no one came by then and he managed to clean it up. No one else should be made to be sick just because he was.

He felt a little better as he found some shade beneath a tree and sat there for a few minutes to allow his body to calm. There was no air still, but the shade was more comforting than anything had been all day long. He put his hand over his heart. The tape seemed to be holding well in place he was re-assured and only sat in silence. He leaned his head back and tried to inhale a bit of air that seemed non-existent. “There’s only so much one can take.” He said quietly to the heat mostly as there was no one in hearing distance and sighed as it invaded every part of his body.

Looking up, he noticed the people walking back and forth in front of him. He noticed their blood slightly dripping. No one seemed to care that it did. He was sure they felt it – how could they not? But they did nothing about it. People didn’t care for such things as much in the city. He watched as they took the lead and let it fall right behind them – right where anyone could see if they looked. It wasn’t as horrible as the morning’s. It was a drop here, a drop there – the kind that had no choice but to fall where it may. One could not be expected to spend their day cleaning up the traces they’ve left behind, he thought. It wouldn’t have mattered to them either, he figured, if his was doing just the same. It was just that he felt his insides need not be displayed for everyone to see if one could help it. Maybe it was his parents’ traditionalism that unconsciously seeped into his way of thinking. He didn’t mind that his heart fell out, personally, but he could not allow his blood to drip so bluntly for all to see – not yet anyway.

The sun had somehow disappeared behind a sea of grayness as he sat there, unconscious of how long he’d been outside since it seemed to him he was incapable of any sort of movement. The heat seemed to have melted him into place. It was late afternoon according to his watch, but the clouds that had crept up from nowhere made night seem a more likely possibility if one threw logic aside.

If it had not been hot enough before, he believed that it was actually becoming worse as he began to unbutton the top half of his shirt and roll up his sleeves. It seemed to make no difference that a bit of his sealed heart may be revealed. It was just too hot! The air was imprisoning him into a stuffy corner, where had he been the least bit claustrophobic – he would have simply gone mad, he truly felt. It was far more suffocating than anything he’d felt in his life. And just when he thought the world was sure to burst if anything in that instant, a drop of warm water touched his forehead. And then another, and then another until all that was heard was a loud tapping on the ground that eventually drenched him and everyone else around.

No one really moved as people often maneuvered in reaction to the rain – in an attempt to find cover from it. They welcomed it any more gladly as the clouds rid themselves of all that they could not possibly contain and offered the steaming bodies below a chance to cool down. He was the only one, he felt, who had not yet allowed his heart the freedom to drip when the now soaked tape and tissues could not hold it in any longer. He was the only one that still hung onto that which had snowballed into something that not only needed to drip, but to burst and splatter anything in sight. It would have come apart all on its own, if he waited, but he could not any longer.

He reached into his shirt, pulled at the strip of tape and grabbed his hot and sticky heart with all his might. He tossed it out in front of him and watched as the water soaked it clean. And as he sat there with it out in front of him and a hole in his chest for all to see – the rain continued to fall.

Let Me Pretend

“Your daughter told me she was probably meant to be a tree.” Niri’s sister said in her matter-of-fact sort of way. Niri heard, but said nothing.

It was morning, a still one, that felt like the way a body turned calm after a horrendous episode of tears. It was sunny, the kind of sun that taunted a person when they imagined their death—saying everything would carry on just the same whether you were here or not. The kind that reminded all that lay between the earth and the sun’s rays that they were merely fleeting, and stuck its tongue out to mock their silly mortality.

“Saidi? She's doing okay I think,” Niri stated, so mechanically one could almost assume her voice was initiated by a “speak” button on a remote control. She wasn’t very old, but her face was worn down in a way that showed she’d been crying—not today perhaps, but the consecutive few preceding it.

She turned to her sister, suddenly, the way people turn when someone taps them on the shoulder. The two shared such a striking resemblance that it was almost depressing to see how unimaginative their parents’ genes had been in the procreation process.

“I know she said that,” Niri continued, “that whole thing about being a tree. “She paused as her eyes quietly blanketed themselves with a layer of water.  “It’s just that she has a hard time dealing with all this life business, you know? She just said pretending to be a tree is the only time she feels alive.”

“I’m worried about her, regardless of what anyone says. I really am, but I don’t want to stifle her imagination.” Niri continued, feeling that quiet need to justify herself.

“What are you talking about? Stifling her imagination?  You’re starting to sound like a

hippie, you know that?”

“So?”

