Inspired by this picture, it would do you good to look at it before you read. Kind of playing the home game here to keep my brain from shriveling up from lack of writing things.
----
There are four hundred and thirteen thousand, nine hundred and eighty-six bricks (visible) in the tower. The tower is one hundred and thirty-seven feet and three inches high. The clock faces east-northeast, aligned along 78th Avenue conforming to the regular city grid.
I usually (no more than five days a week, no less than three, Sundays and holidays omitted) stand fifty-four feet from the tower, next to a bench (Municipal Model 394-D, manufactured by Heich Public Ironworks). I am most often positioned west-southwest facing the clock and 78th Avenue.
78th Avenue carries an average traffic volume of ninety-eight cars per minute. This volume spikes at two hundred and twelve cars per minute at 7:32 AM (weekdays). There are three stops for the 78 bus within view, as well as an additional stop reserved for the 78 Express situated out of view behind the tower. The 78 Express departs from its stop exactly on the hour each hour from six AM to ten PM.
The tower bells sound each hour and half hour. The clock is two minutes fast, but otherwise remains accurate. At noon, the tower bells sound a short melody (thirty-two seconds in length), popularly believed to have been derived from a work of Schubert. It, however, is not: the short series of notes sounded by the tower bells bear no similarity in substance or style to any known Schubert composition.
My father was struck and killed by the eastbound 78 bus (2004 Model D4500CT, manufactured by Motor Coach Industries, operating number 1034) as he crossed the street. The bus was traveling twenty-four miles an hour. His body flew seventeen feet after the impact, taking six seconds to return to earth. Emergency personnel were dispatched from the nearby Presbyterian General Hospital (paramedic unit 8, responding EMTs Allison Marshall, Joshua Smith, and Eric Seydall) and arrived in three minutes and twenty-eight seconds.
Doctor Phillip Miller pronounced him dead on arrival.
He died one hour and fifty-six minutes after we had met for lunch at the Sandersson Deli (corner of 78th and Banks, closed Saturdays). I had the reuben, no dressing, soup (chicken noodle). He had the turkey on wheat. The total was twelve dollars and ninety-three cents, including tip. He wouldn't let me pay.
As he left my company, he pointed to the inscription on the tower.
"Be a good kid," he said. "Make me proud. Fly from evil, you know?"
He laughed, then.
I don't understand laughing.
What exactly is evil? I'm...I'm having trouble quantifying.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Monday, February 04, 2008
Broken Down
They…they tell you that it’s always been that way-—or that it always should have been that way. It’s not right, you say, it is different and it cannot be quantified and it is somehow wrong, a pure, invisible wrongness spreading out in front of you like the sun just decided to rise purple.
Keep moving.
It’s not so bad, they say, and although you are to be commended for pointing out that particular flaw in the system there are a team of technicians on standby and they are entirely focused on planning for the resolution (preparing to plan for the resolution) and you really don’t need to concern yourself with technical matters when there’s work yet undone, do you?
Keep moving.
I understand, they reply—-with a distinct lack of courtesy this time-—but your unsubstantiated concerns, as worrying as they may be, are standing in the way of the Plan and may even be construed to be anti-Plan, as much as I hesitate to use the phrase. We certainly have done the best to foster a certain spirit of discretion among your team but one wonders if we haven't done too much, hm?
Keep moving.
Do you consider yourself, they ask, a patriotic man? Of course you do, who doesn’t? Knowing that, one must wonder at the level of attention you have paid this particular matter. It certainly seems contrary to an acceptable love for one’s fellow man to worry so much over this one trifle, doesn’t it? Don’t the stakes demand that you concede to authority? We’ve been trained and equipped for this situation, all the best classrooms covered in precise technical drawings describing this situation were made available to us from a very early age and I assure you, sir, that this is all entirely under control.
Now.
I feel that you have put me (and the Plan, no less!) in a rather difficult position, but I must this moment demand that you either return to your duty and keep moving, or formally refuse to serve-—and I am exceedingly sure you are aware of the consequences of that particular choice.
There’s a good fellow.
Don’t worry about it stopping outright, mind you. That’s a difficulty best left to our sons.
Keep moving.
Keep moving.
It’s not so bad, they say, and although you are to be commended for pointing out that particular flaw in the system there are a team of technicians on standby and they are entirely focused on planning for the resolution (preparing to plan for the resolution) and you really don’t need to concern yourself with technical matters when there’s work yet undone, do you?
