Drowning

Shafts of dying dusk illuminated the water through the willow vines. I ran my finger through the gravel on the bank, hoping if I ground my teeth enough the gritty taste in my chest would be abated. It was a feeling, a flavor, a force, all in one. I picked up a jagged rock, wet sand still clinging around its edges, and flung it into the dead water as hard as I could, and still the anger did not die.

Maximo Bleshemer Dillingsgate was one of those projects you loved to start but never finished. He had a way of opening up that made you absolutely certain you could fix him. But in the end, it was always the same: he was too much for me.

"Virginia, you said you wouldn't be angry with me," a cool voice sidled up behind me. That stupid, sauntering voice. 

"Perhaps we should talk about the things that you said then," I suggested, letting my growl drop so low in my chest I doubted he could hear my words. Though perhaps he didn't need to.

He sat down with one hand still in his pocket. Always hiding something. "You know I wouldn't have told you I'd lied to you if I knew this is how you'd take it."

My skin itched where he was near it. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?" I asked, feeling like a short rope in a game of tug-of-war between incredulity and vexation.

He chuckled softly out his nose. "No, I suppose it isn't." He looked down, and picked at a clump of vegetation by his leg, black watch glinting in the bronze sunset.

I stood so abruptly I startled myself. 

I shouldn't press him. Good things never came of that.

I stared over the pond, tracing the drunken trails of fireflies who were just beginning to find themselves in the mirror of the water's surface. It would've calmed me. Any other day it would have been my balm, my tonic. 

But these were his waters. And I was already suffocating in his pool of lies. 

I whirled. "You told me I could trust you, Max! You told me that on the day I was dying!"

His surprise melted into indignation, swaggering eyes affronted. "It was what a dying girl needed to hear!"

"How can you say that? How can you sit there and say that like... like it was nothing?" My face felt on fire.

"Listen, I saved your life. Doesn't that count for anything?" 

I hated Max Dillingsgate in that moment. I was standing over him screaming and even with a low whisper, he still had more power than I ever would.

I straightened. I would not be brought to stoop before him any longer. I swallowed. "Saved it for what, I wonder?"

I stepped nimbly around him and strode back toward the house. 

I felt him follow me and I disgusted myself for wanting him to. He caught my arm halfway through the evening-cooled grasses, perpetually wet around my knees. 

"Wait— please— I didn't mean it."

"Didn't mean what?" I demanded, leaning away from his grasp on my arm.

"Look, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I had to lie. But I did have to. There are things that I— huge things, crazy things that I... I never want you to have the torture of knowing."

I tilted my eyes up to the faint, timid stars to keep the water in, but it only made the tears spill out faster. 

His strong fingers left my arm, but I was caught to deep in the mud to move now. He walked around me to look me in the eye. 

"Please." He frowned. "Don't leave." His watch beeped on the hour. I looked past his shoulder to the masterpiece of architecture looming between the trees. Oh, how I'd loved it here. It had been too good to be true. I should have suspected.

"How can I stay?" I felt my face carve out another trench in my brow, between my eyes, around my mouth. Distorted with agonized hopelessness. "This place is just... an ocean of lies that you pour into every day. Don't think I didn't notice about the butler, Max. I'm... I'm drowning here."

Max stared at me with emotionally charged mental calculus. At last a sad, helpless laugh broke out of him. "People live in water, you know. Mermaids... that lady in the King Arthur story..."

"Those aren't people, Max," I whispered. "That's fantasy. And I can't live in your fiction anymore."

He stiffened, and I pushed past him, bumping into him with my shoulder a little. 

"Take Pawsten with you," he called after me, and in spite of myself, I glanced back. He faced the pond, hands in his pockets. The last thing I heard him mutter was, "He always balked at the waves."

As Sunday Softly Dies

I was tired. So tired. The sky was too; a pale, frigid shade that was less blue than white. 

Barely. It was the definition of "barely."

Barely alive. Barely blue. It was dying. The dying of the light.

I thought suddenly that this must be what death feels like: a cold, tired sunset on the first Sunday of October. 

