Waking

I was surprised to be awake after the running as long as I could through the forest away from a warm jail cell that had to be waiting for me.

The room in which I found myself looked as if it could be from a hundred years ago. All the furniture looked hand made. Not in the way you might lash some branches together and call it a chair, but in the differences in the wood made it clear it didn't come from a factory.

Yellowed wall paper hung on the walls, many times patched and holding some form of it's own identity.

"Oh, you're finally awake," a somewhat harsh voice spoke from outside the partially closed door. Not rough, but sounding unused and not at all used to speaking to others.

"Yes," I called out, "I'm certainly surprised to be here, wherever here happens to be."

She came in the room finally, looking embarrassed for some reason. Her gray hair hung down, parted in the middle and framed a pair of dull blueish eyes.

"You should be surprised, running around with a knife wound isn't exactly a smart thing to do."

Her voice changed a little bit as she pulled the bandages away to look at wound. It became magnitudes warmer as she said, "You were almost dead, all gray from the cold and blood loss. I stitched you up though."

Through the spots I was seeing in front of my eyes I whispered, "Thank you for that. Where did you learn sew people?"

"In prison." Came the reply.

I could tell she wanted me to ask the obvious follow up question, so I did, "Were you in prison?"

She liked the way I framed the question in that neutral way and not asking what she had done.

"I was a guard and the prisoners paid me to take care of them. It was an orderly process, a professional one, where they would ask about what you would do and what you wouldn't. Then they would get together and decide on what to pay you." She said all this while looking out the window, perhaps thinking back to those days. I didn't sense any regret from her over this though.

"You must have gotten a lot of practice sewing people up then."

"Sometimes them, sometimes other guards who crossed someone. We kept everything in house, well almost everything. We moved drugs in which made our jobs alot easier. Nothing worse than cleaning up after an addict half way through withdrawal. A cell phone means a lot there too. Too many of our 'guests' where locked away from distant family.

"The women's prisons are a lot different from the men's prisons. They aren't as hung up on race there and they tend to work together more. They are also much meaner when they have to be."

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked a little too quickly.

She pulled this big hammer from under the bed and yelled, "You aren't going anywhere!"

At which point I passed out, letting the spots in front of me consume the rest of me.

It was dark when I awoke again. Thirsty and hungry in some dim way. Suddenly I looked down at my legs recalling a scene from some weird movie I had seen. I was only mildly disappointed that there didn't appear to be any damage.

"That was a joke, sorry my sense of humor isn't so...sane."

I laughed as much as the stitches would let me. "Don't worry about it. Life has played some better jokes on me lately too."

"I heard." She said quietly.

"What exactly did you hear?"

"You know it's funny when people say 'exactly', they already fear what you're about to say."

So we waited until the mental tug of war could be complete.

"Bill Jeffers was the first officer on the scene in that motel room. Did you know that that was the eleventh time someone had been badly hurt in that room? Makes you think doesn't it?"

"I could tell from the person working the counter that the room had some sort of reputation to it. I didn't think it would turn out so bad though."

She leaned back a little and said, "Bill used to work for the FBI. He said he got tired of all the politics that where as much a part of the job as enforcing laws. Every decision he made came under review by different groups of people. So now, he just likes to patrol the highway that runs in front of the hotel.

"He could tell from the scene that her stabbing had been self inflicted and that there had been another person in the room. What he didn't find were any defensive wounds on her, even incidental ones that happen during a confrontation. Still all the 'extra' blood there got him thinking and he checked out the woman."

"She had been taking various prescription drugs. I didn't know her anymore." I said trying to hold back old emotions, ones that didn't fit me anymore.

"He checked you out as well, didn't find out anything much though. Divorced. No arrests."

Now, she looked closely at me as she asked, "Why did you run then?"

I closed my eyes to see Sandy standing there with the hateful look on her face which was far more destructive than any knife could have been. I said, "I've been to a few small towns and they were mostly the same. If you came in from outside, you were already nothing more than a criminal. You were a stranger and if anything happened it would be you to bear the blame.

"Plus, I knew Sandy all through high school. She was a good person. We never connected though, either then or recently.

"I guess I couldn't face what she had become. I couldn't see her anymore without drowning in the pain that old memories give.

"So I ran, knowing at the time it was a terminal choice. I had hoped in that final time I would at least gain some insight into why she had done what she had.

"I got nothing though."

Quiet

There's nothing around me now. Just the quiet and the cold.

I pause for a second here in the trees, wind swirling around me. I realize that in this instant I am truly alive. This place and this time are all that exists for me.

The only sound now that wind has died down is that of the blood hitting the ground beside me. I feel the slick trail of the warm fluid down my arm and the accompanying warmth along my chest.

I stand, surprised now. People really do change over time. That fact alone was worth all the pain leading up to this point. That's the only way I seem to learn anything - gut wrenching pain. Just seeing something is never enough. It's too easy to make the excuse for that other person, to easy to believe that I wouldn't do anything so stupid as that, but of course I did, and more.

I got off easy though. A simple stabbing was enough to wake me up. Too easy to stay there and take another blow than to realize that what happened before was more a dream than reality. So simple to lay down and give up. I couldn't do that though. The easy way was never my way, even when I consciously wished for nothing more than death, I still stagger forward.

I had to run from the motel room. That little bit more imprint of violence on the shady room was more than I could stand. At once, I saw all the little things that made up the substance there. The small beatings and random heated hatreds all stacked up and this minor thing was simply too much.

Small town police are only good at finding the obvious. Sure, they could call in the state people but, honestly who would call in someone to take the credit for something anyone could figure out.

You find the stabbed women and the wounded man in the dingy motel room and you can only come to one conclusion - he stabbed her and she, in some sort of heroic last stand, managed to wound him. Nothing else matters.

