You Might Never Be That Happy

"The most important thing a boy can know how to do," your father had told you, "is how to ice skate backwards."

You had asked your father why. Your father had been teaching you how to skate backwards, and had stopped to make this pronouncement. There was a pond in the field behind your house, one that froze almost solid in the winters. It was small, and it froze rough and warped, so it wasn't good for skating. But it was good for learning where no one could see you fall, and try, and fall again, and try again until you were so numb and sore you couldn't try anymore. And you would go out again the next day, and do the same thing, until you were a good, strong skater.

"Well, a lot of reasons," your father had said, the words curling out of his mouth into the cold like smoke, "First, it will impress people. And twirling is for girls. Skating backwards gives you style. It means you can talk to someone who's skating forward face to face, and that's just polite. But mostly," you remember that the skin around your father's eyes had crinkled up, "mostly it's so you can teach a girl how."

You don't remember what you had said to your father then. Probably you had said that you didn't want to teach any girls. Whatever you said, it had made your father grow almost stern. His dark eyebrows had drawn together, you remember that. Your father didn't talk often, but when he did, it was in speeches. "Trust me. One day you'll like some girl. You'll see her skating, and you'll think she's the most beautiful girl in the whole skating rink, in the whole world. She'll be skating like a deer runs, with those long, smooth glides. And you'll skate up beside her and you'll talk. And you've seen her in school, maybe, but never like this, with the snow in her hair and some red scarf, shining like Christmas with the cold. You'll talk and she'll tell you she can't skate backwards, like it's a secret, like it's shameful -- and you won't make fun of her at all, you'll just offer to teach her, nice and casual. And she'll say yes and you'll know when you put your arms around her, and start to skate backwards with her, real slow, that you've never been so happy. That you might never be that happy again."

You remember sometimes what your father had said, and you remember how it had felt to have your arms around that girl, to be guiding her. And you think how your father had been right: the most important thing a boy can know how to do is how to ice skate backwards.

The bath's a broth.

The bath's a broth.

The tub's the porcelain spoon that scoops me up

and suds and slipping soap and droopy, dripping cloth,

to prune.

And I only even miss you just a little.

The truth is, you were missing a long time before I missed you. When I did miss you, I thought back, and realized that I had been missing you for a long time, though I had only missed you for a very short time.

If I had been reasonable, I would have said See? See how long I've gone without missing you? You have been missing all this time, and I've just now missed you. And I only even miss you just a little.

But I wasn't reasonable, and I didn't say that. When I did miss you, and realized that you were missing, though you had been missing a long time, I started to hunt and hunt for you, to think where you might me, to ask my friends and family about you, even though it wasn't until I realized I was missing you that I missed you, even a little.

He Said, She Said

I.

"I read this article," she said, "about H.L. Mencken."

"Who." he said.

"H.L." she said. "Mencken." she said. "You know. The journalist. Wrote funny stuff."

"Not really." he said.

"Anyway. It doesn't matter." she said. "The point is," she said, "is what this article said---"

"What did it say." he said.

"I'm telling you." she said. "It says about him, about Mencken, you know, H.L. Mencken, that, listen, it says that 'When he attacked'---Mencken---'when he attacked----'"

"He attacked." he said.

"You know." she said.

"Verbally." she said.

"Don't be stupid on purpose." she said.

"I'm not on purpose." he said.

"Don't attack me either like Mencken." he said.

"He didn't attack people. Just, you know, verbally." she said.

"Because he was funny." she said.

"What's your excuse." he said.

"That's not funny." she said. "Not like Mencken. He would be mean but funny." she said.

"Just let me tell you my thing." she said.

"Fine." he said.

"It said---if I can even remember it now---something like 'When Mencken attacked, he left no survivors, but when he praised, it was like Christmas morning.'* That's what it said." she said.

"Okay." he said.

"So." he said.

"That's like you." she said.

II.

"How am I supposed to respond to that." he said.

"I'm just telling you something I thought of." she said.

"Why would you say something like that." he said.

"Look." she said.

"Don't get upset." she said.

"It just struck me." she said.

"How am I supposed to take that." he said.

"Look." she said. "It just reminds me of how you---like, how you make people feel sometimes."

"Are you wanting to tell me something." he said.

"Is this your way of wanting to tell me something." he said.

"I didn't think I was telling you anything." she said.

"Nothing you didn't know." she said.

"Well, I didn't know you felt that way." he said. "And it was rotten of you to bring H.M. Mencken into it. To use some funny guy to tell me."

"H.L." she said.

"What." he said.

"H.L., not H.M." she said.

"As if that mattered." he said.

"As if that were any kind of the point." he said.

"What does that even mean." she said.

"Don't change the subject." he said.

"I'm trying to understand the subject." she said.

"No." he said.

"Look---" she said.

"No." he said.

"Fine." she said.

"Fine." he said.

*

fragment #2

"It's like I can hear her typos." Tim said, leaning back in his chair. "Like I can hear she can't tell the difference between the two 'your's---you know, 'you are' and the other one, the possessive."

