Just to the Right of the Dictionary (Excerpt)

                Ryan was drooling, quite unattractively, when Officer Pearson found him asleep on a park bench. He shook his head as he nudged Ryan. “Hey kid, wake up.”

                Ryan mumbled in his sleep, and a large blob of saliva slid off his cheek and plopped to the ground. Officer Pearson tried not to laugh as he crouched down to Ryan’s level. Ryan’s shoulder slid back into the bench as he gave it a quick shove.

                Ryan woke up with alarm. “What? Whoa!” He shrunk back into the bench as he made eye contact with Officer Person. He was a big man and a wide smile spread over his face as he laughed.

                “I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “The front desk attendant was on break during your wake up call. I hope I wasn’t a rude awakening.” He patted Ryan on the shoulder as he stood up.

                “What?” Ryan’s eyes were still spread wide.

                “It’s nothing. I thought I’d remind you, since you’re here, that park benches are not for sleeping.”

                Ryan looked down at the bench beneath him. “Oh, sorry man,” he said as he started to get up. Then he clutched his head and laid it back on the metal bars. “Jesus. Oh fuck, that hurts.” He squeezed his eyes and tried to push the throbbing away.

                “Hey, you just gotta take it slow.” He held his arm out to Ryan who tried not to groan as he sat up. He propped his head up with his hands and rubbed his thumbs over his eyes.

                “What the hell happened to me?” he said.

                Officer Pearson looked at him for a second and asked, “Where are you from, son?”

                “Huh? San Salvador.”

                “That’s it. You a student here?”

                “Yeah, I just started at CSU.” Ryan peered up at him between his hands.

                “Shit. How’d you end up all the way out here? That’s a good eighty blocks away. Well I can’t say I’m too surprised. Some weird shit always goes down on this first week. Half an hour ago I found a kid chained by the neck to a bike rack. So you’re not alone. You think you can walk yet?”

                “Yeah.” Ryan nodded.

                “Good. you need to get on home and get some more rest. These benches aren’t the best for sleeping on. How well do you know the buses around here?”

                “I don’t think I’ve ridden any.”

                “Okay. Well the easiest route for you to take is the Euclid Avenue bus. It will take you down to the big library and student center. You see the big striped building at the edge of the grass?”

Ryan turned in the direction of his outstretched arm. “Yeah.”

“Well, you gotta circle around to the front of that building. And continue past the pond out to the big intersection. Then make a sharp left and the bus stop is down the sidewalk in front of Thwing.”
                “Thwing?”

“It’s Case’s student center. There’s big sign out front. And they’ve got restrooms if you need them. When you get on the bus keep your ears open. You wanna get off at East 21^st. Got it? ” Ryan nodded. With one swift motion Officer Pearson lifted him off the bench. “Before you take off, what’s your name, son?”

“Ryan.”

“Ryan?” He put on a puzzled look. “Really? I’ve never heard of anyone named Ryan with an accent like yours. You’re sure you’re from San Salvador?” Officer Pearson chuckled to himself.

“Alright Ryan well I want to tell you one last thing.” He craned his neck down to look straight into Ryan’s eyes.  “If I find you on one of my benches again, I will personally spearhead your intervention. Just keep that in mind.” With that he pushed Ryan down the path.

                A minute later he was trudging through the thick grass that bordered a large stone building. As he reached the corner an orange industrial lawn mower cut around the edge of the building and slammed to a halt a foot away from him. The man mounted on top of the mower screamed at him over the noise of the engine. “Hey! Get off the grass! There’s a path right there! Why don’t you walk on it!”

                Ryan jumped to the path as the mower roared over the grass he had just been on. He kept to the path as it rounded the front of the building to avoid any other irritable caretakers. His stomach gurgled unpleasantly as he walked, and giving up on getting to the bus, he sat down on a stone bench between two large bushes. He leaned over so his head rested on his knees. He couldn’t close his eyes because the spinning patterns on his eyelids made the grumbling inside him worse. He stared at the toes of his shoes, where a tiny black ant was navigating the craters of the mesh fabric. He let it run until it had reached the laces, then he wriggled his shoe off and blew the ant into the bushes. He had just settled his head back onto his knees when he heard someone walk around the bushes at the end of the path. With each step the clop, clop, clop, clop of the footsteps got louder. Ryan adjusted his head just in time to see a pair of cowboy boots stop in front of him. “Hi!” A girl’s voice rang out above him. “You okay?”

                Ryan raised his head. A thin girl with wild, curly hair smiled at him. “Sort of,” he said.

                “Well you only ‘sort of’ look okay to me. Here I know what will make you feel better. A silly band!” She flung out her wrists which were covered in a rainbow of colors.

                “What’s a silly band?”