I never should have let Sandy into the room. She was unbalanced by the amount of prescription goodness she was getting, but I let her in again anyway.

After saying she was sorry for all she had put me through I sensed more than felt the knife sweep up into my chest. A cold pain followed by an immediate warmth as the blood spurts out.

I was aware in an instant of how it would look to the young officer I had seen patrolling the area. He looked as if he hadn't seen more than a dead animal on the side of the road. I could see, instantly, how his eyes would look when he came into this room. The shock and eventual easy understanding of what had gone on would dawn on him in a moment.

So, I ran. No driving away now, I had to feel the cold on my face. Not knowing where I was or where I was going was par for the course. I simply had to move, to feel something. I had to make some form of offering to Sandy after seeing her plunge the knife into her chest. The light going out in her eyes demanded something from me in a way I didn't understand.

Nothing mattered now. I could feel the cold grabbing at me as the blood flowed away from me. Here in the woods I knew the blood would find a home somewhere, helping something grow unlike when it was within me.

I hear a dog bark somewhere close by and know it's time to move again. I take a deep breath in preparation of the pain, but there is none as I push myself up. That is only a distant worry to me as the fresh face of a young Sandy forces it's way to my mind with it's own sweet pain. That girl I remembered wouldn't have hurt anyone. I preferred her to the replacement Sandy with the knife. She had killed so much more than herself. Every dream I had ever allowed myself to have died with her. The dumb animal lumbered forward now, perfect in it's unknowing.

Life seemed such a waste to me. Marriage was so overblown in everyone's estimation. It ended, and often not well.

Only questions remain now, ones I'm sure that won't get answered.

That is the one comfort left to me.

A Phone

He stared at the cell phone for a moment. It had been a central part of his life for so long. The phone was like a living thing, it spoke to him and showed pictures from time to time. It had, by itself, become an almost indispensable part of his old life. Everything he was could be found, totaled, examined through a single piece of technology.

That was the key there - old life. All the pictures and sounds could do nothing to bring that other existence back again. Just seeing it in his bag made all the hurt and worry return to him. He was afraid that the old life would somehow catch him again. He worried that in all the fear he lost the ability to just let go of it all.

Now it was speaking in a different voice.

"I'm not happy about you laughing at me," Sandy said in a listless, petulant voice.  Again, the first words of the conversation were not about what was really important, just some mindless chatter.

"After three days, what did you expect?"

"Don't change the subject, why is this all my fault anyway?"

"It's always someone else isn't it? Your ex-husband did this or an ex-boyfriend did that. It was all you wasn't it?"

"Is this some sort of defense mechanism of yours? You laugh and leave to make me feel bad? Well, I don't. It's your loss"

I wasn't exactly worried at this point. We weren't together anymore (if we had ever been) and now I saw how pathetic she was. How she would never be able to realize what she had done or even care, did she know. It was always going to be someone else's fault.

"I would ask you where you were for those three days, but I know you'd just lie about it or just continue to try and blame me. Why don't you settle in that town? All the people have dead eyes like you do now. You belong there and as long as the pharmacy stays open you should be numb enough to survive.

"Can you hear me laughing at you now? Can you imagine how ashamed I am that I actually cared about you when you care nothing for me?"

"All these questions, and you think I am the problem? You should take a long look in the mirror"

"I have Sandy, and not only have I looked hard at myself, but at my life and our time together. We were never really together, you were always evasive and manipulative, even when we hiked together so long ago I saw you and knew inside that you weren't thinking of me. You dropped that stone I found after holding it by the edges for a second. Now, here we were with a chance to start over and we just took up where we left off, except this time I'm the stone to be tossed aside."

Sandy sensed the goodbye coming and decided to backtrack a little bit, "Listen, we still have time and no one is going anywhere today. Why don't we just set everything aside for now and just talk?"

"Sorry, I just can't imagine spending anymore time with you. Talking to you is like talking to an escaped mental patient - you just never know where the conversation will lead, but you are certain that in the end, you'll be worse off for it.

"Try to wean yourself off the drugs - they don't help you. They're just an invisible crutch that other people run into."

The line went dead then and everything started over. The people here had dead eyes as well. They too seemed shackled to a life that none really understood. He knew that they would accept her, her life, such as it was, would be a novelty for a time.

Desire

Sandy sat down on the small walkway in front of, what was now her, small motel room.

Men, she thought to herself, always demanding things from her. So what if she left him alone for three days? He had come looking for her after all. She didn't owe him anything and if he got his heart broken, it was his own fault.

She liked being the object of desire. It felt like a deliciously warm liquid being poured over her. The interest, always seeming to be on someone else, somewhere else, was on her. The heat that would normally have required some release now sat within her, content.

What's more is that she now understood how to control this facet of herself. No longer would she consider giving in to someone else's needs before her own. The only thing in the world, her world, was her. She could still picture him, sleeping on the ratty couch, looking at her. How pathetic.

She thought about her ex-husband for a moment. The drunk. The womanizer. She wondered if he really meant to tell her he wished she was like some other women that he had seen or that he wanted all of them more than her. Perhaps he had let it slip to try and force her to do kinky things with him, if so it didn't work.

He fantasied about them, she knew. He would whisper their names in bed with her. He would spend long hours out chasing after them and come home, half drunk and sexually needy and she would take it all in. It was like she was a balloon in some ways, taking all the nasty parts of him into herself. Unlike the a store bought balloon though, she hadn't popped but just stopped after a while.

After the needy period ended she suspected he was having an affair, which didn't bother her as much as she thought it might. They moved to separate corners of the house and eyed each other warily after that. All the unspoken things between them became a bleak wall and in the end, neither of them wanted to create a door there.

