Exploration

Where are the secrets:

The secrets for me?

Where I’ve never been

There do they be.

It doesn’t much matter

If someone’s been there before,

If I’ve never seen them

They’re wonders galore.

I’d much prefer danger

And treasure; intrigue!

But I’ll settle for furniture

Desks and latrines.

Cause the world’s out of magic

It’s retired, it’s done.

What’s left: occupied spaces

Owned property: it’s succumbed.

I’ve never been much

For putting my life on the line,

Or getting arrested,

Or accruing a fine.

So I’ll settle I guess

For new places to me,

Guess to make my own magic

I must learn to see.

Hide-And-Seek

            They all filed out of the church; women in long smart dresses with feathers in their hats, and men in dark clean suits. They crowded out the doors into the hot sun in couples and families, talking politely with their heels crunching methodically on the dirt roads home. Squeezing between a young woman’s soft blue skirts and the doorframe, hurried a young boy in overalls and a grimy maroon shirt. He skipped to the sidewalk and seeing a large branch on the ground, he scooped it up and went on his merry way, tapping and whacking the fence posts and bushes as he went. The congregations disapproving eyes followed the boy as he headed home in a different direction from the rest of them.

            As usual, the rambunctious young boy had hidden crouched in the back of the church, listening to what the pastor’s sermon was about and fidgeting loudly with a hymnal and Bible. He served as a constant distraction to the last three rows of pews, but week after week he had been showing up to hear what the pastor had to say. Something fascinated him about the church setting: the building so much bigger than his home, the people dressed so different from his family and the words spoken, so foreign compared to the conversation he heard between the workers on his father’s farm.

            As he danced away from the church, oblivious to the opinions of the others, he thought about what the pastor had said in the church. The boy had only begun putting together his concept of God for a couple months now, and his thoughts worked hard to assimilate what the pastor had said today with everything he’d been hearing on previous Sundays. The pastor had talked about how we can’t see God, but if we seek him, than we’ll find him. The young boy pondered this concept as he hopped along. He began to work through the problem aloud. “How am I supposed to find a God I can’t see?” he asked no one in particular, bopping a pink flamingo on the head. The boy had played many a game of hide and seek, and considered himself quite proficient at finding hidden things, and so he found the prospect of this game with God enticing.

            “Challenge accepted,” he said with feeling.

            He began to search: behind rocks and underneath pots. He stood on his tip toes to glance at the rooftops and jumped around corners to catch Him by surprise. After looking over the side of a woman’s fence, a rustling in her hedge startled him from his search. He flinched away from the long hedge, looking to see what was there. He could hear the rustling of wings coming from inside the branches, and as he continued walking, the bird continued to flutter through the twigs, speeding up to get away from him. The boy was curious: he looked hard, but still the bird eluded his sight. The rustling began to get away ahead of him and he picked up his pace, looking hard to find it, but all he could see were leaves and sticks.

            He caught up to the sound at the end of the long hedge, but it had gone silent. He leaned in, searching with his eyes. “I’m sure it was there!” He said to himself.

            “What was there?” came a voice from behind him. The boy jumped and turned to see who was there. A woman was standing on the sidewalk behind him with a gentle smile.

            “There was a bird,” he pointed into the hedge. The women curiously bent over to look into the hedge.

            “I don’t see it,” she said quizzically, leaning in further to get a better look.

            The boy rolled his eyes at her and with an exaggerated sigh said, “Well I could hear it and the bush was moving, so it was obviously there,” he replied, matter-of-factly. The woman laughed good naturedly, and the boy picked up an air of disbelieving courtesy in her tone as she nodded kindly and began continuing on her way.

            “Well good look finding your bird, son,” she chimed, and continued on.

