When I was downsized out of the company, I left without saying goodbye to most of my coworkers. I called a few that I was close with when I got home, but while I was still there everyone else was getting ready for a staff meeting and setting up for an outdoor barbecue (in February, I’m really not sure what that was all about) and I was so giddy at having been let go of the one last thing that was really anchoring me in misery that I pretty much forgot about everyone else. I waved halfheartedly as I carted my boxes of stuff out to my car and then drove off, not really concerned about anything.
I kind of had this picture in my head of everyone showing up and going about their daily routines indefinitely, as if I’d never existed, the only thing different in the office being me not slouched at my desk. I imagined my departure being clean and precise and the hole I’d left behind me being stitched up rather quickly and painlessly.
Perhaps the company did get over me quickly. I’m not sure either way and I can’t say I even care to know. I talked to a couple of old coworkers this morning though and as far as other people’s lives are concerned there’s at least one person I used to know who doesn’t exist anywhere in the world anymore.
He was That Guy, you know the one. There’s actually more than one of Those Guys and you always know (or are buddies with) at least one of them. I’ve known several, actually. This one was thirty-five and exclusively dated women at least ten years younger. He was divorced and played in some kind of garage band and acted like he was a rock star. It seemed he had a new live-in girlfriend every couple of months and he’d brag about it to me (and the rest of the office) like I was supposed to be impressed by him. He’d tell me to come to one of his shows. When he talked he had that kind of fake casual air about him that guys who are pretending they care about things less than they actually do have. He was kind of obnoxious, though in an unusually humorous way. He wasn’t the kind of guy I’d find myself wanting to date but at the same time he wasn’t what I would consider a horrible person. Despite the fact that he annoyed the hell out of everyone else, for various reasons (calling off, working slowly and lying about napping, having an excuse for everything, not accepting criticism or disciplinary actions on the part of management), we were always cool with each other. There were nights when I honestly enjoyed talking to him, even if only for a few minutes. I used to send him ridiculous text messages about mudkips and Pokemans back before he had my number in his cell phone. I spent an hour once doing that, and he couldn’t figure out who I was or what I wanted. It was the highlight of my night that night.
His issues at work started, or seemed to start, shortly after his brother (or half-brother, I can’t remember) died overseas last year. He was younger and was in the military. After he came back from bereavement leave my coworker had a bit more of an attitude than he used to. The calling off and excuses for poor performance became more frequent. He’d have loud arguments with both of my supervisors and would storm out and go home to cool off and come in the next day like nothing had happened. It was a vicious cycle, and he was constantly on the brink of being fired, but for one reason or another it never came to pass, not while I was still there. We either didn’t have an extra person to be trained on his route or whatever he was doing that day wasn’t fire-worthy. But he was always in the crosshairs.
According to the old coworkers I spoke with this morning, management eventually had enough of him, and when he was disciplined for the last time there was a huge blowout in the office. I’m rather relieved I wasn’t there to witness it. He was fired, but not without threatening a few people, and I guess the building was on lockdown for a few days afterwards. This is all hearsay, keep in mind.
At some point after he left the company his girlfriend moved out. I don’t know the details of all of this, only the end result, so I can’t state any facts or even do much speculating beyond this point.
I know most of my writing, from the short stories to the novels, indulges rather heavily in self-sacrifice and self-destruction as both theme and plot device. I’ve had all manner of characters end their lives in all manner of bizarre and/or disturbing ways. There’s something about the mental image and the drama it lends to plotting that has me a bit addicted, and it bothers me once in a while when I think about it too much. But as long as it keeps fitting so well into the projects I’m working on I’ll continue to do it.
In real life the idea of somebody you know tying a noose around their neck and hanging themselves carries not a single vestige of the drama, mystique or romance of fictional suicide. Not one bit. Instead it has me feeling very nauseated. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since I heard the news this morning. As soon as his name was brought up I started to laugh, thinking he’d gotten into trouble or had done something outrageous and pissed the bosses off again. For a moment, when I heard his name, I thought perhaps he’d been fired. He certainly would have deserved it. It wasn’t until they actually said “killed himself” that I stopped chuckling. It was one of those moments where your thought processes just stop mid-task and you stand there, dazed, as they rewind and replay the information that’s just been presented. Your mind actually has to verify that what you’ve just heard really is what you’ve just heard. It’s a very out there kind of feeling.
I kind of wish I’d stuck around that last day at work, just to see everyone come in for their routes and say proper goodbyes, instead of flying out of there like a self-obsessed snob.
He left behind at least two children of his own and another child he was raising for a relative. I’m not sure what became of them. I’ve been searching for his obituary all day and still haven’t managed to find it.
I still have a hard time accepting the fact that a person who appeared to enjoy arguing that much, while at the same time playing everything off like he just didn’t care, killed himself. People really must be layered like onions, leaving only the tough skin visible. I’d never have imagined he would react in this way. How well do we know the people we are only friendly, but not very close, with? Sometimes I think most of the details I have about people are nothing but my assumptions of them. Reality doesn’t always measure up perfectly.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Room to Write - "Inside Out" and Write Brain Workbook - "Circle Game"
Room to Write’s prompt for exercise “Inside Out” - Describe a place impossible to enter; the center of an erupting volcano, the fifth dimension. Turn the experience inside out. Let your imagination float and anchor it to what is feasible.
See if you can guess what it is I’m describing.