Some deaths, anyway: the fading away kind. The slow, somber, slipping kind. The icy chill draping down on a burnt forest kind. The pensive, not-altogether-unpleasant-but-sad-in-a-way-too kind. 

Sad like barely blue October twilight. Barely blue, barely October, barely twilight. I thought of tugging on threadbare mittens over bare hands. A sadness so lovely it could only be described in that way: barely-blue-October-twilight. Another brand new emotion to add to my list. How could everything familiar feel so different? Every moment, a new feeling.

On Pain: A Hobbit-Riddled Understanding

I thought about it many times, but didn't actually cry until the credits.

 "Why do you weep?

What are these tears upon your face?

Soon you will see

All of your fears will pass away

Safe in my arms

You're only sleeping"

That stupid song always made me cry.

I hate this song, I thought bitterly. But I love it. I hate it and love it and hate loving it and love hating it. This whole movie— this whole idea, hobbits and rings and kings and shires, is like that.

I scuttled upstairs, wiping away the tears only so my eyes could replenish with fresh ones.

I curled on the floor of my four-by-four feet library, tears writhing behind my eyes, unable to come out and unable to stay in. I sat and lay in my existential pain. No— it wasn't that. It was pain. But—

It was human pain. The most raw, unanalyzed, human pain I'd ever felt. It was real. It was the pain of so many people— without being the pain of anybody that I could attach appraisal to, or try to fix. It was pain that I had to just sit in and experience without being able to even try and fix it. That was the beauty of it. I loved it. But it was pain. And in a way, I hated it.

Above all things, it hurt. It hurt in a way that shouldn't be understood, shouldn't even be thought about. Only experienced, only lived through. It hurt in a way that things hurt when you're learning, and you're glad, but you're mourning something too.

I thought about the ring. I thought about Sméagol. I thought about the battles, the bravery, the fear, the light and dark of the war for Middle Earth. I thought about Aragorn. I thought about rebuilding, about hope and love. But most of all, I thought about Sam, and about Frodo. About what it'd be like to lose your best friend without warning. More than your friend— your partner in survival. The only person in the world who might really understand you, and all you've gone through. To have him leave, after all that, and to try to pick up the threads of an old life. Sam always managed to do these kind of things Frodo couldn't. Sam was able to keep moving. Frodo had been cut— in every way— too deep. I thought about coming home and feeling empty. Not that home is empty, but you're empty, and you can't belong in a full place anymore. I thought about what Frodo really was; what kind of life he'd lived. It really ought to have been called "The Tragedy of Frodo." His life had been wanting adventure, and then it had been having unwanted things thrust upon him, and then it had been wanting to save his home, and then it had been just wanting it all to be over. Unfulfilled. Empty. But full, in a way. Full of pain and fear and exhaustion and wanting. Full of humanity. Full of courage and strength and saving Middle Earth. What a strange and beautiful and pained little thing Frodo was. And what pain he brought me.

Eventually, as with all things, it passed. My mind slipped into other things— story ideas, thoughts of other books, of other times. My headache subsided. I was growing aware of how uncomfortable the position I'd chosen to lay in was.

I got up. I went to my bed and sat. I breathed. I dried my tears.

There was a knock at the door.

Mom came in. "Are you okay?"

I smiled away from her, out the window. "I am now."

"You didn't each your chicken dinos."

"After watching Lord of the Rings, I... I just need some time. I'm okay now."

Mom leaned against the door handle with concern, trying to find my eyes, hidden below the edge of the bunk bed. "The movie upset you that much?"

"It's... It's hard to explain."

"Okay. Are you going to come down at some point?"

"I'll be down in a minute."

And so, the normalcy began to creep back in. Where pain had stabbed and sliced, understanding and peace began to soothe and bind. But Pain hadn't left. Only shape-shifted, evolved. It was old and wise now, and quiet. Gone was the rocking, bawling child, and in its stead, Pain sat cooly, watching the stars with its sword across its lap. Now was a time for healing.

You're welcome, Pain tells me quietly. Now you can understand.