                The girl pulled a dozen off of one hand and held them up to Ryan’s face. “They’re rubber bands that are made into shapes. I love them. See this one’s an elephant, and this one, what is that? Oh it’s a princess crown. This one’s a sun. Which one do you want?” Ryan stared blankly as she pulled a dozen more off her wrist and sat down beside him. She looked at him expectantly and then tore more off her wrist. “I know. I have the perfect one.” She sorted through her growing pile until she found a lime green band. “It’s a brontosaurus. They’re my favorite.” She grabbed Ryan’s wrist and snapped it on.

                “Wait,” Ryan said, “I can’t take your favorite one.” He went to work it off, but she brushed his hands away.

                “Sure you can. I have two more still. And they’re only ten cents a piece.” She pulled another lime green band off her wrist for proof. “This way we can be bronto-buddies.” Smiling at him, she rearranged the bands on her wrists. Ryan started laughing. “See!” she said. “I told you silly bands would make you feel better.”

                “Ok, well, bronto-buddy, you were definitely right. I do feel better.”

                “Since we’re bronto-buddies, you should probably know my name, huh? It’s Jamie.” She held out her hand to him.

                “Um. Ryan,” he said shaking her hand.

                “Ryan. That’s totally not the name I was expecting to hear. I was thinking it would be Javier, or Felipe.”

                “My middle name is Gerardo,” Ryan offered.

                “Oh! That’s so cool. I love the way you say that. Where are you from?”

                “El Salvador. Except I’m originally from Guatemala.”

                “Awesome I’ve never known anyone from either of those places. Are you going to school here?”

                “Yeah. CSU for pre-med.”
                “Wow. Okay. That’s way over my head. I just go to the CIA.”

                “What? You’re a spy?” Ryan heard the words come out of his mouth and thought they were the dumbest things to ever emerge from his mouth. “Wow, I’m an idiot,” he mumbled.

                “No it’s fine. It stands for the Cleveland Institute of Art. A lot of people get mixed up. They would never let me into the other CIA. I’m way too artsy fartsy for them.” She laughed and turned around on the bench. “See that red building over there with all the windows. That’s my studio. I come out here to sketch and paint though. There’s so much color and life that gets lost when you’re looking through glass. I can’t stand painting inside. Also all of my favorite trees are over here.” She looked down the hill at the pond, and the willow trees sunk into its banks.

                Ryan looked down the bank. He knew the conversation was lost after they had sat in silence for a few minutes. “I guess I’ll leave you to your painting, if that’s what you’re here to do.” He stood up to go. Jamie still stared at the banks.

“Okay. I’ll see you around bronto-buddy,” she said. “I hope you feel better.”

Ryan nodded. “I do. Thanks.” He started to walk away, but turned around. “Umm. I’m sorry to ask but I really don’t know where I’m going.”

Jamie’s face lit up at the prospect of being helpful again. “Actually, I was thinking of taking the bus downtown to have lunch anyways.” She hopped up. “There’s a really great middle eastern place that’s only like a block away from CSU,” she said as she gathered up her bag.

“I don’t want you to go out of your way,” Ryan said.

“No. It’s worth it. Trust me. You should come try it out.” She turned around and saw that across the lawn a young man was looking at her over his newspaper. “Hello,” she said. “Would you like a silly band too?” The man shook his head and ducked back behind his newspaper. Jamie shrugged and took off down the hill, letting Ryan trail behind.
               

Jack waited till he couldn’t hear the girl’s voice before he dared poke his head out from behind his newspaper. When he felt certain they were gone, he folded up the pad of notes on his lap and then wrapped the paper around it. He tucked the package under his arm as he stood and walked down the hill toward the pond. He walked slowly around it, letting the questions swimming in his head settle into words. If he phrased them right this time he might get an answer. A pair of lights flicked at him from the street, and he saw his father lean from the driver’s seat and push the passenger door open for him.

                “How’d it go?” he asked.

                “Fine,” Jack said as he got in. They pulled away from the curb and into traffic.

                “So tell me what you learned. Who is this girl?” He tapped the picture that was pinned under his leg. “Start off with the easy stuff. Profession, habits, routines.

                “Well like you guessed she’s a student.”

                “Ha!” He slapped the dashboard, and Jack grabbed the wheel before they veered out of their lane. “I called it didn’t I?” he said as he took the wheel back.

                “Yeah sure. Keep your hands on the wheel. Remember we didn’t even have money for the insurance policy on this thing. You can’t crash.”

                “Sorry. So what’s she doing?”

                “Art major. At the art institute.”

                “Kay. So do you think she’s in the gardens as much as we were told?”

                “From what I gathered, she is there every day. Mostly painting.”

                “Any other interesting habits or routines?”

                “She says hello to everyone she sees. Even to me.”