"No one can when you're talking," Jo said. "They're homophones."

"You're a homophone," Tim said.

"Don't be an idiot," Jo said.

"I'm totally serious though. I know I can't actually hear the difference, but there's something in the way she talks. Like, she obviously wouldn't write grammatically."

"Does she speak grammatically?" Jo asked.

"I'm telling you," Tim leaned forward suddenly, slamming down the two front feet of his chair, "I can tell it from the way she talks---I can hear that she would confuse her 'to's."

"Like, too, to, and two?" Jo asked.

"I can tell she would confuse them," Tim said, growing emphatic, "And don't even get me started on her 'there's."

"You're crazy," Jo said, and, after a pause, added, "and you're probably trying to sabotage this whole thing with her."

"Why?" Tim said, "Why would I? I want it to work. I want to be with somebody."

"But not with Leigh."

"Yes with Leigh!"

"Not if you're imagining typos when she talks," Jo said.

"Well, why not? What does it mean, the typos?"

"It means you don't think she's smart enough for you." Jo said this looking down into her coffee, blowing on it, waiting for it to cool.

"Well why does it matter if she's smart enough?" Tim leaned back in his chair again. "Why can't she just be her?"

Jo snorted. "Good question," she said.

They sipped their coffee for a while in silence.

I do not like about myself

Once, I wrote a list of things I liked about myself.

I liked it about myself

that I liked these things about myself.

But I have also written

about how I like about myself

that I liked these things about myself, which

is not a thing about myself that I like.

Neither is this.

I like about myself that I like about myself

the things that I do.

Once,

I wrote a list of the things I liked about myself.

They were not obvious, or consistent,

but it was true that I liked them about myself.

I like that about myself,

that I did that.

I like about myself

that I tread very lightly, so lightly you cannot hear my footsteps,

I do not disturb dust

beneath my feet;

that I am ready to laugh, I am even now

waiting for you to make me laugh;

that when I am alone, I sing

and do not think of myself

and am happy;

that I will stare for a long time

at things I find beautiful, moving,

but not when anyone can see, lest they think

I am doing it for their benefit, as an affectation;

that sometimes my hair curls, and sometimes

I even like that it curls;

that I like things about myself.

Ful[l]

Thank-

ful;

Eat --

FULL!

Lob

Roll:

Big

LOL.

Big

Lull;

Loll;

Go.

Very often

Very often, I don't know what to do. In almost all circumstances, I don't know what the best course of action is, or even what courses of action are available to me. If I knew what options I had, I have thought, it would not be as difficult for me to decide what to do. Though, I have also thought, that even if I did know exactly what options I had in a given circumstance, I still would not know which option was the best. Because of this, I take a special comfort from doing one of the few things I am confident I know how to do.

I stand over my sink and wash a spoon very carefully. I have cleaned the handle, and am polishing and polishing the bowl. I clean the spoon so thoroughly because I know how to clean a spoon, and because cleaning a spoon gives me time to consider one of the many things I don't know how to do. I don't know what to say to a friend who has said something harsh to me, for instance. It's obvious that she has only done so because she is angry at someone else, some third person, and wants me to know that she is, so I may comfort her. It's probably also because she wants me to think she doesn't want my comfort, even though she has made it clear that she needs it.

I can't decide what to say to her, or whether to say anything to her at all, what would be best, what would comfort her, what would let her know that I know she needs comforting, and that I do not like the way she has asked me for it, but that I will give it to her anyway. I don't know how to communicate any of these things, or whether I should. I scrub and scrub at the bowl of the spoon until it's no longer a tablespoon, it's a teaspoon, and still I don't know what to say to her, or whether to say anything to her. I keep scrubbing until it is a snail fork, and then a toothpick. I wash the spoon so hard and so meticulously that it is cleaned clean out of existence. I have done the thing I knew how to do until it has disappeared entirely. I still don't know what to do about anything else. I stand over the sink for a long time with empty hands, wishing I had another dirty spoon.

Anecdote #4

I went to a room to hear a man speak. The room was over-full, overflowing, because the man was somewhat famous and the topic somewhat interesting. I hesitated to stay, since the room was very full, and I was only moderately interested in the somewhat interesting talk. In my mind, this talk justified a full room, but not a very full room, a room filled to capacity.

Before it began, an audience member addressed a remark to him. It was a slightly forward remark, and could have been read as rude. It could also have been seen as a vocal but pertinent concern. The speaker, who was evidently very engaging, responded to this remark with another, one that made the listener the butt of a joke. Everyone laughed for a long time; perhaps for longer than the joke warranted.

It was a moderately clever joke, but it disgusted me. The man was a good speaker, and a calculated one, and rather than be corrected by an over-earnest audience member, he turned her comment into a joke on her. She had no response, was probably not clever enough to have one, and was not given opportunity.

I left immediately after, because I was less and less interested in what this man, whom I now saw as arrogant, had to say, because I disapproved of what little I had seen of him, of his joke.

