I wonder what would happen if I stopped?
The pain is old and worn out, but it used to be neon. Then, it came in primary colors. Now, it is pastel. Maybe if I am patient enough, the pain will turn clear.
I'll be able to see through it.
I'll be able to see through it.
Maybe the pain is a security blanket. Maybe it's a shield. Maybe I need it, but maybe it needs me.
There's only one way to find out, and that is to NOT give up. To keep going until I've made it make sense.
I'll persevere...I'll overcome hardship like a real frontiersman. You can be my guide, and we'll get there together.
Pass the salt?
Oddly, this has been a recurring theme in my life lately. I've heard it at concerts, in audiobooks, etc., and now here.
ReplyDeleteYou do succinct emotional pieces like no one else I know. Thanks for this.
What LB said. Thank you for writing this. I like the image of the fading colors; it's very apt.
DeleteDifferent parts of the world have different names for it: The Year of Sorrow. The Tipping Point. The Great Cataclysm. The Great Catastrophe. Fulcrum. The End of the Beginning. When Before Became After.
ReplyDeleteExperts will probably always disagree about when it began. And where. And how.
The one thing everyone around the world could agree on is that things got bad. Bad enough that even the smartest people in any room fumbled for the right words for it for years, if not decades.
Where I’m from, the young folk born after things started to get better nicknamed it “Z Day,” and it stuck. My cousin Drew may or may not have been responsible for that.
Our folks were kids in the Beforetimes. They witnessed Z Day first hand – a fact I didn’t cotton onto until I was nearly in my teens, because they never spoke a word about any of it. Forbade Granny from telling us stories about it, too. They acted like the Beforetimes never existed, like things had always been exactly as they were. But Drew and I knew better. We had seen pictures in books of the buildings and machines that used to be. We had read about technology that had existed, heard bits and pieces from our friends about the culture of the Old World, handed down from their parents and grandparents.
The one and only time I asked my Pa about the things I’d heard, he said, “Those things that fascinate you – the bots and mechs and super-telegraphs – that’s what brought about the End. Best to just leave it all in the past where it belongs.”
He’d looked equal parts grief-stricken and angry, and I was instantly sorry I’d said anything. I never brought it up again.
More! I want to know more! Good to read you again, L.
DeleteIt was easier to be a petty criminal then. You ring up a customer for fifteen bucks, tell them it’s ten, pocket the difference. Registers weren’t connected to anything. No SKU codes, no security cameras. You just had to wait until you were the only one in the shop. You had to keep it small, and of course, only do it for customers paying in cash. Then you’d go about your business, perfect the art of innocence by going above and beyond at the rest of your job often enough to keep it believable.
ReplyDeleteAll week you’d think about what you could buy for those few purloined dollars, which felt like a small fortune. You lived on ramen and brown rice from the food coop and generic canned beans and, when you were feeling a little fancy, chicken livers, because nobody else wanted them. You knew you “should” have been using it for fresh fruit and vegetables, but, drowning in self-pity, nothing numbed the pain of being a twentyish creative person in a city of “no” like the legal drug of food abuse. You’d plan for that, too. The food differed, depending on your mood, and you’d stroll the aisles, looking casual, planning for the exact hit you craved. A box of Grasshopper cookies. Mint Milanos. A pint of Ben and Jerry’s. Day-old pastries from the bakery, because you could get more for that sweaty five-dollar bill. A can of cake frosting when things got seriously bad. But no matter which fix you landed on, the purchase included a glossy woman’s mag, because ingesting thousands of calories wasn’t punishment enough, apparently.
You’re looking at the cover of one of those magazines, surprised that they still publish a print edition, unsurprised that they’re still doling out the same impossible standards, while you’re waiting to pay for your gas because today your drug of choice is coffee and you can’t buy that at the pump. The young woman at the register looks tired, checked out. You catch a random comment she makes to the customer ahead of you about her second job. Her six-month-old baby, home with Grandma until she has to go to her job, too.
It’s your turn now. You gesture to your coffee. “This,” you say, “and twenty bucks on pump five.”
She looks up, behind my shoulder, out the window, as if to confirm. “Nice car,” she says, while she’s ringing me up. You wonder if she ever thinks about the open cash register.
“I had two jobs once,” you tell her. A lame way, you suppose, to tell her that it gets better, but you doubt it would help if you said how long it took you to drop that second job, to earn the money for that nice car.
You hit all the buttons for the magic of electronic payment and she thanks you and moves on to the next customer. There’s a tip jar on the counter. You put in a twenty. You wish it could be more. You wish it could be all the money you ever stole. One day, you vow, it will be.
(Ack, voice change)
Delete