                “What?” Jack’s father brought the car to a stop a little faster than he needed to at the light. “She noticed you? Why were you even in a position for her to see you? What were you thinking?”

                “I was across a courtyard, reading. I didn’t even think she would bother to look at me.”

                “You have to be much more careful. If she sees you again she’ll get suspicious.”

                “What if she sees me in the park?” Jack said “There’s nothing to suggest I’m anything more than a business man on lunch break. I might even get to talk to her.”

His father looked at the road for a minute. “It’s dangerous to get that close. If even one of her friends can describe you…”

“I know. I don’t plan to make friends. But sitting on a bench in plain sight is much easier than sneaking around in the bushes. I can learn a lot more if she can talk freely around me.”

His father scrunched his brow. It made his greying eyebrows bristle. “Okay. I think you’re taking my advice too far but you might be on to something.”

“Know your mark?”

“Exactly. So what else did you learn?”

“Not much. I got most of this because she was talking to someone else.”

“Who? A friend.”

“No. I think they’d just met. Another student, not from the institute.”

“From CSU?”

“Yeah, but there was something wrong with him. I didn’t catch it all, but she left with him.

“Do you think he’ll show up again?”

“No. I think she was just helping him get home.”

“Good. It seems like this won’t be a problem for you. I’ll tell our client that you’re up for the job.” He pulled out his phone and started to slowly type out an email, letting Jack hold the wheel.

“Dad, you know how you always said to tell you if something about a mark doesn’t feel right?”

“Yeah. Is there something wrong with the girl?”

“It’s just… I don’t see why our client wants her dead. How does anyone gain from killing her?”

His father sighed. “You’re forgetting the second part of my advice. Know you mark, but stay away from your client. Our guarantee is anonymity. We keep our clients hands clean by staying away from them. It keeps us out of trouble too. They never see our faces.”

“I just get the feeling that there is no reason. And that makes me think that we’re walking into a trap.

“You’ll just have to trust me. I know when I’m walking into a trap. It’s happened before, but I’m still here. I wouldn’t lead you astray.”

Jack rode in silence until they pulled up to the airport. His father spent a few minutes typing out an email on his phone as they idled in front of the sliding doors. Then he rummaged through a pile in the back seat and produced a ticket. This is for the flight to Boulder next Saturday. Don’t lose it.” Jack got his suitcase from the trunk. “Good luck.” His father hugged him. “And don’t forget the rule.”

“Know your mark, not your client.”

“That’s right. Make me proud son,” he said as the sliding doors opened for him. Jack got back in the car and drove away.

               

                Jamie and Ryan had grabbed two adjacent seats in the farthest corner of the bus running downtown. Ryan watched her with his peripherals as they lurched back and forth in their seats. Her gaze ran along the streets outside the bus lingering on pedestrians, street corners, and store fronts. As the bus passed in and out of the shadows of buildings, light wove through her thick curls and each jolt of the bus sent it bouncing out of her hair.

                “Look,” she pointed out the opposite window over the head of a stocky Mexican man. “That brick building was the old masonic temple. The interior burned in the ‘70s. It was arson.” She turned around in her seat to point at a dilapidated house in the field past a closed car dealership. “And that’s the last standing house from Millionaire’s Row. It was a clubhouse for a while but it’s been sitting empty for almost twenty years. They’re planning to bulldoze it next month. To be part of a parking lot for the Cleveland Clinic. Fucking Cleveland Clinic.” Ryan looked down the length of the bus. Every banner and poster read Cleveland Clinic Health Line at the top. Jamie looked at him with a sly smile. “If they were as good at removing cancer as they claim to be, they’d be gone by now.” She laughed to herself.             

                “My friend’s parents back home told me that Cleveland was good for pre-med because the Clinic was so big,” Ryan said quietly.

                “Don’t get me wrong,” she said, “they’re great at what they do, but that’s what I hate about them. They’re too big. It seems like each time I find something interesting in this city, they’ve already got permission to turn it into another parking garage.”

                “From what I can see right now, a parking garage might be an improvement around here.”

                Jamie was looking back out the window. “Yeah, probably but it’s not the right kind of improvement.”

                “What is?” Ryan asked.

                Gesturing up at the buildings above them she said, “See all the old factories. When I’m a rich and famous artist, I’m gonna buy them all. And I’ll make one my studio, the one with the biggest windows, and the rest I’ll give to my school for studio space and offices and whatever. Use what’s already beautiful.” She leaned against the glass and stared at the passing streets again.

                A few minutes later, she sat up and pointed across the bus at a squat stone government building. “My mom works there,” she said as they passed.

                “Really? What’s she do?” Ryan asked, relieved she had finally broken the silence.

                “She’s the City Council President.”

