Standing with still breath, I placed three fingers on the glass. My light reflection—dark blond hair and dark brown eyes and darkened face—met the touch with three fingers of his own. The outside chill crept through the glass door, webbing outward into my palm. I breathed and stared into the back yard, across the concrete porch and the makeshift wire fence with the bowed gate that opened into mud. Sweeping my gaze across the dirt waiting for spring, I focused on my brother. Allen sat and clawed at the ground, lifting handfuls of dirt and dropping them next to him in uneven piles. He took each load with deliberate movements, as if working to an ambitious beat.

I thought about his jeans. I wondered how easily the dirt would come out of them, later in the washing machine. At twenty-three, I now worried about laundry.

The house lost its sound. Allen filled my sight, displacing his dirt to fuel my concern. The glass door slid open and the cold air slapped me. Hesitating, I thought of my coat waiting in the closet off the main hall. But I did not want to go back; only forward. I wanted to understand Allen's actions. I stepped onto the concrete porch and went right, treading quiet and deliberate. I felt like a hunter, and I felt ashamed.

The gate waited open. I entered the square garden, devoid of fruits and vegetables. Spring had not yet arrived and the dead garden lingered, content for the moment to be dirt. My steps sunk an inch into the loose soil, as if the earth tried to claim me. A strange thought, I thought, and dismissed it in favor of my brother. He sat in front of me now. He scooped dirt and piled it next to him, next to other piles of dirt. In front of him lay a hole, about a foot deep and round, and maybe a foot and a half across.

Allen reached into the hole and took dirt from the bottom. Lifting the dirt, he stayed his hand so it hung in front of his face, palm toward the sky, soil heaped precariously. A clump of earth slipped from the pile and fell back into the hole. Allen did not acknowledge the escape.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

Allen dropped the dirt back into the hole and turned his face, looking up at me with his twelve-year-old blue eyes. A breeze chose then to slip past us, and Allen's hair rustled brown in the moving air. He reached up his digging hand to stay the strands, as if unnerved at their movement.

"Digging a hole," he said with hand on hair.

"And why are you digging a hole?"

Allen hesitated. Keeping his hand set, he shook his head. He continued to say nothing and I blinked and resisted the urge to step back. I instead examined his clothing, to make sure of proper dress. Aside from the dirty jeans, he wore a white shirt and bright orange jacket. I frowned at the jacket, at its terrible ugliness.

"Because I want to," Allen said, and it took me a moment to remember my question.

"What kind of answer is that?"

This time he did not hesitate. "It's my answer."

I almost said oh but stopped. Allen could not leave me speechless. Yet silence slipped around us. "Have you eaten?" I finally asked.

Allen dropped his hand, resting it on his jeans for a moment before slipping it further down, back into the dirt. A smear remained on his jeans where his hand had been and I could not help but stare at the earthen stain.

"I ate at school."

"It's getting dark." I looked at the sky to make sure he understood. "It's time for dinner."

Allen shook his head—a favorite activity. "No, it's not even five."

"Yes," I said. Parental certainty filled me. "It's time for food. Come inside. Leave your dirt out here and clean yourself in the house."

We held each other's eyes for a moment. He stood and I turned and he followed me into the house. On the way to the back door, one of my footsteps faltered and seemed to go on too long, as if I stepped into a hole masked as concrete. I almost stumbled and maybe almost fell, but then we were in the house and the hole disappeared. Sometimes the world turned surreal. It usually happened when I realized our parents were dead.

While Allen cleaned himself in the main bathroom, I made grilled cheese sandwiches. I cooked three—two for him and one for me—and added half a cucumber, sliced, to each of our plates. I put them on the table, along with two glasses of milk, and frowned at my culinary work. Allen entered the kitchen and we picked up our plates and went into the living room.

We sat on the couch, each on one side with space in between. A basketball game flickered on the television set. At one point, Allen yelled at the screen and looked at me expectantly. I caught the look but said nothing. I did not know if the referee was blind, or if that had been an offensive foul, because my thoughts dwelt on the hole, out in the plantless garden.

Allen waited for me a moment too long, then turned his attention back to the game. He stopped yelling at the television.

* * *

The next day, after Allen came home from school, I went to the store. He stayed at home, as he always did. I came back an hour later and walked from the front door through the living room and into the kitchen, carrying two bags of groceries. Allen sat on the couch in the living room, playing a video game. He glanced at me, but did not offer to help. I made two trips between the kitchen and car, then stood at the table and removed the food from the bags.

