The Dying Room

Olivia and Gabe had been seeing each other for around six months and were enjoying the period between the initial I-Love-You-Saying and first For-Granted-Taking. The two of them still nuzzled each other in public and engaged in all the usual grossities that keep early term couples quarantined from their friends until the dew evaporates.

Gabe met Olivia at a movie while she was on an accidental date with a fellow named Chuck from her work. Olivia was oblivious to any romantic maneuverings on Chuck's part and had accepted his invitation to see Slumdog Millionaire as an expression of common interest.

The movie theatre was packed with two-hundred white Americans ready to fetishize Indian poverty.

Chuck left Olivia alone next to the stranger, Gabe. The two of them sat silently for a moment, and Olivia shooed away a shrewdness of teenagers advancing on the open seat next to her. One female sixteen year old rolled her eyes in displeasure and skulked up the stairs.

Gabe noticed.

"Jeez."

"I know, right?" Olivia craned her neck over the crowd. Chuck had been gone for what felt like twenty minutes.

"I hate saving seats." Gabe said.

"Ungh. Me, too."

"That's why I don't go to the movies with people. Ever."

Olivia interrupted her gazing to glance back at Gabe. He was not looking at her, and his comment was not a joke either. He glowered off into the onscreen trivia (in its fourth unenlightening rotation) and wagged his knees to and fro. Olivia stared at his cheek until he sensed her eye.

"So you won't even go with me to the movies on my birthday?" She nudged her arm up on the arm rest and Gabe could feel the heat from her pinky drift to his. His wagging knees halted and his eyes side-longed at her.

"Especially not on your birthday."

It was this moment that the two of them would recount time and again through soft chuckles and "Poor Chucks". (Poor Chuck, indeed. He returned bearing bouquets of Raisinettes, Popcorn, and Dr. Pepper, unaware of his loss. In the days following, he would curse the denied impulse to send her for candy.)

For the bulk of their six months together, home base was Gabe's apartment. He lived closer to the areas of interest they both enjoyed and it seemed more convenient. It wasn't until late Summer when he realized that he had never been much beyond the kitchen in her home.

They returned that afternoon hauling bags from a series of procrastinated errands. Olivia was one of the few remaining people who actually had photos developed, and she was anxious to get them home and put away.

Her apartment was a bright, airy place. Upon entering, Gabe immediately wondered why they didn't spend more time there. He set the bags down on the kitchen counter and remarked at the walls:

"Yellow is a really good color for a kitchen."

His saying this out loud surprised him. He was not used to making proclamations about color or light or anything decorative. Olivia was much more given to qualitative statements.

Olivia smiled and rustled through the plastic bags. She had been quiet most of the day and Gabe thought maybe he was treading the line of asking a too frequent, Whatcha thinkin' about?

Gabe peered into the rest of the apartment. It was constructed like most Chicago apartments - from the kitchen one could catch a full view of the entire domicile, a long hallway running through each section. As he looked down the hall, the colors of each room faded from bright hues and into darker tones, ending with a closed door at the other side.

Olivia lifted a packet of photos from the Wallgreen's bag and poked Gabe on the shoulder.

"Could you set this on the Dying Room table?"

Without much of a thought, Gabe reached back and pulled the packet out of her hand with a "Sure." He trotted into the reddish dining room and plopped the photos onto the table surrounded by mismatched chairs. The walls of the room were covered with movie posters. He rammed his hands in his pockets and strolled about the perimeter, focussing for a second on the giant red Apocalypse Now poster.

Olivia appeared beside him, confused.

"Where did you put the pictures?"

They were lying on the table directly behind her.

"Right there," Gabe pointed. "On the dining room table."

Olivia turned and let out a light laugh. "On...no. The Dying Room table."

Gabe took a second to register in full what she had just said.

"Yeah. You said to put them on the Dining Room Table."

"No. I said the Dying Room Table."

A long moment passed between them. Gabe was not sure how to phrase the question he wanted to ask. It stewed in his head for a minute and half, until all he could muster was:

"Dyming Rm?"

