I do not remember how it feels to be twelve,
but most of the time it’s all I can think about.
Sometimes I think you’ll rise up from the grave,
Sometimes I can not believe that you’re dead,
I have always found desperation beautiful,
And maybe this is all a baptism,
But I wish they’d have told me it hurts so damn bad.
When he arrived, quite by chance, and assisted Suzy with a roadside emergency, he impressed her as the ultimate good Samaritan: a kindly man, considerate, good-humored, gentle in tone, so ready to be helpful. Yes, he was a bit remarkable in appearance—large in every dimension, every feature. He had untamed curly black hair, bushy eyebrows, and long hairs that escaped his nostrils.
Despite his size he deftly slipped through the cracks that had been left by the dissolution of her marriage, the virtual abandonment of her son and daughter by their father. He quickly became the constant friend—call me if you have any more car trouble; let me pick that up for you, I have to swing by the grocery anyway; allow me to try my hand at fixing that wobbly step.
I wonder if it’s snowing at home.
It was a random thought, born out of schadenfreude as much as curiosity. The white stuff had been falling steadily when they left and Lyssa had taken much joy in the fact that she wouldn’t have to shovel for a week.
It’s been a week since the chasm opened, and I’m getting sick of scraping moss off my shampoo bottles.
The crater is as big as my cat Meatball, and smells like sulfur and honey and the perfume my Aunt Janet stopped wearing when Grandma told her she smelled like a floozy. Meatball bats a jingly toy mouse into the chasm, and the pit widens further with a burst of fresh yellow spores that cling to my armchair like fleas. It’ll be gone by nightfall. The spores eat, the moss spreads, and the vines steal.
Annette was dreaming. She was dreaming of roaring waterfalls, a green landscape, and streams of sunlight warming her skin. Clad only in a simple sundress, Annette tread carefully over mossy ground and protruding roots. She shivered, reaching out for the large dog by her side. He gave her a gentle nudge and Annette continued her journey through the vast forest.
She stopped at the brink, balancing on the rocky edge as the water flowed rapidly before her. The sound of the waterfall was thundering, obscuring all other sounds and leaving her in trepidation. Annette could almost feel the cool breeze, but she knew it was all in her head.
Everyone has a limit. I hit mine on a picture-perfect Saturday in late April. I had resigned myself to being alone. Unlike my mother’s generation, I didn’t need a partner. I didn’t need a marriage contract. I did fine on my own. Or so I thought.
The loneliness set in after I started perusing the online dating sites. It was as if knowing what my prospects were made it worse. My profile was overflowing with potential mates that had perfected the bathroom selfie. The few times I accepted a match I quickly realized the dating software had failed me. I had no gracious way out. My “thanks but no thanks” message was most often greeted with, “Whatever. You’re an ugly bitch anyway.”
I watch her reel against the crowd toward the edge of the bridge. She leans over the steel barrier, eyes hypnotised by the river below. No one seems to notice her, their faces fixed to illuminated screens. She raises a high heel onto the railing, then another.
*
In the summer I started a compost. It stood at the back of the lot, out past the trees and the grass on the edge of the wood. It was a good spot because it was half sun, half shade, and the smell didn’t reach the house.
In the compost I put the dead grass that dried up in the sun. I put sticks and twigs and dried leaves. I put dandelions and logs and whole fallen branches, and soon I had a great heap of dead things.
Put your toothbrush in the toothbrush holder, your underwear in this left-side drawer. Slip your mud-soaked boots next to my blue Birkenstocks, right here, on the welcome mat.
Ignore my bloody mother Mary in the mirrors, her old demons, swept under Aunt Christa’s ikat rug. These ghosts — they’re scary, but they’re not trying to scare you, Bubbie. They’re mostly trying to clear their throats.
Idle Ink 