Keep moving.
I understand, they reply—-with a distinct lack of courtesy this time-—but your unsubstantiated concerns, as worrying as they may be, are standing in the way of the Plan and may even be construed to be anti-Plan, as much as I hesitate to use the phrase. We certainly have done the best to foster a certain spirit of discretion among your team but one wonders if we haven't done too much, hm?
Keep moving.
Do you consider yourself, they ask, a patriotic man? Of course you do, who doesn’t? Knowing that, one must wonder at the level of attention you have paid this particular matter. It certainly seems contrary to an acceptable love for one’s fellow man to worry so much over this one trifle, doesn’t it? Don’t the stakes demand that you concede to authority? We’ve been trained and equipped for this situation, all the best classrooms covered in precise technical drawings describing this situation were made available to us from a very early age and I assure you, sir, that this is all entirely under control.
Now.
I feel that you have put me (and the Plan, no less!) in a rather difficult position, but I must this moment demand that you either return to your duty and keep moving, or formally refuse to serve-—and I am exceedingly sure you are aware of the consequences of that particular choice.
There’s a good fellow.
Don’t worry about it stopping outright, mind you. That’s a difficulty best left to our sons.
Keep moving.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Serpentine In Body And Voice
There was an oracle in Nacogdoches, or so we heard--Robert and I made the trip over spring break, disguised, hoping to hear what she had to say...
I had a dream the night after we crossed the state line. I was in love with a blind girl, beautiful as anything but no sight to speak of. I remember it being tough, she'd always kiss my shoulder and I'd be forced to wonder if she was actually kissing my shoulder or if she had been trying to kiss my face or chest but had somehow missed.
She was always surprised and alarmed when I tried to get to second base. I guess you'd normally have a number of visual cues that something like that was coming.
Like I said, it was tough.
I'd always feel really self-conscious about her in the dream. Like it made me seem somehow less, like people would be talking behind my back about how I was only getting a girl as beautiful as all this because she was blind and couldn't see how--I'm not ugly, okay? I'm not, but I'm no Matthew Broderick or anything.
She was always wearing a tank top that said "Breathe" on the front in white letters. I think.
I was quiet the rest of the trip. Robert told me later that he'd had a dream that I would and that he wasn't supposed to say anything or turn up the radio real loud, even when his favorite songs came on, and I have to credit him with that. That's why I asked him along. Most people don't keep from blasting Duran Duran out the windows just because they had a dream that their best friend needed some thinking time and didn't want to know exactly how Hungry Like The Wolf Simon Le whoever-his-name-is is.
I needed it, the driving and the time. I had to pull the blind girl back out of dreams and into memory. I had to frame her, name her, because I knew that loving her in the dream meant something and I didn't know what and I knew that's what I had come to ask the oracle of Nacogdoches even though I didn't know it until just now and I kept wondering what she'd say if she'd name names or just bullshit me like all those other oracles or if we'd even find her or maybe we'd go to her house and her son would walk to the door and tell us she died three years ago and get off my lawn thank you very much and what if what if what if
Breathe.
The theme from View To A Kill came on, there was a marathon on the Top 40 station in town, some sort of 80's thing.
Robert sighed, and clicked off the radio.
We navigated a maze of stucco and streets named after saints I was sure didn't really exist but made mental notes to look up later. We had to go to the library and look up the address on the internet, eventually, after three solid hours of prowling residential districts we weren't welcome in.
As the sun was setting, I found her door. I knocked timidly. She answered the door. Everything was different.
I've been to every oracle within driving distance of the tri-county area, and some that weren't but came highly recommended. That body of experience had prepared me for a crone with a crock full of chicken entrail--oracles are nothing if not true to the stereotype--and by this I was sorely unprepared for 25 and gorgeous.
"Come in," she said testily. "I've been waiting since you crossed city limits, and I've got appointments that won't wait for some dream and his best friend who wants the lotto numbers."
"How'd you--" Robert began, standing behind me awestruck.
"Twenty-eight, thirty-four, twelve, seven, fifty-six, nineteen and no I'm not giving you the powerball have fun with your hundred grand and shut up I'm busy," the oracle replied, leading me by the hand past a beaded curtain and into the back room.
"Now," she said after we had sat facing one another across a card table, "this girl. Obviously, she's a representation. Duh. I might be able to say what of but that's going to take some time which kills my schedule for the night which means that this is going to run into serious money. Ten thousand dollars," she said, with all the ceremony of somebody asking me to go pick up a case of Coronas.