---
It is dark like night, and understandably cold. I stand atop a crisp, flat expanse of land, dusky green but for the lines of silver shot through at precise, deliberate angles.
In the air I smell faint traces of ozone or other remnants of explosive reaction. There is a sense of active travel here, though not by human feet. It is the travel of tiny particles, through the ground and through the air, and a dry wind blows across my face from somewhere far away, bringing with it a volley of dust to fill my lungs and drop me to my knees, coughing.
I hear clicks and whirrs, piercing beeps and low, insectile buzzing. All the while, softly, as if halfway imagined, I hear a tap-tap-tapping, somewhere in the direction of the sky. Though it is a familiar sound, I cannot exactly place it, and the rhythm finds its way like a persistent worm into my ear and wraps itself around my brain.
So familiar, yet so alien. Almost as if a dream given life.
I hear voices, too, without a doubt human, though they are layered on top of one another like leaves in a wet pile. They stick together, become one lump, and then break apart at odd intervals. Some sing jingles, some scream, some are intertwined with instruments that shift and blend and distort. I am at a loss.
There is nothing here for me to lift, nothing to taste. It is all smooth, dark expanse interspersed with silver lines and ridged square bumps here and there. Occasionally small, round nodes stick up from the ground in geometric patterns like the avant garde artwork of an alien civilization. Still, something strikes me as familiar. Something I have seen before lurks here just below the surface, something so commonplace that it would make sense to forget it as thoroughly as I have. Something I may have seen or experienced a thousand times, ingrained into myself so that it only lurks now in the farthest recesses of my mind.
I turn my face heavenward, towards the rhythmic tapping, and realize. But it is impossible...
---
I picked up a neat new writing prompts book called The Write-Brain Workbook by Bonnie Neubauer. It’s a neat book, exceptionally creative, complete with full-color graphics and odd backgrounds for each page. It’s a bit like a more complex Mad Libs coupled with prompts taken from fiction workshops. The book is designed so that you can write directly on the page, but being the anal-retentive book archivist that I am I’ve been typing mine up. I’m still undecided on whether or not I’m going to go from the beginning to the end in order or if I’m going to bounce around in my typical fashion, but I have done the very first exercise. It’s called “Circle Game”
I had to pick one word each out of three sets of four-word options, and then use them in an exercise. My choices were exorcist, garage and keepsake. I had to start the exercise off with the line Sometimes I feel just like a gerbil, running around and around on his wheel!
---
Sometimes I feel just like a gerbil, running around and around on his wheel!
It took a few weeks for me to convince anyone to hire the exorcist. I'd found his advertisement in the back of one of those funny comics magazines, the ones that make fun of movies and tv shows. Like Mad or Cracked, only a little cheaper. The ad was a tiny black and white square, not much bigger than a postage stamp, and it had a headline in large block letters.
EDWIN MORVACK, EXORCIST, SPIRT DOCTOR AND SPECTRAL MEDIUM.
Whatever that meant. I wasn't sure. But ever since things started rearranging themselves in the garage when we left for the day, I knew an exorcist was something we could benefit from. I wasn't much concerned with the rest of the things he claimed he could do, so long as he could put an end to the poltergeisting.
I called off sick from work, which wasn't really so much of a lie as it was a slight exaggeration. The goings-on had really done a number to my stomach, and even though relief was right around the corner I couldn't help but feel the white-hot jolts to my stomach. Please let this be over soon, I thought to myself as I picked up the phone and dialed the number at the bottom of the tiny ad.
There was a hiss and crackle as my phone connected to another somewhere out there in the universe. It ended abruptly as someone picked up, blissful silence followed by a soft, dry voice that sounded like it was crawling out from below me somewhere deep in the earth.
“Yes?” My ears had to strain to hear it completely.
“Um, yes, is-is-is this Edwin Morvack?”
“Yes, it is.” I could swear the voice was smiling, faintly.
“Um, well, yes, I found your ad in a magazine and I thought that you could help me.” There was no immediate reply, so I soldiered on, in rapid and horribly nervous fashion. “Okay, well, I have a poltergeist in my garage. Well, I'm fairly sure it's a poltergeist. It destroyed an heirloom mirror my great-grandmother bought when she'd first been married, and then tore the legs off a vanity dresser that belonged to my grandmother. It's shuffled some other stuff around, here and there, but I haven't found anything else broken yet. I hear it start moving as soon as I leave the house but by the time I get back it's long gone.”
“I see.”
I waited. There was no other reply. “Well, um, yes, I was wondering if that was something your 'exorcist' expertise might cover. I'm really not well-versed in all of this spirit and ghost stuff, so I'm not sure I called the right person, but there aren't a whole lot of alternatives, you know?” I chucked self-consciously. “Is this something you think you might be - “
“I will be there in an hour,” the soft voice said. It felt like the smile had broken into a grin, but there was no evidence. The actual sound of it hadn't changed at all. And then, suddenly, my ear was full of the symphonic hissing that had preempted the call.
He'd be here, in an hour?
I hadn't told him where I lived.
---
I really need to make more time for writing exercises. I feel very accomplished when I finish one, and that sense of having done something worthwhile with my time can carry me throughout an entire day.
Exercises aside, I’d like to be spending more time as well on novel writing. Teahouse’s rough draft is completed and the first chapter (and request for beta readers for the entire work) will be released to Critters on April 29th. I’m hoping to receive some helpful feedback that way, though I’ve already identified several points in the novel where I need to add chapters to flesh out the characters. I’d like to expand the word count by thirty to fifty percent, if possible.