                “Wow. That’s cool.”
                “I suppose. She’s probably not even there right now. She’s at her campaign headquarters I’ll bet. She’s trying to get elected to the Ohio General Assembly, so she never leaves her office there.”

                “That’s a really big jump isn’t it?”

                “Yeah, but she’s not really gonna make it. Her opponent has had his seat for six years and he’s a Dem. She doesn’t have a chance against that in an urban area.”

                “I’m sorry.”

                Jamie looked at him and smiled. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. She’s not cut out for the job anyways. And if she did get it… jeez. Talk about tyranny. We don’t need another title going to her head.” As she rolled her eyes, the driver came over the loudspeaker.

                “19^th Street East.”

                Jamie whirled around. “Oh shit. We went right past your stop. I wasn’t even thinking about it.” They hurried out the bus door. “I hope you don’t mind walking a few blocks.”

        

(There will probably be a number of scenes between the previous scene and this one in the future)

                Jack’s eyes opened towards the studs in the roof of his childhood home barely visible in the darkness. From his room in the attic he could hear a whispering rustle coming up the stairs. His mother leaned silent over his bed. He barely saw her face, but he felt her hands brush his hair backwards as she kissed his forehead. In a moment, she was back down the stairs without a word. Jack held his breath and listened. He still heard her moving in her room, the soft sound of her feet sweeping across the carpet. He rolled off his bed, down to the floor, and crawled over to the top of the stairs. His mother flashed past the bottom of the stairs, a large box in her hands. Her long skirt fluttered behind her. A moment later a muffled rumble, the sound of a chair rubbing backwards on the tile floated up from the kitchen.

                Suddenly a pane of glass crashed, and Jack’s mother shrieked in surprise. Then she whispered, “Roger? You scared me. What were you thinking?”

                The front door opened and the glass from the window crunched under heavy boots. “Good morning dear,” his father’s voice came through throaty and hushed, “you’re up early.”

                “I, I wanted to get a fresh start today, and…and…”

                “Hit the road before dawn?”

                “No. I’m just packing up some old things for the thrift store.”

                “Dear, you don’t have to lie to me.”

                “I’m not lying. Please dear.”
                “You’re running away because of the nightmares you’ve been having. I can see it in the way you look at me in the morning. You think I’m a killer. You think I’m mad.”

                “No. I love you. Please believe me.”

                “Do you hate me?” Jack’s father let the question hang in the air. “You’re afraid of me…”

                “Yes,” she answered in a whisper.

                No noise came up the stairs for a moment and Jack felt his heart thudding into the floor. And then a chair was thrown back as his father lunged. There was a crash, another window shattered. His mother’s scream rose above the chaos, “Stay away!” A plate shattered, and then the front door crashed open.

Jack broke free of his trance and screamed, “Mom? Mom!” He jumped up, running headfirst into a rafter. Tears welled up, and he fell backwards onto his mattress. His mother’s screams ended abruptly. He sat up rubbing his head furiously and ducked over to the stairs. He ran down the stairs calling for his mother. As he reached the bottom he heard someone else call her name.

“Carol! Where are you?” his father’s voice echoed down from her room. Jack froze in the hallway, bewildered. His father turned a corner barreling down on him, eyes full of panic. Jack gave up a blank stare as his father toppled over him. He was back on his feet in a moment, hoisting Jack up, a hand under each arm. “Where’s Mom?” he said. Jack broke into tears as his dad carried him out the front door. His mother lay writhing in the grass, a large knife jutting out of her chest. Jack fell out of his father’s arms. Crouching in the grass, he whispered to her and then sprinted back into house for the phone. He kneeled over her with it, the cord suspended over Jack to the receiver. Ten minutes later the ambulance roared up, and paramedics pushed his father away.  He cradled Jack in his arms as they sat on the stoop watching as the paramedics attended to her. Finally they stopped work and wiped the sweat from their brows. Tears rolled down onto Jack from his father’s cheeks.

Jack woke up sweating. This time only a blank white ceiling hung over him. He laid still in his bed, watching the intermittent blips of the smoke alarm, mind churning. There had been no burglars, like his father had reported to the police.

                Jack threw the covers off and stared at the wrinkled sheets of the other bed his father had been sleeping in. Sticking out of the mattress, where his father’s chest had been the night before, was a large knife. Jack scowled at it, embedded in only fluff. He cursed his hesitation last night.