I was crushed. To come this far for nothing but a dream I couldn't interpret, it felt worse than nothing. Of course I didn't have ten thousand dollars, and said as much.
"That's the talk of somebody whose best friend didn't just get lotto numbers from me," she said, grinning fiercely. "I'll expect the check two months from now."
I looked up at the ceiling and whistled. This woman was something else, putting on loopholes like lesser women wore earrings.
"Go for it," I said.
She took my hands and I felt the room fill and shrink and change somehow, everything close and far away at the same time, contradictions blooming to life and dying out and coming back again faster than I could blink.
"She comes running," she said, eyes closed, "a full and true Daughter of God,"
"Wait."
"What?" The room died.
"Aren't they all?"
"All what?"
"All Daughters of God. It's the same as calling someone 'girl' or 'woman'. He's omnipotent, right? They're all His daughters."
The oracle smiled, not at all kindly. There was menace in her eyes, and the flash of a fresh memory.
"That is something, my dear man, that the majority of your gender seems to forget at the most inconvenient times. Now be quiet and stop asking questions."
After a pause to re-center herself, the oracle began anew.
"She comes running, a full and true Daughter of God, blind-eyed and mad from exhaustion, running up to you in your weak strength to take shelter from the sirocco. Your world will become hers, your beautiful words painting color into her blind eyes. You will write her the stories that tell her what the seasons are--you will name for her the trees and oceans. The words of your mouth will become her sight, and the strength of your shoulders will become her direction."
As the oracle slowly opened her eyes, I slumped back in my folding chair, trying to drink it all in. Looking impatiently at her watch, the oracle was the first to break the silence.
"This is prophecy, Tobias. We write this stuff down."
I did, and I carried that sheet of notebook paper folded in my wallet all the way back home, telling Robert everything. He was my best friend, after all.
When we got back, he took some of his powerball money and threw a kegger so he could invite every blind girl in the tri-county area. That wasn't what the oracle was talking about per se, but God bless him for trying.
I had a dream the night after we crossed the state line. I was in love with a blind girl, beautiful as anything but no sight to speak of. I remember it being tough, she'd always kiss my shoulder and I'd be forced to wonder if she was actually kissing my shoulder or if she had been trying to kiss my face or chest but had somehow missed.
She was always surprised and alarmed when I tried to get to second base. I guess you'd normally have a number of visual cues that something like that was coming.
Like I said, it was tough.
I'd always feel really self-conscious about her in the dream. Like it made me seem somehow less, like people would be talking behind my back about how I was only getting a girl as beautiful as all this because she was blind and couldn't see how--I'm not ugly, okay? I'm not, but I'm no Matthew Broderick or anything.
She was always wearing a tank top that said "Breathe" on the front in white letters. I think.
I was quiet the rest of the trip. Robert told me later that he'd had a dream that I would and that he wasn't supposed to say anything or turn up the radio real loud, even when his favorite songs came on, and I have to credit him with that. That's why I asked him along. Most people don't keep from blasting Duran Duran out the windows just because they had a dream that their best friend needed some thinking time and didn't want to know exactly how Hungry Like The Wolf Simon Le whoever-his-name-is is.
I needed it, the driving and the time. I had to pull the blind girl back out of dreams and into memory. I had to frame her, name her, because I knew that loving her in the dream meant something and I didn't know what and I knew that's what I had come to ask the oracle of Nacogdoches even though I didn't know it until just now and I kept wondering what she'd say if she'd name names or just bullshit me like all those other oracles or if we'd even find her or maybe we'd go to her house and her son would walk to the door and tell us she died three years ago and get off my lawn thank you very much and what if what if what if
Breathe.
The theme from View To A Kill came on, there was a marathon on the Top 40 station in town, some sort of 80's thing.
Robert sighed, and clicked off the radio.
We navigated a maze of stucco and streets named after saints I was sure didn't really exist but made mental notes to look up later. We had to go to the library and look up the address on the internet, eventually, after three solid hours of prowling residential districts we weren't welcome in.
As the sun was setting, I found her door. I knocked timidly. She answered the door. Everything was different.
I've been to every oracle within driving distance of the tri-county area, and some that weren't but came highly recommended. That body of experience had prepared me for a crone with a crock full of chicken entrail--oracles are nothing if not true to the stereotype--and by this I was sorely unprepared for 25 and gorgeous.