Rain has been a bit slower to progress, but it’s still somewhat of a back burner project and really always has been. I’m up to twenty-two shorter chapters with that one and will be resuming work on it in the next couple of weeks, after I’ve drawn up some ideas for additional Teahouse material. Two of my biggest personality flaws are my inability to remain organized and the flip-flop way I handle almost everything in my life. I flit back and forth from thing to thing like some sort of crazed bumblebee, and it takes me forever to get anything done. I’d really like to work on that a bit, maybe force myself to become more structured. I’d like to be able to actually see progress instead of having it come agonizingly slowly because I can’t pay attention to one solitary thing for more than two days straight.
See if you can guess what it is I’m describing.
---
It is dark like night, and understandably cold. I stand atop a crisp, flat expanse of land, dusky green but for the lines of silver shot through at precise, deliberate angles.
In the air I smell faint traces of ozone or other remnants of explosive reaction. There is a sense of active travel here, though not by human feet. It is the travel of tiny particles, through the ground and through the air, and a dry wind blows across my face from somewhere far away, bringing with it a volley of dust to fill my lungs and drop me to my knees, coughing.
I hear clicks and whirrs, piercing beeps and low, insectile buzzing. All the while, softly, as if halfway imagined, I hear a tap-tap-tapping, somewhere in the direction of the sky. Though it is a familiar sound, I cannot exactly place it, and the rhythm finds its way like a persistent worm into my ear and wraps itself around my brain.
So familiar, yet so alien. Almost as if a dream given life.
I hear voices, too, without a doubt human, though they are layered on top of one another like leaves in a wet pile. They stick together, become one lump, and then break apart at odd intervals. Some sing jingles, some scream, some are intertwined with instruments that shift and blend and distort. I am at a loss.
There is nothing here for me to lift, nothing to taste. It is all smooth, dark expanse interspersed with silver lines and ridged square bumps here and there. Occasionally small, round nodes stick up from the ground in geometric patterns like the avant garde artwork of an alien civilization. Still, something strikes me as familiar. Something I have seen before lurks here just below the surface, something so commonplace that it would make sense to forget it as thoroughly as I have. Something I may have seen or experienced a thousand times, ingrained into myself so that it only lurks now in the farthest recesses of my mind.
I turn my face heavenward, towards the rhythmic tapping, and realize. But it is impossible...
---
I picked up a neat new writing prompts book called The Write-Brain Workbook by Bonnie Neubauer. It’s a neat book, exceptionally creative, complete with full-color graphics and odd backgrounds for each page. It’s a bit like a more complex Mad Libs coupled with prompts taken from fiction workshops. The book is designed so that you can write directly on the page, but being the anal-retentive book archivist that I am I’ve been typing mine up. I’m still undecided on whether or not I’m going to go from the beginning to the end in order or if I’m going to bounce around in my typical fashion, but I have done the very first exercise. It’s called “Circle Game”
I had to pick one word each out of three sets of four-word options, and then use them in an exercise. My choices were exorcist, garage and keepsake. I had to start the exercise off with the line Sometimes I feel just like a gerbil, running around and around on his wheel!
---
Sometimes I feel just like a gerbil, running around and around on his wheel!
It took a few weeks for me to convince anyone to hire the exorcist. I'd found his advertisement in the back of one of those funny comics magazines, the ones that make fun of movies and tv shows. Like Mad or Cracked, only a little cheaper. The ad was a tiny black and white square, not much bigger than a postage stamp, and it had a headline in large block letters.
EDWIN MORVACK, EXORCIST, SPIRT DOCTOR AND SPECTRAL MEDIUM.
Whatever that meant. I wasn't sure. But ever since things started rearranging themselves in the garage when we left for the day, I knew an exorcist was something we could benefit from. I wasn't much concerned with the rest of the things he claimed he could do, so long as he could put an end to the poltergeisting.
I called off sick from work, which wasn't really so much of a lie as it was a slight exaggeration. The goings-on had really done a number to my stomach, and even though relief was right around the corner I couldn't help but feel the white-hot jolts to my stomach. Please let this be over soon, I thought to myself as I picked up the phone and dialed the number at the bottom of the tiny ad.
There was a hiss and crackle as my phone connected to another somewhere out there in the universe. It ended abruptly as someone picked up, blissful silence followed by a soft, dry voice that sounded like it was crawling out from below me somewhere deep in the earth.
“Yes?” My ears had to strain to hear it completely.
“Um, yes, is-is-is this Edwin Morvack?”
“Yes, it is.” I could swear the voice was smiling, faintly.
“Um, well, yes, I found your ad in a magazine and I thought that you could help me.” There was no immediate reply, so I soldiered on, in rapid and horribly nervous fashion. “Okay, well, I have a poltergeist in my garage. Well, I'm fairly sure it's a poltergeist. It destroyed an heirloom mirror my great-grandmother bought when she'd first been married, and then tore the legs off a vanity dresser that belonged to my grandmother. It's shuffled some other stuff around, here and there, but I haven't found anything else broken yet. I hear it start moving as soon as I leave the house but by the time I get back it's long gone.”
“I see.”