But maybe I should have stayed, to take up a place, so one less person could fit in the room, and one less person could laugh at his jokes.

The world is almost only made

The world is almost only made

of sad and of beautiful things.

Some things are even

both. Both

the sad and the beautiful things

inevitably

break our hearts:

Only humor surprises.

But even humor

is often sad, and even more often

beautiful.

This.

There has never been any question but this.

We have never cared about anything but this.

Not since it first came to our attention.

Fragment #1

The day she ran over the cat on purpose, her kitchen caught fire. She had studied Philosophy in college. She knew what a post hoc fallacy was. It didn't change the feeling that the fire was some sort of retribution. She didn't really believe in God, or, didn't believe that he cared what she did to cats with her car, anyway. She had to keep from rolling her eyes whenever that friend mentioned karma. It still felt like someone had been watching her, and that that someone had wanted to let her know. Maybe it was Santa Claus. You better watch out! she sang to herself. It was December, and he was everywhere, white and red, like scarring. That was the only reason she had done it, really; Christmas has a way of getting you down.

She remembered the beginning of Moby Dick. It was the only part of it she could remember, since it was the only part of it she had managed to read. She didn't have the option of going to sea, but she did feel like knocking people's hats off. But people didn't wear hats you could knock off anymore. Maybe that was her problem. Maybe that's why she took it out on house pets: no top hats. If she came across any carolers dressed in period costume, though --- well, she and cats weren't the only ones who better watch out.

All exact knowledge

She wants to know the details of my life, every inconsequential thing. I can't be bothered to tell her all of them, but she inquires about many of them. I don't care about what I see as inconsequential details, because I think they're inconsequential. To her, of course, they are of moment, they matter. They must, or else she wouldn't always ask me about them. And it's not only with me that she cares about fine details, but with everyone to whom I am connected. So when she asks about my friends, my wife, my children, she asks the sort of questions about them that she asks about me, the sorts of questions I think are unimportant. Because I think they're unimportant, I never know the answers to these questions for other people; I hardly know them for myself. I can't say whether my child has had his oil changed recently, or if my wife has renewed her magazine subscriptions for the year. I don't know if Tim and Bonnie are finished remodeling their house, or whether Peter has switched to satellite television.

She has a prodigious memory for these things, however, these things I never ask about, and do not find important or interesting. And because it's what she remembers, and what she finds interesting, it's what she asks me about. It must seem to her, I know, that I'm very ignorant about my own wife, my own children, all my friends, because I never know the things she asks me. I even find myself at a loss when, frustrated, she asks, "Well, what do you know?"

I know that I like the smell of my wife's hair, no matter what shampoo she uses. I know the sight of my son's strong back makes me tear up, and that my daughters are as delicate in their movements as deer. I know that the sound of their laughter harmonizes strangely with my heart-beat. I know my friends are those people I can be silent with, and who will drink wine with me while the sun sets, shining brightly into our faces. None of these things seem like things I can tell her, though, when she asks about my children's grades, or my neighbor's credit score. When I'm talking to her, I can't remember what it is that my relationships are about, I so obviously lack all exact knowledge of those I love.

Magi, Gifts of (Various)

I.

He shaved his head for her

so her radiated baldness

would have companionship.

She had already bought an expensive wig

to have the hair he had always liked

on other women.

II.

She donated blood for him

as he had once

for her.

But he was O positive,

and she A negative,

and he died

of blood loss.

Smallest Bells

"Come, let us risk our lives unnecessarily.

For if they have got any value at all

it is that they have got none."

~ Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

Let us empty our thin, old skins

(each of us for the other)

of the last few drops of water

onto the ground, to those gods

of older and lesser hells.

Let us be the widow's two coins

tumbling into temple coffers

(our last and only offering),

spending ourselves without question,

ringing like smallest bells.

I become quite alert when the hostess comes by

with snacks.

What if I am the only one

on this plane

she forgets?

Juices: Beet, Human

I cut myself as I am grating beets, and do not notice, because my blood is the color of the beet juice. I grate and grate, and bleed and bleed. My mind is elsewhere, and I do not feel the pain. Only as I am finished grating all the beets, and go to wash the beet juice off my hands, it will not wash off. I run water over my hands, and my hands fill again with beet juice.

This confuses me just long enough for me to imagine that the beets have stained my skin so thoroughly that the stain had seeped into them. I think, I had been grating beets so long, I am excreting their juices!

I realize the truth, of course, and have to throw away all the beets that I have grated, and -- instead of eating the beets -- sit holding my beet- and blood-stained hands up in front of my face, so the bleeding will stop. My palms are still stained with beet juice. The beets I have thrown away are stained too, probably, with my blood. I have not been able to stop the beets' bleeding either, and now my counter and cutting board are both stained with our juices. And still, I cannot tell which is which.