While working, I glanced up and out the window above the sink. The window overlooked the backyard, including the fenced garden. I froze, holding a plastic bag of three red apples. The hole in the garden had grown.

"Allen," I called.

He did not answer.

"Why is the hole bigger, Allen?"

He answered this time, but only after a minute of silence. I imagined him pausing his game and considering a proper response.

"I felt like digging," he said, and I dropped the apples on the table. I bruised them.

* * *

The living room creaked despite my immobility. I turned my head from my book, surveying the room. No one else invaded the space, and I attempted to return to my reading, but could not concentrate. I closed the book and set it on the floor next to the dirty blue recliner. The chair rested at an angle, facing half toward the couch and half toward the living room window, which oversaw the front yard. Outside, the bare trees shook in the wind, silhouetted against the gray sky. No cars passed on the street and my own car looked lonely, waiting broken and beaten in the driveway.

I wanted to rise from the chair and stand at the sliding glass door, behind me, to look at Allen digging his damn hole. But I did not, worried he would resent me.

Tomorrow we would go to the therapist. It would play like every Wednesday, with me sitting in the waiting room reading my book while Allen's therapist tried to help him come to terms with his dead parents. An hour would pass and Allen would emerge from the office, not okay with death. We would go home and that night I would lie awake and try to come to terms with my dead parents. The day would end with neither one of us healed.

Wednesday nights I would often dream. In the nightmare, my parents drove in the dark on a country road and a drunk driver swerved into them, head on. The car buckled and metal screeched forward, tore into their bodies while they screamed or choked and I woke up with my throat on fire.

I stood and went to the sliding glass door to stare at Allen. He scooped dirt, creating his hole for unknown purposes. Six months had not dissolved the horror of losing his parents. Often he came home from school and went directly to his room, while I sat in the living room and worried about him. At dinner he sometimes ate in complete silence, ignoring my prods. I did not know how to make him be happy. I was supposed to be his father now, but only knew how to be his brother.

My breath fogged the glass. The last six months I felt as if I was suffocating, or drowning, or choking on my own incompetence. I held my hand in front of me and studied the appendage—first the back, then the palm with a slow turn, then up and over each finger, a turn of the hand and again with the back, my eyes stalling on the small scar in the corner below my pinkie, caught between two veins. I did not know if I expected to find an answer in the flesh or only wanted something to stare at.

The day's wind engulfed me as I stepped onto the back porch. The clouds suggested an oncoming storm. To my left, the row of small trees that marked the edge of the yard swayed in unison. Even the grass leaned in rhythm to the wind. I crossed my arms over my chest and walked across the porch, through the wire fence into the desolate garden. The multiple, small piles of dirt next to Allen had grown into one large, haphazard heap. I stared at the heap, stared at the growing hole, and stared at Allen. My apprehension grew with each sight. After a few moments, Allen turned and met my eyes. "Hi, Tyler," he said, as if the greeting were appropriate.

"What are you doing?"

His eyes flickered—the fight against sarcasm. "I'm digging," he said.

"I see you're digging."

Allen nodded. "Yeah. That's what I'm doing."

"I don't understand this digging."

Allen glanced at the hole. He wore the orange jacket again, and I wished it would disappear. I hated the jacket, so bright in dark circumstances.

"I don't, either."

"I want it to stop. I don't like you digging out here, in the wind."

Allen continued to look into the hole, his back to me. The earth smelled like musk, like degradation. I waited for his answer, unwilling to back down from this demand, even if I did feel like nothing more than his brother.

"Okay," Allen said. He stood. In the last six months, I could not recall an instance of him disobeying me.

We entered the house. Allen went silent to his room and I returned to the dirty blue recliner, lifting my book from the floor.

* * *

I awoke that night with the room pressed in black around me. Kicking off the sheets, I sat on the edge of the bed, staring ahead until my eyes adjusted to the dark. Wind battered the house, creaking and groaning the wood and bringing a slight rattle from the window. I frowned, listened, and put my feet on the cold carpet.

Outside in the hall, I found myself standing next to Allen's door, again listening. No sound came forth—a reasonable result of sleep. I opened the door anyway.

The bed lay empty.