            The boy felt seriously offended. How dare she treat him like a child. He began thinking her very unwise to not understand that you did not have to see something to know it’s there. The thought stopped him in his tracks. He looked back at the hedge and a birdsong high up in a tree came wafting down to him. He didn’t have to look to know the bird was there, interacting with the world, making hedges move and songs resound: showing its presence in the way it subtly changed the world around it. They boy gave up looking around corners and under pots on his way home. Instead he began to listen and smell and touch the world around him, curious in a new way about what he could learn by the impressions made by the things he could and could not see. 

Contact

Intro: my sister is five years older than me and has been writing since I was a kid. I've always read her stories with a sense of awe and felt a deep connection with the themes conveyed. She's been writing chapters for her story Contact for years, and after reading her latest chapter, when I sat down to write, this is what came out. 



* * *


       They were lying on the couch together: her with her back against his chest and him with his back against the armrest. They were eating triscuits out of a box sitting on her lap, talking about what had happened in their hours apart between the morning and evening, when he made a joke, and she chocked on a triscuit, and they both began to laugh: spurring each other on by the jolt of another body laughing against their own. Their secret is this: as he does the dishes with her hands wrapped around him to rest in his front pockets, and she’s eating breakfast with her toes discretely tapping his under the table, and they’re innocently laughing body to body on a couch, they’re living out the true meaning of existing as one flesh with another human being: contact. 

Man-made

I originally wrote this story my freshmen or sophomore year of high school for my creative writing class. I think we had to write a story that modeled the way an old myth would be told. I've lost the original since then and have repeatedly told it to friends, who have encouraged me to write it down. So here it is: it's not the same as it used to be, but the important parts are still there. Enjoy.

***

 There was once a man who lived deep, deep in the woods. He had lived there for many years and had not seen anyone since he was a small child. His mother had raised him in the wilderness but had gone away when he was very young: all his memory contained of her was a feeling of warmth and the soft sounds of laughter. He had been carving since he was a teenager. It started as him repairing the log cabin he had always lived in. As he needed new tools he began to make them, as he needed new furniture, he began to sculpt it.

            The man carved forks and spoons, tables and chairs. He soon had everything he needed and had begun to carve what he saw: birds and bears, flowers and trees, and over time he had carved every plant and every animal many times over. He needed a new challenge, so he carved a river and then he carved the wind. He carved the stars in the night sky and the sun that shone in the day. He carved the flight of the bumblebee and the slow and steady rise of smoke from a warming fire. The man was a master at his craft and after many, many years he found that there was nothing that he could not create.

            He pondered one night: what could be the most challenging and impossible object to carve. Would it be something that flowed or floated, a sound that swam in the wind, or a smell that brought back memories? Then it came to him: he would carve the human soul.

            The man chopped down a tall tree, cut out a portion, and began to carve. He worked day and night, neither eating nor sleeping. He took out large chunks and chiseled fine details, he scraped away at edges and gouged out angles. After several days and nights of meticulous work the man put down his mallet and chisel and stepped back to observe his work. Having never seen but one, and having no memory of even she, he had unwittingly carved a woman. He stumbled to his bed and lost consciousness, too exhausted and starving to go on.

            It was a long time before the man woke up. When he opened his eyes he realized he was tucked into his bed. He did not remember getting beneath his covers. He looked over at his fireplace where a fire was burning, warming up the cabin and cooking something that smelled delicious over its flames. The man pushed the blankets off of him and walked to the fire. He took the large wooden spoon and stirred the stew that was simmering over the fire, taking a sip of it: even if he hadn’t been starving he would have appreciated the taste. Just then the door to the cabin opened. He looked up.

            In walked his carving: his perfect sculpture of the soul was smiling with red lips and tan skin. She was walking and moving and living before his very eyes. She was dressed in his clothes and talking to him as she crossed the room to stand next to him. She smiled.

            “What?” he croaked.

            “Sit down and I’ll get you some stew,” she repeated. She pulled out a chair at the table and he sat down in it hard. He watched her as she filled two bowls and set one in front of him and one in front of herself. They ate in silence and he could not take his eyes off her. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. It was a long time before he was able to speak.

