We lock eyes for a moment and you smile knowingly. Target-fixed, you trip on your feet to get to my friends and I.

I hold my breath and brace myself for the worst. These aren’t the encounters I hope for while stranded on the platform. Other people are huddled in the pale light, but they neglect to interfere. It must not be their place. You walk into the light, now fully illuminated in your tumultuous glory. You want to know where my friend is from. Northern California.

You knew it. It had to be that or Texas.

You comment on her tights. I avoid looking at you. She tries to edge away, but you persist. I still hold my breath, tighten my fists and the muscles in my stomach involuntarily. It’s almost like during those thriller movies when you know something bad is about to happen.

Your alcohol-laden spittle is fired off in many directions — one direction being mine. You regale us with your stories of others from warmer climes and your time in San Francisco. You terrify me, you’re taller and probably stronger than we are. You have the jaunty look of being out of control. But at the same time, I want to know why. Why are you here now, in a hazy stupor, stumbling after a group of college girls?

Your sticky, snot-encrusted moustache makes its way dangerously close to my face. It puts me at risk of getting stuck, drawn in with the scent of alcohol.

You followed as we tried to evade your dizzy gaze. Now, waiting on the other side of the tracks for the purple line which refuses to arrive. Shifting from foot to foot, I try to stay warm, but also try to stay a few steps away.

You ask her where she lives. I clinch my teeth as she answers “Evanston.”

Surely you’ll follow us home.

You respond “Oh, so you’re going north.”

You’re going to Wilson. We tell you you’re on the wrong side of the tracks. I breathe for the first time. Hopefully you don’t notice my massive exhale. That’s all it took? You oblige and enlist the help of a CTA worker to find your destination up the stairs. In a zig-zag manner, you leave us, cold and still waiting on the platform.

The back stairway was blue, the paint peeling from the combined assault of the weather and our young, mischievous hands. My sister and I stood on the fire escape having too many freezer pops, tossing the wrappers to our cousins in the opposite building and blowing bubbles toward them that valiantly fought the opposing breeze. Few survived, and then our mother called us inside for lunch.

2

My fingers figure-skated across the smooth surface of the table. I tried to do triple Lutz jumps like Kristi Yamaguchi but settled for half of a camel spin because wrists just don’t twist that way. My mother came in from the kitchen with the telephone held tight between her shoulder and her ear and two plates of rice and curry for my sister and me. The telephone cord stretched, and this time she placed the plates in front of us without pulling the telephone off the wall. Patting our backs, she told us to put our ice skaters away and eat up, and then she slid back into the kitchen and her phone conversation. My sister ignored her spoon and ate her rice by hand, grain by grain, avoiding the ones yellowed by the oily curry. I finger-skated one last figure-eight and took a spoonful of my lunch, biting directly into a hidden green cardamom. Jumping out of my seat, I ran to the kitchen and spat the pod and seeds out into the garbage can, continuing to spit until the bitter taste was gone. I yelled at my mother, “I told you not to put those in there!”

3

I walked into the kitchen with my plate, empty except for green cardamoms and whole black peppers that somehow always snuck onto my plate, and my mom finished up her conversation. “It could only have been someone in the family,” she said. I washed my hands and flicked the drops of water from my fingers into the air like fireworks on the fourth of July.

4

My sister and I stood elbow to elbow at the window, our eyes squinting in the sunlight as we searched for our father among the passersby. By the left side of our building, our downstairs neighbor was bent over, shaking, his hands on his knees for support, his bald head reflecting off the afternoon sunlight like a second sun. I noticed my father’s brisk walk before I had a chance to recognize his face. His steps, long and quick strides, were reminiscent of my gym teacher’s demonstration of power walking; he was a confident man who knew where he was going and had no time to waste. That day he had no time to catch our eyes in the window and wave.

5

My mother’s generic, convenience-store perfume permeated the dining room with its plastic jasmine scent and mixed with the smell of the masala she tried to mask, creating a new scent that was even more difficult to bear. Sitting cross-legged on the ground with a board game, my sister and I were able to breathe better-smelling air, leaving our parents to the other. From my position facing the table, I saw the no-nonsense expressions on my parents’ faces as they ate lunch together, and I went through my mental inventory of things I had done recently that I shouldn’t have. Nothing came close to be deserving of the looks on their faces — was my sister to blame? “We’re going to your uncle’s tonight,” my father said. “Behave.”

6

I sat on the too-plush sofa and stared into my cousin’s still-clear brown eyes trying to absorb the watery tears back into my eyes by opening them wider. The struggle was futile — my cousin was the undefeated champion in the staring contest — and I blinked, trailing tears down my cheeks and into my lap. As I entered the bathroom to wash up, the constant murmur of voices from the living room came to a quick crescendo with my father’s booming voice. I slinked down the hall to peer into the room: My father, his back straight as he tried to stretch his short five-foot frame to its full advantage, facing my uncle as one hand pointed to my oldest cousin in accusation; my mother behind my father leveling an angry glare at my cousin; my uncle leaning his body down towards my father, his eyes bulging out like dead fish eyes and my aunt taking up the space behind my uncle with an arm held out protectively in front of her son.