I blinked and squinted and the bed remained empty. I closed the door, went to the bathroom. No light shone under the door. Knocking, listening, I opened the door and no one stood inside. I squeezed my hands together—tried to calm my mind. My steps fell soft and quick as I traveled down the hall toward the living room. The sliding glass door waited as a silver silhouette. Walking to it made a terrible, irrational sense.

The moon hung full in the sky, shedding silver light upon the backyard, the dead garden, and the orange jacket hunched over the hole. I stopped breathing for a moment. Flushed with anger and fear, I opened the sliding glass door with controlled fury, stepping barefoot into the winter night. I wore sweat pants and a thin white shirt. The night's cold should have encased me but I felt nothing.

"Allen!" I half-ran until I stood behind him. A shovel lay next to the hole, which had grown considerably. Allen did not use the shovel at the moment, once again preferring the intimacy of his own hands.

He stopped digging, staying hunched over the hole. I spoke to his back. "Get in the goddamn house," I said. The hole had transformed from circular to rectangular and had grown considerably, stretching at least five feet in length and half that in width. The shovel made sense. The shovel had been necessary.

I began to feel the cold. It engulfed me. I shivered as I waited for Allen to turn around.

He would not face me. After a moment, he shifted out of his crouch and sat down, dropping his legs into the hole. My shivers became more violent. I looked from Allen to the hole and back to Allen. I thought about him lying in bed, warm in the night. I thought about him cold in the night.

"I'm sorry," Allen whispered.

I sat down. It happened unexpectedly. My legs became incapable of supporting me, and I found myself on the ground in the dirt, no longer worried about laundry. I stared into the hole and thought terrible thoughts.

Oh, it's a grave. It's a fucking grave.

The shivers became shakes. They tore at my body. I closed my mouth on my curses, closed my eyes to the tears, and tried to not understand. If only for a few moments, I needed to not understand.

Allen spoke in my darkness. His voice trembled in the cold air. "The dirt worried me. I remember going to the beach last year and how I got sand in my hair. It bothered me the whole trip back and even after a shower I still could feel the sand in my hair. I didn't like it. And so the dirt . . . I worried it would be as bad. I worried about the dirt in my hair."

I opened my eyes to stare at my hand. If I looked at Allen, I would not be able to control myself. I would fall apart and he might do the same.

"Go into the house," I said, my voice ragged. "Go in the house and go to your room and get in bed."

He said nothing. Time passed and he walked into the house. I never looked at him, focusing instead on my hand. Once the glass door closed, I stood and lifted the shovel. I filled the hole then smoothed the dirt, doing my best to make it look as if the earth had never been disturbed. Shaking the entire time, I looked at the moon twice; at my hand too many times to count.

Inside the house, I went to Allen's bedroom. He lay in bed, on his back staring at the ceiling. He glanced at me when the door opened, then refocused on the ceiling. I stood there a full minute in silence.

"Can we go to the cemetery?" Allen asked.

I breathed. I thought about his request. "Not tonight."

"I didn't mean tonight."

"Tomorrow we'll go."

"I have school. Then I have to talk to Dr. Schumer."

I had forgotten about therapy. "You don't have school tomorrow," I decided.

"Okay."

I hesitated at the door. My body grew still, the last of the shivers slipping away. "Don't leave this room, okay?"

"Okay."

"Not until the morning. Stay in the house. Don't go in the backyard."

"Okay."

"I love you," I said. He did not reply. He usually did not.

* * *

I made breakfast the next morning at nine. French toast and sausage, covered in hot syrup, and a bowl of fruit. Allen inhaled the food as if ravenous and I picked at mine until the plate emptied. By then Allen had long been finished and waited for me in the living room, silently playing one of his video games. I cleared the dishes and put on my coat and we both walked out to the car.

The drive to the cemetery took ten minutes. The streets felt bare, with few passing cars. The wind from the night before no longer prowled, but the chill remained in the air. After parking the car, we walked across the crisp grass toward the corner of the cemetery that held our parents' bodies. A pine tree stood near their grave, shading death.

Allen slowed as we neared the graves and I matched his pace. We stepped off the concrete path and cut into the grass, coming to a stop twenty feet from the tree. The cemetery had no gravestones—only stone markers placed into the ground that bore final inscriptions. In front of us waited two of them: Richard Mitchell and Jean Mitchell. Allen carefully sat on the grass, directly above his mother's casket. I stood a few steps behind and to the left—between the two graves. Allen leaned forward and placed three fingers on the marker that bore his mother's name. He stayed in that position, with his head bowed.