            “How does it taste?” She asked.

            “Good.” He answered. He stared at her long blond hair. “Thank you.” He added.

            Life went on after his soul came to life. The woman joined him outside to hunt, trap, and do all the chores of everyday living. A few days passed, and the more he watched her, the more uncomfortable he grew. She was gorgeous. The most perfect thing he had ever seen. She shouldn’t have to work outside, sweating and straining like him. One morning when she dressed in his clothes and went to join him outside, he told her to stay inside where it warmer and she wouldn’t have to exert herself. She told him it was okay, she didn’t mind the work, but he wouldn’t hear it.

            The woman made the cabin immaculately clean. She organized and cooked so that the man always had a warm meal when he needed one and could find everything he needed in a timely fashion. One day as they sat eating dinner together, the man observed the woman in his old rugged clothes. They were baggy and bland compared to her smooth skin and her bright eyes.

            The next morning he began carving again. He chiseled many dresses in flattering styles: slicing the wood so thin that it was like fabric hanging over her frame. She thanked him adamantly, telling him how beautiful the gifts were, but he still was not satisfied. He worked much harder than normal for several days, stock piling extra food and wood. Then he told her:

            “You deserve much more than this. I’ve carved with the wood here in these woods for years, but you deserve much more extravagance than what these mountains and forests can offer you.” He left the next morning on a long journey. The woman waited patiently in the cabin for many weeks, keeping everything clean and in good working order for the man when he returned. When he finally came back she rejoiced at his returning, and he proudly presented her with what he had found. He had brought back exotic stones and jewels, and having carved them into all manner of rings, necklaces, and earrings, he presented them to her as gifts. She told him they were beautiful.

            The woman stayed inside, a vision of beauty and extravagance; clean, warm, and dressed in gowns and jewelry of a kind indescribable. Every day the man came back from his long hours working outdoors and ate dinner with her. He was infatuated. But there was still something wrong. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. She was pristine, stunning, magnificent. She was a vision of perfection. A reflection of heaven. A goddess.

            It struck him, with his spoon halfway to his mouth, and she looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to finish the bite as the broth dripped off the spoon.

            “I know,” he told her. “I know what I need to do. You are everything. You are spectacular and inspiring. You are gorgeous and perfect. You are as immaculate and eternal as a goddess, and that is what I will make you!”

            She reached out to try and stop him, but it was too late. He was already up and out the door. It wasn’t long before he came back with a large, ornate pair of carved wings. He placed them on her back and instantly they took form. She stretched out her shoulders, and flung wide the new white feathers. The man stumbled back, in awe of her glory. She turned from him and ran from the cabin, and he followed her outside. Glowing in the sun, she looked at him squarely.

            “All I ever wanted was to live my days next to you! To work hard with you; to experience life with you! But you kept me inside and shielded me from your world. You left me waiting for you and simply admired what you could see. But you made me to be more than a body and more than what the eye can take in. The only gift I wanted was your love, but even that you traded in for lavish trinkets and clothes. You made me a soul, a woman, and now a goddess. So that is what I’ll be!”

            The man watched in horror as she beat her wings powerfully against the air, and flew up and away into the sky. He stayed kneeling in the dirt for a long time. He lived the rest of his life alone, never forgetting his goddess and forever yearning after her beauty. 

Hallelujah

The following eight parts make up the story "Hallelujah." After listening to the song "Samson" by Regina Spektor and every rendition of the song "Hallelujah" for years, I had formed my own picture of what happened between Samson and Delilah, and decided to write it down. I realize it doesn't follow the Biblical account, but it's based on a true story, so this seems to be a welcome place for it. It's set in modern day, or something like it, and I did my best to paint them in a modern light and make who they were back in the day, what they would be considered now. It's not done, and it may change, but this is what it is after five months. Quotes are from "Samson" by Regina Spektor, "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, and the book of Judges from the Hebrew Bible, the New American Standard Bible translation.