A Book He is Reading

He is telling me about a book he is reading. He holds this book as you would a Bible, though it's just a regular book, and isn't holy in any way. It is about the same thickness as a Bible so he must hold it like a Bible, in that it weighs about what a Bible does, and needs to be held like something that weighs like a Bible. He also reads only small portions at a time, he tells me, though the book is very large, because he is a little afraid of the book as a whole, the way you might be afraid of a book that is reported holy. He also reads only a little at a time because he loves the book so much, though it's just a book, that he is afraid to exhaust it, like an over-watched movie, he says. Though he admits that it would take a long time to watch this whole movie.

This is a little how people read the Bible, though mostly people only read a little of the Bible because they are daunted by its breadth. He may be daunted by its breadth, but he also seems to be inspired by it, the way people may be inspired by the Bible. He shows me the way he reads it, just a little of it, every night before he goes to sleep. He stands in the middle of the room, and holds it out in front of him, open in his cupped hands. He stands very straight. He reads the little bit aloud to me, after telling me that he always reads it aloud, to the cats, or to himself, but now to me. His voice as he reads has a kind of reverence, though it is not too soft, the way public prayer can be. It is, if anything, loud for a reading just to himself, or to himself and his cats, or to me. His diction is careful, devotional. It's obvious that he relishes what he is reading aloud. I am not sure whether this is a special enactment for me of what he will do again later, in earnest, for himself, or if he is allowing me to watch him in his single, small reading for the night of the book he loves.

He is annoyed.

He is annoyed when he does something that he is happy with, that he likes, and he tells his friends about it, and they say, "That is so like you, to do that." It feels useless to be told this. He believes that when his friends say this they are really saying, "You are predictable." When they tell him it is like him to do what he does, they are telling him that they could have anticipated what he has done. Perhaps they could have, but he does not like them to say so to him. It makes him feel as if his actions don't matter. It makes him feel that the things he does that make him happy are unimportant, because similar things he has done have made him similarly happy before.

He is also annoyed when he does something, whether or not it is something he is happy with, and his friends say, "You are just like Tim, when you do that." Or "Who are you, Daniel?" He dislikes being told this because it seems as if his friends are saying, "You are being unpredictable." Though, if he were Tim or Daniel, what he did would be, instead, predictable.

He does not like being told he is being predictable or unpredictable. But his friends seem to be telling him that when he does something he would do, it is boring, and that when he does something someone else would do, it is interesting. He has decided, out of annoyance, to stop telling his friends about the things he does, so that they cannot say these things to him. However, he does not know whether this is something that they will say is like him or like someone else, whether they will find it predictable or interesting.

She Should Have Been Born in the 19th Century, Since

She does not vote.

I can tell from a certain stubbornness in her face, and from the height of her heels, that she would withstand being corseted very tightly.

She has a natural bustle.

Who I Am Like

I can tell by the way the arrangement of my features feels

when I am surprised

that I am making the same face I recognize

on my brother,

when he is surprised.

The Moral

I want very much to talk as you do, with your accent.

But if I did,

I would not be happy,

because I would no longer want to talk like you

I just would.

Sometimes having what you want

means not getting it.

Generations

She is the sort of mother who often cannot hear what I say. Not because she is a bad mother, but because she is not the sort of person to hear what I have to say. This is because I say very theoretical things, and she is a very practical person. Her eyes go flat almost as soon as I begin to say one of these theoretical things, and I can tell she does not listen, though she hears me speaking to her. She is proud of me, and thinks I am intelligent, because I try and tell her theoretical things, but she does not care to understand, and so she thinks she cannot.

I am the sort of daughter who often cannot hear what she says. Not because I am a bad daughter, but because I am not the sort of person to hear what she has to say. This is because she says very practical things, and I am a very theoretical person. I can tell that my eyes go flat almost as soon as she begins to say one of these practical things, and I do not listen, though I hear her speaking to me. I love her, and I think she is wise, because she tries to tell me practical things, but I do not care to understand, and so I cannot.

Perhaps I, too, will be the sort of mother who will not be able to hear what my daughter says. Not because I am a bad mother, but because I may not be the sort of person to hear what her sort of person has to say. It may be because my daughter will be the sort of person who says very practical or very, very theoretical things, and I am a very theoretical person, neither very practical nor very, very theoretical. My eyes may go flat almost as soon as she begins to say one of these practical or these theoretical things, and she may be able to tell I do not listen, though I will hear her speaking to me. I will be proud of her, of course, and love her, and will think her both intelligent and wise, and she may try and tell me things, practical or theoretical, but they may well be things that I will not or cannot understand.

Herd of Doves

This morning I saw

a green front yard

full of doves grazing

pecking at insects here

and there amid shining grass.

Not like a flock of gulls at the beach

flatfooted on sand

or a flotilla of geese

launching onto a lake but like

a flock of sheep or a herd of cows chewing cud.

They seemed so at home

so domestic. If each dove

were tethered

by a thin lead to a fence post

if I had seen

a small shepherdess tend them

with her crook

I could not have been more surprised.

Disappointment is a Universal Emotion.