Whimsy*

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed in with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - T.S. Eliot

I put my nose to the pavement and flare my wings, stumbling on barely knotted shoes that catch the ground in front of me, and skip off my nose as they push the pavement past. My wings won’t hold the wind; they flap uselessly like a kite in dead air that will fall to the grass when you give up running to catch a bit of air for yourself. Laces of tar jostle by; their smoothness a cool relief on my nose (like Puffs tissue) which is a glowing tip, sparking like flint on the craggy asphalt. The buzzing street lamps watch me skate by; peeking through the overgrown foliage of trees craning for the artificial light in the midnight hours. I swoop an arm down to brush the manicured greenery while arcing round a corner. A muted metallic clank resonates in my wrist after my outstretched fingers graze the base of a stop sign, but despite the numbness I spread my digits; pinions to ensnare the pockets of air that slip by which little by little will separate me from the earthbound sleepers weighted down by quilts, defying the feathers under their heads.

All of a sudden a pressure builds up at my back and my stutter-step smooths. The pockets of air beneath my wings billow out to support my weight, and I lean out onto their cushioning fabric. I’m no longer running into puddles of greenish light thrown by the arc lamps, but they are blown past me in tremendous, towering waves by a ferocious wind that would snap your tenuous kite string, and will bear me aloft. I jump and my nose lifts from the tarmac but falls back skidding. I jump again and again sending the sleeping world farther and farther from my feet but I keep crashing down in puddles of light splashing drops into the darkened lawns which, being spongy and quite parched, thirstily drink up the luminous liquid.

I leap, leave the ground behind and forget about landing (I could land flat on my nose, now raw and nearly fanned to flames, for all I care) and in the moment before my descent begins the air below me swells and swells, bursting and swirling, an exploding kernel of popcorn suspending me above the blacktop, the lawn ornaments, bird-nests and darkened bedrooms, severing the knotted, musty ropes that had bound me to the rock below. For the first time I am moving over the world instead of the world moving itself past my stationary frame and I am followed by the whooshing noise of the breeze propelling me through the speckled sky.

I look down at the ground that I am speeding past and let out a whoop of enthusiasm, but in my excitement I forget how dangerous flying can be, and like Icarus I will fall because I’m caught up in the moment. A branch slaps me on the head and claws my neck and I look forward at the tangled mess just ahead of me. I fumble the air around me to gain altitude but the branches below are tearing holes in my buoyant cushion, and I am descending into the thicket. Boughs shatter, but my inertia carries me through into a web of wires strung between the branches. The electricity snaps at me like angered spiders and copper lines crack like whips as they’re torn from insulating anchors. I shelter my head in the crooks of my arms as I careen through the canopy and towards the unforgiving sod below me that is waiting with open manacles to arrest my upward movement with newly forged chains of steel. But leaves suddenly thin and recede into the distance and a pale yellow light wells up beneath me. And I crash.

I prop myself up on one side; pieces of the wall are still falling onto the ground around and there is a large scar, twenty feet above me, where I collided with it. A brick teeters and falls at my head but it bounces off me without damage. I pick it up; a box of breadcrumbs. Next to me cream of mushroom soup is oozing onto the cobblestone. I look up again, confused. There are still stars dotting the sky above me though most of them have been extinguished by the competing light of hundreds of kerosene lamps. And reaching up to blot out the remaining stains of light in the sky are shelves upon shelves all stocked with produce, canned goods, freezers, appliances, books, even pets for sale, all lining the alleyway I crash landed in. Shoppers walk past, dreamily oblivious to the mess of broken cans and boxes littered around me. Some mount tall ladders strung all the way to the top of the buildings and collect items from the uppermost shelves. I stand up and wander into a row of smaller shelves that stand between the walls of the alley and make my way towards the light at one end, and away from the dark neighborhood streets. As I walk my eyes scan the shelves on either side and something catches my eye. A gold fish bowl filled with chocolate balls. Without thinking I take one, just to taste. It flakes into a thousand little pieces at the slightest pressure and then dissolves on my tongue, rich sweet chocolate and creamy hazelnut. I eat a few more and grab a handful that go into my jacket pocket. I walk past the lines and out of the alley into the brightly lit town center. A broad traffic circle sweeps around the plaza and the thin traffic creeps by to turn down larger streets at four points of the circle. A multitude of pedestrians mills about in the plaza, crossing the traffic and ducking in and out of the alleys carved into the faces of every building.

