Aloft and Adrift Over Linoleum

Tendrils of light curled around my toes as I was lifted above the linoleum. Was I ill with a fever? I don’t think so. Was this a true memory or another idea planted over time to bloom when I looked back at my childhood? Not sure. But there it lingers.

Waiting to introduce the next performer in my homemade talent show, I tried to hold on to the refrigerator handle but ended up only grasping air. Pockets of panic were swallowed, making unmistakable bubbles of joy in their wake. I couldn’t breathe normally; it was like how I imagine breathing through gills would be. My body took in air as I took flight but my mouth was frozen in an open “aaahhh.” Not “argh” like a pirate, but more of a doctor asking you to say “ah.”

I digress. I probably will again.

The incandescence of that early afternoon still dwells on the tip of my memory like a morsel to be savored, rolled around in the mind until it makes sense and is palatable. It was spring, when trees shared their early greens and when flowers first peeked out of the ground. The smells of baking cookies and musty books pervaded my childhood. Mine was a theatre bedecked with scratched mirrors, cracked paint, hand-me-down clothes, crayons, dancing, and tooth fairies. There was laughter through the dust my toes kicked up under the swing. On this day, there was a smile and real wonder on my face as I floated in the kitchen.

I remember trying to blink repeatedly to even out the optical illusory effect of the floor’s pattern so my eyes wouldn’t lie to my brain about being four feet off the ground. But there was nothing for it except to accept I was hovering with my family ensconced with their feet firmly on the ground in the next room.

I could hear their happy murmuring. I wanted to fly to them but I seemed to be stuck there in mid-air with my fingertips grazing the dusty top of the fridge. I couldn’t, wouldn’t call out. I was afraid I would fall if I upset the balance by speaking and shifting the air around me. Or something like that. I was very young. I recall not wanting to come down, looking down and getting dizzy. But I realized I couldn’t stay in the air, in limbo. Nothing I needed was there. But the people in the next room didn’t miss me or come looking for me even though it felt alarmingly like I had been floating for hours (of course, in a child-like mixture of terror and curious joy, it was probably only minutes or even seconds).

I was left adrift.

Everyone had gone to the living room to watch TV while I prepared the next act. There had been laughter and joking and role-playing and singing as I emceed my show. All that faded as my family left the room and I felt myself leave the ground. As I spent a lot of time alone as a child, there were plenty flights-of-fancy to be found. So many of my stories and songs and pictures and creations littered my room, I can still recall the pride I felt when something I made was selected to be hung on the fridge. But this day burns in my memory like something real and not a dream.

Though I have always had very vivid daydreams. With castles and fairies and talking trees. My dreams have not diminished in my middle age. I just find fewer people find them endearing so I keep them mostly to myself.

I was left with my toes being kissed by sunlight streaming in the kitchen window. I landed very gently back on my feet, falling wobbly and confused but oh so happy.

“When I was a child, I had a fever. My hands felt just like two balloons. Now I’ve got that feeling once again, I can’t explain, you would not understand this is not how I am. I have become comfortably numb.” — Pink Floyd

May 20, 2013 0

Will the Magic Be Gone?

They moved together restlessly
She with hesitation
He with impatience
She knew things he did not
He understood things she never would
Exploring, guiding, testing, discovering, tensing, releasing, breathing
He reached, touched
Her body smiled
He understood the where and when, cause and effect
Like a scientist mixing vital chemicals creating a reaction
She was carried on a wave
Despite herself
Despite what she knew, how it would end
He moved in ferocious tempo
Moved to unveil secrets
She stopped with
“Will the magic be gone?”
Hesitation, empty platitudes.
“When you see me, the magic will go ”
He created a new wave
She let herself be distracted
Closed her eyes.
Let go.
As he looked, she dissolved into warm light.
She was gone.
He was grasping at shadows and light
She could see, not feel
He could touch but not see
Too far apart
Dimensions to cross
She knew this world of illusion
He understood transience of flesh
They moved slowly
To find a way either back or somewhere else
She with patience
He with disbelief
Exploring, reaching, holding, tasting, hoping, being.

