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passing time
May 10, 2007
so, a couple of things. right now, i'm just poking around, trying to see what has survived. recent events aside, some things got lost along the way, and now that other things are gone, and i need and want to return to those parts of me that i once believed were the best parts of me, i question if they're still there, if i can get them back, if they were ever really there at all.
so, for now, this space is going to be a scratchpad. i'll just write, and it may be dull and arcane, but it's the best way for me, personally, to do this. some of you have some really boring jobs, or none at all, though, so, hey, feel free to keep reading.
as for this bit, this is from sunday night. the faux third person is so transparent as to bore even the most novice armchair psychologist, but it just was easier that way, at the time.
and as for how this from sunday night describes me now, on thursday night... it comes and it goes.
his mouth stung on the rim of the glass, and the faint sheen of lemon oil on the surface of the iced tea broke like a tiny wave against his upper lip, insuring that the point was made.
he looked at the glass, inspecting it as he inspected his lip with the tip of his tongue. of course, the glass was not glass at all, but plastic, the rim well-beaten and notched, but nonetheless not to blame for the tangy sense of a cut he tasted on his lip.
he had shaven at 7:59pm on this, a saturday night, immediiately prior to an hour and a half of aimless spider solitaire on the computer. he was hungry, but the cards glowed their impersonal virtual challenge to him. the game itself meant nothing to him, which gave them no less meaning as anything else at the moment. 25 wins, 166 losses. the computer kept statistics, but he only cared about the game before him at the time. he had to play until he won, and when he won, he clicked "yes" to start a new game, wondering if he could possibly win two in a row. if he didn't, which of course was almost always the case, he had to play until he won again, starting the whole cycle over again. when he did lose, he would usually restart the same game, to see if somewhere along the way, he might catch something he had missed, or just luck into a useful card with a different choice. just one different choice, just one turn of luck, and maybe...
he had emerged from the shower at 7:56pm, for the first time since friday. ok, maybe thursday. before the shower, he had leaned over the edge of the tub with the clippers and shaved his head with the .13 inch guard. small, fuzzy caterpillars fell from the slicing teeth as they skimmed the ridges and dove into the shallows of his scalp.
his cat sat and watched. the cat had been content to sleep the weekend away with his friend, only rousing him twice with light, cautious taps of a small paw on his cheek.
the afternoon before the shaving and showering and the arrival of the tangy-tasting nick on his upper lip would, in a film, have been represented by sproadic flashes of dreamt images and blurred light and noise, interspersed by great expanses of darkness. he had slept a determined sleep until 4:27pm, preferring oblivion and the risk of glimpsed dreams to the very different oblivion of another day.
before that, at 11:12, he had woken long enough to call his parents. he tried to sound awake (and failed), and he tried to sound like everything was ok (again, he failed, but his parents were satisfied by the bits of information he gave them, and remained happily oblivious of the entire truth).
and before all of that, he had given up at the break of dawn, returning to the bed and the sleep he had surrendered at 7:34pm on saturday night. and before that, more sleep, more scattered, unremembered dreams that only left the feel of uneasiness. there had also been the early-morning headache born of dehydration, born, in turn, of the collision of mania and most of a 24-pack of lone star, and two white russians, all flowing down with surprising rapidity, downstream against the upward surge of manic, often disjointed stream of consciousness erupting from him throughout friday night.
and before that... before that, tears. tears when he ran, tears watching sitcoms, watching a movie, sitting on the couch and watching the leaves wave slowly and quietly to no one in particular, tears watching the weakening struggle, the long falling action after the climax that that seemed maybe, finally, to be the end.
another sip of tea, and again, the sting.
he really needed a straw.
Posted by Rob at May 10, 2007 07:31 PM
Comments
Straws Rule! I hope there were some fun moments throughout that case of lone star?
Posted by: Amy at May 13, 2007 08:51 AM
Love the post. Most excellent.
Posted by: Jori at May 21, 2007 02:49 PM