The following is an unpublished piece of fiction I wrote for a project I've since shelved. Enjoy.
In many ways I am drawn to just how much trouble I have with
the infinite, or maybe not the trouble I have with it but the trouble it dredges
in me when I want so much for there to be nothing beyond me, beyond the way my
hands are shaking, beyond the sting of the burns on my fingertips where the gas
I poured on her trailer splashed on my hands and the flame from the match I lit
caught more than just the trailer on fire and after I was able to put my hands
out by driving them into the loose snake’s home desert sand that’s stuck in
everything I own after three months out in the Anza staring up into the stars that make it
impossible to feel limits anywhere when
that’s all I want; just limits that make boundaries that make recognizable
spaces out of my days and decisions (because they’re all decisions, all free
will, all choice even when we aren’t making them for ourselves) but the limits
are crushed when I look at the stars and the closest I come to praying is to
beg out loud to anything that’s out there show me where the walls of existence
are because maybe just maybe there are none and maybe just maybe what I see
when I look into the flames of the trailer from just outside the circle of
orange they create, the trailer she let me stay in for free and probably out of
some kind of guilt, what I see is just how limitless it all is in how the flames rise up
toward the pinholes of starlight that choke the blackness that would have been
comforting without their whiteness and what really crushes me is how much space
there is between the tips of the fingers of fire I made and the edges of
atmosphere tainted with starlight and I’m about to turn away and walk into the
darkness of the desert with my eyes down so I won’t have to look at it all
anymore when I hear her car pull up in the squeal of brakes she knows she needs
to fix but can’t afford to and before the car has completely stopped moving she
is out of her seat and walking toward the metal box home that is now folding in
on itself, the weight of its walls and the speed of the burning pulling it in
on itself like a collapsed star turned black hole and I realize that I have
backed up at least a dozen steps to make sure I am covered in the darkness and
then I watch as she stops a short way from it all, probably at just the point
where the heat of the flames and the uselessness of their reach pushes her back
and for a minute or probably more she just stands with her back to me and I
paint the expression she must be wearing on her face in my mind and then she
begins spinning slowly, a wailing noise coming from her mouth and when she has
turned to face where she can’t see me standing peace fills me for the first
time because her face is wrapped in a mask of pain that looks like no movie
I’ve ever seen and no description I’ve ever read or could ever write and I feel
finite in the moment.
I do not hate her. I love her, more now
because of how much this hurts her.
5 comments:
I wasn't going to read this because it looked taxing. I skipped to the end and read the last sentence, then said, "Crap, I gotta read this now." I'm very glad I read it all the way through! It flowed so easily and I read it with the powerful voice of a student who recited a spoken word poem for us today in much of the same style.
Anyway, this is fantastic and I feel the need to say THANK you :)
You're welcome ONEder Woman. Glad it resonated with you.
I'm not even out of breath or wondering whether I should be. Fantastic.
Not out of breath, Bryson? You must be in training. Thanks.
I love this unfinished story. Actually, there are other scenes I like more than this one. But this one's pretty good ;)
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