(i saw the sun today)

note: this is a slightly redrafted version of a fictional short story from last year.

I saw the sun today as it slipped through the clouds. The straight, steely shafts melted as the curtains closed again. At least that's how I felt.

Sometimes seeing the sun – just for a moment – is enough. Today it wasn't. I know she means well, as they say. Just reminding me that I have to wake up at some point and that I might even want to go outside today, since I didn't yesterday.

She's just trying to help.

She just didn't know that I remembered him again.

The Good Dr. says I shouldn't talk about it quite that way. I can't help it. It's not that other thing. That word – dream? It’s not right.

Last Saturday I told The Good Dr. my theory. I have a few, really, but this was the theory of shared dreams. First, I told him, let's agree that dreams rank somewhere above vacation slide shows and below Midwestern ballet on the Lifetime Boredom Scale. Second, let's agree that dreams are personal. Agreed?

So, my theory – and the reason I remembered him – is that we cannot share dreams. They are unitary and boring and impossible.

This, I can share.

I last saw him – and always remember him – on the far side of my parent’s house. He wore the uniform of a man his age – a simple white dress shirt, long sleeves unbuttoned and starting to roll up. The thin material was hardly enough to hide an old a-shirt underneath. In his chest pocket, the free glasses case he'd used all his adult life and behind that, the bulge of chewing tobacco.

His pants, as always, were a simple khaki. For some reason I can remember the belt – black leather – but have no idea what kind of shoes he wore. Granted, for church, he wore zip-up, high-top leather boots. But, today, a Saturday, I don't know. I can never remember the shoes.

I still don't know what he was doing there by the shed, under the kudzu-covered oaks and pines. I always remember him there – or hunched over the pale yellow sedan parked in our driveway, tinkering again.

That’s where I stop.

The sun interrupted me again. It does that here in Ohio, in early winter.

Half a life ago, the sun started this damned interrupting. It rained all day. From the moment I left for the funeral home to the family-only interring, it rained. Then, just as we left, the sun reminded me it was there above the clouds. God's fingers, they call it. Then the rain, again.

Before the sun interrupted, I was remembering what he (The Not-So-Good Dr.) told us right before he (not The Not-So-Good Dr.) really died. There had been false alarms that week. This was, well, what would you call it? The real alarm.

He passed, he said.

Outside, before it all disappeared, I glimpsed azure skies and rippled clouds framed by the afternoon sun.

What?

He passed.

And I doubled over.

I became my own storm cloud.

Thundering fists.

Driving tears.

Howling sobs.

I was a tempest, littering the waiting room floor with a day's worth of useless tissues.

I hated every goddamn glimpse because he couldn't see it, too.

Have you ever felt such bone-shattering loss? And known that slow march was for you, all for you?

Now, half a life later, I'm remembering him for the last time. No more interruptions, Mr. Golden Sun. Tomorrow, it's her turn to remember me.

cure

“There is no cure.”

I stopped listening. Well, not really. I heard her – metallic, bored-out, half-whispered. But I couldn’t add it up, as the femmes would say.

Look at these neutral walls and neutral drapes and neutral carpet, strangely industrial and joined by goddamn inoffensive lighting. I called it the beach room, thanks to the pastel, motel-quality lithograph just to the right of the magazine rack. Air conditioning gently stirred what I hoped was dust, while white noise machines rounded out the room.

“It’s not what I expected. And this room.”

“What?”

“Really. I needed something else.”

“Let me ask the receptionist.”

“Don’t.”

"Why not? If it isn't what you wanted."

She trailed off, storming from the beach.

We always fight when I have these tests. We’ve both cheated, of course. Know the answers – memorized every last one – but still have to placate the good doctor.

I wonder when we’ll get to see the doctor’s actual office – the one on television, where she leans over the well-appointed desk, fingers templed and eyes concerned; the one where diagnosis’ and prognosis’ have that certain heft. But I’ll have to live with this.

---

The double-glass doors opened, the differently-abled pneumatics laboring in 100-degree heat. Sun-glinted flecks drifted from the anteroom, swirling around her as we left.

I quoted out loud, “Time is flexible. These labored moments stuck, anchors, really, for an easy joy.”

“Who talks like that?”

“It’s a haiku. I just can’t remember the count.”