Olivia took in a deep breath, not quite ready to explain.

"Um. Yes...it's right next to the Living Room down the hall."

They stood and looked at one another.

Gabe was a gloomy sort of person prior to this relationship, a fact that Olivia found charming and, in some ways, an appropriate counter to her buoyant personality. He had managed to preserve his gloom over the last six months, only to encounter the occasional sunny spots which allowed him to comment on things like yellow kitchens. Gabe saw this as Olivia's influence and he did not mind.

Even with her light disposition, Gabe had always noted a darkness here and there. He asked about it once, and was met with a cagey answer. Rather than press forth, Gabe opted to be satisfied with her half response and move on happily. He wished now that he had pressed.

The semi-words "Dyming Rm" were pounding in the air, with no other words to compete. Olivia picked up the pictures and took Gabe's hand.

"I think you want to see it."

"No, wait, you actually said DYING room?"

"Yes."

That was the worst thing she could have said. Something about this went beyond quirky likes and dislikes. The sunlight from the kitchen dimmed behind a cloud, causing a darkening about her that filled his guts with dread.

"Wha- no. I don't have to see it." Gabe pulled his hand away.

"Why not?"

"What's in it?"

"Why don't you come and see?"

"No."

"I think you want to."

"I don't think I do."

Another awful silence. Gabe was ready to leave.

"You don't have one." Olivia said.

"What? A DYING room. No. I don't."

"So, why don't you come and see?"

He hadn't had this feeling since he was a child. He wanted to leave the apartment, but he knew Olivia would not go with him. She pulled at his hand.

"Just come and see" she whispered. And she guided him towards the hallway, down which lead to the dark closed door.

...To be Continued.

"An Involuntary Return to the Point of Departure...

is, without doubt, the most disturbing of all journeys." -Iain Sinclair


At first, Hannah thought maybe it was something she ate.

Opening the refrigerator door last night at around 9:00pm, she encountered two leftover deviled eggs and - not recalling the the fortnight that had passed since placing the deviled eggs on the chilled shelves - she devoured them.

This whole moment was all but forgotten. No immediate reaction had occurred, save the instant satisfaction of eating two "found" deviled eggs. (Deviled Eggs never made their way into Hannah's house, except by way of a holiday or special occasion. She certainly never made them herself, not trusting her own hand to create anything so delicious. Instead, she waited for parties and events, and then begged friends with better culinary instincts to bring their famous deviled eggs to whatever shindig she may be attending. Her enthusiasm was often rewarded and it was her name first called to claim the leftovers. Not only were the Deviled eggs a treat, but they came attached to the warm feelings of cultivated friendship.). Her body did not reject the food, so Hannah went to bed.

The following morning, Hannah awoke to a peculiar twinge in her insides. Not quite nausea, but an unease so general it was difficult to ascertain whether the sensation was physical or mental. She considered the culprit as the Deviled Eggs, but Since she was able to get out of bed, brush her teeth and dress herself with no less than the usual balance, Hannah reckoned that the source of her discomfort must have been the dreams from the previous night (during which her dog - shaved all over except one diamond shaped patch on his back - rejected Hannah for her third grade teacher. Hannah owned no such dog - and may have even said this to herself as "Gerund" trotted off towards Mrs. Caldwell. Still, the loss was intense.).

The day progressed and Hannah assimilated the unease into her routine, like an unconscious clenched fist, and by lunch time she barely noticed it at all.

At 12:04pm, it happened.

Hannah chanced to look up from her work to notice the time was four minutes past noon, and this brought her a tiny delight (The quick passage of time while doing menial mental labor is always a gift.), but even in that second, something was very wrong.

It began with a sagging, deep within, just below the diaphragm. There was a tumbling, a falling inside that spread all the way through her ribcage, up and down - over her back, thighs, shoulders, calves, arms, feet, hands, neck and finally, her head. Her face drooped.