"It's Hard Being Me," in Three Acts- Act III (Let It Be)

Disclaimer: Please, if it's not too much trouble, keep in mind that this is a creative platform. I deal in humans and words. Not politics.

Act III: Let It Be

I ran toward the back porch, tears lapping my cheeks and grass lapping my toes. Grandpa was rocking pensively. 

"Grandpa, I don't know what to do!"

Grandpa roused himself, standing at the call to action.

"Just tell me who to lick, and I'll lick 'em!"

"What? No-- it's nothing like that, it's— it's the election!" I wailed.

"Election? What election? The election that's not for year?"

"Yes! I've tried listening to debates and I just can't bear it! All these angry hearts, just yelling. Nothing's impartial— I guess that's impossible. It's all the screaming of desperate fears and desires— I mean deep, not directly, of course, but there. And what can I possibly do to help? I want to save the world. But I'm a mere molecule of dust— I don't even make a dent! I am so helpless— and if I can't fix it all, I lose the energy to even try to fix some of it. But they— Jack and Thomas— they swear I must. I must vote. And so— I shall. But I know nothing, Grandpa! How am I to know what's the right thing to do? How am I to pick the next leader of the free world— the next great mover of global history? Help me, Grandpa! What do I do?"

I looked up at him miserably, panting.

Grandpa stared at me for exactly two seconds before bursting out in laughter.

"Jane, Jane, Jane my darling, how long has it been your job to keep whole world spinning?"

I laughed helplessly. He opened his arms, grinning, and beckoned me to him. I scampered up the steps and obliged. 

"My dear, you take yourself much too seriously," he whispered, smoothing down my hair.

"Are you saying I'm not to vote?"

"No, of course, vote. By all means, vote."

"But then how do I know which is the right one to pick?"

"You won't know. You just pick. That's all any of us can do. That's all we need to do. The Great Director's got this show covered."

I inhaled, biting my lip, and gazed out over the field. I saw the leaves shivering and shimmering on the great oak. I saw tufts of cloud balancing listlessly on the breeze. I saw a monarch dancing across the field. I didn't help with any of that. 

But that squash over there— those great juicy orange things that soon Grandma will cook with her special recipe for us to savor and sigh over— that I did vote on. I helped plant it. Look how well that had turned out.

I exhaled, and allowed my lips the liberty of a small upward curve. I gave Grandpa one more squeeze.

"Okay."

"It's Hard Being Me," in Three Acts- Act II (Servitude Inglorious)

Disclaimer: Please, if it's not too much trouble, keep in mind that this is a creative platform. I deal in humans and words. Not politics.

Act II: Servitude Inglorious

"So what, you're just going to give up on them?"

She choked over the shutter. "I'm not giving up, Thomas—"

"You are. That's what you do every time you lose control over something. It's what you're doing now."

She sat down on the log— more like tripped backward and fell on it. She rubbed her face, but it didn't do much good, just smeared the tears around.

"My... my vote doesn't even count, Thomas. None of ours do. This is a republic."

She looked up because he stopped pacing. Whenever he stopped moving, danger was coming.

"They don't count? Two hundred plus years of freedom don't mean anything at all?"

She tried to form a reply but he snarled before she could, "You're saying people have died and are dying in uniform for nothing? Democracy is all just some illusion?"

"No— that's not what I—" She stood, reaching out to him, a little desperate. "Listen—"

"You listen. People have fought and died to protect the freedoms you wallow in. You've never known any different. You can't understand what it's like to live in any other kind of society. People are dying right now so that you get to fill out that stupid little piece of paper. I won't let you give up on them. I don't care if you feel like you're doing any good or not. I'm not letting you give up just because you don't have an absolute grasp on the situation. Not this time. You're checking a box. I don't care which one. But you're doing it. Because this is a matter of perpetuating an institution. What happens if everybody decides to give up like you? No one votes? ...Any trace of democracy? All gone. You're going to vote if I have to force you there at sword point."

"Thomas—" 

He pushed past her and Jane couldn't even turn and watch her brother go. She just sat back on the log and caught her face in her hands.