She felt stupid now because she had asked permission to divorce him. How laughable was that? She had left, finally, when he had drank himself nearly to death one night. All she could think about was what would she do if he had died and blocked the door so she couldn't get out. Touching a dead body was the worst thing she could imagine, even if it had belonged to a man once loved.

Men were replaceable, that was easy to see. Easy to push aside when they demanded or wanted something more than they deserved.

Now, staring after someone else, she laughed as well, imagine him thinking there was something left between them after 20 years. All that she had now was a middle aged body and a tired heart. That heart ran on anti-depressants now, the modern cure for growing older.

The only thing remaining was desire and need. The only that mattered was how these two twins could help Sandy along her way.

Finding

He woke alone in the small room they shared in the town they stopped at. After leaving the city neither of them had any plans on where to go or what to do and had wandered around several states looking for a place.

This little town was quiet. After ten at night you didn't see anyone about. He didn't recall seeing a bar in town.

He rubbed his neck in an absent minded fashion, the couch was not meant to be slept on for this amount of time. Still after all the weeks they had been traveling together, they hadn't slept together. Some things didn't change. Some things did change as he wasn't proud of it this time around. He didn't understand it - they had so much in common, their lives had twisted in mirror images of each other.

After sitting back down at the tiny table, he tried to recall her leaving. He wasn't a heavy sleeper and couldn't recall her stepping out.

No whispered words or breeze from the closing door three feet away from where he had lain.

She obviously had meant to leave without waking him.

He refused to be surprised. Surprise meant that something was wrong with them and he refused to see that.

Still, she was gone and no note.

He waited there for three days, walking around the city in the hopes he might see her. Every time he saw someone who looked like her his breath would catch until he saw it wasn't her. Like a deflated balloon he returned to the motel room.

He packed his bag once more the following morning, resolved to try and forget the past and her. The steering wheel felt cold against his forehead as he got ready to leave. Such a sorry place, he thought to himself. Everything is empty here and hopeless. You could really see it in the eyes of the people on the street. They did't know why they stayed here and couldn't tell why anyone would want to stay in such a dark place. They had reasons though, some pretty thin, but there were some. Perhaps family or lack of money played a role. Most likely though was that they were doing what someone else though they should do.

Still, one place is like another and if you can get away from streets and houses you can forget everything attached to them.

There had to be a place that he could be in and wouldn't make his skin crawl.

On the way out of the hotel parking lot he saw Sandy. She looked worn and tired. Her eyes matched the others in town in their perfect emptiness.

"Where are you going?"

He laughed at that, again like at her apartment in the city he thought she was trying to say something beyond what was here and now. She was simply stating obvious words. No concern for him or them for that matter, just a vague statement.

"The room is paid for until the end of the week."

With that, he drove away in what he hoped was a random direction.

As he passed the sign announcing the tiny town he wondered how many people had tried to recreate the past, and failed miserably. It's an old rule about going home again.

That place is not only destroyed by our memories but the ruins of it are hidden in the changes that take over all of us. The only possible place for anyone is in the future with a new place and people.

Found, sort of

Sandy asked, "If a fish were caught in a fresh water lake would it still be considered sea food?"

That was the first thing she said to me at her open apartment door. She often asked questions like that. Seemingly meaningless yet, later, found to be full of incredible insights.

I was still stunned though. Braving this city to find her. Wondering about her all these years.

And here we were.

"Of course it's sea food, a fish is a fish no matter where it got caught."

She smiled and said, "I knew you would say that. Even back then you were the literal minded one."

It's my turn to smile, although I'm not sure exactly why and say, "We are what we are, labels don't matter to the one that's labeled it's always those pesky people that apply the labels that get you into trouble."

"Oh that's where you are oh so wrong, labels are the only thing that does matter. They define us. Where would we be without them?"

I still smile, it's as if we were suddenly back in our little camp site in the rain, talking. Strange how the years hadn't touched her. The eyes were still the same as well as the personality. The spark was still there and so big that we were both afraid of it. That electric gap between us seemed at times to be bigger than the both of us. It both enclosed and separated us.

"If you try to define yourself through what others say and think you've already lost yourself. You might as well be the perfect son slash daughter, wife slash husband."

She opened the door then. "I don't know if I like the over use of the word 'slash' but its good to see you again."

I had forgotten for a moment that she had been a teacher and language was always a touchy subject. One I used to tease her about it as English is a very poorly put together language.

We sat down to coffee in the quiet apartment. I still held the stone in my hand, unsure if I should show it to her. I was worried she might think the worst of me for holding on to something for so long.

"Short summary, married then divorced. Married again and divorced sooner. Now I try not to inflict myself on others."

I sense the challenge in her eyes then. Suddenly all the years fade away like some bad dream. For the first time I feel the crush of regret at not pursuing her then.

"I was married for 18 years and suddenly it was over and in the midst of that wreckage I find this stone and I thought of you and what we had. I have to know if I made a horrible mistake then and if there is still some time for us."

Sandy looked at the stone for moment, lost in her won thoughts. "I don't know what would have happened. Maybe we could have made it. As for now, I'm a broken thing, a bird with two broken wings.

"I want to get out of here though. I'm tired of labels and false dreams. I'm sick of twisting around in garbage every day to try and fill out some plan that someone else made for me.

"I want something for me." She hissed these last words.

"I've got nothing but the clothes on my back and this bag and a stone. It's enough I think. It's all I want."

"Let's go then, tonight. I'm not going to sleep with you though, at least for a while."

I laughed at this, "I wouldn't want to ruin a forgotten memory, Sandy. But can I tell you I love you? Would that mess this up?"