May 20, 2013 0

We Have Our Orders

“Schnapps, please,” she told the bartender. She took the drink and in a precious few minutes, turned back for another. The formerly vacant seat at the bar by her was now filled with a large man. He looked like he was mostly legs. She could not see his face as he was turned away, watching a game of billiards.
“Another schnapps, please,” she ordered. The man next to her turned and looked at the bartender. “I’ll have one, too,” he said.
“With your coffee?” asked the bartender?
“Sure. Why not,” the man smiled as he turned his head slightly to look at her.
She could not help but stare at him. Not conventionally handsome, there was something oddly compelling and familiar about his face.
“The shop by the Canteen,” he said.
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“That’s where I’ve seen you,” he said. “The book shop by the bar on South Street. You like biographies, right?”
“And you like the travel section.”
He laughed, surprisingly a lighter tone than she expected and she somehow she felt lighter too.
His eyes stayed smiling even after he had stopped and he said a bit more serious in tone, “I don’t like to travel really. I’m just trying to do my homework, that’s all.”
She noticed he was at least her age and she was fast approaching 30. Homework? Her confusion must have shown on her face because when he looked at her again, his smile went from his eyes to his mouth again and he explained that he was awaiting orders to be sent overseas for work. Could be England or Switzerland or Turkey.
She said she would give a lot to be able to travel outside of her little office. Before she knew it, she was describing the trapped feeling she had been carrying around for the past year or so. How she imagined all sorts of adventures when she looked at the faces of other subway riders on the way to work in the morning. How tired she felt at the end of a long week of pretense and denial and plastering fake smiles for the rest of the world while her heart broke a little every day knowing she wasn’t living the full life she could be.
She took a deep breath. Where had all that come from? She had thought she was content. Except for some niggling feeling of anticipation that something was coming. She had started feeling it the summer before. But here, at the end of winter, with the first warm breath of spring breathing new life into the city, she thought she was content. But she realized she had been only fooling herself.
“Hello. Where did you go there?” he asked.
She had forgotten she had been pouring her strife out to him. She had forgotten herself. She sat quietly, looking at him, hoping her hopelessness was again tamped down in her face. He seemed to sense she was at a loss for something so he did the only thing he could think of.
“Dance with me,” he said. There was a bluegrass band playing some blues. It was nice. They were an odd match on the floor but they fit like laughter at a funeral.
The evening passed with schnapps and bluegrass and laughter. As the bartender was putting up the last of the clean glassware and turning out the lights, the man leaned forward on the bar stool and kissed her gently, slowly. When he sat back to look at her, he was pleased to see her open her eyes with great effort. A spell that didn’t want to be broken.
“Here’s what I want for you,” he said to her. “Do something that really makes you happy. You’re the only one stopping you.”
She laughed then. Lightly. Not wanting the spell to be broken. “I guess we all have our orders,” she said.

May 17, 2013 0

The Mother I’d Like to Be

She planted jelly beans and licorice in hopes of growing her own candy-land. She read the back of cereal boxes as bed-time stories and made adventures out of nutritional information. She hung artwork framed by hula-hoops. She only drank water from the hose. Her wig was always worn askew. On purpose. She reveled in the stories of her youth, but only ones that were entirely fictional and involved unicorns and rainbows and cloud cities. Her favorite game to play with her children was leap-frog but when she played, she pretended she was a tadpole. She crafted makeup from flowers and Kool-Aid. When she was feeling a little too good, she would close her eyes, rock violently in a rocking chair for hours until she felt good and sea-sick. Her bed was a custom-made large matchbox, complete with a striker. She took a two-hour siesta every afternoon and wrote her best stories after awakening. Her house was lit by hoards of fireflies that happily supplied their light. Her children never wanted for hugs and kisses because her love for them was as boundless as her appetite for old movies and off-color jokes and brownie-filled doughnuts.

May 12, 2013 0

Stay Hungry

So hungry. She put her sunglasses on and adjusted her cap as she walked across the parking lot. She chose a large shopping cart and headed into the grocery store. She could still taste her last meal on her tongue… a little salty. Mmmm. Maybe something sweet would be nice now. Something small. A little morsel. She turned down the candy aisle. There was a little girl picking out a bag of lollipops. That looked good. She was young, tender. Her parents were nowhere in sight.

No! Not in the middle of the afternoon! She couldn’t do this again!

She took a bag of marshmallows, smiled at the girl and kept walking. She felt herself growing warm with anger, thankful to still feel something. That meant the change was not complete yet. Damn him! Here she was, stuck in this small town, lured by his charm. The few nights they spent together, the “love bites” she still word under her turtleneck, all were still fresh and where was he? What was he for that matter? She needed answers. Her afternoons at the library had not turned up much; just some fables and fairy tales involving the undead. But she felt so alive! How could she be dying? Colors were brighter, taste tangier; smells were sharper, sounds clearer, touch, more intense. Other than being cold all the time, she felt very much alive, in a heightened sense, like the time she tried smoking dope in college.

She took off her glasses and turned into the aisle with chips and pretzels. Maybe people would see her bloodshot eyes and just think she was stoned and not a zombie shopping for a snack.

Don’t look at me and judge my choices, she thought as she put several bags of chips in the cart on top of the cases of soda. We all have to survive. She hurried past the fish and poultry and honed in on the smell of blood. The butcher was grinding some meat behind the counter. She stood there a little too long, feeling the drool pooling in her mouth. God, that smells good, she thought. I’m so damn hungry!

Throwing some fresh meat in her cart, she walked past the pharmacy, bumping into an old man with a cane. So easy, she thought. He was slow, seemed confused. Ah, but he weighed nothing. Not very nourishing. No! Not here at the grocery store! But where? Where else could she shop for the food she most wanted? Where else could she go without people judging her choices?

She drove the car loaded with sugar and salty snacks and drove to the old trailer outside of town. Maybe he’d come back today. Maybe he could help her or at least explain what was happening to her. Yeah, and maybe she’d finally have a good hair day. Or maybe her mother would stop trying to set her up with friends’ single sons.

She was putting the last of the food away when he walked in the door, dragging a cooler on the ground. He was smiling and looking a little less grey than when she had last seen him. He smiled at her and said “Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas.” Then he opened the cooler, which she then noticed had a hospital logo printed on its side. Oooooh, God. The smell was even better than a Thanksgiving dinner.

Blood, marrow, brains… he had brought her the world. Better than diamonds.