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. I thought about the hole, Allen with dirt in his hair, and how I could not save him from pain.

Allen lifted his head and looked at the grave on his left. He glanced back at me long enough to catch my eye. I hesitated, but then stepped forward and settled on the ground, atop my father's body. I could hear the sounds from my nightmare: twisting metal and breaking glass and horrible screams.

I could not touch the marking. I kept my hands on my knees, as if meditating on my fucked up life.

The silence reverberated in the air. No one else occupied the cemetery. No birds sat in the trees singing and no cars passed on the nearby street. The world lay hushed around us, as if awaiting our revelations.

"How far down are they?" he asked.

I did not like the question. "Six feet, I guess. That's what I've been told."

"Oh," he said. "How far is that?"

I thought he knew how far, but humored him. "I'm six feet tall. Imagine sitting on my head," I said, then paused at the absurdity. But I continued, because the absurdity faded in the heavy air. "They would be at my feet."

Allen said nothing for a few moments, maybe trying to absorb my comparison. But he had more to say. "What do you think it's like down there?"

I closed my eyes and considered his words, even as anger flared inside. I thought about his garden grave and hissed my answer at him, regretting the words even as they emerged. "Dark and shitty. Their hair's probably full of fucking dirt."

The already-silent day died around us and the remaining minutes of our visit passed quickly with no more words. At some point we both stood and started walking back to the car. I could not remember who initiated the return. I could not remember anything after my answer. Inside, I berated myself for attacking him. I understood why I could never be his father.

* * *

I called Dr. Schumer and cancelled Allen's appointment. We ate a pizza for dinner, together in silence. Words had been sparse the entire day. After the pizza, we sat in the living room and tried to find something to watch on television. I went through all the channels once, sighed and clicked the power button. The screen died. I stared at the black.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry for not being better to you, and better for you. I'm sorry I can't make things okay."

"I know," Allen said. "I'm sorry about the hole."

"I do love you. And I just—" I shook my head and said no more. Allen imitated my silence. Outside, the winter dark began to press in against the windows.

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Posted by Joel Caris at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

"Sounds like an umbrella," Tim said.

Sara traced her fingers along the floor of the tent, the plastic crackling, loud against the quiet background of falling rain. Drops rolled across the top of the tent—a mix of small ones from the clouds and large ones from the tree branches above them.

Tim shifted on his sleeping bag. Sara stared down at her fingers, back and forth across the tent's floor. "I like this," she said. "This cocoon."

"It's nice."

"It's warm in here," she whispered, still staring at her hand.

A slight wind shook water from the trees and it battered the tent, a two-second downpour. The tent held both their sleeping bags, unrolled and ready for the night, and two small duffel bags of clothes, supplies. Bread and peanut butter and blackberry jam sat in one corner. The rain had been falling all day. Lunch was two hours in the past and already Tim felt hungry again. He couldn't bear the thought of another sandwich, though, so he ignored the discomfort.

"I'm going a little crazy," he said. "I wouldn't mind going outside and walking around. Too much sitting."

"Mmm, no. It's nice in here." She took her hand from the floor and laid down on top of her sleeping bag. "I guess I should be stir crazy, but I'm not. I like the sound of the rain, this warmth."

"You don't want to stretch your legs?"

She raised her legs into the air and slowly split them apart, then dropped them back against the sleeping bag. "All stretched."

He said nothing. The rain pattered against the tent and outside, a twig cracked. An animal, another camper? It didn't matter. The rain had been falling for hours and he kept imagining going outside, no coat, nothing, allowing himself to be drenched, wandering amongst the trees.

"We could just pack up and go home, you know." Sara turned to stare at him. "I know you've been looking forward to this, but it hasn't stopped raining since we got here. And it's supposed to keep this up. How much fun are we really going to have?"

"I think it will still be fun."

"If we never leave the tent?"

"Well, then let's leave the tent. We can just go outside and take a hike, get wet. It'll be fun."

"Why do that when we can stay inside and be dry?"

"Because then we're inside, and bored. And why not get wet?"

She grinned. "Wet is cold, and uncomfortable, and it's nice and warm and comfortable in here. And I like that."