I waited. There was no other reply. “Well, um, yes, I was wondering if that was something your 'exorcist' expertise might cover. I'm really not well-versed in all of this spirit and ghost stuff, so I'm not sure I called the right person, but there aren't a whole lot of alternatives, you know?” I chucked self-consciously. “Is this something you think you might be - “
“I will be there in an hour,” the soft voice said. It felt like the smile had broken into a grin, but there was no evidence. The actual sound of it hadn't changed at all. And then, suddenly, my ear was full of the symphonic hissing that had preempted the call.
He'd be here, in an hour?
I hadn't told him where I lived.
---
I really need to make more time for writing exercises. I feel very accomplished when I finish one, and that sense of having done something worthwhile with my time can carry me throughout an entire day.
Exercises aside, I’d like to be spending more time as well on novel writing. Teahouse’s rough draft is completed and the first chapter (and request for beta readers for the entire work) will be released to Critters on April 29th. I’m hoping to receive some helpful feedback that way, though I’ve already identified several points in the novel where I need to add chapters to flesh out the characters. I’d like to expand the word count by thirty to fifty percent, if possible.
Rain has been a bit slower to progress, but it’s still somewhat of a back burner project and really always has been. I’m up to twenty-two shorter chapters with that one and will be resuming work on it in the next couple of weeks, after I’ve drawn up some ideas for additional Teahouse material. Two of my biggest personality flaws are my inability to remain organized and the flip-flop way I handle almost everything in my life. I flit back and forth from thing to thing like some sort of crazed bumblebee, and it takes me forever to get anything done. I’d really like to work on that a bit, maybe force myself to become more structured. I’d like to be able to actually see progress instead of having it come agonizingly slowly because I can’t pay attention to one solitary thing for more than two days straight.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Fried Flowers
For years I’ve been a bit obsessed with the idea of edible flowers, with an emphasis on dandelions. I’ve loved them since I started yanking them out of the ground and flinging them at people as a child. There’s something admirable in their tenacity, their refusal to budge when the whole world is against them.
They’re the noblest of weeds, for sure.
Personally, I don’t really consider them a weed. They’re too attractive, too full of nutrients, too useful. Only someone obsessed with homogenizing their suburban lawn should ever call them a weed, and even then it would be a label borne of ignorance.
They are delicious. I finally found out for myself today.
An egg. A cup of milk. A cup of flour. That’s really all you need, aside from a pot and a half inch of olive oil on medium heat. I suppose you could use some salt and pepper or some kind of tempura broth if you felt like being fancy with your cooking, but this time I kept it bare bones. I picked the nicest flower heads I could find and gently shook off any tiny ants that were nestled inside, brought them in and rinsed them and then trimmed off the stalks. I fried them gently in batches of six to ten heads at a time, turning them over when they became golden brown.
The taste is very gentle, not bitter at all. It reminds me of the vegetable tempura from Sushi Tomo, actually. I think next time I make this recipe I’ll have to break out the tempura batter and panko crumbs I have stashed away in my cupboard.
I really hope I can convince someone else to eat these with me, because I don’t think I should scarf them all down myself. Still, it’s tempting.
They’re the noblest of weeds, for sure.
Personally, I don’t really consider them a weed. They’re too attractive, too full of nutrients, too useful. Only someone obsessed with homogenizing their suburban lawn should ever call them a weed, and even then it would be a label borne of ignorance.
They are delicious. I finally found out for myself today.
An egg. A cup of milk. A cup of flour. That’s really all you need, aside from a pot and a half inch of olive oil on medium heat. I suppose you could use some salt and pepper or some kind of tempura broth if you felt like being fancy with your cooking, but this time I kept it bare bones. I picked the nicest flower heads I could find and gently shook off any tiny ants that were nestled inside, brought them in and rinsed them and then trimmed off the stalks. I fried them gently in batches of six to ten heads at a time, turning them over when they became golden brown.
The taste is very gentle, not bitter at all. It reminds me of the vegetable tempura from Sushi Tomo, actually. I think next time I make this recipe I’ll have to break out the tempura batter and panko crumbs I have stashed away in my cupboard.
I really hope I can convince someone else to eat these with me, because I don’t think I should scarf them all down myself. Still, it’s tempting.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
1000+ Words "The Long Finger"
I wanted to do a short writing exercise on the concept of missing limbs after reading Max Barry’s “Machine Man.” Inspiration comes at the oddest times, and from the oddest places. I have a lot of fun with these exercises (and all writing exercises, really) because of their “no pressure” nature, and in the end I usually turn out something that is not only fun to create but isn’t hard on the eyes, either. If only the stuff I work on seriously was this easy, I may not be so stressed out all the time.
The Long Finger
It all begins the day I lose my finger.
I don't have that many memories about the accident, to be honest. I can remember the drive to work that leads up to it, the unscheduled stop at a fast-food place for a breakfast sandwich and the stop light I got stuck sitting at. I was in the lead, with several cars behind me. I can also remember a glimpse out of the corner of my eye at a box truck with Erotic Party Services painted in soft pastels on it gliding down the steep downtown hill towards the same light, from my left. I can remember pulling out into the intersection when the light turned green, but that's where it becomes fuzzy, as if someone is standing above it all with a bright halogen lamp, erasing details in a blinding white glare.