Everything’s muffled on the outside, too. I stopped listening. Again.

---

How can she give a name to that, that, thing? This isn’t ‘tree’ (the tall, leafy thing, the diagram of possible decisions) or ‘concrete’ (the side you walk on, the things that are real) or ‘life’ (us, a sentence). And she has the audacity to name it? To name me?

This rant could last for the rest of my day.

So, we walked. And watched. Graffiti-stained buildings like the first fall leaves in a thicket of beige-bricked, glass-blocked city offices. A steady stream of what would have been winter beaters before the latest depression hit. Suburban girls in cowboy hats, the boys in fishnet stockings.

In the oppressive heat, mirrored slivers rose from the road to the right. Each step met the ground, or something like it, a few inches too soon.

She took the inside, away from the road. Each door we passed tightened, pimpled, the nape of her neck. (Did I mention her hair was up, held in place by an invisible band – like some bored angel had nothing better to do than hold newly-golden locks for a beautiful girl.)

The walk to the shore was short. If you trust the time. A brine-less sea-smell announced the lake.

“That’s what she said. There is no cure.”

“I thought she said, ‘There was no cure’.” Was. Past-tense – the verb, not me.

“No. Is. Is no cure. You weren’t listening.”

“I couldn’t. That changes everything.” And that’s all I could say. But, who could stand for this?

“I know.”

“No cure?” I asked, as she waited, standing on a beach.

vindictive dusters: a second draft

This is why I write about Anya – the night I felt the weight of her hand on my sweatered arm. It was a simple gesture, I remind myself; not that, the other thing. But it lingered, resting a little longer than the conversations or the convictions that led us there.

Oh, Anya, I felt absolutely nothing for the first time.

---

In the past week, she has called me – what was her lovely little term? – “the three a’s” – arrogant, aloof and assholish. Granted, I’m not what you’d call reliable, but, really, did she have to invent a word?

None of this would have happened if I hadn’t been raised Southern Baptist.

Not that it matters.

This isn’t about the priesthood of all believers or CCM or dancing. Well, it’s kind of about dancing. But it definitely isn’t about those other things.

Nope. It’s about Anya.

Ah, Anya.

Anya’s the reason haikus hum. Anya’s “umm” put the “oo” in moon and “o” in blow. Anya’s shadow was like dark, fluid, sensual something.

When you close your eyes and think of a woman, Anya’s it.

How do I know? Well, that’s the point, really, of this whole sordid mess.

---

All the signs were there. Amazing, he thought, ten years later and they still try to get away.

They never do.

“The real cases, like this one, looked pretty much like, well, this one.”

He was muttering to the lonely ficus strangulensis in the foyer again. Note the scuffs and ring of newly-fallen leaves. Recently moved. He made a mental note to check the moisture content after they gave him the packet.

Their first stop, after Investigator T. secured the location, would be the bookcase – for the intellectuals, cases, you know, plural. Not that he really needed to wait. In ten years, there had never been a subject present when he arrived.

“.....” Inspector T. declared.

(Something like that, at least. He wasn’t listening.)

“Witness? Witness, come on. We have four more after this and they have the pair waiting for court.”

(Cut through the haze of a six hour drive and half as much sleep.)

“Witness!”

“Oh, what? Right. On to the bookcases?”

(He knew the answer.)

The shelves looked like a trucker’s mouth. God only knows what cavity-ridden volumes were taken (Austin? Self-help? Or, gasp, Left Behind?). The slender canines of Nabokov and slicing incisors of Hemon were, of course, still there. He removed the form and took notes.

Walking through the living room towards the kitchen, he saw another mottled plant –bromeliad? – filled with hastily-scooped dirt. The vase sat on a hillock of what was missed. Another sign.

Next, always next, was the kitchen. How to describe the scent? Hints of scummed porcelain and imitation cinnamon, with a top-note of overripe banana. Why, the enticing aromas of Hungry Man and day-old Nescafe practically clung to his coat!

He decided to take the inventory quickly. Cookbooks? No. Cooking utensils? Partial (ex., chef’s knife present, but no spatulas). Plates? Yes (paper).

Then he stopped. There it stood – the Most Important Appliance, Oracle and All-Around Pretty Good Indicator. Ah, the refrigerator: former home of very important personal items. That’s where the fights usually began – who gets the picture of XXXXX at the fountain or the popsicle-stick-framed whatever it was XXXXX scribbled?

