Waving Not Drowning

A certain stirring lingers deep in her gut. Nat can't shake it but for the life of her she can't name it, either. Hour after hour of plugging straight through and now she hits the pillow at night and wakes up oblivious to her surroundings. At least she's sleeping. Deep, dreamless exhaustion. If only she'd strung herself out like this months earlier she'd have saved herself the anixiety of insomnia and long dark nights of the soul, counting down minutes til sunrise and the dawn of a new day. Another cycle completed. The world keeps turning regardless of how mired in stasis Nat is. There's hope in that, she thinks. She charts the shape of the moon. Full, half, quarter, crescent. On cloudy nights she draws the curtains and drowns herself in Rachmaninoff, headphones cradling her ears on the pillow. When sleep won't come the music lulls her into a semi catatonic state. Nat's not sure it's restorative or meditative but it drowns out the interior noise whic...

He told her to slow down. Be careful, he warned, you'll flame out. I know, I remember what it's like to begin. Best intentions easily go astray. You'll run out of ideas, get trite, repetitive. Trust me, this will all get very boring very quickly. She closes the browser. Elizabeth knows that the only way to quiet the demons is to eradicate them, physically. Walk away from technology, turn off her phone, shut down his lifeline to her brain and by consequence her heart. They're just words, she says aloud, to no one in particular. Huh. She sips her tepid four dollar coffee attempting to appear lost in thought while the fey beanpole of a barista tidies up the detritus around her. Every day, every single day she writes. Then she rewrites, then scores it, records it and posts. Every. Single. Day. Two hundred and six so far. A body of work that documents in detail life after the fire. Total immolation. Complete loss. A rather charred and warped tabula rasa burned into her body....

This is an incredible moment of panic. Opening up the freezer and not finding the stash of emergency chocolate. The really expensive kind, too. Fair trade, organic, chips of mint, maybe coconut, she can't remember. It was a spontaneous purchase for occasions just like this one. She knows better. Stay away from the computer. Flashing across her screen. His face. The date. The announcement. Probably as close as she'll ever come to skydiving without a parachute. She imagines that this is what it feels like. Her vision blurs, she feels her pulse pound through the veins in her neck like a torture porn movie, and waits for her heart to explode. Any second now. This is it. Old ghosts. Living in her psyche. Lining her fascia, sheathing her entire body. Tiny tubular webbing filled with fluid, stretching and undulating, tightening, seizing, creating adhesions. Blocks. Sticking patterns. She needs to break it down before it hardens into more scar tissue around her heart. Again. Months of ...

It's a long drive, up north. Past a myriad of small communities, tiny one horse towns with similar sounding names, ending in brook or hurst or steed. The occasional signs of big box stores and chain  groceries glow in the dark off an exit ramp in the distance. Last chance for food, shelter, gas and family size jars of dijon mustard and 46 rolls of toilet paper for 34 miles. Hawks circle above, banking, soaring, catching updrafts and hovering effortlessly above the treeline. There's rain in the air, a faint shift in barometric pressure. Should've packed a tarp. Should've packed her life, jammed her belongings into boxes and bags and thrown everything she's ever been into the rental car.  Never come back. No real sense of where she's heading or why she's leaving except it's something she can do. Volitional, for now, at least. No set schedule, no dependents, no rhyme nor reason to anything anymore. Despondency, ambivalence. These are foreign words now tatto...

It falls to the floor before she can grab it, tumbling through her fingers and bouncing across the tile before cracking and leaking onto the rug in front of the toilet. Too much glass in here: glass shelves, glass bottles, glass mirrors. Her heart stops as the scent rises up into her nose, wrapping itself around her lungs and lining the inside of her belly. Her lips swell and palms sweat, she starts to tear up and get weak in the knees. Alex. All over her, inside of her, on top of her, away from her. He insisted she have her own scent. He wanted to buy her perfume so they spent days trolling drugstores and department stores, spraying, sniffing, coughing, choking, laughing, hmm'ing and haa'ing trying to encapsulate their connection in some sort of alcohol infused watery potion. Late nights leaning into her neck, he'd lift her wrist to his face and breathe her in, all the way down to his toes. They'd compare little paper swatches, over breakfasts of coffee and half-pans o...