"How do you know this isn't a rebound thing? You might just as easily love the first person you met after the divorce."

"Well the doorman was kinda cute but not my type."

"He is a looker, Bet they were saying that back in world war two though.

"Here, help me pack."

City

He stood there near the intersection of two major streets amidst a tidal flow of people with the stone in one hand and a bag in the other.

People streamed around him like he wasn't even there. He felt like some ghost, Earthbound in a garish place where the wind whistled through empty trees. Sound like dead laughter echoed along the dingy buildings. Everything was gray here. Everything was foreign.

He was empty though and standing in the middle of the crowd only highlighted the loneliness he felt. All these strangers who moved so close were gone again soon after, never to return. He was alone, here in the center of a mass of people.

It was strange to be free after so many years of being something else. Tied down in many ways but free in others. Now he had finally detached himself from being a husband, father, and friend. There was nothing else there now, except for a bag and a stone.

Some people talk about coming around full circle, but the ones this has actually happened to rarely speak of it. Such a thing is too personal and somewhat embarrassing to admit. You find yourself at a place you never though you'd see again and seeing it once more doesn't make it any better. All the lies you told yourself about those early times are thrust upon you with no hope of escape.

Sandy always did like to try and force him to do more than what he wanted. He remembered how she would dare him to make some romantic gesture to her and then pretend he had gone too far. Once he had yelled at the top of his lungs that he loved her in a crowded high school gym and she refused to speak to him for a week afterward.

He wondered at that here and thought that the same thing was likely to happen. History always repeats itself.

He had to be sure though. No more running away from what could be. If it was in this crowded and dank place that love might return to him, he would take it gladly.

If the answer wasn't here, he would accept that just as easy and continue looking.

Freedom was like that. You had a moment in time to be at that right place and if you missed it, the event passed and left you behind to sink among the faded possibilities.

To be there though and take a shot... That was enough. It had to be enough to wrap a remainder of a life in.

The Stone

He held the stone in the palm of his hand for a moment. It looked so innocuous sitting there, but like most things the meaning it carried was tremendous.

How strange it felt to find this relic from his first relationship as the current one was ending. He was getting ready to move away from a life he had occupied for nearly twenty years when at the bottom of a box he found something he had not only forgot about, but didn't even remember forgetting.

The rough outline of an 'S' was still visible on the stone. Some weird layering had taken place on it a long time ago. It too forgotten.

That mark though brought him back to the first real love of his life.

Sandy.

First loves always set the tone for matters of the heart later in life. The beginning relationships always seem to fail though which only invites us to enshrine them deeper into our hearts. Later, we allow ourselves to forget the real reasons for failure.

He chalked up his loss to the simple fact of being young. Youth doesn't let us see that somethings only happen once. We get older and think we get wiser but we often forget this simple fact.

Looking at the stone now brought him back, suddenly, to the place he found it while hiking with Sandy in the mountains. The tail end of summer was warm enough to seem like the middle that year. Even the animals were a little confused by the high temperatures. He remembered imagining them running around not knowing if they should be preparing for winter or not. Much simpler to stay here in the moment. Let the heat caress the heart for at least one more day.

Sandy though, she did set the standard for which he would judge beauty for the rest of his life. Her long black hair and dark eyes still haunted his dreams, even now. He could also just barely hear her behind him on the trail, commenting on what she believed the future would hold. Her voice was lite, like a fresh breeze on the mountain. Full of hidden delights and half imagined secrets. That too remained with him.

He turned around, now, as he had done all those years ago half expecting to see her standing there. To him, she was still in the sweat drenched t-shirt and loose fitting jogging pants. There was more there though. She had a presence that was more than what you could see. There was a glow around her that reflected off her to shine on others, helping them be better people. He thought it might have been imagination playing tricks on him in the heat of the afternoon and carefully tucked that memory away for a far off place.

They had both agreed that they wouldn't sleep together. He had agreed only after some resistance and took pleasure in pretending to grudgingly dislike the idea. He did regret the lack of physical intimacy but was not only proud of the fact he could control himself but that it was the right choice for them. Somewhere deep inside he knew that they probably weren't going to be a couple forever. The paths before them split into opposite directions. Being young, they thought they had all the time in the world anyway. If they split up, they would always get back together later.

The stone dug into his hands as he struggled to fit all the memories into place inside him. Those faraway times suggested something to him. He thought that perhaps there was enough time to find Sandy again. Read to her as he had at the campsite lost to the past and the mountains. Try and reflect her light back so she could really believe she was someone and that she helped those around her be better than what they thought they could be.

He would offer up the stone as a sacrifice. Another chance to find something lost an age ago. Some hope that in finding her would heal the empty heart in his chest.

Sandy

It's been so long since I've seen or talked to you and reality is wearing a little thin around the edges because of it. The constant wondering about all that has happened has torn holes in the world around me into which memories slowly fall. An emotional black hole.

So sad to depend on something like this. In other times I promised myself that I would never allow such a thing to happen and never wind up dependent on some other person. That far away version of me would laugh at how I am now. The difference in bloodless and bleeding is sketched there.

It was certainly unplanned from the start and only realized after it was over. Forgotten dreams and unspoken plans are all that remain of it. Treasured pleasures stand out in profile, a burnt offering to what was.

I know now that not all the things I see here have actually happened. It's sometimes impossible to see our own part in the things which tear our lives apart. Perhaps one's own part can merely be sensed in the negative of life's pictures. Hidden deeply, as all truths really are, so that finding them, is in itself, a reward of sorts. A mild pleasure in the midst of white hot pain.

We all fear falling and tipping over emotionally is much the same. Losing control, not knowing in that instant of event what exactly is going on, just that it isn't going to be good. Feeling itself is broken and so much more easily than bones ever could be and never,ever heal properly.