This particular model was a low-cost, almond-shade fridge without, he noted, automatic ice dispenser or in-door filtered water spigot. Speaks volumes.

The side of the fridge was splattered misted with the remains of breakfasts, brunches, lunches, suppers, dinners, and any number of other unnamed meals. He could make out the shapes and sizes of missing pictures, notes and magnetic souvenirs, all of which he dutifully noted in the margins of his form.

(An aside – he knew this would get him reported, the taking of notes outside the perimeters of the assigned form. For example, he added the following beside the Bookcase(s), Living Room section:

Dustless trails lead to
bookless slots. A vindictive
duster never leaves.

But, honestly, we all have our little rebellions, don’t we? For another example, he lost himself in work the previous Saturday. He’d been planning a date, the first, and work just had to wait. As the clock’s midnight warning startled him midsentence, you know what he did? He finished that sentence. In fact, he finished the entire paragraph. On the Holy Day.)

Then he noticed her.

---

“Ok everyone, walk single file. No talking. Keep your hands to yourself.” Ms. Halden, our third fifth-grade teacher so far, was yelling again.

“No, you cannot go to the bathroom because we’re going to the sanctuary right now…

“Well, you’ll have to wait because that tornado sure isn’t…

“Don’t get smart with me. I know tornadoes can’t pee their pants…

“I said single file!”

This was Anya’s first day. We met – rammed into each other – under the pews. Did I mention that the floor under the pews was just concrete? Yep.

“Couldn’t afford even to carpet the whole damned thing?” she blurted out, chopping syllables and dropping vowels. A verbal Gehry.

Now, I didn’t know what a metaphor was, but, even then, I was smitten.

It could’ve had something to do with the tornado. We couldn’t see it because of the cheap pebbled glass in the sanctuary windows. But we could see the dark outline of rain gutters flapping like fish on a hot wooden deck. Didn’t sound the same, though.

The smell. Did I mention the smell? Eau de baptiste, I’d call it. Imagine stones. (You smelled them as a child. Remember? Right before you tasted them, too). Imagine stale juicy fruit. (The gum.) Imagine old church pews. (Sorry, dear non-Christian readers. There is no substitute.) Then drench it all in hot Mississippi rain.

Obviously, we didn’t die. The tornado hit the football field, skipped up again, and tore the roof off of half the strip mall behind the gym.

Then we still had chorale. First, the little finger exercises, digits flailing, then a plodding, off-key, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”

Anya was not singing.

---

It was our second date – proof of just how awkward miracles can be.

The aluminum and glass door creaked as we passed from the January air to a hickory-fired grill and hostess area. Witness, party of two, first available.

The wait was short, thankfully, because what would we talk about?

Wanda the Waitress – not her name, but I assume all waitresses are named Wanda – took us through a maze of dining rooms. Our destination: a beaten-up oak table tucked into a smallish room or a largish hall, depending on your perspective.

Never take a Swedish vegetarian to a steakhouse on the second date. At least, that’s what Anya tells me while inspecting the fork – bent-tined and too-light for its size – and knife – just spotted and dull.

The Olde Hickory, I remind her, is hardly “a” steakhouse. “The” is more like it. From the white-washed concrete-block walls to the low-slung acoustic tile ceiling, The Olde Hickory is a shrine to well-done chopped steaks and the War of Northern Aggression.

It’s the kind of place blue collar guys from Mississippi would eat if those kinds of Mississippi guys wore collars or had steady jobs.

Amazing this line doesn’t work on the Swedes.

“Even the chopped salad has more meat than lettuce,” poor univorous Anya lamented.

“They have baked potatoes. I’m sure they can leave off the ham and bacon.”

(Baked Potato, with ham and bacon, butter, cheese, and sour cream. Jesus. That's a meal fit for a true believer.)

I get the point.

This is the point where I’m supposed to commiserate with her re: our gluttonous ways.

This is the point where I’m supposed to suggest we go somewhere else.

This is the point where I’m supposed to just stand up and take her hand and run though the packed dining rooms, right past chain-smoking Methodists, right out the creaky front door, right around the building to the dark back gravel lot, to, to, to grasp and grope and grab – the great g’s of teenage life.

