Marcus sat at the table, transfixed as he stared at his brown hands. He admired them, something he was both self-caring and humble enough to do gracefully. He enjoyed his hands, their appearance. The lines of fingerprints on the tips, the gentle cracks in his knuckles, the gentle transition from dark brown to light brown as his eyes moved from the back of his hands to his palms. They were soft hands, the hands of a man who hadn’t done much in the way of physical labor. That didn’t bother him, he enjoyed the fact that even at forty his hands were still beautiful and sensitive. They were still gentle and supple, much like his heart. Yet, the sensitivity of his heart and soul was rooted more in a great deal of pain and labor, as opposed to a lack of it. Many who had seen the things that he had seen, experienced the pain that he’d experienced, suffered the traumas that he’d suffered, would have given in to the hardness and callouses that would protect a heart from future pain. Not him. He allowed his heart to stay vulnerable and open, knowing that it would create more pain when tragedy came along in any of its many forms. No, where his hands were concerned, the softness came from a lack of exposure to the things that harden and injure, but his heart’s softness came from careful attention and work. There was a wide-receiver in the NFL once, Cris Carter, who used to soak his hands in hot baby oil to keep his hands soft. This meant that his hands remained sensitive, he never lost his touch, and he had better hands than most who have ever played the position. However, it also meant his hands never grew insensitive to the painful contact with a football thrown by a professional quarterback, each catch would sting, just like the first time. Cris Carter’s soft hands were a better reflection of Marcus’s heart, the softness that took work and sacrifice, that meant a willingness to suffer in exchange for sensitivity. A heart that is open and vulnerable is always a broken heart, but it is also a beautiful and hopeful thing to behold, much like Marcus’s careful, tender hands.
Monthly Archives: July 2012
air conditioning. [trigger #172]
The day was balmy and hot, and it had Patrick in a dark mood. Most days, he was a pleasant man, cordial and polite, friendly, helpful to strangers. However, once the weather got humid and the temperature rose, Patrick became impatient and short-tempered. Any time the humidity and heat brought dark clouds and thunder storms along with it, it felt to Patrick and those closest to him as if it were a fitting representation of his brooding anger, dark and rumbling, ready to strike without any further notice than the grumpy look stuck to his face.
This all probably could have been avoided, at least in part, if Patrick would just break down and buy his family an air conditioner, but he stubbornly refused to do so. Thus, the angry summers continued. Patrick would wake up from a fitful night of sleep, he found it impossible to sleep in the wet heat, only to snap at his children and his wife for no reason, bang things around the apartment, and incessantly rub the bridge of his nose in frustration. Every time he snapped at a loved one, it would make him furious with himself, which would just further darken his mood, creating an feedback loop of self-loathing.
He walked down the street from his house to a coffee shop. Thus far, he was failing to enjoy a Saturday afternoon alone while his wife watched the kids. This was the way of things. Every Saturday he and his wife traded off afternoons to get away and spend time alone, and this was his Saturday. It only made his mood darker that he was feeling so angry on his afternoon alone, ruining something he’d have to wait another two weeks to experience again. He pouted sullenly over his iced coffee, and his shame about pouting just made him feel even worse. Yet, it wasn’t long before the air conditioning started doing its work, and Patrick started feeling better, as if the cool air worked its way through his ears and into his brain, cooling off whatever part was overheating and creating this seasonally petulant behavior.
First came some perspective. Sure, he wasn’t enjoying his time alone, but at least the afternoon away spared his family the chore of needing to be subjected to his cantankerousness. This brief moment of clarity and charity was like a breath of fresh air, and it toppled his anger and made him feel just a bit better about himself, which is always an important part of making anyone enjoyable to be around. After 30 minutes sitting in some conditioned air, quietly nursing his cold brew, he was a new man. Everything was better. He decided he should head home and apologize to his family for the morning’s peevishness, then perhaps forgo his afternoon alone to spend time making it up to them. It was a splendid plan.