I feel hobbled. Stunted. Alone.

TV

The TV has been off for nearly an hour now, but the glow remains. I can still see the last image there, someone moving from one side of the screen to the other.

I wonder now if they are still moving or are trapped in the act of trying to move. My own holding area for all the forgotten images.

That's what life is, I think. We turn away from some things that we can't face all the way. They get held, just out of sight, waiting and hoping that we will turn around and let them continue moving once again. Those various thoughts and images remain even if the pattern of life moves on without us.

The TV though.. I think what I am really seeing is a reflection there. It turned off because there was nothing to see, from either side. I still won't move though. There has to be some over arching reason to see this now, to be here now.

Perhaps I'm the one that's trapped, held in place by something unseen and only partially felt.

Looking through geletin

I sit on the porch for hours simply staring. The light there does funny things now. It beads into and out of sight as if I were looking out under water. I made a deal with the light though, as long as it doesn't come to close to me, I won't tell anyone about it and only look, from a distance.

Mood stabilizers, might as well call them mood neutralizers. Everything falls toward monotony when I take them. Simple things are now useless in the uncaring place I find myself in. But all that doesn't matter.

I see them looking at me sometimes, their eyes full of hope thinking that maybe I won't need all the medications I'm taking. Looking like they would a car that refuses to start, all the while saying that maybe this time it'll turn over. Not yet.

All they see now is my back as I scoop a handful of dull into my hand and then into my mouth. The real feelings fade away quickly, for which I am so glad. A child can really see so much more that adults when it comes to this. They take a parallel drug to mine I suspect. One which imprints into their minds that it's okay to unplug from the world.

I feel the meds take hold and one final torturous thought grips me - I'm going to cry sometime about all this lost time and I may not be able to stop.

Silence now. Tears can wait or out wait everything.

Knowing

I am comforted somewhat by the fact I have a lot of company in the dumb category.

I don't pretend to know anything. I can imagine things that, in some ways, are better than real life or at least different. Other than that, I'm a pretty dumb person.

Humor is important though. Sandy's skid marks are pretty funny as is the plausibility of them being a way to reconnect with her mom.

Total BS. Real life is either incredibly boring or jaw-droppingly amazing. It only makes sense to the one who lived it. Outsiders looking in can only dream of how they felt at that point or what affect some seemingly random encounter had on them.

It has to be a lens through which we realize something else. Some other part that has to be there but can't be seen easily. I wonder how much our own personal desires make that lens show something false?

All the best stories have been about forgotten dreams.


Isn't life just a series of them?

She walked down the store aisle, past where she wanted to be without realizing it. Her mind was lost in memory. The thing about memories, she knew well now, was that they could be very good and uplifting or terribly dark. She held onto all of them though. Each was important in its own way.

Underwear, that's what she was here for. It had been a few months since she had last bought some for her 30 something year old daughter.

Some people thought it strange she still did that bit of shopping for her. In her own mind she echoed those thoughts - it was a little weird. She also knew that we do strange things for different reasons.

Sandy would often tell people about her mother buying under garments for her, which she suspected was a way to gauge that other person. That initial reaction to a bit of private, but safe, info would tell you all that was needed to know about them.

Could that person understand that mother and daughter hadn't always been close?

She and Sandy had fought at one time. Growing up can be the most difficult thing to do, on both sides of a relationship. In the aftermath of anger came distance. Separation though isn't always a bad thing. That time and the weight of memory refines one's view. They influence how we handle other relationships as well.

Later on, when the echo of the shouts had died away and Sandy was more sure of herself, they approached one another again.

It had happened in this very aisle with the two of them shopping for the same thing. Underwear.

That instant lived on in her. The spark that jolted her when their eyes met and the hurt and forgiveness shone with equal measure still hadn't lost any of it's punch. The notion of change was still there but there was also more understanding as Sandy saw her own daughter growing up and knew there would come a day when she would strike out on her own. Each was right and each was wrong.

As only a mother could say, she said, "Those stains are hard to get out aren't they?"

Sandy hissed an intake of breath as she snapped her head around to see if anyone had heard this remark but said, "Mommmmmmm, don't ruin this."

They both laughed at this and she said, "Why do think people come here?

"Besides, it's hard not to speak my mind nowadays, something for you to look forward too."

What to say about Sandy?

She was never really part of the online clique that had been so much a part of my own pain. Even though she was caught up in it.

Sandy was on the edge. Outside looking in on it all. That side though, there was enough hurt for her as well.

I wonder, now, how much of it was self inflicted. It's so easy to hit yourself when you swing in the dark. Too easy to laugh at yourself after.

That's what we're talking about here - darkness. All those dark forms are accessible through simply screens. They wait outside of our comfortable existences, silently judging, and in the end easily pulling us in. Whispers promising something interesting or just something out of place. Window dressing for an opening that had no view. Pure emptiness.

No matter what it was, it was still meaningless. This is something Sandy knew, but I did not. Perhaps I didn't want to know, but wanting had very little to do with it.

We wanted something more from our pet shadows - some new reality that they could never give. Somewhere, down deep, we knew for certain that this was the case but couldn't admit it. We lied to ourselves and to each other.

Now we return with fresh baskets against our chests. All we say, is said slowly. The words are chosen with care. The thoughts behind them, sink toward something else. We can only abide by the safe and comfortable words now.

I think she knows, as I do now, that there are damaged people out there. Some will take all you have to give without a thought. Others seem to spend all their time devising ways to get more.

Can we find some middle ground? Something safe but where we can still talk?

Sandy had to stop for second. She was standing in the living room looking out the window to a normally picturesque sight. She wasn't seeing that though. In those rare moments where everything was done, she wasn't the mother, wife or other half dozen or so labels she identified herself with. She was someone else.