I stand at the edge of the sidewalk, still slightly dazed and disheveled from my fall into the canned goods aisle. After watching the movements of the people in the town square… rather town circle… for a time, I decide to cross the street to where a lot of pedestrians seem to be heading; it seems to me that the town center is clearing out steadily. I cross the traffic and see that everyone is filing up as they walk towards a large sign labeled “Transportation.” I file in behind a man who looks as if he is walking in his sleep, but as we inch towards the entrance (moving like the legs of a millipede, in waves) I don’t see an escalator down to the subway. Instead there is a revolving door. People walk in and they seem to smear and are whisked away as the door shuts behind them and occasionally someone new condenses and walks out the other side. I stop at the front of the line and stare into the machine while people detour around me. I look at the floor where little holes in seem to suck the departing down as they gasify, and in the ceiling are tiny spigots that extrude the arrivals. And right at the threshold was the sniffer. That’s what a sign to my right says it is; sniffing for contraband and dangerous items. It twists to examine every one of the transported and they are careful not to tread on it. I remember the chocolate balls in my pocket and I’m suddenly wary of entering the revolving doors in case the sniffer can smell them. It keeps turning its nose my way when there is a lull in the traffic overhead. I walk around the side past the operator who is reading the paper and watch the people disappear for a number of minutes; many of them close their eyes as they are evacuated from the booth as if the process were uncomfortable and they were being sedated. As the last person in the line disappears in a spray of mist I see something else in the revolving doors that had been obscured by the constant motion. Two eyes are staring at me from behind the glass. A pair of eyes that is completely transparent, invisible. I can’t tell if my imagination is playing a trick on me but then I notice a long tail and flicking ears and the large feline form that paces back and forth, trapped in the enclosed glass of the revolving doors. Whether insubstantial, invisible or imagined I can see a tiger rubbing its sides up against the glass in the transporter booth and still view everything behind it with perfect clarity as if there is no image of it at all. I turn to the operator and try to catch his attention.

“Hey! Excuse me sir, but I think there’s something wrong with your booth. There’s a tiger in there, but it’s invisible and you probably can’t see it there for yourself. Anyways it’s trapped between the doors and I don’t think you should let anyone else through until you get it out. Hello?”

 I tap him on the shoulder to make sure that he isn’t listening to music, or half asleep like the people in line and that he can hear me, but he continues to flip through his paper. I walk back to look at the tiger; it is still staring at me and the sniffers nose is all ears as I approach. Suddenly the operator asks.

“Are you gonna go through or what?”

“No” I say. “But I really think you should do something…”

“Ok. Well I’m packing up then.” He starts to fold up his newspaper.

“What? But – the tiger!” He finishes folding his paper and pushes a button on his console and I stare with incredulity as the front of the revolving door divides and the circle disappears like a pie, devoured slice by slice. It folds itself like the paper, into a flat sheet, and then slides into the ground, tiger and all. The operator walks off into an alley and I’m left alone in the barren traffic circle.

*Unlike most of my stories, this one is not out to make any sort of point, so don't trouble yourselves looking for one or wondering what it is. This story is an attempt to lucidly describe a dream that I had this summer and I tried to keep it as faithful as possible to the actual events of my dream while also giving it the right voice. I did quite a lot of experimenting with language especially in the beginning of the story and my beta testers have commented that this made the first read an ordeal and a half because it obscured the plot for about half the story. Much of this story is an attempt to craft my writing to imitate the stories that I read by James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence and Thomas Hardy over the winter break. Thank you for reading.

The Spider's Sestina

The blank, white orb was at rest in the window, a moonbeam drop;

The spider had marooned it in her web, alone, stranded.

She stared intensely waiting for the movement when it struggled;

Her web was held taut by slender digits, which burned

With anticipation for that tiny quiver that sent her mind reeling in fear;

It was barely even a tickle.

She had loved the orb, her greatest work of sculpture and weaving, until that first tickling

Wriggling movement, that made the sac, which had been clutched so closely, drop

To the floor as she backed away, always watching it, fearfully.

It had inched its way behind her, towed by a silk strand

While her head raged with frustration and terror; she felt her affection burn

And shrivel like paper for the milky ball and its insidious struggling.

Suddenly it began again, a persistent clambering struggle,

And a faint memory began to nudge her mind and tickle

Her thoughts until a sickening feeling slid around her gut, and her hard skin burned.

She began to conspire with herself, as she glared ruefully at the lustrous drop

That strained and pulled against the tensed strands,

And drove her mad with nervous fear.

A hateful noise ran through her mind, provoked by the slithering fear

Which had metastasized from gut to head, and protested the infernal struggling

That had possessed her beloved ball of silken strand.

A thread of thoughts entirely new tickled

And tantalized her palps; her fangs unfolded bearing glistening drops

Of venom that seared and burned.

She lunged out of her nest, in the crevice between windows, and bit down with burning 

Poison, condensed fury, and tore at the papery skin of the orb which trembled with fear.

Her young, little milky spiders fell out into the web, squirming droplets

That squealed and cried as she stamped and bit at them as they struggled.

She caught them all; some crawling up her legs, betrayed by their tickling

Feet and others that were desperately scrambling away on invisible strands.

She cleaned her web, grinding up the bodies of her young, picking them off sticky strands.

A weary relief had settled in her head when suddenly a memory burning

Like lightning jumped through her mind, and a sickening tickle

Filled her gut. It was the recollection that had spawned her fears

Of first waking up, and of munching and crunching food for the first time while her prey struggled

In futility. Screams of pain were drowned by her siblings’ gleeful cries and venom drops.