"Come in," she said testily. "I've been waiting since you crossed city limits, and I've got appointments that won't wait for some dream and his best friend who wants the lotto numbers."
"How'd you--" Robert began, standing behind me awestruck.
"Twenty-eight, thirty-four, twelve, seven, fifty-six, nineteen and no I'm not giving you the powerball have fun with your hundred grand and shut up I'm busy," the oracle replied, leading me by the hand past a beaded curtain and into the back room.
"Now," she said after we had sat facing one another across a card table, "this girl. Obviously, she's a representation. Duh. I might be able to say what of but that's going to take some time which kills my schedule for the night which means that this is going to run into serious money. Ten thousand dollars," she said, with all the ceremony of somebody asking me to go pick up a case of Coronas.
I was crushed. To come this far for nothing but a dream I couldn't interpret, it felt worse than nothing. Of course I didn't have ten thousand dollars, and said as much.
"That's the talk of somebody whose best friend didn't just get lotto numbers from me," she said, grinning fiercely. "I'll expect the check two months from now."
I looked up at the ceiling and whistled. This woman was something else, putting on loopholes like lesser women wore earrings.
"Go for it," I said.
She took my hands and I felt the room fill and shrink and change somehow, everything close and far away at the same time, contradictions blooming to life and dying out and coming back again faster than I could blink.
"She comes running," she said, eyes closed, "a full and true Daughter of God,"
"Wait."
"What?" The room died.
"Aren't they all?"
"All what?"
"All Daughters of God. It's the same as calling someone 'girl' or 'woman'. He's omnipotent, right? They're all His daughters."
The oracle smiled, not at all kindly. There was menace in her eyes, and the flash of a fresh memory.
"That is something, my dear man, that the majority of your gender seems to forget at the most inconvenient times. Now be quiet and stop asking questions."
After a pause to re-center herself, the oracle began anew.
"She comes running, a full and true Daughter of God, blind-eyed and mad from exhaustion, running up to you in your weak strength to take shelter from the sirocco. Your world will become hers, your beautiful words painting color into her blind eyes. You will write her the stories that tell her what the seasons are--you will name for her the trees and oceans. The words of your mouth will become her sight, and the strength of your shoulders will become her direction."
As the oracle slowly opened her eyes, I slumped back in my folding chair, trying to drink it all in. Looking impatiently at her watch, the oracle was the first to break the silence.
"This is prophecy, Tobias. We write this stuff down."
I did, and I carried that sheet of notebook paper folded in my wallet all the way back home, telling Robert everything. He was my best friend, after all.
When we got back, he took some of his powerball money and threw a kegger so he could invite every blind girl in the tri-county area. That wasn't what the oracle was talking about per se, but God bless him for trying.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Press Conference on the Discovery
He makes, literally makes, with his hands. Creative genius and the gift of the gods, shaping air into dust and dust into everything--back again, too, if he wanted. We are talking serious Lathe of Heaven shit here, people, and I am not speaking for myself when I say this is a bad thing and that absolutely nothing good can come of this.
What was that?
No, not you. You in the back. What was that?
No.
No.
Okay, the Lathe of Heaven thing wasn't exactly an apt analogy, sure, and we don't know how he does it and I'm sorry. I just was searching for that generational touchstone to put everything we were afraid of in context. Won't happen again. I promise.
What was that?
No, not you. You in the back. What was that?
No.
No.
Okay, the Lathe of Heaven thing wasn't exactly an apt analogy, sure, and we don't know how he does it and I'm sorry. I just was searching for that generational touchstone to put everything we were afraid of in context. Won't happen again. I promise.
Monday, February 12, 2007
We Also Advertise In The Back Of The Local Alternative Weekly But Are Not Exactly An Escort Service
Muse work is hard work, inspiration never came easy to anybody. But I was hard on cash, and the ad on Craigslist said 'No Experience Needed' so here I am in your apartment and you expecting a beautiful girl to help write your screenplay.
I should explain, it's a service I work for, we get a three by five card with an address written on it and we drive wherever and inspire people to greatness. Most of it's distasteful--anybody who needs to call a Muse that makes seven dollars and fifty-three cents an hour is obviously in a pretty bad way.