She wondered, as she often did. was this enough? There were thousands of different things going on just outside her house, just out of view. Her imagination took over for second, as it always did, and she could imagine all sorts of things there. Robberies, thefts, national security issues. All of them coming back to her in some way.

But, here she was in a quiet life that no one would really understand.

She liked it though. The neatness of it all was important to her. She had a daughter and they couldn't be put off like some other things. Kids had to be taken care of now. No waiting with them. She loved her husband. She has friends.

Her own mother still bought her underwear. Sandy didn't understand the big deal with it all. Her mom knew she liked the silky, low cut underwear. Who would make a big deal of her mom buying it? Weirdos that's all. Small peeps who never had anyone do anything for them. So what, she bought underwear - what does that matter? Now, if she insisted on making her try them on and model them for her - that would be a problem.

Sandy was perfectly attuned to what was going on around her....

Sandy

I still wonder about Sandy.

She was an interesting friend. Married. Into strange things (at least to me) like neopets.

Friendly though and kind. Able to talk about anything except what was truly important.

She really gets into the whole online idea. Sandy rightly sees it as a fantasy area - mostly. So much happens sometimes and all the noise we see thrown about us from this weird firehose that is the internet can be overwhelming. That grating intensity distracts us from what we are and what we are doing.

We got too close and caught up in too many other small tragedies.

I've gotten good at seeing the pitfalls that lay ahead and prune relationships accordingly. In cutting away some things, you end up hurting yourself as well. You can only hope that this small pain is payment enough for a larger hurt that might have waited just around the bend.

I still miss her though. I wish there was a way to balance the straight forward attractiveness she maintains with everything else.

I opened the door and the last person in the world I expected to see was standing there.

"We need to talk." Annie said.

She looked exhausted as if the trip had been excessively long. I had no doubt the reason for it had made it any easier for her. I could see her husband in the car, not specifically looking at me but I could feel him doing his best to measure me, and try to understand the 'why' of it all.

Some things, I knew, were beyond understanding. You could only hope to get past them.

One of those questions was why after 30 years of marriage would she go looking for something else. While every relationship had it's ups and downs, why did he receive a book from a stranger one day that was about regaining trust with an unfaithful spouse?

I looked at her for a moment and reflected again as I did when we had our short, but wonderful fling together. She didn't look her age, that was one thing that wouldn't change. There was almost a mist around her that allowed you to see her as she was in her prime. In those days where getting older wasn't something to think about. Life had a way of regaining your attention and as a basic religion, made you pay homage to it. Her emergency gall bladder surgery was one of those ways. She had told me about the moment of clarity just before she went under, and how she was sure that she wouldn't wake up again and how all the meaningless affairs she had had were strung around her. But no god or avatar was there to tell her anything.

"Just keep between us, he starts anything and you will be the one to pay the price."

"I came all this way to ask one question, why? Didn't we have something together? When we were together at that motel I never would have believed this would happen."

"Annie, I don't owe you anything. I know I was just a stone you stepped on as you made your way. You just have to admit that you aren't a good judge of people, or perhaps you are and you wanted all this to land on your head.

"Not what you expected though, I know. You certainly expected me to fade away as all your previous lovers had done and not let your husband in on the secret life you have.

"Why is simple, I needed a friend while I dealt with some very bad things and instead I got you - needing and grasping and capitalizing on my vulnerability.

"You got off easy. So get back in your car and tell your husband to drive you back now."

"That's it?" Annie asked in a dead voice. I suspected she thought that her charm would again save her and that I would take responsibility for everything she wished to shed.

"You really need to evaluate all those affairs now. If I were you, I'd move and try to recreate the life you had. It should work for the time Steve has left."

She pulls her head up at the last remark as if she had been slapped and walks back to the car.

Steve stares at me, seeing the look on his wife's face.

I stare back, forcing him to break the silent contest between us.

Winning something that day no matter if it was as meaningless as everything else.

What I don't tell Lisa is the amazing conflict of emotions that this discussion creates.

How can I tell her the pressure to pretend that everything is okay and we are getting along well when in fact I have to force my self to smile because I know for a fact that if I were to let my real feelings to the surface for a second they would overwhelm me. I would drown there in that very real pain. Hurt? How can I hurt anymore?

Everything in sight would be a candidate for loss. Each piece of the puzzle a weird reflection on our life together.

I know in the end - trashing it all.

Lisa asked me how I was and I recognized the implied question there.

"I'm getting by on my own just fine. Before you ask - it wasn't anything to do with you.

"I knew it was getting to the 'over' point when one night I passed by the bedroom and heard her crying. I then, in normal male mode, instantly started to tick over items in my head as to what I could have possibly done - and came up empty.

"I sat down beside her and put my arms around her, silently trying to prepare myself for a sharp elbow or knee to the groin (in case it was indeed something I had done).

"After some amount of time she told me that her mother had died a few hours earlier and she had gotten a call almost as soon as it happened. She didn't even think about telling me, asking for some comfort was and still is out of the question.

"What kind of low life person am I when the person I'm living with won't share something like that? It stung then as it still does."

Lisa was silent at this, I could feel her confusion as to a choice of response.

I decided to save her the trouble and continued, "But what can you do? Sitting there I knew what it meant. I didn't know how long we had left but I was certain it was over.

"Probably more then you wanted to hear."

"Not really, but I enjoyed the part about you suffering though."

"Glad to be of service. How about you? How are you?"

I feel like I've been wearing a very thick mask for as long as I can remember. Something that has, for all intents and purposes, covered me from head to toe and muffled my voice. Clinging to me

Rain

I turn my face up to the falling rain, thinking as I do that some small part of the water splashing against me has touched you not to long ago.