Greta is not looking forward to this conversation but it is happening whether she likes it or not. The mere thought of confrontation gives her all-over hives. That nauseating gut-drop where you feel like your insides are falling out through your pelvis? Yeah, that's what she is feeling right now, like she's nearing the top of the 90 degree drop on one of those insane new fangled roller coasters that are designed to scare the living shit out of you. In through her  nose, out through her nose. Deep cleansing breaths. Dammit, where's the tequila? I mean, really, that's what I need, she thinks. No, no, this is a time to stay stone cold sober and focus on what I want and how to impart that information without getting inappropriately personal or ringing big old bells that cannot be un rung. Un rung? Huh. Is that even a word? Okay, okay....Greta continues with the pep talk, the interior monologue of a varsity cheerleader, channeling her best Deepak Tony Iyanla Mandela Rumi sel...

He packed a bag just in case. You never know, somewhere down the line he might have to make a move and he wants to be ready. Scott's biggest fear is not being prepared. Missing the moment, being left behind, lost in translation somehow. Scott's dad ran out on them when Scott was two, said he wasn't cut out to be a parent which left Scott the man of the house. That was Joan's favourite phrase: "Looks like it's up to you, Man of the House. You're gonna have to pull your weight around here if we're ever gonna get ourselves out from under." He was 6 when he started making dinner and doing laundry; 8 when he mowed the lawn and bought the groceries. It was only the two of them but it was a lot for a kid to handle, especially the burden of expectation that Scott somehow represent the masculine ideal in the household. His voice hadn't broken and he'd never been laid by the time he was driving and banking and learning how to manage a household. Joan...

You only get one first time. One first kiss, one first love, one first heartbreak. The first job, the first car, the first home, the first kid, the first  fight. The first make up session that leads to the beginning of the first step forward into the first part of the next phase in your first grown up, accountable adult relationship. That moment of realisation is a first, too. Your first trip, your first show, your first train/plane/ bus/ car/ pony ride. You can't un pop a cherry, un pit a peach. Your first failure, first loss; the irrevocable damage caused by the first betrayal that turns each and every subsequent betrayal into a number increasingly greater than that monumentally iconic First. The first time you cause someone deliberate, earthshattering, soul crushing pain. Intense shame, overwhelming gratitude. The first of the last goodbyes. First miss, first reunion, first communion. First aches and pains, first forgettings of any new firsts because slowly, steadily, you've...

And on the first day of May, Evan decided to turn over a new leaf. He got up early, made his bed, fixed himself breakfast, cleaned out the guinea pig's cage and packed a bag, leaving plenty of food and water and a note for Leslie upstairs. "Hi Leslie, I'll be gone for a while. Not sure when I'll be returning. Thank you for feeding and watering Fred. I've left his food on the counter and money to cover future expenses. The info for the vet is on the fridge. Oh, please help yourself to the leftover cantaloupe and strawberries- they're organic. You won't be able to contact me by cel but I will check my email when possible. Apologies for the short notice but something has come up that needs my immediate attention." And with that, Evan turned off the light above the stove, checked the timer in the living room, washed up his tea mug and plate from his morning toast and grabbed his passport and spare credit card.  No time like the present to activate extra cr...

So much red wine. Dead soldiers litter the kitchen floor and drip  precariously from the counter ledge. Happy birthday to Ryan. Every year's a bloody miracle. He spends so much of his time trying to annihilate himself that making it to next weekend is never a safe bet. He can't even remember who was at the party. Janet, Su, maybe Rick and D, but Nat's still asleep on his floor tangled in last night's stockings so obviously she made it. It's his Jesus year. Never thought he make it past 27, the year all great players die. Not that would deign to compare himself to a Jimi or Janis or Jim or Kurt. Fuck, 33 is really old. It's time to man up, put on his big boy pants and deal with his shit. That's Nat's voice in his head. She's one to talk, a mess of tequila soaked heartbreak on the rug. Damn. Careful not to light the stove nearby or she may spontaneously combust. Christ, how did they get like this? East side piss poor wanna-be Sid and Nancy. He was goin...