She asked me in Spanish if I speak Spanish; in English I said "I'm sorry?" meaning I was asking her to repeat herself, because I had not understood that she was speaking Spanish, and so could not understand her, because I was trying to understand her in English. When I understood that she was speaking Spanish, I understood her in Spanish, and then told her in Spanish that I do not speak Spanish, and in Spanish said "I'm sorry," meaning I was sorry that I did not speak Spanish. She seemed disappointed, and hung up on me. I was disappointed, too, in myself, and wondered if I should have told her in Spanish that I speak a little Spanish.

She called back soon after, to ask again in Spanish whether I speak Spanish. This time, I told her in Spanish that I was sorry, and that I only speak a little Spanish, meaning I was sorry that I only speak a little Spanish. She began to try to talk to me, and I began to try to listen. I could understand perhaps every third word of what she said in Spanish, but could not remember any of the right words to respond in Spanish. I tried to respond in English. She told me, in English, to wait. She put her very small son on the phone, who asked me in English if I speak English. I paused to consider the question. He then asked me in English if I speak Spanish. I told him in English that I was sorry, and that I did not speak Spanish, as I had told his mother before, in Spanish. He hung up on me too. I could not tell if he seemed disappointed.

A Roomful of Chairs

She is standing in a roomful of chairs and elderly people. There are more people (mostly elderly) than there are chairs. Though she is tired, she is afraid to sit down. She is afraid that one of the elderly people will tire as well, and will want to sit down, but she will have taken the chair that is closest, or most convenient, or most desirable to the tired elderly person. Then the elderly person would have to ask her to get up, or would not ask her to get up, out of reticence or politeness. She would not like being asked to get up, because it would seem that she had wronged an old and frail person simply by sitting; she would get up the moment anyone asked her to, of course, hastily and blushing. It would be even worse if the old person wanted very much to sit in the chair she had taken, but said nothing; then should would unknowingly be causing a tired old person some measure of suffering. She prefers to protect herself and those around her from possible embarrassment or suffering by remaining standing, though she is very tired.

Some of the elderly people who are standing are men. She wonders if, because they are men, and are of a different generation, whether they do not sit down so that she, a woman, may sit down if she is tired. Though she is young enough to be their granddaughter, they may defer to her because of her gender, just as she is deferring to them because of their age. They may believe that women tire more easily than men, just as she believes that the old tire more easily than the young.

She does not know if the elderly men want to sit down, but are standing in order to defer to her as a woman, or if they do not want to sit down, and are indifferent to whether she does. If they want to sit but are not, because she is a woman and may want to, just as she wants to sit and is not, because they are old and may want to, then everyone is being prevented from what they want by some ingrained politeness. If one or the other of them were more demanding, more presumptuous, this would not cause them trouble as it may be now. Of course, if everyone were more concerned with their own comfort than with the comfort of others, it could cause another kind of trouble, since there are fewer chairs than there are people.

It is more likely, of course, that the elderly people are not tired at all, which is why they do not sit. This means that they are indifferent to the too-few chairs, and she is preventing herself from sitting, though she is tired, for no reason. As it is, because there are fewer chairs than there are people, and because so many of the people are elderly, and because the elderly may well tire more easily than the young, even the tired young, she does not sit.

Vignette #2

There is an old woman and a young woman and two children, a boy and a girl. The old woman and the young woman and the little girl are all wearing pink shirts, although the old woman's is a pink and white stripe with buttons, while the young woman and the girl are only wearing cotton t-shirts. They are very obviously all related; each of them has the exact same nose, strange and charming. The small children squirm on one side of the booth; the old woman and her daughter sit opposite them. The old woman talks to the children primarily through her gestures and her expressions. She winks at them very often. The young woman talks on her cell phone. They sit and wait for their food. The little girl has tousled bangs, and looks younger than the boy, though they could be twins. The little boy is wearing glasses that are much, much too big for him. They look like goggles. His mother gets up, still talking on the phone, to get their order. He crawls up next to his grandmother on the other side of the booth and kisses her on the cheek. I did not see if she asked him to, or if he thought of it himself. The young woman comes back with a big plastic bag full of food. The others get up to leave with her. They are all wearing sensible tennis shoes.

While we talked in the dark,

While we talked in the dark,

a friend held my big toe.

You cannot imagine how charming,

how heart-breakingly beautiful it was,

unless you too have had a friend who

(in the dark)

held your big toe

while you talked.

Insecurities, Two

Insecure people make me insecure, because I am insecure about bringing about their insecurities, with carelessness or flippancy. But secure people also make me insecure, with their carelessness and their flippancy, and because I desire to be as secure as they are. But the most secure-seeming people I know I have often found to be deep-down insecure, perhaps the most insecure of all. They have become the best at hiding their insecurity, in order to feel more secure by seeming more secure.

When I think about all of our insecurities, and the way they cause each other or lay one another to rest, it does not make me less insecure. It might even make me more insecure, realizing that we are all this way. But it does make me want to rest a quiet hand on everybody's hearts, one at a time, and keep it there for a long beat or two, securely.