I breath then - adding my own gift of water to the mixture. A simple prayer for simple pleasures. Giving of oneself is the only real sacrifice we can make to love.

The rain is kind, not just because it is partly you. Falling water hides my tears, which are another offering to you. The roughness of my voice is easily hidden in the expectation of some sort of illness.

Nothing could be closer to the truth though, it is a sickness. You are a fever to me. I want, not a lot, but too much all the same. I can't find you which is just as well, for I can blame the pain I feel on the absence of you.

I've seen your image in the clouds and there has never been anything more beautiful to my eyes, or more powerful. It, alone, has kept me moving when all I want is to lay down, unmoving. My worn muscles cry out at the motions required by you. The heart that leads them is steadfast. It, alone, keeps the rest going in the whole of the dream of you.

The first touch of you is enough to burn me. That first instant where the surprise of being burned takes the place of the actual pain is all the warning I get. That tingle I feel - a certain start to something difficult and frightening. It's not enough for me to back away, only to draw me in deeper.

It's good to be surprised by you. I have dreamed of so many settings for you, all except the real one. Still proof that dreams are a weak benefit and not a strict predictor of the future. The change from the imagined to the true is pure and honest. The easy way of the move is much better than anything I could plan.

You're the only truth I know. I've lived without light for so long, my heart seems to fit into the smallest area - much smaller than anything before. For an instant, you brought me out of this maze and showed me something better. That's gone now - I saw to that.

Truth and beauty are never rewarded for their own sakes. We want what we want. We need things beyond our own limited worlds. We make for ourselves all that we need and all that we think we can handle.

I've found that you can live a lifetime in a single instant, provided that the instant is with you.

Even outside of time, I still seek those sweet moments, with you.

It moves faster than I, always just out of reach. There isn't any game being played here - the memory can never be recovered. It will always be, sadly, just beyond my trembling fingertips.

The awareness though - that this is how it is supposed to be - gives my weary heart a little relief.

The most frightening thing is the ability to totally break someone else who had the misfortune of caring for me.

She was making a keening noise this morning. Taking a sound we used as a code between us as a 'what' or 'hello' and repeating it. I don't even know if she was aware that she was even doing it.

We don't love with our brains, what a certainty that is. If it were so, she would have run the other way at the sight of me.

I had a dream or vision of the time I did leave - because it was better for her - she was screaming, refusing to let go of me. Begging me for another chance, of what I don't know - perhaps to continue the process of being hurt - we get so addicted to that.

Maybe she thinks like many others do - that there isn't anything better out there. Better this than nothing.

She could do far better then me, obviously.

Annatira

"I can't believe you stood up in my church and said those things about me. That was the only place I had left to me. The only place that I had where I could try to be something good - and you took that away from me."

"You should have seen the look in their eyes - they knew without being told Annie. The depth of self-deception you seek to encase yourself is truly amazing. How they knew is a very interesting question in itself."

"How much is left? Steve left me after that. He said that it was enough and that while he forgave me for the past he couldn't live with me any longer."

"Sad. After what you had put him through, he should have just put that in the pile with the rest and ignored it. It must be a relief for him to have cancer now. The pain of his skin turning against him is a powerful balance to the failure of love. Both eat away at him."

"Is that it now? Everything I have is gone now."

"You only lost what you intended to loose. Everything, as you call it, is really barely anything. Now you can more fully pursue those other relationships."

"I don't want anything anymore. I play a game that seems to be more real than my life ever was. Even after all that you've done to me - I still want that place, that idea more than anything else. Is that the lesson?"

"You should know that from your days as a prison guard - never stay with an abuser. Maybe he found that being an enabler was too much after so long."

Wish

"What do you wish?" She asked while nearly perched on my shoulder. She could tell that something had been bothering me for quite a while and the time had come to discuss it.

"I wish that I made you feel as loved as you make me feel."

The sudden and total honesty that this wish conveyed made both of them quiet for several minutes. It was like the sum total of their relationship could be stated in those few words. Their was meanness there as well, mentioning the gulf in feeling was tantamount to a challenge. Seeing it, that difference in feeling was more though, as was the clear explanation that there was nothing to be done for it - whatever chasm divided them was going to remain so. That insomuch was implied.

"Perhaps that's what I want, someone to feign a feeling. Perhaps I want to be able to put in as much as I want and not have to worry about you. Maybe, just maybe, it's enough and I can deal with it."

Smile

Your smile, and the secret knowledge contained in it, travel with me.

Whenever my heart sinks, from being away from you or forgetting ( for a moment) your sweet face, the simple and basic form of heart and memory lift me up.

Being away from you is own worst pain - the only thing that could hurt more is a further delay in seeing you, touching you.

I can only mouth the word 'why' now. It alone makes sense to me - the question and being alone.

Comfort comes in the razor's edge as a dull pain spreads through me. That hurt focuses my feelings on you, only you.

Weakness in the separation from you - I would fall to my knees now in the field of sharp things, without hesitation if it would bring you closer for a brief moment.

Last Thoughts

We sit staring at one another across time it seems. The riot of colors in this room of last resort do threaten to blind me, or at least interrupt our final moments together.

I don't know why that they would have a room like this for people who are dieing. All I do know is that this is what you wanted. Perhaps to make me uncomfortable in these last hours. More likely, you want to impress on me, once more, that we affect each other - you with the request and me with the lack of a preference.

Looking into your eyes now and understanding things at least a little better. I see the mad colors from this room start to fade away. You are the only thing that matters now.

I begin to think of how our lives were, how curiously balanced that they were. Even down to our coincidental, parallel cancers that are ending our lives so closely together.