My memories return a few days later. My mother is there, dark bluish bags under her eyes, half-asleep in one of those uncomfortable hospital chairs that keep your back ramrod-straight. I immediately wish I am still asleep, because my roommate is cursing loudly and uncontrollably from behind the curtain that separates us. Later on my mother will tell me that the poor girl was in a crash not unlike mine, only involving a motorcycle and a Beetle (the new kind, not vintage) full of drunk college students, and she has some kind of neurological damage that causes her to drop the f-bomb loudly without realizing she's doing so.
I expect the worst, but most of the damage consists of scrapes along my face and torso. My car is gone. I'd just finished paying it off a few months prior and was so happy to have the title in my mini safe. Now, it is worthless.
It takes a few hours for me to realize there is something wrong. Nobody has pointed it out to me, not my mother, not the nurse who's checked my vitals several times. My doctor, I am sure, would have told me by now but he or she has not been in to see me just yet. Phantom sensations can cloud your perception, I am told, and this is why it has gone unnoticed by me for so long.
I am missing the pinky on my right hand. It is completely gone, sheared off where it meets the hand. Almost as if it never existed. I turn my hand over and over, examining from multiple angles, hoping I'm wrong, but knowing I'm not. The bandaging is wrapped tightly, and I can tell there is nothing there, despite feeling like there is.
I look at my mother, slightly irritated.
She sighs and looks away. She is afraid and unsure what to say to me.
My options are limited, and time narrows it down more. My doctor, a young eastern European woman with a faint accent and a neatly-upswept bun, tells me that I can live without a finger, wear a prosthesis or attempt a transplant. If I choose the latter, she tells me, I need to do so quickly. There is a viable finger available, but it needs to be transplanted now.
I am the impatient type. I am also the don't-second-guess-yourself type. I go with the transplant.
It is a success. I now have a new finger. It is slightly thinner than the others, and just a smidge longer. It is obviously a woman's finger. I wonder if they cross genders for limb and digit transplants. Looking at my own tiny girlish hands, I wonder what it would be like to have a thick, hairy pinkie sticking out at the end of my hand.
The days go by and I get to use the digit more and more. I am told not to strain it, or lift heavy objects. Just exercise it a bit, the doctor tells me. Her name is Doctor Elishka. I think she may be Russian. That could also be her first name. I'm not sure, and I never ask.
After a few weeks, everything besides my finger is healed completely. My face is unmarred, and the various cuts and scrapes on my body have faded. All that is left now is to learn to use my new digit. I call it my “long finger.”
This long finger is not so easily integrated with the rest of my hand. I find it difficult to control, stubborn, unwilling to move at my command. It is frustrating, because I've been under the impression that once it heals it will move as fluidly as the rest of my body, almost without notice.
This is not so.
I spend several hours a day grappling with my new finger, bending it to my will, forcing it to discontinue its habit of sticking out from my hand at an embarrassing angle. After a few days it seems sufficiently tamed, and I take it to the task of touching things and lifting small items. Everything seems to be working well enough.
A few weeks later, at breakfast, I idly scratch my eyelid with my long finger. It's not itchy, but I do it anyway. It's an old habit of mine, scratching my face gently while I'm daydreaming.
A few minutes later my eyelid begins to itch something fierce.
I wash my hands and try to stay away from the eyelid, but I end up rubbing until it's red and puffy. I spend the night trying to fall asleep only to be distracted by the soreness and persistent itching. By morning it has subsided enough to ignore for long stretches. I force myself not to touch it again.
The following day I am sitting idly at the kitchen table again. I have finished my morning tea and, on a whim, decide to test the strength of my new finger. This is the first time I will have picked up and held something with that finger alone.
I loop my new pinky through the handle of my light china teacup. It is a cheap imitation of a piece of formal tableware, and I am not too concerned about dropping it. It does not drop from my finger though, as my new digit is surprisingly strong. It is just like any other finger, I suppose, only it once did not belong to me. I have difficulties wrapping my head around this concept.
I watch in silence as the first crack on the handle forms, and then another, followed by several more. In the span of a few moments it appears as if a thousand tiny rivers have suddenly formed on the china's surface before it all crumbles apart. The cup lands on the carpeted floor below, intact save for the handle that has disintegrated into nothing.
Later on that same day, after showering, I am leaning in close to the mirror over the bathroom sink. I am scouring my face for blemishes and checking on my eyelid. All redness and swelling is gone from my eye, and it doesn't seem like I have anything on my face. As I wipe the steam that continues to form from the mirror's glass, I notice something odd. I pause, my hand still on the mirror.
Cracks. Tiny cracks. Radiating from the right side of my hand.
I pull away as the mirror spiderwebs into dozens of growing fractures, and I am halfway out of the room when the first glass piece falls from the mount on the wall. I run into the garage for a cardboard box, and as I put the pieces in and sweep up what is left with a hand broom I begin to wonder.
Call me superstitious, call me foolish and irrational, but now I feel I need to check.
I look all over my house and belongings to see if anything else is amiss. What else has this finger touched recently?
Several keys on the right hand side of my laptop keyboard are visibly warped.
The right-hand side of my car's steering wheel cover, the one with the flower petals embroidered on it, is unraveling and shredding in several small places.
The very end of my toothbrush appears to be melting, as is the very end of my hairbrush.
It seems to be too much to be coincidence, but too little to be panic-worthy. I begin a small series of tests to confirm the impossible. I run my hand over several things, waiting to see what happens.
I grab a coffee cup and, once again, it falls apart. I move on to flatware, and several pieces lose their luster and appear as if being held under a flame as I run my long finger over them.