Insecurities, One

I am insecure, because you never tell me that you like me. But I have found out, from a friend who tells me things about other friends (because that friend is insecure and hopes to solidify our friendship by telling me the secrets of other friendships, so that we may have a secret), that you do not tell me you like me, even though you do like me, and have wanted to tell me, because you are insecure. You are insecure about our friendship, and believe that if you tell me you like me, I will think myself superior to you, and will not like you. Hearing this makes me feel more secure in a way, but more insecure in another. It makes me insecure thinking of telling you that I know that you like me, though my telling you may make you more secure, because then you may tell the friend who told me about you that I told you that that friend has told me about you. Then that friend would know that I have told that friend's secret, which is that that friend tells that friend's friends that friend's friends' secrets (but only when that friend's friends are also that friend's friend's friends), the way that friend has told me yours, which is that you like me.

Vignette #1

Two strange fish swim in their tank. They do not swim so much as fight. Or, I think that they fight. They might well be mating, or playing. I have no idea what it looks like for these fish to do any of those things. It looks as if they are doing nothing so much as kissing, or trying to, over and over. Their faces are bloated and strange, and their mouths are like beaks. I have not thought before how similar the mouths of birds and fish are. The fish ram their beak-like mouths together, floating back from one another at the impact, clumsy as bumper boats.

Again and again they inexpertly tap their faces together. The upward current of the tank filter's bubbles seems to be too strong for them. They do not swim confidently like fish that know their own weight. They look like over-inflated balloons held underwater: too light for the medium, eager to rocket to the surface. I cannot see the strings that hold them down like trapped balloons, but they behave as if they are there. The fish bounce and collide like an amateur's marionettes, the hidden hands beneath them instead of above, hidden hands that keep them kissing, kissing, perfecting their aim, until their kisses become believable, until they learn how to love each other.

Anecdote #3

I walked down a hallway yesterday, one that had a glass door at the far end. It was a long hallway, and as I turned to walk down it, I could see a boy through the glass door at the end of it. I had a long time to look at the boy as I walked down the long hallway. He turned his head to look at me, when I was still far down the long hallway. We looked at each other through the glass door the whole time it took me to walk to it. I began to feel uncomfortable at how long we had been looking at each other. I blurred my vision a little, made my face blank, so he would think I was not looking at him as he was at me, so he would not be uncomfortable as I was. He did not seem to be uncomfortable. He did not look away. He swung his legs from the bench he was straddling, and kept looking at me. It felt like the end of an age when I opened the door and stepped outside. As the door swung shut behind me, I glanced back, to see what the boy had seen. I wanted to see the long hallway from his perspective, and imagine myself in it as he would have seen me. And I saw that the door was mirrored. I could only see my reflection. Behind my reflection, I could see the boy's reflection, looking at his reflection. He was still swinging his legs.

So much have I loved you

I read a study once

about how

the less you remember something

the more true your memory of it is.

It was found

that by constant calling to mind

we blur and begrime our memories

with the oily prints

of our mental touch, or bleach them

as the sun will fade photographs

into color fields --

abstract

and meaningless.

So now I say to you:

I have loved you so,

I promise

I will not remember you.

I will keep my thoughts

pristine of you,

and truthful to who you have been

by never once remembering you.

I will carefully reassign

snatches of melody,

that certain stool.

I will even deceive myself

to keep you safe

from surfacing.

If I succeed,

if I have succeeded

for years, perhaps

one day

when I am thinking of something else

(how much milk to buy,

or the color of oak leaves,

or an itch on my ankle)

maybe then

your memory

will wash over me suddenly

like a flash flood.

What a moment that will be then,

between you and I,

your memory as uninvited and arresting and entire

as Last Judgement!

But I will not lay your ghost, even then,

by turning and turning that memory over

in my hands

like the lost treasure

it surely would be.

As soon as it happened,

almost before it is over,

I will tuck you again

between the tissue paper of my brain's folds

and snap shut the small box I have for you

and replace it

in one of the rows and rows of uncountable boxes

on innumerable shelves

in the dim hallways

of my undisturbed memory.

If we met in a train station,

half-hidden by billowing steam,

years after parting,

after you had died,

I would look you full in the face just once,

and you would see me start. Then

you would watch my face go carefully blank

and my eyes unfocus. You would watch me

look past you,

and brush by you without a word.

So much have I loved you,

so much do I want to keep you safe.

I did not admire his other hand --

I did not admire his other hand -- his lack of a hand, rather. I was afraid to look at that handless wrist, lest he think me impolite, an ogler. I had heard that, even when a hand is lost, the one who has lost the hand will still feel it as if it is there. I did not admire his lack of a hand, but I wondered about it. I wondered about whether he had a phantom hand.

I wondered if he used his phantom hand to touch people without their knowing, with a touch only he could feel. If he had a phantom hand, he could stand behind a woman in line at the grocery, and lift his arm on some pretext, and graze her hair with his missing hand, and he would feel her hair, or feel that he felt her hair, and she would not feel his ghostly hand. He could grow bolder, and rest his hand on the small of her back, as if they knew each other intimately, as if this were a commonplace affection, and she would not resist that gentle familiarity, that touch too light to be felt, too subtle to be seen. I wondered about that for a long time, long after I saw that he was missing his hand.