She had hatched with her siblings, a stumbling, clambering, struggling mass of pearl droplets,

And found their decrepit mother tangled in her own strands, where they fell upon her with tickling

Legs and burning poison as she wailed and screamed in mortal fear.

Cynicism and the feeling that every romantic comedy is just trying to sell me "Love"

Almost a week ago I tried to explain to my mother what a cliche really is. Putting aside the fact that "trying to explain what something really is" is a cliche itself, what I tried to explain is how a cliche feels and all the things they remind me of : corporate jingles, the live air advertisements on reruns of I Love Lucy for Carnation Condensed milk, and the canned grocery store ads the seem to be running longer and longer every time I walk in Kroger/WalMart/Giant Eagle and slowly replacing the soft rock, smooth jazz and the sporadic and ever cliched "clean up on aisle #" of the last decade. I'm not sure what my mother said to bring up the subject (though I'm sure it was something about summer Sunday School) but I told her that whatever she had said was a little of a cliche. She didn't understand because she couldn't remember hearing anyone else saying it before, which is exactly where my explanation of the essence of cliches becomes important. The reason that I associate cliches with on air ads and store special announcements is because when I hear them it sounds like someone is trying to sell me something. I don't think my mother understood, which is one of the many reasons my mother is such an amazing person (not a cliche or attempt to earn brownie points, FYI). I also tried to explain to her my perpetual fear and second guessing of my own motives that spring from my constant analyzing and interrogating of myself and she didn't understand why I did that either. But I believe that she can actually live with these things I think are awful cliches and work in a job that I think is full of them without giving a moment's thought to the idea that maybe all these phrases have been engineered to be catchy and still 100%, obviously, blatantly true in all situations. (Which is what makes cliches spread and more importantly sell their ideas.) So my mother can live life without every really being sold to or swindled because she never really gives a thought to the marketing.

Exactly how terribly awful and cynical is it for me to feel that my mother is trying to sell me something every time she utters a cliche, even if I know she never really thinks of them that way?

Anyways, moving past how cool my mom is, the interesting thing about cliches is that one person can just think of cliches as true and always say them like they were fact and another person can see them as complete scams, a marketing ploy fabricated just to sell you an idea you could have had on your own. In other words a cliche is fact and fraudulent simultaneously and what anyone sees in it is really only a part of its nature as a whole.

The day after I talked to my mom about cliches I had another thought (it was a very thought provoking weekend) though it was a bit different and requires a bit of storytelling before I can get to the point. The week before last I was drawn in to thinking about my past more than I normally do because of my neighbor. She keeps asking me questions about my past to help clarify some worries she has been having. But the whole thing led to a pretty lengthy internal dialogue that went through my head on the day in question

Mental dialogues with a person I have already been talking to are one of my stranger habits but they usually allow me to think with a level head about the things that have been bothering me.

The most relevant part of my mental discussion to the rest of this post was the part where I was describing myself as being conflicted, meaning that my head is in constant turmoil (my thoughts might be a little dramatic). I even went on to say that I was conflicted morally and spiritually and often conflicted even with love... but maybe that was a good thing because it made my love more honest and less about just finding someone to get married to and have kids with. That was where the more sensible part of my brain caught up to the rest of my train of thought and pulled the brakes.

During this entire imagined interchange I had been sitting outside with a bowl of calico beans (which were extremely delicious and were loaded with bacon and ground beef -- YUM!) and watching bees of all sizes pollinate flowers that were a safe distance away from me. As I approached the climax of what had become a long winded thought I started watching a tiny wasp that had flown in to the bunch of flowers. The wasp wasn't very big compared to its company hovering over the queen anne's lace however it stuck out because even if only seeing it for a moment I think most people would notice that it had a needle sticking out from behind it that was longer than the whole insect would be. It was a beautiful shiny black all over and would hover lightly in place before it would reach out and cling to a cluster of flowers but its abdomen stuck out at an unnatural angle and just made the needle at its bottom even more visible. From years of biology I knew that the needle was actually a thin tube called an ovipositor and is used for laying eggs, and this one was so long because it's used to lay eggs inside of things, inside trees and other insects. The weird thing is that I finished recalling my biology lesson the same moment my speech stopped.

I was trying my hardest to figure out exactly what I meant by "a love more honest and less about just finding someone to get married to and have kids with." And then I asked myself if I was saying that the love everyone else feels is the same as this wasp's ovipositor? Just some adaption that humans have to encourage our propagation? And was I really saying that my love is different and better just because I think spend more time fretting about who I like than every other person I know?

My imagined dialogues are really just self-centered; dramatic is a euphemism that keeps me from worrying about it. Really though, who's imagined dialogues wouldn't be all about them? 