I rest my hand on the front door and a small, barely noticeable scorch mark appears. It could almost be mistaken for a natural darkness in the wood if viewed by someone else.
I go out on the porch and run one final test. A few years before I quit smoking, I made several ashtrays in a pottery workshop I attended once a week. I still have one, and it sits outside atop my patio table. It is grey and black and has a flat, glossy surface. It is the largest ashtray I made in the class.
I extend my long finger and draw two perpendicular lines across the ashtray. For a moment, there is nothing, and then it shivers, extending tiny cracks along my imaginary lines, finally falling apart into four dusty pieces.
I go in the house and wrap my hand in a thick bandage. I am shaking, nervous, excited. Mostly I am afraid, afraid of where this finger may have come from and what I will find when I ask. I am also afraid Doctor Elishka will refuse to tell me anything, or that I will have to have the finger removed. Not being able to touch something without damaging it is frightening. It makes me feel isolated. I am now worried about my ability to return to work or live a normal life. Many things flash through my mind, few of them positive.
I sit at my kitchen table, my phone in my awkward left hand, and dial the hospital.
The Long Finger
It all begins the day I lose my finger.
I don't have that many memories about the accident, to be honest. I can remember the drive to work that leads up to it, the unscheduled stop at a fast-food place for a breakfast sandwich and the stop light I got stuck sitting at. I was in the lead, with several cars behind me. I can also remember a glimpse out of the corner of my eye at a box truck with Erotic Party Services painted in soft pastels on it gliding down the steep downtown hill towards the same light, from my left. I can remember pulling out into the intersection when the light turned green, but that's where it becomes fuzzy, as if someone is standing above it all with a bright halogen lamp, erasing details in a blinding white glare.
My memories return a few days later. My mother is there, dark bluish bags under her eyes, half-asleep in one of those uncomfortable hospital chairs that keep your back ramrod-straight. I immediately wish I am still asleep, because my roommate is cursing loudly and uncontrollably from behind the curtain that separates us. Later on my mother will tell me that the poor girl was in a crash not unlike mine, only involving a motorcycle and a Beetle (the new kind, not vintage) full of drunk college students, and she has some kind of neurological damage that causes her to drop the f-bomb loudly without realizing she's doing so.
I expect the worst, but most of the damage consists of scrapes along my face and torso. My car is gone. I'd just finished paying it off a few months prior and was so happy to have the title in my mini safe. Now, it is worthless.
It takes a few hours for me to realize there is something wrong. Nobody has pointed it out to me, not my mother, not the nurse who's checked my vitals several times. My doctor, I am sure, would have told me by now but he or she has not been in to see me just yet. Phantom sensations can cloud your perception, I am told, and this is why it has gone unnoticed by me for so long.
I am missing the pinky on my right hand. It is completely gone, sheared off where it meets the hand. Almost as if it never existed. I turn my hand over and over, examining from multiple angles, hoping I'm wrong, but knowing I'm not. The bandaging is wrapped tightly, and I can tell there is nothing there, despite feeling like there is.
I look at my mother, slightly irritated.
She sighs and looks away. She is afraid and unsure what to say to me.
* * *
My options are limited, and time narrows it down more. My doctor, a young eastern European woman with a faint accent and a neatly-upswept bun, tells me that I can live without a finger, wear a prosthesis or attempt a transplant. If I choose the latter, she tells me, I need to do so quickly. There is a viable finger available, but it needs to be transplanted now.
I am the impatient type. I am also the don't-second-guess-yourself type. I go with the transplant.
* * *
It is a success. I now have a new finger. It is slightly thinner than the others, and just a smidge longer. It is obviously a woman's finger. I wonder if they cross genders for limb and digit transplants. Looking at my own tiny girlish hands, I wonder what it would be like to have a thick, hairy pinkie sticking out at the end of my hand.
The days go by and I get to use the digit more and more. I am told not to strain it, or lift heavy objects. Just exercise it a bit, the doctor tells me. Her name is Doctor Elishka. I think she may be Russian. That could also be her first name. I'm not sure, and I never ask.
After a few weeks, everything besides my finger is healed completely. My face is unmarred, and the various cuts and scrapes on my body have faded. All that is left now is to learn to use my new digit. I call it my “long finger.”
This long finger is not so easily integrated with the rest of my hand. I find it difficult to control, stubborn, unwilling to move at my command. It is frustrating, because I've been under the impression that once it heals it will move as fluidly as the rest of my body, almost without notice.
This is not so.
I spend several hours a day grappling with my new finger, bending it to my will, forcing it to discontinue its habit of sticking out from my hand at an embarrassing angle. After a few days it seems sufficiently tamed, and I take it to the task of touching things and lifting small items. Everything seems to be working well enough.
A few weeks later, at breakfast, I idly scratch my eyelid with my long finger. It's not itchy, but I do it anyway. It's an old habit of mine, scratching my face gently while I'm daydreaming.
A few minutes later my eyelid begins to itch something fierce.
I wash my hands and try to stay away from the eyelid, but I end up rubbing until it's red and puffy. I spend the night trying to fall asleep only to be distracted by the soreness and persistent itching. By morning it has subsided enough to ignore for long stretches. I force myself not to touch it again.
The following day I am sitting idly at the kitchen table again. I have finished my morning tea and, on a whim, decide to test the strength of my new finger. This is the first time I will have picked up and held something with that finger alone.