Hannah's shoulders slumped, her neck was no longer able to carry the weight of her head (which was sizable in proportion to her smallish frame) and she wobbled for a second, the balance of her body deciding which way to go. That way was forward and her head crashed just on top of non-ergonomic keyboard attached to the computer. Her ears heard a few bits and pieces fall and tumble off the floor, rattled by her domino lunge onto the desk.

She was still. Was she dead? No. Her brain was still very much alive. From the other side of the cubicle she could still hear Marnie (a woman who wore purple all the time and who, Hannah suspected, made up her own name.) talking on her office phone in a sort of loud whisper.

Hannah grumbled that even with all that stirring, Marie exhibited no curiosity as to Hannah's well being. Or she would have grumbled it, had she any access to motion at the time.

Hannah's consciousness was growing dim. What was this? This absolute silence. It was stark, unliving. Even in the quietest of silences, one hears the rush of blood in the ears or a beating -

At that very instant, when her mind produced for her the thought, however fleeting, of the beating heart, her own cardio muscle lubbed and then dubbed with great labor, and a roar of blood swept through her ears.

And then it stopped.

Hannah, stewed in her own darkness and confusion, wondering for a split second and then returned to the thought of beating heart.

Lub. Dub. Swish. Stop.

Even as she forced her own heart to beat, her brain - at its full conscious function - began to feel fuzzy and weak. She wasn't breathing either and in that last second before the drownage her brain seized upon an image of the lungs expanding with air and then contracting. At that moment:

Gasp. Whoosh.

The heart had stopped again.

Heart beat.

Lub. Dub. Swish. Stop.

Lung Breathe.

Gasp. Whoosh.

Now she was getting somewhere. Hannah focused her brain on her lungs and her heart. Only concentrating on those two.

Heart beat, lung breathe, heart beat, lung breathe.

Lub. Dub. Swish. Gasp. Whoosh. Lub. Dub. Swish. Gasp. Whoosh.

The haze lifted from her brain (still concentrating on those two organs) and she concerned herself with other portions of her body. She could still feel, that was certain. The pain pulsing on her forehead from the blow on the keyboard confirmed it. It was queer the sections of her body, that continued to flop - most notably her scalp and her armpits.

Heart beat, lung breathe, heart beat, lung breathe.

Lub. Dub. Swish. Gasp. Whoosh. Lub. Dub. Swish. Gasp. Whoosh.

Hannah's mouth started to drool. Gross, she thought. Now I - oh...no.

There was the sudden gruesome thought that, if she were drooling out of her mouth...then other areas might also sustain some leakage. She imagined her mouth closing, pursing shut.

Right as she thought it, it happened.

But then her heart stopped. Now she had to think it all together, in one fell swoop.

Heart beat, lung breathe, Mouth close, heart beat, lung breathe, mouth close.

Lub. Dub. Swish. Gasp. Whoosh. Shut. Lub. Dub. Swish. Gasp. Whoosh. Shut.

This was hard. Hannah remembered the other potential leaks and her brain tasked itself to squinch up every last area of her lower and midregions.

It worked.

But then her heart stopped again and her lungs contracted. Then her mouth gaped open. Hannah was so furious she couldn't even yelp about it. Trying again.

Heart beat, lung breathe, Mouth close, abdominal crunch, heart beat, lung breathe, mouth close, abdominal crunch.

Lub. Dub. Swish. Gasp. Whoosh. Shut. Shirp! Lub. Dub. Swish. Gasp. Whoosh. Shut. Shirp!

The added benefit of her abdominal crunch was that pulled her slightly erect and away from the desk, though her face was still meshed deeply to the keyboard. She wanted to sit up.

And with that, she did. It was an ugly, ungracful sit up - but any port in a storm, she thought.

No sooner had the flash image of rocky seas entered her mind than did, once again, everything stop.

What the-

She righted her brain towards her body:

Heart beat, lung breathe, Mouth close, abdominal crunch, heart beat, lung breathe, mouth close, abdominal crunch aaaand alllleeeeyyoooop!

