Precisely three days had passed before she pulled on real clothing and actually got to work. It was not procrastination or depression exactly. No one was holding her accountable to anything. It was more a true ambiguity. Much like a bumble bee in flight: not quite flying, not quite floating, and no one knows if its destination is chartered or random. Don't get it all wrong! She took the dog up the mountain, she cleaned the house. She fed the cat. She bought expressly thought out choices of wine. She cooked every piece of produce in the fridge and discovered a use for every type of obscure flour in the pantry. She bleached the white spots, scoured the greasy nooks and folded every blanket, towel and pillow case she could find. She would eek out depth in the meaningless, and drill holes in the deep.
She made three wishes that first day on some dandelions behind the house. Although a devout non believer, she was prone to blow away found eyelashes, and make wishes on first seen stars. Their dog lead her to a place with stone steps leading down to an unspoiled babbling brook. She marveled at how much it sounded like a tape she once heard. It was one of those white noise tapes people bought to go to sleep. Her father won it as one of the many weird gifts that would come to the house. Prizes arrived daily at their humble door for mailing away thousands of publisher's clearing house letters. Plastic gadgets, figurines, collector's stamps...and other assorted sundry populated the free spaces in their lives. He was constantly licking the strange little stamps that fit into their prescribed squares on the mail-aways. He entered every contest. He left no hopeless stone unturned as he ignored the mortgage and the oil bill. He'd sit at the kitchen table for hours dreaming of unearned wads of cash. He'd fastidiously separate bills from contests letters, casting the bills away to no man's land while organizing his "contest work." He'd watch hours of TV waiting up for her to arrive home by her curfew. But then he never went to bed. He was depressed. She has it too. It took years before they smiled at one another in front of she. Sure it was great that they loved each other. But why didn't they do that when it counted? While little she was watching. Now it's just habit perched on history. That's not what it felt like when it really mattered.
Last evening she tucked herself in four times. First, on her back, her whole heart spilling onto the ceiling. She wished she had never met...any one of those hims. This particular mourning requiem had lasted exponentially longer than the departed romance. This time a steel reinforced version of her normal inclinations made camp in her heart. She knew it was the symptom. All of her problems were rolling into each other like tangled up arteries feeding the minutia of self disdain. Each unwind leads to another part winding in. Every failing and lacking causing the other. At the end- it is always her. Even when it is not- it is always her fault. Because history repeats it's self. Always. She won't forget. This was not the narrative she intended to fill. This is not what they told her. But it had been quite a long time since she felt her feet on the ground.
She tried to close her eyes. But then her daydreams flooded her head.
"No!" she said. "Bad habits." Nothing but reality was acceptable at this juncture! No touching, no longing, no pipe-dreaming. No wishing. No future or past. Nothing is a something, only if it is indeed a well of nothing. Every sound, feeling, and edge that she could make out in the darkness would have to tether her to the present. The dog barked and backed himself into her. He looked straight at her every time she let a drop of sadness out of her throat. His sweet compassion made her feel less human. It unnerved her. She got up and walked to the other rooms. Empty beds and discarded packing choices were everywhere. The bathroom was filled with mens' scented products for she which took full advantage of. She smelled like cedar and patchouli. The dog barked. Dutifully, she returned to bed. She laid on her side and hoped the fetal position and the pillow she clung to would nullify her enough to let her slide into sleep. Albeit, in the mornings she would awaken to some anxiety dream and feel even worse. But she would at least be tired. Tired was always better than wide awake. Perched on the ledge by the window was a faded copy of The Yellow Wallpaper. It taunted her. She laughed as tiny imperceptible tears tried to etch their way out onto her face. Even her reserve of sorrow had dried up. Again she arose and went downstairs. She headed straight for the fancy bar cart. She ran her hands over it like it was some exotic memorabilia from a far away place. There were bottles of brown liquid with different languages written about. "Fuck it!" She turned the lights up and filled a shot glass with some slavic country's booze. Strangely, she had never really tried this route before. It is not that she hadn't drank before, or gotten drunk. It is just that she never actually medicated with it. She downed three shots, gagged, and galloped up the stairs. Now she was swaying. She turned to the other side of the bed. She hummed. Not really a tune, more like a pulsing murmur. She slid onto her belly, and like a newborn faded into slumber. The dog snored. Her limbs jerked every now and then. Much like his did that one night. Every time she was woken by it she remembered how much she liked that about him. As if there was so much him, inside of him, that it escaped out in spurts while he slept unaware. Someone else will tell him now.
The country house was tremendous and stylishly decorated by the two men who left her in charge of their dog and their house. There were strict instructions on how to cook the dog's chicken, and when to water the Gertrude Jekyll roses. And how to call their sister, who does not really speak to them because she does not believe in gay marriage, but loves dogs more than people and would help, should the occasion arrive. They went to bed at ten. Awoke at seven . They made breakfast for each other with unctuous affection as if it were their last meal together. They kissed the dog, the cat, and she, on the forehead goodbye and drove their town car to the airport. She truly meant nothing and yet she devoured these small gestures with starvation's ache. She couldn't remember where they were going. She was sure it was far east; China, maybe Indonesia. Who knew? She told them to send pictures, even though she knew that they would not. She was the help. The highly educated help.
She took the dog for a walk along the water. On the train, she was surprised when she flinched as she passed his stop. It was like a tiny cough that never quite healed. It rose up from her throat every time she saw something beautiful that made her laugh, she would mindlessly think, "he would love this." Or, "he would have made this." No one else peaked her interest for a long time. She wondered if she was perhaps incapable. He does not care in the least about she. "It's not a crime, just a fact.." she reminded her self as she pressed her temple against the cold window. Every now and then she would see some wealthier person grab their monogrammed luggage and get off somewhere on the Hudson. She felt like an impostor. She always did.
At the water the dandelion seeds floated about her like angels. The sun was warm on her face. She ran for a while. She was fraying at the edges. But as her breath left her body and her muscles began to ache she felt the wiriness let go for a moment. She knew it was fleeting and so never fully immersed herself in its glow. She would pause to catch her breath and then run twice as fast. She couldn't run away. She picked up the dandelions one at a time. One: "I wish for unmistakable true love." It felt childish and she blushed as she blew the seeds into the air. Two: "I wish to know him again. No regrets." She paused before blowing the dream into the air, was she wasting a wish? Three: "I wish to find out what I am good for. Please help me." To whom she was asking help for she did not know. She knew there was no god or goddess or ancient ancestors watching over her. She was faithless. She tried to blow the wish into the air but the seeds stayed stuck to the stem as if unwilling to grant her this last holy right. "Why didn't I wish for that first?" A toxic phlegm surfaced to her throat She coughed up the pack of cigarettes she smoked by herself in the dark on the porch the night before. Her head throbbed. She could hear giant bumble bees buzzing close by, whippoorwills wailing, and wind harassing the wanton leaves. She lied down on the grass. Her loyal friend slumped his houndish snout on her leg. "You are not human," she said of perhaps herself more than the dog. She drifted off peacefully for a while.
And then it was night again. The roads were empty. The night was thick. It didn't matter which turn she took - all roads lead to the same place.
She arrived home. She entered the back way. The doors were never locked. "Country people." She poured some wine and sat in front of the computer. "Bad habits" she uttered as she typed his name in the search box. And there it was those sticky little dandelion seeds: "he" is a "we" now...which is what he always wanted to be, just not with she. She shut the computer. "Bad habits," she mumbled and went out into the night sky.