I loop my new pinky through the handle of my light china teacup. It is a cheap imitation of a piece of formal tableware, and I am not too concerned about dropping it. It does not drop from my finger though, as my new digit is surprisingly strong. It is just like any other finger, I suppose, only it once did not belong to me. I have difficulties wrapping my head around this concept.
I watch in silence as the first crack on the handle forms, and then another, followed by several more. In the span of a few moments it appears as if a thousand tiny rivers have suddenly formed on the china's surface before it all crumbles apart. The cup lands on the carpeted floor below, intact save for the handle that has disintegrated into nothing.
Later on that same day, after showering, I am leaning in close to the mirror over the bathroom sink. I am scouring my face for blemishes and checking on my eyelid. All redness and swelling is gone from my eye, and it doesn't seem like I have anything on my face. As I wipe the steam that continues to form from the mirror's glass, I notice something odd. I pause, my hand still on the mirror.
Cracks. Tiny cracks. Radiating from the right side of my hand.
I pull away as the mirror spiderwebs into dozens of growing fractures, and I am halfway out of the room when the first glass piece falls from the mount on the wall. I run into the garage for a cardboard box, and as I put the pieces in and sweep up what is left with a hand broom I begin to wonder.
Call me superstitious, call me foolish and irrational, but now I feel I need to check.
I look all over my house and belongings to see if anything else is amiss. What else has this finger touched recently?
Several keys on the right hand side of my laptop keyboard are visibly warped.
The right-hand side of my car's steering wheel cover, the one with the flower petals embroidered on it, is unraveling and shredding in several small places.
The very end of my toothbrush appears to be melting, as is the very end of my hairbrush.
It seems to be too much to be coincidence, but too little to be panic-worthy. I begin a small series of tests to confirm the impossible. I run my hand over several things, waiting to see what happens.
I grab a coffee cup and, once again, it falls apart. I move on to flatware, and several pieces lose their luster and appear as if being held under a flame as I run my long finger over them.
I rest my hand on the front door and a small, barely noticeable scorch mark appears. It could almost be mistaken for a natural darkness in the wood if viewed by someone else.
I go out on the porch and run one final test. A few years before I quit smoking, I made several ashtrays in a pottery workshop I attended once a week. I still have one, and it sits outside atop my patio table. It is grey and black and has a flat, glossy surface. It is the largest ashtray I made in the class.
I extend my long finger and draw two perpendicular lines across the ashtray. For a moment, there is nothing, and then it shivers, extending tiny cracks along my imaginary lines, finally falling apart into four dusty pieces.
I go in the house and wrap my hand in a thick bandage. I am shaking, nervous, excited. Mostly I am afraid, afraid of where this finger may have come from and what I will find when I ask. I am also afraid Doctor Elishka will refuse to tell me anything, or that I will have to have the finger removed. Not being able to touch something without damaging it is frightening. It makes me feel isolated. I am now worried about my ability to return to work or live a normal life. Many things flash through my mind, few of them positive.
I sit at my kitchen table, my phone in my awkward left hand, and dial the hospital.
Monday, March 2, 2009
It's Been a While
In all honesty, writing took a backseat to the rest of my life for a while. It was a combination of outside events and internal turbulence that did it, I think.
On the outside, reading for pleasure has given way to film watching. 2008 was the Year of the Fifty Book Challenge, and I ended the year with sixty-one new reads. This year I’m challenging myself to see more than one hundred films, on DVD specifically, and I’m up to twenty-four so far. I’ll finish the twenty-fifth today or tomorrow. I’ve been breaking my movies down to forty-minute chunks to watch while I’m running on the elliptical every day.
I should be writing every day for hours at a time, seeing how I lost my job two weeks ago. Six years at Waste Management and I’m lost in a “restructuring.” For some people this could have been a catastrophic loss, but I’ve hated the job since day one and have been dragging my ass ever since. Finally I have a reason to leave this county and head south to Pittsburgh, where I spend most of my weekend time. Good riddance to a horrible, unhealthy and incompatible job and environment.
One of the things I’ve been doing lately is reading long articles about David Foster Wallace, both in The New Yorker and Rolling Stone. Here is someone who accomplished things I only dream of doing, and it wasn’t good enough for him. He suffered from the same self-doubt and work-related criticism that I do and he had a brain full of knowledge on subjects I’m barely even aware exist. If he couldn’t make it, what kind of person am I to even dream of doing so? He studied at Amherst and Harvard, while I drank my way out of a state college and spent my twenties working nights on a landfill. If he had such difficulty and misery, what makes me think I can do any better, or even come close?
On the other hand, there are people like Stephenie Meyer whose work flies off the shelves and into the hands of children and adults at a rate so quickly you’d swear there were deals made with Satan going on. If a woman who never read a vampire book or watched a vampire movie can write a bestselling vampire series then there’s still a chance for me, right? Despite reading the first three books and being shocked at how emotionally and socially stunted the main characters are, I have to admit they are popular. But is popular even what I want?
I think, right now, all I want to do is be read. And in order to do that, I have to go beyond the rough draft and into a place where I am very, very uncomfortable. I’m going to have to revise and continue working, though I have no idea what I should be doing. Proofreading is no problem, but adding and subtracting entire chapters and characters is something so alien and painful to imagine to me that I put it off as long as I can, much like I did exercise when I was depressed. I don’t think I need to explain what that ended up doing to me.