So you didn't get what you were expecting. Maybe you can work that in there, disappointment or something. Maybe go in sort of a sitcom-y direction, there's not a lot of good sitcoms on nowadays, right? That's a gap you could fill. You could write the next Friends or something. Shame how none of those people found good work after all that ended, but I guess it's like Star Trek or something where you play one role for a decade and everything gets unpleasant. You know, you could just put in a part ready made for like David Schwimmer or one of those guys, get a name people know but one you can get on the cheap. You could half sell a pilot on that, the way they do things down here and all.
That helps? Yeah? Feeling inspired?
Figured it would.
Listen, I better be going. You seem to be set, and I got a speechwriter to cajole, some rot about the war or something (politics nowadays) and you just know that's gonna be most of my day. You let me know how that screenplay works out, okay?
I should explain, it's a service I work for, we get a three by five card with an address written on it and we drive wherever and inspire people to greatness. Most of it's distasteful--anybody who needs to call a Muse that makes seven dollars and fifty-three cents an hour is obviously in a pretty bad way.
So you didn't get what you were expecting. Maybe you can work that in there, disappointment or something. Maybe go in sort of a sitcom-y direction, there's not a lot of good sitcoms on nowadays, right? That's a gap you could fill. You could write the next Friends or something. Shame how none of those people found good work after all that ended, but I guess it's like Star Trek or something where you play one role for a decade and everything gets unpleasant. You know, you could just put in a part ready made for like David Schwimmer or one of those guys, get a name people know but one you can get on the cheap. You could half sell a pilot on that, the way they do things down here and all.
That helps? Yeah? Feeling inspired?
Figured it would.
Listen, I better be going. You seem to be set, and I got a speechwriter to cajole, some rot about the war or something (politics nowadays) and you just know that's gonna be most of my day. You let me know how that screenplay works out, okay?
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Life In These Confederate States
"You see, my dear, you shouldn't worry about changing history at all! What we did in the past already happened--they were writing that little gem into Twilight Zone episodes long before we realized it was true--it was supposed to happen and don't you forget it. Why, if the South ends up winning the Civil War, lucky for them they got the one time traveler who listens to Lynyrd Skynyrd!!"
I chuckle into her silence, the haughty laugh of a jaded jet-set time traveler.
"Excuse me, but Lynyrd who?"
I am awestruck. This is the worst date ever. I am going to be alone for the rest of my life.
There are four words written on my thigh in red scar tissue: DON'T MAKE SKYNYRD JOKES. It is a very embarrassing scar, I keep it under a bandage when I shower. They were written by my Second Grade teacher, when I was in Second Grade. I remember myself, a confused seven year old, as Mr. Smith traced on my skin with a soldering iron while all the other kids were at recess. What I remember most is how Mr. Smith spoke to me, how he reassured me in calm, even tones that everything was going to be alright. "This is all for the best, Jimmy." "I'm sorry Jimmy, but science has proven that the best time to give a child an embarrassing scar is when he is in the Second Grade, the skin is softer and the kids aren't as mean."
At the time, I didn't understand. The cops went to arrest him for child abuse, but he had vanished and was never found again. The state paid for some very good therapists and I had largely come to grips with what had happened to me until just this moment.
As my last chance at true love saunters out the door, I dig out a picture of Mr. Smith from my wallet. It's strange that he looks so much like me.
I chuckle into her silence, the haughty laugh of a jaded jet-set time traveler.
"Excuse me, but Lynyrd who?"
I am awestruck. This is the worst date ever. I am going to be alone for the rest of my life.
There are four words written on my thigh in red scar tissue: DON'T MAKE SKYNYRD JOKES. It is a very embarrassing scar, I keep it under a bandage when I shower. They were written by my Second Grade teacher, when I was in Second Grade. I remember myself, a confused seven year old, as Mr. Smith traced on my skin with a soldering iron while all the other kids were at recess. What I remember most is how Mr. Smith spoke to me, how he reassured me in calm, even tones that everything was going to be alright. "This is all for the best, Jimmy." "I'm sorry Jimmy, but science has proven that the best time to give a child an embarrassing scar is when he is in the Second Grade, the skin is softer and the kids aren't as mean."
At the time, I didn't understand. The cops went to arrest him for child abuse, but he had vanished and was never found again. The state paid for some very good therapists and I had largely come to grips with what had happened to me until just this moment.
As my last chance at true love saunters out the door, I dig out a picture of Mr. Smith from my wallet. It's strange that he looks so much like me.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Rapture
She was rock guitars and cynicism, Mormon too; that made it all the more interesting. You couldn't find that kind of thing anywhere else in Bicknell, and I doubted that I could find that kind of thing much anywhere else, even if I took the bus up to Salt Lake City and spent the weekend looking.