Another wind blew and the walls of the tent shook. "Right," he whispered.

She watched him, ran a hand through her hair, pulled a few strands away from her lips. God, he thought. Brown hair, dark green eyes. A dark blue shirt, perfect fit. Black jeans, bare feet. Her smile stayed a few more moments, then faded. And now she really watched him, close, thoughts and considerations behind the gaze. Second by second, she worked through his words, his motivations, everything she knew about him and what he thought of her, felt of her. He held her gaze, almost frightened, knowing that everything was about to be exposed. But it had been exposed long ago, no doubt. This moment was nothing more than a reminder.

"What are you hoping for, Tim?"

He closed his eyes.

__________

They would hike in the rain, nearly oblivious to it. The rain was warm, anyway, so it wouldn't be too uncomfortable. They would have rain coats, of course, and maybe packs. Maybe not, though. It didn't have to be a long or elaborate hike.

The trees would tower above them, both shield them and be their own source of rain. Birds would flit through the canopy and there would maybe be squirrels, maybe not. Every step would be wet leaves and mud, slippery and uncertain. But they would be fine, together, walking side by side, saying little as they moved through the forest, the trees, the ferns, wet and fragrant, slaking their thirst, thriving in the wet day.

There would be glances and short conversations and exchanges. Much of what they thought would go unsaid, though, but understood. They would laugh, multiple times, and they would stand close to each other again and again.

The hike would end, of course, and they would be back in the tent, wet and tired and satisfied. They would take turns changing their clothes, keeping their backs turned.

The tent would be filled with the scent of Sara's wet hair.

They would wonder what to do next.

__________

"You know," he whispered.

"No," she said.

Tim realized the rain had stopped, for the moment. He looked up. The shadow of rain drops painted the top of the tent. Silence pressed in on them and he could hear his breath, could hear Sara's, and it became hard to continue those inhalations, impossible to exhale. The tent's warmth turned stifling, in only a moment, with only a change in thought.

"I wanted it to be a memorable camping trip." The words sounded ridiculous to him and he wanted them dead, gone, a moment later—even as he was saying them.

"Oh." She nodded, and now she stared at the ceiling, as well. "That's nice."

"Don't say that, don't say it like that."

"You knew," she said. Her voice trembled for a moment, then came back strong. "You knew what this trip would be."

"I didn't," he lied.

"Well, you should have."

The tent was too small. He had nowhere to hide, nowhere to be out of her sight, away from her influence. "Right," he said. "I should have."

She shifted on the sleeping bag and sat up, her feet planted firm on the tent's floor. The plastic crackled, creaked, and then she was staring at him, green eyes flat, but filled at the same time, racing. They watched each other.

"Hey," he said after a few moments, trying to make his voice light. "I just need to get outside, move around a bit, you know?"

"Yeah." She nodded and the lie sat heavy between them. Her voice betrayed it. "You could go crazy sitting in this tent all day."

"Exactly." He stood, crouched due to the low ceiling, and began to unzip the tent's flap. It was such a loud sound, dominating and intrusive.

"Take your coat," she said as he stepped outside. "It's gonna start raining again."

"No." The world smelled of wet leaves and pine needles, open stoma, the breath of plants and trees. He closed his eyes and he could hear the plants moving, shifting, existing so dramatically in the drenched day. They breathed freely and outside there was so much fresh air. Everything was promising, new, unburdened by the past. "I need to get wet."

Archives

Posted by Joel Caris at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

A wind blew as extra punishment, the night already so cold and the bright stars lancing her with too sharp light. She stood on her back porch wearing gray wool socks, the cold of the wooden planks seeping through, but not so harsh. The wool softened the world.

The stars above created infinitely complex patterns. Staring upward, wiggling her toes within her socks—their cocoon, their warmth—she wanted nothing more than for the stars to begin to move and shift, for the universe to rearrange itself into a more comforting pattern. Everything would be new and hope would emerge.

She closed her eyes. She counted until she lost track. When she opened her eyes, the stars remained the same.

The cold permeated the night. She crossed her arms and lifted herself up and down on her toes, her cold feet, the air cutting through her fleece jacket. Why was she standing outside in such cold in her socks? The world needed to be harsh for her to understand it.