Lub. Dub. Swish. Gasp. Whoosh. Shut. Shirp! Lub. Dub. Swish. Gasp. Whoosh. Shut. Shirp! Yup!

Hannah sat, tottering on her own useless musculature. Marnie was still tisking and tusking on the phone, with not a clue as to what as unfolding on the other side of the wall. Hannah's eyes were still closed, she imagined them open and , at the very least, staring forward. With the most concentration she could muster - she attempted to preempt any failures on the part of her other organs:

Heart beat, lung breathe, Mouth close, abdominal crunch, heart beat, lung breathe, mouth close, abdominal crunch, stayyyuuuup, eyelids open.

Lub. Dub. Swish. Gasp. Whoosh. Shut. Shirp! Lub. Dub. Swish. Gasp. Whoosh. Shut. Shirp! Yup! Tink.

The midday sun charging its way through the windows allowed Hannah to see a faint reflection in her sleeping computer screen. In addition to the tiny red squares across her now bruising forehead, Hannah's face had sagged and drooped.

Her stomache growled.

Oh, no. Since the deviled eggs the night before, Hannah had eaten not a thing. She contemplated her reflection and the amount of work it would take to get her to the break room and retrieve her can of Chunky soup.

Heart beat, lung breathe, Mouth close, abdominal crunch, heart beat, lung breathe, mouth close, abdominal crunch, stayyyuuuup, eyelids open.

Lub. Dub. Swish. Gasp. Whoosh. Shut. Shirp! Lub. Dub. Swish. Gasp. Whoosh. Shut. Shirp! Yup! Tink.

Marnie Popped her styled and sprayed head up over the cubicle.



To be continued...

Dag.

I started the morning thinking, "Aw, I'll just throw something quick up...I got a busy day."

Unfortunately, everything I began working on got interesting and I didn't want to short change it.

SO MUCH FOR PREPARATION.

So here's my offer for the weekend. This is called "Jocelyn". It was my entry into a storytelling competition last year.

Hope you enjoy!

It was a nightmare scenario. A lie, twenty years in the making, was about to experience an atomic collapse.

It began innocently enough, and quite by accident, the night Julie was forced to attend some party thrown by friend of a friend of an ancient business acquaintance of her father’s. She was told by her mother “Of course, you don’t have to go, but you should, sweetie. Maybe you’ll make a new friend…not be so alone out there.”

By “new friend”, Julie knew exactly what her mother meant. She was picturing, not some swell and jaunty girlfriend, but a husband for her daughter, who seemed hopelessly single, after having jilted her one romantic possibility from high school, Bill Owenby. It was assumed that Bill and Julie were made for one another (perhaps based on a mutual like of Peter Gabriel’s 1986 Album, So).

Bill was sweet but his sweetness was far from satisfying and she jumped at the first chance to wrench herself away from him when fall arrived. “It’s for the best, really, we’ll both be meeting new people and why would we want to tie ourselves down?”

Six months at Northwestern, and there was Julie on the front steps of a palatial home belonging to a vague parental acquaintance. Julie listened at the door, catching light jazz and laughter from within. She thought it sounded just as a party should from the outside. She knocked and the house’s owner, Glen Powers, emerged. He was a tall man with aggressive build man and his last name, Julie thought, appeared to be no joke. He smiled his capped teeth down at her.

“You Jim’s kid?”

Her father’s name was, in fact Jim, so she gave a little snorting laugh and half nod as he escorted her into the spacious living room. Glen powers brought her to a group of people her approximate age.

“Everyone, this is Jocelyn.”

And that was the moment. Jocelyn? Julie partially opened her mouth ready to give her host a quivering correction, but she caught a glimpse of her audience. As soon as the name Jocelyn reared its head, their eyes brightened, heads cocked and there was the almost imperceptible leaning in. Julie closed her mouth. She certainly didn’t want to embarrass her host. And wouldn’t it prove also that her name was not worth remembering if she had spoken up? Very well. Jocelyn for the night.

And she had a lovely time.