Enjoy. 

Chapter 1 - Outrdrawn

“Maybe there’s a God above,

but all I ever learned from love,

was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.”

            She looks in the mirror before she leaves. She blinks slowly underneath thick mascara and eye shadow. She looks at her thin bare arms, at the bones in her chest and her thin clothes. She gives her ankle a few twists and a small stomp to place her heel in just the right location. She swallows, she takes a deep breath, she adjusts her breasts and pulls her shirt down a little lower. She gives herself a knowing smile in the mirror, throws herself a wink, and flounces out the door.

            He looks in the mirror before he leaves. He looks at his dead eyes, the downward curve of his lips, and his unkempt hair. It’s grown long and dreaded in the time he’s stayed in his apartment. He is impartial to his plain t-shirt and his plain jeans. He is impartial to the garbage heap that his home has become. He is impartial to where he will end up. He does not plan on coming back, he does not plan on how to get where he’s going. He does not plan on smiling. Ever again.

Chapter 2 - First

           "You are my sweetest downfall.

            I loved you first."

             He was standing at the bus stop with a twenty-dollar bill in his pocket and four hundred miles of road behind him, when a small woman walked over to stand next to him. She pulled out a cigarette, lit it with a careless ease, and she looked over at him as she waved the smoke from her face.

            “Do you mind if I smoke?” She asked. He turned his head toward her and observed her top to bottom then back up. She raised an eyebrow at him.

            “I don’t mind.” He told her and looked back at the road. The evening was gray and cold, taxi cabs rolled by them in a hurry, and she kept her eyes on him and breathed in heavily on her cigarette. She smiled.

            “What’s your name, stranger?” Her voice was deep and alluring and he hated her instantly, but he answered nonetheless.

            “Samson.” He stared at the road.

            She sighed heavily and shifted her weight to her other hip.

            “Samson, there seems to be something on your mind.” His face took on hard anger and she leaned into his line of vision, “And it has nothing to do with my suggestively displayed bosom. Come,” she gestured and walked behind him, “step into my office. I promise I’ll sit a good three feet from you.” She chuckled to herself and walked into the bus stop enclosure. He didn’t move. The air bit a little and she didn’t say anything else.

            He watched the busses and the oily water they splashed up as they went by. He saw the low light reflecting off the metal buildings and smelled the smog in the air. The minutes droned on and his anger began to ebb into exhaustion. He glanced down, then walked into the bus enclosure and sat down. The woman looked at him.

            “Cigarette?”

            “No.” He responded. There was a long silence as she observed him.

            “I’m Delilah.” She said boisterously, leaning toward him from a good three feet of promised space away. “What do you think of me, Samson?” He considered her high heels and her low top. He considered her black eyes and the smoke wafting his direction from her lips. He considered the women he had put stock in to be mature and loving, to be good and honest and he made his assessment. He looked her direction.

            “I think you’re as good a lady I’ve ever seen.” She looked at him very still and without smiling; her demeanor had dropped. So had his. A solemn moment had passed between them and all honesty was trusted to ensue.

            “Buy me a drink.” She demanded calmly.

            “Where’s the nearest liquor store?” She looked at him unsure. “We’ll take it to go.” The edges of her mouth curled up and she laughed out loud as she stood up and gestured for him to follow. A large bus pulled up and made a ruckus of coming to a complete stop. Exhaust poured out the back and the doors opened. He stood and looked at her.

            “Was there somewhere you were going to go?” He asked. She shook her head at him casually.

            “Nope.” She replied. 

Chapter 3 - Red

“Samson came to my bed,

told me that my hair was red,

told me I was beautiful and came into my bed.”

            Honesty is a tricky thing. It seems so hard at first. It seems nigh impossible when you’re looking into the face of someone you are sure is a real human and not a creature like yourself. But the truth always comes out that you’re both creatures, more than likely of the same kind, and then honesty becomes intoxicatingly easy. Even easier with liquid encouragement.