I, of course, ordered a ribeye.

---

“I’ve never seen so many fat, white people.”

“They’re called crackers.”

“Crackers? Like these?”

“Yeah, no, those are saltines. Crackers.”

“Why?”

“Oh, it’s not, it’s, no, not from the crackers you eat. It’s confusing. It’s slang. Old British-versus-Scot-Irish stuff.”

“Well, they smoke while they eat their buttered crackers.”

“Like I said, they’re crackers.”

(Now imagine “Proud to be an American” creaking from a treble-only speaker in the next room.)

---

That night started simply enough, if one can call a missionary date simple. Drive, park, knock, drive, park, door, gaze, order, wait, proselytize. Happens all the time, at least it does now.

“I finished my assessment last night.”

(Why did I start here, not Philemon or Hosea – the slave he didn’t want or the love he couldn’t leave? I hadn’t seen her in, what? Seven years – she did not last long after that tornado. And I start here? )

“And?”

“………”

(What else could I say?)

“Witness, have you ever held on to something, really held?”

(No.)

“………”

“……… my favorite line was something like, ‘when this life of firsts becomes nexts and lasts’.”

“………”

---

Someone – and let’s assume it wasn’t Anya – had strewn scented pine cones throughout the house. Floor grates and bookshelves and piles of perfectly folded kitchen towels masked by industrial cinnamon. Even the dust smelled aggressively delicious.

She was seated in the kitchen, a solitary vine winding its way towards scarce, slatted sunlight behind her. Anya casually cocked her head and gently fingered the silver pebble in her right ear. She’d clearly plagiarized the look.

“White creeping thyme,” Anya blurted. “It reminds me of the concrete stepping stones outside the church.”

“The one where we parked?”

“Of course. Do you remember the hand-painted sign?”

I did. I’d never seen such brilliant whites and blacks. The lettering was hand-painted, swirls and bristles still present despite the occasional crack.

“It was so dusty – dry red clay riding the wind. Was it, what, early fall?”

“Remember? I was wearing your gray sweater. The one you gave me the first night behind my parent’s house.”

“Definitely remember the look on your sister’s face when we came back in.”

“Anyway. I still think I heard ‘In the Garden’ coming from the church that morning.”

Anya shifted, lips parted, ear untouched. She remembers what I can’t – the trebled plink of a church piano long past tuning, the lone woman’s longing voice meant for someone else. She quotes, from a place I’d never seen, “I’d stay in the garden with him / though the night around me be falling / but he bids me go through the voice of woe.”

“I just remember the wind.”

(haiku-y)

(shimmering)

so, in her thin hair,
our bodies turn. lush and lost
and falling away.

(somewhere)

oh, lost pearl, when did
all these come? these either, or?
these slight leading arms?

(that was perfect)

right, desire, make me
come here, all thirsty-handed.
fail, then follow springs.

(all)

i wrote all i wrote –
this roundest part in song – to
be here around you.

(haiku sunday: variations)

(matter)

like gravity, she
was indifferent to my fall,
to our curving time.

(leirion)

splays of white, a sign,
as they say, of what she knows
but cannot believe.

(convinced)

he knew this sadness
was a cresting wave. beneath,
a now miles-deep sea

(mass)

to the worshippers:
can i exchange what i know
for what you believe?

(or fall)

i laid my coat on
a grassy hill, glimpsing the
bluest falling sky.

(haiku: on a theme)

(the other one)

the smell of sevin
dust and tomato leaves on
the day i first left.

(have i tried?)

i cannot turn this
spring to fall, despite a wind-
rushed, rustling desire.

(hope)

it is your half-pulled
smile. thoughts tipple, lost, as i
wait for glimmered ones.

(it’s not new)

what if you noticed
the more important changes
i would never show?

(haiku: sunday)

(that one)

i’ll never trust a
woman with an unchanging
smile. ah, not again.

(without question)

i think i have it.
or i think ive had it for
far, far too long now.

(outside an elevator at 9am)

how can i tell her
i don’t see the light, just an
ordinary cloud?

(no)

our fingers, creased and
tinged by long-tuned strings. can we,
will we, once again?

(it wasn’t better)

she was the fire and
the light. i simply flickered
once. no. if at all.