Unfortunately, the three block walk home in the oppressive weather undid all of the air conditioning’s hard work, and he arrived at home in the same surly spirits in which he’d left. All his poor family could do was bide their time until autumn came, and plan together when the next strategic opportunity might arise to bring up the subject of an air conditioner again.
writer’s block. [trigger #171]
When I say Peter Gibbons was stuck, please understand that I don’t mean stuck in some vague metaphorical sense. We all know times when we’ve been in a rut, when we feel incapable of getting anything done, of accomplishing anything worthwhile. This was not what Peter Gibbons was experiencing. No, Mr. Gibbons was in the midst of something far more sinister than that.
You may not know this, but there are dimensions and layers of existence you don’t see. Most sensible people don’t believe this, but that is because most of those we call sensible are often stuck in an understanding of the world that is rooted in popular science, which is usually about 15 years behind real science in most aspects central to life, but 30 or 40 years behind real science in terms of anything at the fringes of existence. Thus, your average, mildly educated Jack or Jill will be about 15 years behind in their understanding of the brain, but 30 or 40 years behind in their understanding of the ways of the universe. It was some time before they realized that Einstein changed our understanding of all the rules, and will be some time again before they realize that Hawking did it again. At this point, if you were to say there is more to existence than meets the eye, many would discount what you are saying as superstition and spiritualism. They probably wouldn’t realize that what you were saying is backed up by the most cutting edge Quantum Physics. Eventually they will figure it out, and most probably religion and science will swap positions again, in much the same way that when Belgian priest Georges Lemaître first postulated his theory of the universe beginning with what would later come to be called the ‘Big Bang’, it was discounted by the scientific community as too religious, whereas now it is embraced by the scientific community, but written off by the religious community as ‘too sciency.’
All that to say, you don’t see everything that is. Even after science continues to prove that, there will still be things left over that we simply fail to grasp and understand. There are forces at work in your life that most would discount as magic, or mythology, or superstition. Yet, discounting something’s existence does nothing to make it less true. I can decide to stop believing in the earth’s orbit around the sun all I like, but at the end of the day it won’t stop the thing from being so. Believe me or not, the things I am about to describe to you are still true.
Back to Peter Gibbons. He was stuck in a deep, profoundly painful way. His soul, for lack of a more accurate phrase, was trapped, ensnared by an entity that was feeding off of Peter’s creativity. Peter, to this day a smart, clever, creative guy, was a delectable treat for a being such as the one that was feeding off of his creativity.
Demon, faerie, god… call this being what you will, it was an entity that consumed the creativity of a victim, sucking the vitality from a soul the way a wolf drinks the marrow from the bones of its prey. We will call this… ‘monster’ if you will, Bill. Its real name is older and longer than you might comprehend, and it is in a language that has been dead longer than humans have inhabited the earth. Bill had many sources of food he could draw from. He’d been around for countless ages before humans showed up, so he certainly wasn’t limited in his diet to human creativity. Yet, creativity was by far his favorite dish. He’d feasted on painters and writers, lyricists and composers, gardeners, directors, scientists, poets, emcees, preachers, photographers, and many others who offered a distinct way of seeing to all who had eyes to see. Peter Gibbons was his favorite in some time. He would normally feed off of someone for a time, then leave to find fresh prey. Yet, Peter was so delectable, Bill considered feeding until Peter lost his mind (which for some creative types only offered an outpouring of creative energy even stronger than when they were technically sane), and even then continuing to feed until Peter lost the will to live and either slipped into a coma or killed himself.
Peter’s primary disadvantage in this struggle was that he had no idea it was going on. He just knew that he was experiencing some sort of deeply painful existential resistance in his attempts to write. It didn’t matter what he was trying to write, it simply wouldn’t come. An act that used to be as natural and simple to him as breathing now felt more akin to a life threatening asthma attack.
trigger fiction. 