           

            He learned why she wore a diamond and a band on her right hand. She learned why he never took off his cross necklace. He discovered that her favorite meal is breakfast, she’s a flaming liberal, and a painter. She discovered his love for the outdoors, cooking, and history. He told her his former fiancé had cheated on him and married his best friend. She told him she’d been a dancer since she was fifteen. He learned the placement of her birthmarks. She learned the locations of his scars.

            And in a silent moment he told her. He told her he would never love again. And he was never going to get over what had happened to him.

            She told him that was okay. She told him she had loved many before him and would love many again. 

Chapter 4 - Movement

“And remember when I moved in you,

the holy dove was moving too,

and every breath we drew was hallelujah.”

            Delilah was alive. That’s why he stayed with her. As he was fading away she seemed solid: solid enough to pull him back to reality. Her hips swung and her voice twanged: even in the morning. He soaked her in. Soaked in her life. She was over animated and put on an air of apathy that made him feel comfortable sitting and existing and slowly pulling himself back together from the recesses where he had been flung. She let him do that. And she nursed the life back into him simply by being.

            So he began to live too. Felt responsibility and empathy slowly burn their way back into his blood stream. He began to make dinner for her when she came home. He cleaned her apartment, fed the cat, and once he went out to get groceries in the evening without telling her and she beat him home. He came through the door and caught her standing silently in the middle of her bedroom. They looked at each other and her face was grave. He held up the grocery bags.

            “Just went to restock.” He said and stepped out of her line of sight into the kitchen. It happened so gradually that neither of them knew until it was too late. The sharing of life, the accepting of wrongs, the comfort of existing with another human being. She was all woman with him, and he was all man. He knew how she walked, how she showered, how she smoked, and how she laughed. He knew what made her grin, what pissed her off, and what she was willing to ignore.

            So he forgave her when she turned on him.

Chapter 5 - I Have To Go

“I have to go, I have to go. Your hair was long when we first met.”

            How do we get to these places? How do we get stuck between a rock and a hard place? You think back on the decisions that brought you to this point and you trace your steps back one by one. Didn’t want to go to college, worked at a coffee shop, upgraded to a bar at twenty-one, started taking online classes, bought a cat, learned to cook, bought a bus pass.

            You go to leave work like any other day and you’re not thinking about what happens outside your country: about world issues, and the big picture. The things that you read in the news and watch on TV seem very far away: like a fantasy. The terrorist and religious crusader in the paper? He makes you feel a stricter loyalty to your country, and if there was something you could do then of course you would do it, but a plan of attack doesn’t often cross your mind. What you’re really thinking about is what recipe you’re going to try to make tonight, if the litter box needs to be changed and what pocket you’ve left your keys in. Then one day you close up from work and a regular walks up to you and tells you they need you to go above and beyond.

            Samson had seemed like a fantasy and now she knew why: he was the man in the paper and on the news. He had told her that his God had given him unnatural strength, and she had brushed it off when he told her there was something he must never do in order to keep it. But now she believed him, and she would find out how to stop him.

            How do we wrestle our way out of these places? With silence. With blank eyes and a blank mind. With deep breaths that shake loose the truth from where every defense mechanism has been holding it down. With a cigarette. With anger, no answer, it’s not true, I never loved him anyway. I can’t do this. With tears that won’t come and a cold resolve. With much waiting. How could he? I know what I need to do. I will do what must be done. I am the kind of person that can do what must be done.


*

            She stood outside her apartment door. The smell of breakfast was wafting past its edges and she could not move—until finally she could and she unlocked the door and walked in. Samson stood in the kitchen in her apron cooking a late night breakfast and sneaking pieces of bacon to her cat crouched on the counter. She could not smile. Oh God, she couldn’t smile. He turned to her.

            “Hey sweetie.” She smiled. She walked to him and looked between him and the cat. He gave her the bacon and she walked to the dining room table.