Short, short story #1

She was afraid to enter the revolving door.

Her friends laughed and laughed. Still,

who walks without even a little fear

into a blender?

I watched a man with one hand make himself a cup of coffee once.

I watched a man with one hand make himself a cup of coffee once. I admired the dexterity that one hand had. I watched him open a box of brown sugar, put some sugar in his coffee, and close the box again. He did it quickly, connectedly, exactly, as if it were all one fluid, daedel movement. He popped the cardboard tab on the top of the box open with his single index finger, then widened the mouth of the plastic bag that held the sugar with his five fingers. He bunched them together, then spread them apart a few times, quickly. (It reminded me of a squid's propulsion, that spreading of his fingers.) He picked up the spoon to lift out a rounded mound of the brown granules, stirred the sugar into his coffee with a few quick flicks of his wrist, then brought the spoon to his mouth and sucked it clean. As if as a finishing flourish, he tossed it, clinking, into the sink's metal basin.

He picked up the sweetened coffee with that one hand, his left hand. His left arm was very strong; I saw how strong it was as he lifted the mug to his mouth. I wondered if he had always been left-handed, or was forced to be by the loss of his right, or whether he was born without his right hand and so never knew whether he would have been right-handed, if he had had both. He toasted me with with his upraised fist, curled around the cup of coffee.

In the moment before he turned away, I found his one hand very beautiful, very nobel and worthy of respect. I held back the flooding impulse to kiss it. I resisted because I did not know how steady his hand was, despite its strength; I did not know how his hand would react to my untoward kiss. My pressing his hand with my lips would probably have knocked the coffee cup, anyway, and would have burned my face, and his fine fist.

Shaken

You live alone in an apartment building beside a freeway. Where you live is always trembling. Whenever trucks rumble by on the freeway, your apartment shakes. It is often shaken by these trucks. But it does not take something very large to make the apartment tremble: if your neighbor above walks with a sufficiently solid tread, it will shake you too. Even a heavy step in the hallway will make your cup clink in its saucer, the water tremble in your glass.

On top of this, you live in California, where sometimes even the earth will shake. You have been through enough earthquakes that you are skittish of them. Your heart begins to pound anytime you feel a tremor, an imbalance, out of fear of an earthquake.

It doesn't help matters that you have vertigo, and often feel a swaying when there is none; it goes without saying that your heart often pounds from fear.

You are old and unsteady on your feet as it is. And so it is hard for you to tell whether the shaking you feel is internal or external, natural or artificial, real or figmentary. You only know you feel shaken, most all of the time.

The Eyepatch: a fable

You have decided that if you ever lost an eye, for whatever reason, you would wear a black eyepatch. You would accept the piratical jokes, and maybe even embrace them. Get a parrot or something. You wouldn't get a fake eye or try to hide it with your hair or do whatever people who have lost eyes usually do. You would wear an old-fashioned black eyepatch. If they even sell such things anymore. It would give you character, maybe even distinction. People would know that you weren't afraid to draw attention to this thing about yourself that would always demand attention anyway.

And one day, improbably, some man would fall in love with you. He would look into your one good eye with so much love and affection that it would tire you out, having only one eye to stare into both of his, so full of love. Sometimes, you would lay your head on his shoulder, or his chest, just so that your eye could rest from looking into his eyes.

And when he had loved you for a while, a long while even, sometimes when you were comfortable and unguarded, he would ask you to take off the eyepatch. He would ask you to show him your scarred or missing eye. You would shake your head, maybe hiding your face behind your hands, your eye and your eyepatch behind closed fists. You would cry and cry from your one good eye and tell him No, No, No. You would walk around without an eyepatch all day, let every stranger see and look away, before you would let him look full on your injury even once, you would tell him.

Eventually, of course, you would show it to him. But you know that you would keep your good eye closed while you did. And you know that you would not let him mention it afterwards.

Smoking Cigarettes

Smoking cigarettes does wonders for your social life. Or, it would, if  the sort of people you wanted to meet smoked cigarettes. Correction: if the sort of people you wanted to meet bummed cigarettes. Smoking a cigarette while sitting on a park bench, or at a cafe table, or while loitering is  like holding a sign while sitting on a park bench, or at a cafe table, or while loitering -- a sign that says "WILL TRADE CIGARETTES FOR AWKWARD CONVERSATIONS TRANSPARENTLY INITIATED FOR THE SAKE OF CIGARETTES." 

Everybody's a palm.

"I always believed in you."

(There was a beat, longer than a heartbeat, but not much longer.)

"You never believed in me."

"What? That's so not true!"

"You've never said one encouraging thing to me. You'd ask to read my stories, and you'd read them and read them, and you never said anything. Nothing. You said nothing."

"That does not mean I don't believe in you. That has, like, zero to do with whether I believe in somebody."

"Well, it made me believe you didn't believe in me. Which is the same thing."