Between work and all the other static in our lives, I realize that I hardly knew you. How much remains unknown and hidden. With no time to ask, I do ask myself.

I also thought, in my most secret of places, that I could never bear to see you die. I would wish to be with you for just a short time before you pass. Now, at this point I know that it doesn't matter. I am with you now, at the most important time, no phone calls to take me away. No emergencies at work to divide my attention. Only me and you.

Waiting

I'm not afraid now, the only pale regret is the inability to be close to you.

Lisa's Ex

I remember so much more than the story she told me about her ex-husband. The time and place became interlocked with the feeling of shame, even second hand shame. In a strange way, her feelings became my feelings. Sharing that singular hurt did make it less of a wound and did allow her to put it where it belonged, deep away.

She was taking her, and his, young child to the store for some ice cream when they ran into him and his new wife. He didn't even look at his son, couldn't look at him. Looking at him would mean that he was responsible for him. It was better in his own mind to treat him as a forgotten mistake. I know she wanted to hold her son up and force some kind of acknowledgement, make a wild scene that would somehow get a small amount of attention. That was the point though, that small bit of sight. Which is exactly why she didn't do that. Even though it hurt a lot she understood that having the son and not the father was a best result that could be hoped for.

She told me about him because, even at that time, she knew how things were going to end. The unspoken plea in the story was not to be as bad as this. And of course things didn't end as bad as that. How could they?

No Revenge?

"So, no revenge against me?" Lisa asked into a sudden silence.

"There's nothing to get back at you for. You're exactly as you said you were and you never lied.

"When you told me about your marriage and how it ended in coldness I didn't want to be an addition to that. A competitive story that only serves to make you feel ill at ease." I feel that I'm talking into a long narrow passageway here. All the possible regret flows around me.

"You did that well enough. It's all for a good cause as now I don't trust anyone and any relationships that I get involved in are obviously impossible."

"So we're both in agreement then that I am a jerk?" This said in a quiet voice which offsets the attempt at humor. The unspoken plea for a real forgiveness seems to hang in the air. Energetic electrons play in the line as Lisa makes a decision.

"I've actually met some bigger jerks then you, and there's no way you could compete in a stupidity race with my ex-husband. He can't even feel bad about what he's done."

"I'm sorry there are so many stupid people out there. I think that in order to be online so much there has to be something missing in us. Some basic drive to see the real world for what it is instead of trying to manipulate a fake one."

I answered the phone, unsure what to expect.

"Hello Lisa, how are you?"

"I can't really believe I'm calling you after all that happened, but here I am. Just so you don't get any impossible ideas, I'm not trying to get back together."

I laugh at this, as I expect she wants me too. "Don't worry I know better then that. I wouldn't expect anything, but it is good to hear your voice again."

Lisa clears her throat, quietly. Like most of her little habits, clean and quiet.

"Anna talked to me. A while ago and I had to talk to you about it."

I wait now. A moment passes and I say, "She told you then?"

"Told me what?" She says instantly with a bit of heat which tells me she knows what I am about to say.

"That Annie knew all about us when she did her bit of seducing."

The shock is evident, even on the phone.

I did tell Annie about Lisa and I, it didn't do much good though. She said she didn't mind and wouldn't be a problem. I think she understood as part of who she was that Lisa and I were not going anywhere.

Two women - more then a first time for me. Beyond anything I thought was possible or right. I got exactly what I deserved for it.

"Why didn't you say anything? I might have..." she trailed off.

"I didn't say anything because it got me out of two bad relationships. Even if I was separated at the time, I know you wouldn't have forgiven me. I hoped that ending it the way I did would help you heal faster. More likely, I was just selfish and took an easy way out. Annie though - she was just a means to an end."

Lisa said,"But Anna said you were playing all sorts of tricks on her."

"The only thing I did was send her husband a book about how to recover from a cheating spouse."

"Interesting." Lisa said.

"There was also the note on the inside cover about getting an AIDS test as soon as possible. I know someone who works at a warehouse."

"Tacky - you should have spelled out some other disease. Something less common." Lisa said.

"You're not surprised. Like with me."

"They both fit. Besides, even you wouldn't believe the rumors floating around her."

I know she can hear the smile in my voice as I say, "Shall we compare notes?"

Annie had told me about Steve as well.

Strange how intimate performance is the end all, do all for men. Without that physical element there just seems to be a gray scene where nothing matters.

She told me about the depression that resulted from the lack of intimacy. She spoke longingly of times past when they would spend days together.

Then Steve's cancer came and everything changed. There was no relaxing now. Each time together held the unspoken and dangerous question about whether this was the last time.

Wouldn't it be horrible to know, with certainty, that it was the last time for something? Our greatest blessing is the lack of knowledge.

She described the delicious feeling she had when voting against gay marriage, as only the truly foolish thought it was really about marriage.

Gay bashing. Pure and simple. On the plus side though, it gave her and others a sense of moral superiority which had been missing for so long.

The laughter in her voice threatened to spill over as she spoke about how sacred marriage was. How sacred her own marriage was and how so many other moral chameleons were caught up in all that. She described perfectly that feeling of coldly looking down upon others. Seeing herself, for all her faults, above them. Denying others something that would have cost her nothing.

Arguments that would have been in vogue a hundred years ago to fight against the moral issues of that day are on display. The biblical ones are there, if you ignore 90% of the other content there. The thousand year argument which makes you remember about all the nice things happening then.

A weird time

I like to write sometimes. I've found things inside me that find their way out, no matter what I do.

What is writing anyway? Are there really any bad styles out there?

There is a strange sense when putting words to paper. It isn't the same with a keyboard, it can never be the same.

I'm going to move some of the better posts from another blog here.