            She had never planned on staying with him forever anyway.

Chapter 6 - Humility

“And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her,

"Seduce him, and see where his great strength lies,

and by what means we may overpower him,

that we may bind him to humble him.”

Judges 16:5

           

            He knew when she discovered who he was.

            He awoke one night and saw her, a silhouette of black against dark blue light, sitting cross-legged and slouched on the small round table by the window in their bedroom. She had it propped open and she breathed smoke silently through the screen cover between long slow swallows of alcohol. She was wearing her knee length bathrobe and her hand, with both cigarette and bottle, rested on her right knee. Long before he watched her casually slide her free hand across her cheek and wipe it on her robe, he knew.

           

            So he forgave her when she turned on him.

            He forgave her forceful attitude and conniving questions. He forgave her standing up for her country instead of him. He forgave her feelings of betrayal and anger, because he was angry too. Angry that he let himself go where he was certain he had never wanted to go again. But people never mean to stumble back into old habits and mostly they can’t help it, because it’s the human thing to do.

            And when he had played the game long enough, he told her. He told her the secret to his strength, this time for real, no more false leads and lies. He made it easy for her. He walked right into her trap and her plan, because he was too tired to pretend anymore:

Chapter 7 - Kitchen Chair

“She tied you to a kitchen chair,

she broke your thrown and she cut your hair,

and from your lips she drew the hallelujah.”

             Their eyes locked. This is the moment where the heart breaks. This is the moment where honesty equals love, and we do what we do with naked abandon, because we’re caught. We’re caught as we fall and we’re seen for what we are, and no amount of righteous judgment can stop us from being naked in the face of the unconditional. So she squeezed her fingers together and felt the dull scissors cut a lock of his hair and heard the silent slide of it gracing the floor. He felt his strength ebb away, and his chance for vengeance slide away with it.

            There was no breath. There was no movement. She looked into his calm and knowing eyes and the scissors slid from her fingers, their rust covered blades clamored on the floor, and he leaned forward against the ropes and kissed her.

            In the end she let him go, but he did not run. He took a slice of Wonderbread from the cupboard and picked up the dull scissors from the kitchen floor. He munched lazily on his snack as he placed the scissors nearby her on the nightstand, and fell asleep in her lap where she silently finished the job. The next morning stayed lazy, she went to work as usual in the evening, and when she came home he was gone. They had taken him as planned: a white envelope with money and a note remained as proof.

            But even for weeks afterward, her victory never tasted sweet.  

Chapter 8 - Wrong

“And even though it all went wrong,

stand before the Lord of Song,

with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah”

            She knew where they would take him and she could not let his shame be her glory. She had done what she needed to do for her country, now she would do what had to be done for his God: His good had eaten her down to skin and bones and she knew how to make it right. So bribing and winking her way through the hoops, she made arrangements for getting to him.

            When she saw him, she felt her limbs turn to ice and she could not catch her breath. She had not anticipated what they would do to him once they had him. Emaciated and eyeless, he was strung up between two columns in the basement of the federal building, and through nausea and shame, she noted with satisfaction, the thin brown hair that was peeking up through his scalp. It was all the incentive she needed. No one would ever know how she had placed his hands on the foundations of the building, or how her hands on his are what gave her away.

            She did not run to him in the last moments and throw her arms around him as the building fell. He did not tell her that he forgave her. He did not tell her to leave and save herself. She did not tell him that she was sorry and that she really did love him. There were no words between them when he brought the columns down. There were no words that could fix what had been done. He was finishing what he had started, and she was paying for her crimes. And they knew that. And somewhere far away, the God that watched it all knew it too. And it was credited to him as a cold and broken, hallelujah. 

Coping

 "I felt the Lord begin, to peel off all my skin."

original by Grace Adams

words by Manchester Orchestra

Lightweight

Today I’m not a nurse.

Today, I’m not a runner.