Afterwards, ruminating the bathroom, it occurred to her that all the brightening of eyes and cocking of heads and the almost imperceptible leanings in had given her cause to be more pert, more convivial. She spoke, they listened. She joked, they laughed. She was lively, and ebullient with a hint of self-deprecation, which, in a pinch, will serve as a fine substitute for self-awareness.

Julie was proud of her creation and felt it a victimless crime, considering that she would probably never see any of these people again. As time passed, she all but forgot her night as Jocelyn.

But those who are pert, convivial, lively and ebullient will be tracked down by those who aren’t.

As Julie marched, books crushed close to her through the quad three weeks later, a familiar voice called through the bitter cold.

“Jocelyn?”

It took her one or two seconds to realize that the voice was calling to her. She turned. Approaching her were three attractive and fashionable girls from the party - Whitney, Christie and Cadence. They followed her into the commons and Julie was hit with a barrage of high-pitched exclamations, perms and plucked eyebrows.

“My God! We’ve been looking all over for you!
“We had such a great time the last time we saw you!”
“Wouldn’t your brother go nuts for her?!”

Then, Cadence blurted out:

“My Dad is taking us to Boca Raton this weekend, and I think you should come and meet my brother! It would be so awesome!’

Julie stammered for a moment, trying to come up with a reason not to go.

“I will absolutely not take No for an answer, JOCELYN!”

Jocelyn. The name hung in the stagnant air of the commons. The name Jocelyn demanded a suntan. The name Jocelyn went to Boca Raton.

The short days at the beach house were spent under excruciating interrogation by Whitney, Christie or Cadence, who seemed almost pitifully desperate to know their new friend. Julie was careful not to make Jocelyn seem too made up, too extraordinary. She told of her parents who had been killed in a car crash when she was just a baby, and her loving grandmother taking her in and raising her as her own only to die just after Jocelyn graduated from High School, leaving her enough to attend college and get started. Julie had been an A student on scholarship to Northwestern as a communications major, but Jocelyn was a gleeful C student, biding her time with a liberal arts degree.


On her second night in Florida, Derek arrived. Derek was Cadence’s brother and a match would be made, like it or not. Jocelyn was reluctant, held back by childhood-created notions that Derek was a terrible name, coming a close third behind Merle and Emmett.

Derek, however, soon dissolved any preconceptions. He was a tall and chiseled marketing major, with swimming pool blue eyes. His smile dazzled, he was confident and unashamed to be male. At restaurants, he touched the small of her back to guide her towards a table, a trait that ordinarily would have made her skin crawl. But with Derek, she felt eager to fall under his sway.

Months passed, they spent time together and rumors began to swell that Derek might be making a proposal soon. Julie panicked. So often had she the opportunity to come clean, to tell him that she wasn’t Jocelyn, but Julie. She almost told him the night he proposed. She was about to confess when they announced it to his family on New Year’s Eve. She was on the precipice of blurting it out while they were in New York picking out china patterns.

Julie built into Jocelyn a mysterious and secretive trait as her marriage loomed on the horizon. She confessed to Derek that she needed some time away, just a couple of days to clear her mind and relax. Derek conceded, but with some trepidation. “Why would you want to be alone…what could you possibly have to think about?”

Julie raced to her parent’s home and dug her birth certificate out of their garage. She held an artists eraser to the paper. It hovered for a moment, and finally she wiped it clean of her birth name. In an instant, Julie disappeared, and Jocelyn took her place.

The honeymoon was a Grecian excursion. Derek and Jocelyn drank uzo and wore loin cloths on the beach. Jocelyn returned pregnant and nine months later she gave birth to her first child, Summer, followed in short order by Huck and Ptolemy. Time brought Derek’s meteoric rise in the advertising industry, a house in Palm Beach, A flat in Paris and an apartment in New York. The tidy little family traveled frequently, enjoying parts of the world that most regular folk would never see.

Jocelyn took great care to preserve all this. When passing through parts close to her hometown, she would steal herself in the event she might encounter someone she knew. She would take her clandestine vacations away from her children and husband to visit her previous life, talk to her parents. They never showed much interest when she came, assuming that her life had turned out as they had imagined – unwed and desolate. It made it easier for Jocelyn to see them less and less and, at last, not at all.