Her flesh shook and when she blinked, it was a scrape. Stand long enough without blinking and the cold would freeze the film on her eyes. It seemed that way. Each inhalation of air felt slow, arduous, a process that, given only a little time, would wear her down, destroy her immune system, leave her vulnerable to all kinds of new and exciting illnesses, viruses, creeping bacteria. She exhaled crystals. This is what it would be to die of cold, standing on a porch in wool socks, breathing oxygen tainted by the angry intricacies of existence.

She placed her bare fingers against the porch railing. The new contact only allowed more cold to enter her.

The stars faded a moment and a soft face replaced them. Hours and hours she had thought of him, considered him, and in her mind he became something more solid and real than he ever could be in reality. She could touch and caress him, grow with him. She created intimacies that comforted her so completely that she slept well at night, deep and satisfied, as though her inner desires had manifested, solidified—crawled into bed with her and crept so close, pressing against her body, sharing their warmth and beauty. Those nights she slept with hopes and certainties and awoke with intentions. Every day would bring new revelations.

And yet.

She shook. The cold invaded her, violated her. Needles stabbed her skin and her breaths now left gasping, grasping, the pain in her chest a deep threat. It was not so cold to justify the pain. Even the stars and their sharp light could not be held to account. It was the death of her hopes that weighed against her chest, crushed her lungs, that stabbed her flesh with cold spikes. She knew this. The intimacies never did manifest and now an angry reality would reassert itself, mocking her for daring to turn her back.

The years crushed her. Capillaries restricted and veins collapsed, arteries were clamped shut. With each breath, as her lungs screamed, she could feel the slowing of her heart, of her blood. The cold would soon be complete. Her blood would thicken at first, then stop, and then it would only be moments as the cold rushed through her. Her blood would freeze and expand just enough to burst every pathway—to shred and destroy her body from inside out. No one could live forever, even in ice, as the cold would only serve to kill. Every inch of flesh touched would be blacken, die. It could not survive such cruelty.

She took her hand from the railing and slipped it back into her other hand, twisting together her fingers and squeezing. Already her grip had weakened. Everything would weaken—the first step toward death. It did not matter. The years pressed down so hard against her that she wondered if it would not be the cold but instead a crushing force, a heaviness that would mutilate her before she could ever freeze to death. That would be as appropriate, but not nearly so poetic. How beautiful it would be to freeze to death, to grow ever quieter, ever more still, until there was nothing but a brittle statue that spoke of a broken and ruined life—that could stand forever as a warning to the rest of humanity, not to ever nurse dreams or dare to believe, to revel in hopes, to expect or reach or try to touch—to never dare try to touch and feel and share. People would travel from across the country, the world, from far galaxies and gather and stare, transfixed, and for a moment they would see soft, shimmering faces within their own minds—then they would turn away with shame, with fear, and know the source of deep, aching cold.

She wanted this. She wanted to wander into the world and find a large field with nothing, not a single monument, and to stand so still in the middle of it while the nighttime air crept around her and froze her dead, solid, a simple and heartbreaking scarecrow for the rest of humanity. Except she would be made of flesh, rather than straw, and she would die naked and alone, held upright by shattered emotion instead of a stake in the ground. People would come from everywhere to stand and stare. Some would worship, but those would be the fools. The wise ones would recognize the cruelty of the world and understand their fate. They would look upon her and the moment her sad beauty broke them, they would understand. They would recognize themselves.

A board beneath her creaked as she shifted and dared to stare out at the black landscape that stretched beyond the porch until engulfed by the horizon. Cold starlight provided vague illumination. The ground rolled, slight rises and falls, and small plants pricked up from the ground. Grass, weeds, brush, wild flowers. A creature slunk across the dirt, toward the edge of the horizon, and she froze, her fingertips brushing against her hip, staring at the small animal as it moved, hesitantly, a few feet at a time. After a moment, it stilled, shifted, and she thought that it must have looked toward her, picking her out from the shadow mosaic of the house, the porch, the land. It focused, hypnotized, on her eyes—on the glint of broken belief within them. Could it know? From it's vantage point—the distance and such a different perspective of the world—could it understand the pain behind her gaze or did it see only a threat, a predator, a soft and vulnerable human that would normally be simple prey but could harm it through some sick twist of fate, the use of weapons, of tools? Did it understand or was its mind a mess of instinct and base reactions and nothing more? Did it hate her or pity her?