At this point, rather than telling myself that my whole speech was a really stupid thing to think and then going over all of my neighbors outraged reactions at being so heinously marginalized by my comment, my thoughts continued with the questions. "If love really is just an adaptation, what would that mean for religion and philosophies of love? Would love really mean anything then?" Then I got to the probably the most cynical question that I have ever asked in my life "What if the philosophies of love were all lies? Isn't it convenient that every major religion and philosophy of ethics has love at its heart which is coincidentally the exact same thought that brings together most couples that have children and continue the species? What if religion and philosophy all say that love is the most important thing in your life because they were all designed to keep us going as a species or even as a religion (I always like the Simpsons episode where Homer shows Marge a Catholic pamphlet titled Plop Till You Drop, discouraging contraceptives). Or maybe as humans we are hardwired to say that love is the answer to our problems and it's just instinct to crave it." Maybe this is all b.s. and all of my thoughts about it are either conspiracy theories or are hardly scientifically plausible but they worry me. What bothers me the most about them is that when I think about church or U2charists and the repetition of love is what matters, love is the answer, Peace/Love/and Saving the Planet, like a Buddhist mantra it seems like the whole idea has gotten old but the priests and rock stars keep pushing it relentlessly, pleading with us to love others and to love God almost like they're trying to sell us on it, like after 2000-some years it's a cliche.

I know there are a lot of you who don't feel this way, and I don't want to argue with you, that's why I'm writing this as a blog rather than telling it to you face to face, but I have to think that you're like my mother, you don't feel the selling, you only feel the truth in the statement.

And if you don't agree with me ask yourself this: priests and novelists, rockstars and daytime TV show hosts all push love and caring out to their audiences like they need to defend it, like it is being attacked when clearly it's not. Why? There is no one around threatening to crush the life out of it, no one pushing any other idea to replace it. What I see is a lot of people who don't see enough love in the world and are trying to sell more people on it through sermons, songs, and tales that seem a little farfetched and they are not really defending it, they are trying to compete for our attention, they are advertising.

I don't think love is bad and I think it's like many other things that people are trying to sell, it's good and healthy like organic foods (which is another thing they sell at my church these days). But then I get back to my original fear of cliches; that there is truth in them but the idea is somehow changed by the marketing of it. It's not any less true but it's somehow less pure.

Maybe I am just kidding myself though and I'm just clinging to some unrealistic fantasy of true love that I got out of a fairy tale/Disney movie or maybe I'm thinking that somehow the thought of love is spoiled when it is spoken and that no one could do it justice. I don't think either of those are true though because then no sensible person would spend time trying to talk about it.

Maybe it just seems to me that their passion for love is misplaced, and maybe that's just because talking about it is so damn hard that most people end up talking about how great it is and how it changed their life, just like the people on Proactiv infomercials have had their lives changed and "Your life could be changed too! Just call ..." Maybe the big problem with people talking about love is that they haven't yet figured out how to talk about it without making it sound like an ad. I think it's hard for me to talk about anything really important while still sounding sincere.

To throw in a cliche of my own, the whole thing is just the difference between sugar and corn syrup, in your soft drinks one make them pure and refreshing and the other tastes the same at first but after drinking it too many times it leaves a crappy taste in your mouth that is impervious to toothpaste and mouthwash. =) (It's hard for me not to think that if ever I give a defense of love in this post it's going to be a cliche as well)

I really want to believe that I am a good person, that there is more to me than just a cynical person who has a knack for honing in on delicate subjects that are handled poorly. I really would like to believe that I care about love and talking about it because some part of who I am really needs to sort this out and that it's not just the cynical and false parts of me that are fueling this entire thought. That part, if it's there is what wants something more real than advertised love. And if that part of me is there searching for something real in love, then isn't that a reason to actually give a crap about other people and actually trying to love them? (At least that would give it a chance to find that reality.)

More importantly if some part of me like that exists, isn't that a clue that there actually might be something out there that satisfies it? And wouldn't it be great to have something that couldn't be torn down by that calculating cynical part of me as just an advertisement or a downright lie that I believe in just to keep the cynicism at bay?

Even if it's not there, there is always something about love or at least good relationships that makes a difference when cynicism is concerned. When I'm with my girlfriend, or my family, or a really good friend, pretty much whenever I don't feel so alone; I don't spend time thinking about how people can make love feel fake and spun in the same way supermarket ads can be. Essentially when I actually feel some kind of love, the cynicism disappears and I have a chance to see how fragile it really is.

}            //That means "the end" in C++

*I thought I would experiment with the quote tool today rather than banish all my interesting thoughts to footnotes way at the bottom of the page or fill up my paragraphs with parenthetical text