Today I’m not a housemate,

I’m not a grown up,

I’m not a gardener.

Today I’ve never been in love.

And today I’ve never broken a bone,

or been confused,

or put myself second.

Today I have nowhere to be.

I have nowhere I’ve gone.

I have nowhere I’m going.

Today I am a very young girl.

And being alone in silence,

With the beginnings of a fading sun outside my bay window,

Seems simple, not lonely.

Seems fresh, not sour.

Today I have nothing on my agenda:

just to be.

4am.

Nothing is good enough:

Not at 4am.

Not when you’re tuning yourself off in favor of getting it done.

Not when the insurmountable tomorrow is what you know you’ll wake up to.

Nothing is good enough:

Not my body,

Not my brains,

Not my spirit,

Not my past,

My wits

My humor

My quality.

Nothing is good enough.

Not even you, anymore.

Not even sleep, at 4am, is good enough.

So as I lay me down to sleep,

I’ll hate you

Like I hate me

And I’ll hate every moment until I’m unconscious.

And when the alarm tears me awake in the morning,

I’ll realize that 4am is a very unholy place to be.

Dreams

         She awoke in the morning with the vague feeling of adventure and heartache. She rolled onto her stomach and breathed in heavily, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes and subsequently letting them slide through her hair. It was a clumsy attempt to remove it from her face, but her fingers caught in the tangles and she brushed it aside as the beginnings of one large dread. She slid her bare feet over the edge of her bed, and their impact with the cold hard floor brought her mostly back to life. She plodded off to the shower, robe in hand.
         The water ran over her shoulders and it wasn’t until it started to turn icy that she realized how long she’d been standing there. Something felt thick around her. She felt as though there was a heavy fog in her mind. She thought hard. There was something on the edge of her memory.
         She slipped her purple sweater over her shoulders and as she began to slide the last button into place at her neck, she looked at its reflection in the mirror. She stopped and stared at it. Something was just barely eluding her. She rolled the button between her fingers for a moment, trying to make the fog lift. There was something she had dreamed. Something that she didn’t want to forget.
         She took her toast out of the toaster, buttered it, set it on the table, took a mug from the cupboard , poured herself coffee, began to spoon in sugar—a flash—she set the mug down abruptly. It spilled light brown on the kitchen counter. She was sure of it. There was something she had forgotten. She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes and thought hard. Fleeting memories left their quick impressions upon her mind, but she couldn’t grasp it: not anything concrete.
         She spent a moment staring at the jar of sugar then drank her coffee and ate her toast quickly before climbing in her car to drive to work. She stayed in the office from eight to five and then went home. She fed her dog. She made dinner. She went for a walk. That week she got promoted. The next month she bought a house. The next year she completed her garden. She worked and cooked and gardened and walked her dog and she forgot. She forgot that there was a time in which she had a dream. 


*


         She had dreamed one night that she had not put work first. That she had not gone straight home every evening. She dreamed that she had indulged in life and bought into its loveliness. That she never got promoted or bought a house. She dreamed that her heart and door were always open and that she had laughed at the consequences. That a shiny piece of jewelry had been placed on her left hand.
         She dreamed that she had not lived life alone.
         And as the early morning beams had wrapped themselves around her and began to pull her back to reality, she clung to her dream. She clung to the memories of laughter ringing across a lake, burning dinners, and late bills. She basked in the glory of inside jokes, themed gifts, and discrete communication. She seared into her memory what it was like to never laugh or scream alone, to have a human being as your right arm, to be one flesh.
         They both knew she was slipping away and they both knew their glory days were coming to an end, and as the memories of a life lived began to blur into early morning light, she held onto him and told herself: “Don’t forget, don’t forget, don’t forget. It was all worth remembering. Don’t forget! Don’t forget there was something worth remembering!”


*


She awoke in the morning with the vague feeling of adventure and heartache. But there is a reason ideals are called dreams, and life, reality.