She blinked. Her fingers flexed and flexed in the cold night air and more wind slipped past her, through her, assaulted her with its cold and vampiric tendencies—the way it tore the moisture from her and claimed it as its own. It would lift into the clouds and return to earth somewhere far away where she could not utilize it. It did this; the world stole from her. It knew no other way.

The wool socks did nothing now, invaded so thoroughly by the cold. For brief moments she considered undressing, unconcerned with who might see her. She wanted to bare herself in front of the animal, so far away, and beg it to come close and view her, revel in her exposure, to see her for the nothing she was—to see the vulnerability, the unsteadiness, and to consider whether or not it should take, devour her, tear her apart and return her to the earth. She wanted this, as much as anything. Yet, even as she hovered her right hand at the zipper of her fleece jacket, she could not bring herself to shed her clothes. The world had not yet claimed her so thoroughly. It stopped her mind for a moment, the realization that she was not so far gone and broken as she had imagined—that perhaps some vague hope remained.

It broke her. The thought that she could continue on, pushing forward through the shattered intimacies, perhaps even coming to believe again—she hated it. Such a resiliency could only lead to greater pain, continued hurt, a neverending cycle of destruction and debasement. She wanted all of it to stop and fade. She wanted to snuff out these blows, the heavy hits. No longer could she flinch, hurt, and come back again and again in the hopes that the next time would be a caress instead. They never were. No one would touch her—they only knew how to hit.

This was life. Truth.

The creature began to slink toward her, keeping low to the ground. She watched. It moved cautiously, as though hunting, and she wondered if it somehow knew she held no tools or even the motivation to fight it. If it wanted it could crawl onto the porch and devour her whole, alive, starting at her woolen feet and working its way up. The pain would be a relief—a full bore frontal attack that she would see coming, for the first time. Perhaps that was all she wanted: fair warning. Perhaps a misery that she anticipated would be the perfect antidote to the sly humiliations.

The animal stopped, though, twenty feet out from the porch. It watched her for a long time and she met its gaze. The wind buffeted her and she trembled, shook in the cold. She felt on another planet. She felt in a harsh and cruel landscape. But this was earth, her home, the only place she had ever known, even if she only recently had come to truly know it.

It watched her and she considered going to it. She considered begging it to devour her. But she knew the smallest movement would send it running, for it still wanted to live. It desired no death.

After long moments, the creature—a coyote, of course—turned from her and crept away, slipping through the brush as easily as a snake and disappearing into the silvered night. She exhaled as it faded and began to cry, silent, realizing even in that short time she had created expectations and lost again—a punch, a hit—and knew it would never end. The cold could attack her all it wanted but she would not die. The predators would not come. No god would freeze her in the middle of the field and the worshipers, the frightened viewers, would never appear. It was endless—disappointment and heartbreak and rejection, and she could only live it again and again, day after day, until there was nothing left of her but a shell moving amongst the world and stumbling into each new disappointment, each new twisted opportunity.

She was no monument—only a failed experiment, a shattered girl, standing in the cold and bathed in starlight, trembling, with nowhere to go; yet the destination set, confirmed, so far into the depths that she could not see—would not dare try to penetrate the darkness to discover what awaited her.

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Posted by Joel Caris at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

"Frames" is a new column by FTTW author Joel Caris. His column "Imbibe" will be going on hiatus for a bit and instead, Joel will entertain us every other week with short fiction.

The sun lit the sidewalk as Megan drew the outline of an umbrella on it, using a jagged piece of blue chalk. First came the top: an upside down 'U' with a spiked bottom. Then the big 'J' of the handle. A classic drawing, which satisfied her. It needed to be simple and recognizable, of course. She set down the blue chalk and picked up a yellow piece. Inside the umbrella's top, she wrote, "I feel unnecessary."

Someone walked by, red Converse shoes and high blue socks. She resisted the urge to look up into the person's face, to see if he or she stared at her simple drawing, or at her, or only looked forward without concern as to why she was crouched on the sidewalk, drawing with chalk.

Cars passed, car after car, loud and rumbling and oppressive. But she was used to that. Parked cars lined the street and she tossed both pieces of chalk underneath a dirty red Toyota Camry. They settled in the muck left over from winter--half-decomposed leaves and dirt and oil, tiny flower petals, who knew what else. She would have liked to take a sample and have it analyzed. No doubt the full report would be fascinating and sickening. It would probably raise all kinds of questions about urban life, some of which she would not want answered.