"I can't believe this. I can't believe you."

(Another beat. Several, actually.)

"It's the same thing to me. What am I supposed to think? It feels the same."

"Well, I don't understand why you always have to read into everything all the time."

"I read into things because that's what you do. You read into stuff. Everything's just there to be read into. Like, the way you're sitting there right now is just--just--like, asking to be read into! You're telling me I'm not supposed to be reading into stuff when there's so much stuff there to read?"

"I'm not telling you to read me! Stop reading me. Don't read me -- I'm telling you to not read me."

(Beat.)

"Well, how am I supposed to not read into that?"

"Fine. How am I supposed to not read into your reading into me? Like I’m--like I’m a hand or something and you’re this palm reader, this God-almighty palm reader just--just freaking reading me all the time, like I’m so easy for you or something. Maybe I’m the back of the hand, huh? You ever think I could be the back of a hand, and you’re trying to read me, and you’re just reading me wrong?”

“You’re so not the back of the hand. Don’t be stupid. Everybody’s a palm.”

“You don’t be stupid. I don’t have to be a palm. You know what? I might be a leg. A leg with no lines and you can’t read me because you don’t even know I ‘m not a hand. You win some award, and you think that’s it. You think you get me, that you know what I think about you, because you can make shit up. You think that’s a way to get people?”

“Ya, thanks, well, now I don’t have to make anything up. I don’t have to read into anything. You’re just, you’re just spelling it all out and now I know I was right! I was always right about you.”

“F. off.”

“No, you f. off.”

“No. I’m staying right f.-ing, fucking here. I was here first.”

“Fine, a.-hole. I’ll leave, but don’t act like I can’t read into you because I know I can, because you just showed me I was right. You’re right I’m a palm reader. I’ve read you all the way down, okay, and I know you don’t think I can do it, but I’m doing it anyway.”

“Whatever. I’m just sitting here trying to watch TV, and, like, relax, and you’re all demanding -- I tried to say something nice, do you get that? I try to be supportive, and this is what happens. You have to be able to read me.”

“Well, I have to read you because you don’t just tell me!”

“I -- I don’t -- what the h-- I just told you. I told you I believed in you.”

“No you don’t.”

“Fine! I don’t! Whatever. You’re the mindreader.”

“Palmreader.”

“Shut the fuck up, please.”

“Great sentence. Great sentiment. Thanks for adding the ‘please’ or my feelings would really be hurt.”

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up. I’m trying to watch TV.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

(A lot of heartbeats, pretty fast ones, but not too many.)

“Look, do you want some popcorn or something?”

“What? Do I -- what?”

“Look, I’m just gonna make some popcorn. I want to know if you want some. It’s not a hard question.”

“Are you trying to be nice now? Because you’re not doing a good job.”

“I’m doing a better job than you.”

“Yes, YES. Okay? I want POPCORN. I’ve never wanted anything so much in my whole life. I’m starving for popcorn. It’s a popcorn famine over here. Please. Thank you. Popcorn. Yes. Great. Gimme.”

“Screw you.”

(Many beats.)

Yelled into the next room, “I did too believe in you. You can’t read my mind. My mind believed in you, just because you couldn’t read it doesn’t mean it didn’t.”

“Then why -- you know what? Never. Mind. I’m making popcorn, and you’re not getting any.”

“Right. Like I wanted any.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Whatever.”

“And I did too believe in you.”

Coming in from the other room, “I can hear you, you know. I’m not dumb. Or deaf or whatever. Why didn’t you ever tell me, then?”

“Why do I have to tell you if I believe in you?”

“Because how else am I supposed to know?”

“You said you knew. You said you could read my freaking mind.”

“Well, I can’t. Hello. Obviously I can’t.”

“Well, I did.”

“Fine. You did.”

(A beat exactly as long as a heartbeat.)

“But you should tell me if you did.”

“I’m telling you I did.”

“Fine. Whatever. Fine.”

(Maybe only a single heartbeat, maybe two.)

“Thanks, I guess.”

(Beat.)

“But you should’ve told me then. You should tell me when, not after.”

“Okay, okay. Jeez. I will. I’ll tell you then.”

“You don’t have to be a palm, you know. But I don’t want you to be the back of the hand either, with no lines.”

“Well, maybe I’ll be...like, an old back of the hand with, like, wrinkles and stuff.”

“No. Wrinkles aren’t lines. You can’t read wrinkles, everyone knows  that.”

“Fine, I’ll be the front of a hand then. I’ll be the front, so you can read me.”

“No! That’s the point! I don’t want to have to read you. I want you to read yourself to me. Because I can read wrong.”

“Well, I can read wrong too.”

“I know, but -- I know. But. Please?”

“Fine. I’ll read myself to you. When I believe in you, then, then I’ll read myself to you. Okay? Alright?”

“Okay. Good.”

“Fine?”

“Fine.”

(Beat. Beat. Beat.)

“I guess I’ll have a half a bowl.”

“I already made you a whole one, with the butter and stuff.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

(More beats.)