Insomnia struck, and dreams of searching and unease stormed her sleep. She would wake in the night and stare down at Derek making piggy snoring sounds in his unconsciousness.

Jocelyn’s children developed into stingy and entitled teenagers, she nursed Cadence through her fourth divorce, and Jocelyn’s own marriage became shrouded in loneliness and isolation after Derek had her followed, certain of some imagined infidelity.

And then, in the blink of an eye…

It was the day before Summer’s graduation from high school and Jocelyn, now 38, was shopping in the produce section of Dominick’s. While examining an avocado she heard from behind her:

“Julie?”

A chill danced its way up her spine. She froze, the avocado gripped to her nose, her eyes pierced straight forward. There was a full-handed tap on her left shoulder. After a considerable pause, she turned around. It was Bill Owenby.

Time had been very good to Bill. Only a little receding hairline and slight ponch betrayed his 38 years. His eyes were still soft brown and full of comfort and sweetness. Bill appeared so genuinely happy to see her, it was almost unfair. She couldn’t help but smile back at him.

“How are you Julie? I’ve tried to look you up, but it’s like you dropped off the face of the planet.”

Jocelyn swayed a bit and her head felt foggy. There was Bill, the boy she never slept with because she couldn’t be bothered, and with him poured in a tide of what might have been. Jocelyn stuttered and bumbled out a makeshift past…one that did not include Derek or her children, or even the name Jocelyn. She ended it with some half-baked job at a local radio station as a technician.

Bill glanced down at her hand. “You didn’t mention your husband.” He pointed out.

Then, as if by some awful magic, she heard Derek’s voice behind her.
“Darling?”

Jocelyn felt the red escape from her face. She stayed focused on Bill’s oddly shaped nostrils. In a weak stammer she got out:

“This is my husband, Derek.”

The two men shook hands. “Singin’ in the Rain” started to play as the misters spit out vapors to keep the vegetables fresh. Everything slowed to a near halt.

“Bill Owenby. We went to high school together”

“Is that so? It’s so rare to meet someone from my wife’s past. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve ever… “

“Well, actually I was just telling Julie that it was like she had dropped off the face of the planet.”

The words, “dropped off the face of the planet” were intoned exactly as he had uttered them seconds before, as if he had rehearsed for this moment.

“Who?”

Derek’s voice had a sound of true curiosity.

“Julie.” Bill repeated and gestured towards Jocelyn.

Derek looked at Jocelyn, she remained with a steadfast focus on Bill. Wishing, wishing, wishing.

“Julie? Who’s Julie?”

Some fiction on a Friday

It's been a busy week, so my tirades on the advertising industry will have to wait. So I'm pulling some stuff from the vault. Read on if you care to.

I wrote the following as a genre exercise. It's this first part of a story I intend to complete later on...someday, someday.


SHUTEYE
by -j-j-
28th Grade


About fifteen minutes ago, Leigh Grete woke to discover that her eyes would not open. At first, this did not give her second’s thought. It was not unusual for her to awake with her eyes so heavy that they would not open, or, if it was allergy season, for her eyelashes to seal together with crusted sand. In this instance, she merely lay on her back, allowing a portion of the morning news to filter into her ear. Within seconds, the words from the radio began to blend into the beginnings of a dream, as her male classics professor from Irvine spoke in a very clear female voice. Leigh’s mind bobbed to the surface for a flash recalling that not only did she never have a classics professor, but neither did she attend Irvine, and her arm shot to the right and pressed the snooze button, stopping in mid-sentence the report on recess being dropped from area schools.

Nine minutes later the alarm blared again, something about escalations and bulls and unseasonable weather. Leigh made no movement for about half a minute. At this point she had rolled over onto her stomach with both arms tucked under her chest. In one sudden, violent motion she jerked her arm from under her without lifting her head, and swatted the square alarm clock, missing the snooze button altogether. The noise did not stop. Leigh lurched up on her arms, expecting to open her eyes and gain better aim on the button, but this did not happen. Instead her upper eyelids yanked at the lower ones in an impotent attempt free themselves.