The chalk only added to the problem, of course.

She stood and stretched her arms toward the sky, in love with the sun and the warmth, the sudden Spring that had overtaken Portland in the last week.

"So."

"Oh," she said, turning, bringing her arms down. In her haste to retract herself, she almost hit the boy in the face. He flinched at the last second then unleashed a flurry of blinks behind his square, black-rimmed glasses. Megan thought he must have been sixteen, seventeen at most. Black jeans and a blue button-down shirt, messy brown hair. She wondered how hot his legs were, so thick-clad and absorbing the sun. "Hi," she said, and for a moment the world shivered.

His eyes flicked toward the sidewalk, then up her body. Though he took her in quick, she felt like his mind lingered, possibly imagining her in less-clothed states, in poses, with him in certain ways. Yet nothing in his expression suggested it.

"Do you feel unnecessary, or does the umbrella?" the boy asked as an overweight woman appeared and pushed past them, turning and exhaling loud, pointedly. Megan shifted for her but the boy acted as though she did not exist, keeping his stare heavy on Megan. "Which one?" he demanded. The woman sighed loud, grumbled, and stomped past the boy.

"Jesus, give me a second," she said.

"You just did that," the boy said. Now he pointed at the umbrella. The accusatory finger shook and she considered letting his question linger awhile longer, just to find out the source of the trembling. Was he angry, excited, suffering from low blood sugar? They all seemed possible. "You have to have some kind of answer. You can't go around drawing random objects and phrases on public property if you don't even know why you're doing it."

"Are you the keeper of the fucking sidewalk?"

He blinked, again, again, six times in total. "It's everyone's sidewalk," he said, his voice no longer indignant but just quiet, almost defeated. "I just want to know why you put that on it."

The urge to turn and leave, without a word, swept over her but dissipated just as quick. The boy might follow her or, worse yet, become devastated. He seemed on the verge of a breakdown and she figured provoking it could only end in two ways: either with her as his victim or him as her victim. Neither option appealed to her, so she moved away from the edge of the sidewalk, where the umbrella resided, and into the courtyard of the apartment complex which bordered the sidewalk. The boy hesitated, then followed her.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Stan."

"Really?" He blinked eight times, paused, then blinked again. "Okay," she said. "Stan. Hi. I'm Megan."

"Okay."

"Great, that's some broken ice right there." A slight breeze slipped through the courtyard, cooling her skin, dropping cherry blossoms out of one of the courtyard's trees. A tiny white petal settled on her arm. For a few moments, she stared at it, then reluctantly turned her attention back to Stan. "It's been a long couple days, Stan, and I've felt like shit. And it's been cold and rainy up until the last few days. There's sun, wind, it's nice, I can take off my coat, I'm wearing shorts." She lifted her smooth right leg, ran a hand down it. "See that? You checked it out a couple minutes ago. Whatever, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I drew the umbrella because it seemed a good thing to do. It's the day, it's me, it's my mood, I don't know. It's not a big deal, it's just a chalk drawing on the sidewalk. It'll probably go back to raining tomorrow and it'll be gone and you'll never have to think about my sad artistic expression again, okay?"

He started to nod even before she finished, then reached up, took off his square black glasses, folded them and put them in his right front jeans pocket. It was a tight fit and Megan imagined the rough denim scratching the lenses, or the frame bending. She closed her eyes and considered running, or yelling, or possibly spending a month studying the strange boy. The petal remained on her arm, caught in her fine hair.

"If it rains," Stan said, his voice suddenly high, almost trembling as his finger had earlier, "then the umbrella will go away. It would be necessary. That's very clever, Megan."

"Oh," she said, after a moment. "I didn't think of that."

"Very clever," he repeated, quiet.

The cherry blossom slipped off her arm and floated to the ground. It settled on the concrete with hundreds more, waiting for the wind to rise again and rearrange them.

Stan took his glasses out of his pocket, unfolded them, placed them back on his face and gently adjusted them three times. He stared past her while he did this. Then there were more blinks--she didn't count how many--and he turned and walked out of the courtyard, turned, disappeared. Megan stared toward the sidewalk, waiting for him to reappear, but he stayed gone.

"Fucking weird," she muttered. Then she went to get her chalk out from under the dirty red Toyota Camry.

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