“So, your daughter’s been standing in the courtyard pretending to be a tree while the rest of the kids are playing basketball or something.  You know I love her just as much as you do, but it’s just not normal behavior, Niri. And that stunt she pulled…my God! You know, the counselors have a point.”

“That was blown out of proportion,” Niri said. “She didn’t really try to kill herself. She just wasn’t paying attention, that’s all. She can get lost in her own head. You know how she is. I was the same way when I was her age.”

“Don’t be so naive, Niri. You’d have to be in one hell of a daze to thrust yourself into a busy street. I mean, luckily the driver was paying a little attention, but I’m sorry Niri, I just don’t believe her.”

“She’s going through a lot these days. It’s not easy for her.”

“Don’t think you’re doing her any favors the way you’re dealing with it. I think the school’s right to interfere.”The room grew silent as the sun warmed its way even further through the windows and split the couch into two shades of blue. Footsteps tumbled down the stairs like an unsteady drum roll growing closer and closer until they stopped.

“Just drop it for now, OK?” Niri whispered, as her daughter made her way into the room. 

“I think I live for the weekend,” Saidi exclaimed as she stumbled in, in her wrinkled pajamas. Her ruffled head of brown hair, if combed out, would turn pleasantly straight and hang nicely off her shoulders. She flopped herself on the love seat and let her legs fall over the side. Her eyes instantly sunk into the vertical line that separated one shade from the other on the blue couch.

“Good morning, sweetie. Did you sleep well?” her mother asked.

“I guess... I don’t remember really,” Saidi smiled. “So, I must’ve.”

“What were you reading last night?” her aunt quickly asked, before Saidi’s eyes fell further into the couch, to be lost forever. “You were so consumed. If there had been an earthquake you probably wouldn’t have even noticed.” She let out a laugh that sounded more like a big truck stopping than anything that might have resembled amusement.

Saidi looked up, stared at her for a second and, as if trying to recall an answer on a test, finally remembered and opened her mouth to speak.

“The Bell Jar.”

Her aunt raised her eyebrows and sighed. “Isn’t that your mother’s?” she asked, turning her head to Niri to further impose her disapproval of the pair’s disturbed choice in literature.

“Yeah. I borrowed it from her library.” She paused for a second and raised her eyes towards the ceiling, searching for the invisible one who would tell her just what she wanted to remember. She found him as he whispered it softly into her ear, “You even underlined the same lines that got to me.” She turned her head towards her mother and smiled at their similarity.

“I read it so long ago.” Niri dug her eyes into the rug on the floor, trying to see through it and all the way to the core of the Earth with her newly found super powers.

“I just love her descriptions!” Saidi quoted:

She stared at her reflection in the glossed shop windows as if to make sure, moment by moment, she continued to exist.

She’d spent her night weighing the words down on her tongue and tattooing them into her memory, to be a mark on her mind forever.

Every time I tried to concentrate, my mind glided off, like a skater, into a large empty space and pirouetted there, absently.

“I don’t think I’ve understood anything so well,” Saidi said.  Her eyes gleamed, until her aunt spoke again and extinguished them like water over a dying flame.

“Didn’t she kill herself? Come on! Why would you want to read something like that when you know what eventually came out of it?” 

“Because it’s real!” Saidi quickly said, defending the right of madness on paper for all those who have circled it, but dared not step any further than the words themselves. “And that’s not the point!” She was growing furious with her aunt’s lack of understanding for beautifully written truth.

Niri was quiet. She stared at her daughter and smiled. Saidi always said exactly what Niri felt but dared not say herself. 

“I guess I’m just too ignorant to get the point then,” Saidi’s aunt stated mockingly, as if she were the only sane person in the room. She got up and walked towards the kitchen.

Saidi sighed. “She just doesn’t get it, does she mom?”

“No, sweetie, I guess not. She loves you though…” Niri smiled as she surrendered herself to her maternal heart and accepted that this person that was a product of her. “You know, people are just different.”

“But you don’t think I’m a suicidal nut like she does.” Saidi grew quiet for a moment, her thoughts fumbling around for an explanation for it all inside her. “I just have a hard time focusing, mom. I really do…”

“I know, I know, sweetie… You don’t have to justify anything to me.” She watched Saidi for a moment, trying to find the words that would reassure her daughter that everything will be just fine – whether she herself believed it or not. “People tend to feel threatened when you’re not what they want you to be. It’s just the way they are.”

“What about the way I am?” Saidi sighed.

 “I guess you just have to find your way around it.”

“How do you do it, mom?”

“I just pretend, sweetie.” She smiled. “That’s all. I just pretend.”