So I stayed, and stayed longer than I should have. I was there every day and most nights at her apartment, her and me and whatever idiot kid wanted a crack at her. They never lasted long, a trickle of guys who had made an effort to drive two hours to the nearest Hot Topic and buy whatever worthless trinkets they could afford. They were nothing but leather and metal (and cliche combinations of the two), tofted up to the nines without even realizing it; looking less and less like people and more and more like peacocks that Tim Burton had gotten a hold of.
We talked about things, her and I. We talked about books, important ones, and music and movies and all those things that people our age were supposed to talk about. The conversation invariably stalled. There was always that idiot kid, always sitting way too close to her on the sofa, always trying to interject and explain to us how much he liked Green Day or how deep and insightful he thought The Matrix was.
I'd smile, she'd smile, and she'd wink at me in this completely disarming way that made me twitch the first time I saw it.
Yeah, he's an idiot.
She didn't have to say it out loud, of course, and we'd joke about it after the kid had gone and we were drinking tea and the conversation had turned back to whatever we were talking about in the first place. I'd laugh, and she'd laugh, and I'd turn away for a moment and cry.
She was perfect, you know? She was...balanced, somehow. Like you could see her anywhere, equally at home in a mosh pit or in a pew. Every time I saw one of those gilded faux-punks slide up to her and try to put his arm around her, it killed me. Why couldn't I do the same thing? She liked me, you know. We knew each other in and out and up and down and a million other directions that would have to be invented just to explain how well we knew each other.
It wasn't like I was afraid of her. I don't think it was possible to be afraid of anything when I was around her. There was just something around her that kept me from telling her what we already knew. I think I loved her enough not to make her life that complicated.
Maybe that's what she wanted me to do the entire time, waiting for me to say something. I don't know. I keep thinking back, you know? I keep trying to get my hands on every little word we shared, sifting them like sand and hoping some shred of meaning falls out onto the floor.
What's the use? She left two months ago. She's in New York or somewhere like that now, far enough away that I won't ever see her again. I moved into her apartment, she didn't want the furniture to go to waste.
The place still smells like her, you know? Some nights I can't even move because of it.
So I stayed, and stayed longer than I should have. I was there every day and most nights at her apartment, her and me and whatever idiot kid wanted a crack at her. They never lasted long, a trickle of guys who had made an effort to drive two hours to the nearest Hot Topic and buy whatever worthless trinkets they could afford. They were nothing but leather and metal (and cliche combinations of the two), tofted up to the nines without even realizing it; looking less and less like people and more and more like peacocks that Tim Burton had gotten a hold of.
We talked about things, her and I. We talked about books, important ones, and music and movies and all those things that people our age were supposed to talk about. The conversation invariably stalled. There was always that idiot kid, always sitting way too close to her on the sofa, always trying to interject and explain to us how much he liked Green Day or how deep and insightful he thought The Matrix was.
I'd smile, she'd smile, and she'd wink at me in this completely disarming way that made me twitch the first time I saw it.
Yeah, he's an idiot.
She didn't have to say it out loud, of course, and we'd joke about it after the kid had gone and we were drinking tea and the conversation had turned back to whatever we were talking about in the first place. I'd laugh, and she'd laugh, and I'd turn away for a moment and cry.
She was perfect, you know? She was...balanced, somehow. Like you could see her anywhere, equally at home in a mosh pit or in a pew. Every time I saw one of those gilded faux-punks slide up to her and try to put his arm around her, it killed me. Why couldn't I do the same thing? She liked me, you know. We knew each other in and out and up and down and a million other directions that would have to be invented just to explain how well we knew each other.
It wasn't like I was afraid of her. I don't think it was possible to be afraid of anything when I was around her. There was just something around her that kept me from telling her what we already knew. I think I loved her enough not to make her life that complicated.
Maybe that's what she wanted me to do the entire time, waiting for me to say something. I don't know. I keep thinking back, you know? I keep trying to get my hands on every little word we shared, sifting them like sand and hoping some shred of meaning falls out onto the floor.
What's the use? She left two months ago. She's in New York or somewhere like that now, far enough away that I won't ever see her again. I moved into her apartment, she didn't want the furniture to go to waste.
The place still smells like her, you know? Some nights I can't even move because of it.
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