I’m not even sure what the meaning of this passage is. I suppose in part I want to let anyone who reads this blog know that I’m still alive, but at the same time I want to go deeper into explaining myself and my motivations for things. I want other people to know just how much I doubt myself every day, and I want to find out if other people do the same. When I pick up most books I see the finished product for what it is, a book, and as I flip through it I never stop to wonder how much work the author put into it or how many revisions it went through. I suppose I only ever think of someone suffering self-doubt and hatred of their own material when that writer is me. And I can barely even refer to myself as a writer at this stage, seeing as I’ve only ever produced a few short stories and novel rough drafts.
On the outside, reading for pleasure has given way to film watching. 2008 was the Year of the Fifty Book Challenge, and I ended the year with sixty-one new reads. This year I’m challenging myself to see more than one hundred films, on DVD specifically, and I’m up to twenty-four so far. I’ll finish the twenty-fifth today or tomorrow. I’ve been breaking my movies down to forty-minute chunks to watch while I’m running on the elliptical every day.
I should be writing every day for hours at a time, seeing how I lost my job two weeks ago. Six years at Waste Management and I’m lost in a “restructuring.” For some people this could have been a catastrophic loss, but I’ve hated the job since day one and have been dragging my ass ever since. Finally I have a reason to leave this county and head south to Pittsburgh, where I spend most of my weekend time. Good riddance to a horrible, unhealthy and incompatible job and environment.
One of the things I’ve been doing lately is reading long articles about David Foster Wallace, both in The New Yorker and Rolling Stone. Here is someone who accomplished things I only dream of doing, and it wasn’t good enough for him. He suffered from the same self-doubt and work-related criticism that I do and he had a brain full of knowledge on subjects I’m barely even aware exist. If he couldn’t make it, what kind of person am I to even dream of doing so? He studied at Amherst and Harvard, while I drank my way out of a state college and spent my twenties working nights on a landfill. If he had such difficulty and misery, what makes me think I can do any better, or even come close?
On the other hand, there are people like Stephenie Meyer whose work flies off the shelves and into the hands of children and adults at a rate so quickly you’d swear there were deals made with Satan going on. If a woman who never read a vampire book or watched a vampire movie can write a bestselling vampire series then there’s still a chance for me, right? Despite reading the first three books and being shocked at how emotionally and socially stunted the main characters are, I have to admit they are popular. But is popular even what I want?
I think, right now, all I want to do is be read. And in order to do that, I have to go beyond the rough draft and into a place where I am very, very uncomfortable. I’m going to have to revise and continue working, though I have no idea what I should be doing. Proofreading is no problem, but adding and subtracting entire chapters and characters is something so alien and painful to imagine to me that I put it off as long as I can, much like I did exercise when I was depressed. I don’t think I need to explain what that ended up doing to me.
I’m not even sure what the meaning of this passage is. I suppose in part I want to let anyone who reads this blog know that I’m still alive, but at the same time I want to go deeper into explaining myself and my motivations for things. I want other people to know just how much I doubt myself every day, and I want to find out if other people do the same. When I pick up most books I see the finished product for what it is, a book, and as I flip through it I never stop to wonder how much work the author put into it or how many revisions it went through. I suppose I only ever think of someone suffering self-doubt and hatred of their own material when that writer is me. And I can barely even refer to myself as a writer at this stage, seeing as I’ve only ever produced a few short stories and novel rough drafts.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Episode Two of The Universe of Tristan Johnson!
The voice actress who read my story was really good, I think, especially for an nonpaying gig. I was pleasantly surprised by it.
Here’s the episode, including the Q&A interview following the story:
http://www.tristanpej.com/?p=96
I think I sound nervous and rather, um, manly, but Eric has been arguing with me for the last half hour and claims that I do not sound at all like I have a penis.
Here’s the episode, including the Q&A interview following the story:
http://www.tristanpej.com/?p=96
I think I sound nervous and rather, um, manly, but Eric has been arguing with me for the last half hour and claims that I do not sound at all like I have a penis.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
"Hello" Appearing on The Universe of Tristan Johnson!
My short story “Hello” will be appearing in audio format on an upcoming episode of the brand new podcast The Universe of Tristan Johnson.
Tristan Johnson is a fellow novice writer who has participated in NaNo with me both of the years I’ve been involved and is also a Youtube vlogger and Blogspotter as well. His website for the show is The Universe of Tristan Johnson and he is, according to comments he’s made to me, always looking for new material. Anyone interested in politics, religion, current events or fiction writing should do themselves a favor and check him out.
We still need to meet up on Skype to do the post-reading interview section (I’m not reading my own story as he’s found real female voice talent to do that for him. Good choice.) and then hopefully the new episode will be up within the next couple of weeks.
I’ve never recorded an interview or had my work published as an “audio story” before, so needless to say I am quite excited.
Tristan Johnson is a fellow novice writer who has participated in NaNo with me both of the years I’ve been involved and is also a Youtube vlogger and Blogspotter as well. His website for the show is The Universe of Tristan Johnson and he is, according to comments he’s made to me, always looking for new material. Anyone interested in politics, religion, current events or fiction writing should do themselves a favor and check him out.
We still need to meet up on Skype to do the post-reading interview section (I’m not reading my own story as he’s found real female voice talent to do that for him. Good choice.) and then hopefully the new episode will be up within the next couple of weeks.
I’ve never recorded an interview or had my work published as an “audio story” before, so needless to say I am quite excited.
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