The yammering noise from the radio continued.

Leigh froze, determining which area of irritation to first address. Deeming silence the higher priority, She jutted her arm and slapped the clock twice more. Muscle memory awakened on the second slap and she felt the oblong button depress under her middle finger. Quiet at last. Her hand lingered at the clock for a second and then felt around to the right side, accurately finding the off switch. With a click, Leigh withdrew her hand.

She let out a breath and rolled over onto her back.

Both of her palms made an involuntary swing up to her face to rub her eyes. As her fingers made a long pulling rub from the bridge of her nose across her eyelids, Leigh became increasingly aware that here eyes were making no progress towards opening. She rubbed a little harder and tried to jerk her eyelids apart with a series of rapid blinks. Nothing but failure.

Under the cotton sheets, she forced her body into stillness, her eyelids and eyebrows exercising the only detectable movement. She squished her eyelids tight, as tight as humanly possible, like a four-year-old playing hide and seek, and then sprang them as wide as she could with her eyebrows kicking in the little bit of extra effort toward her hairline. Her toes pointed downward under the covers without her notice. Still nothing. Only the dim maroon color inside the lids.

Leigh paused. She brought her fingers back to her eyes and poked around the socket. Her eyeball was indeed still there and rolling around no doubt trying to find some point of focus. She pressed down hard and held the pressure there for a moment. She hadn’t done this since she was a child, when bored of trying of sleep at night she would press her fists onto her eyes. After a few seconds, swirling psychedelic explosions would appear. When she thought she could stand it no longer, she pulled her fists away and her eyes would relax. The adult Leigh, now prostrate on her bed and trying to open her eyes recalled this phenomenon and speculated as to the cause for the fireworks.

“I’ll have to Google that.” She said half out loud to no one.

Leigh pressed slightly harder and then slapped her hands down by her side. At nearly the same time, her body sprang up ninety degrees and she let out a strange abrupt cry, not so much because her eyes wouldn’t open, but more so that the convenience of her day was now totally ruined, any plans for efficiency were null.

Leigh could feel that she cried a couple of tears, but she did not feel them on her cheeks as was taken for granted. Her head tilted up. Inside her eye sockets, an odd waterlogged sensation covered her eyeballs, the tears having no place to go. She poked her left eye (and was reminded her of her much older cousin Mark’s waterbed, which, when she was eleven years old, was the coolest thing ever) and it occurred to her that she might not have the luxury of crying again if the tears were to remain sequestered inside her eye socket. Momentary worry was quelled by an unexpected drainage and subsequent pouring of water from out her nostrils. Her eyes returned to a relative state of normal.

Wiping her nose on her jersey sleeve produced the spontaneous recollection of the day she realized that secretions from her seven year old runny nose did not simply vaporize once wiped on the back of one’s sleeve. Until that day in the second grade, Leigh had been using her sleeves (like most children do) as an ersatz tissue on the days when illness or allergies took hold. It must have been one of those days when, readying for the rub she looked down and to her horror, saw the crystallized remains of previous deposits across the sleeve of her precious lime green hand-me-down turtleneck. She wondered who had noticed, and even though many, if not all, the kids around her had similar streaks on their shirts, she vowed never to do it again.

Five minutes had passed with this memory playing out for her while she sat motionless on the bed, one of her hands hovering and scratching around her lip. Regaining focus on her current situation, Leigh mused as to what she must look like, how much time had passed, and how was she going to get to work.

“God, is this what it’s going to be like?” she half thought, half said, shuffling the covers off her bare legs. “I don’t want it to be like this…I don’t have time to sit around and remember this and think about that stuff all day…I don’t-fu-shit“ Leigh stopped speaking out loud as she crawled down to the foot of the bed. Once her feet were on the floor, Leigh shambled, arms outstretched in the direction of the bathroom.