7

That night in bed, I stared into the dark and the apartment was still. I couldn’t hear my father’s thundering snores, always as reliable as my parents’ goodnight kisses and my ensuing big-girl disgust.

8

My sister and I snuck out onto the fire escape first thing in the morning, many colorful freezer pops in our hands, and we waited for our cousins. Their back door, the dark wood faded and scratched like ours with nails sticking out in inconvenient places, remained shut even after we woke the man and his dog downstairs. The faded curtains of their kitchen window fluttered, but no one answered our calls.

Giving up, the child turned to the table next to her and picked up the glass candy bowl. She rummaged through the various treasures in the bowl and pulled out a round orange hard-candy. She pulled on both ends of the wrapper so that the gem twirled out of its wrapping and landed in her hand. Happily, she shoved the candy into her mouth and moved it around with her tongue. Eventually forgetting about it, she settled the candy at the side of her mouth so that it made a little bubble in her cheek.

Ashley’s mom, Ms. Ackers, jolted open the door to the waiting room. “Sweetie, there you are!” she said to Ashley with a hint of reprimand. “Is everything ok?”

“Yeah, fine,” Ashley said.

Ms. Ackers nodded but said nothing, waiting for her daughter to elaborate. Ashley folded her arms and clicked the hard candy against her teeth. Shoulders slumping, Ms. Ackers asked, “Well, why was I called here?”

“Counselor Julian wanted to meet you is all,” Ashley said evenly.

Ms. Ackers fumbled through her purse and pulled out an almost tan colored lipstick. She ran the tube along her thin lips, then smacked her lips together. “I’m glad that the two of you are getting close. I’d just like to know why she wants to see me.”

“Well actually,” Ashley said, undoing her lopsided braid, “It was my idea that you talk to Counselor Julian. We’re just gonna talk about my friends.”

Ashley’s mom looked up from her cosmetic mirror. “Your friends?” she asked. “Which friends? Your school friends?”

Counselor Julian popped into the waiting room. Ms. Ackers did not react right away, still waiting for an answer from Ashley. The counselor sought Ms. Ackers’s eyes but could not get a hold of them. After a moment, she said, “Hi, Ms. Ackers? I’m Jenny. It’s nice to finally meet you.” She smiled at Ashley. “Hey girlie, how are you today?” The counselor directed her attention back at the mother. “Let’s go into my office.”

Ms. Ackers frowned as she followed Ashley and the counselor into the office, where the counselor’s desk took up most of the room. A Mondrian print hung on the far wall.

After sitting down, Ashley picked up a stress ball from Counselor Julian’s desk. She began to squeeze and stretch the red and orange ball.

The mother and counselor shifted in their seats to get comfortable. Ms. Ackers examined the magazines on the counselor’s desk: Parenting, Life and Style and Bon Appétit. With a deepened frown, she looked at the counselor, and the two caught each other’s eyes. Quickly, they both looked away, Ms. Ackers’s eyes settling back down on the magazines and Counselor Julian’s on Ashley.

After a moment, the counselor’s eyes returned to the mother, and she began, “Ms. Ackers, I’m sure you’re aware that your daughter has created some imaginary friends.” She gave Ashley a little smile when she said the word imaginary. But Ashley missed the smile because she was staring determinedly at the stress ball.

Ms. Ackers folded her hands in her lap, taking a moment to think. “I see.” She looked at her daughter pointedly. “Ashley made me think that we’d be talking about her classmates.” Counselor Julian nodded at the mother but seemed like she was waiting for more of a response, so Ms. Ackers continued, “Of course, I know that Ashley has an imagination and that she has some imaginary friends, as you call them. Jim and I have talked to her about them, but we’ve agreed that it’s not really a big deal. As an afterthought, she added, “seeing as she’s only 12.”

“But it is a big deal because these imaginary friends are affecting the way that other kids treat Ashley. I mean, when she was first sent to see me it was because she was being picked on during recess.” Counselor Julian turned towards the girl for confirmation, but Ashley would not look up. The counselor continued, “Just because these friends of Ashley’s are imagined, Ms. Ackers, does not mean that they are not a real problem. Luckily, we’ve made progress,” the counselor said, giving Ashley a friendly shove. “She’s now admitting that she made up Amber, Jackson and Paul.”

“So that I would not be bored,” Ashley cut in.

“Or lonely,” continued the counselor. “Now that we’ve gotten Ashley to acknowledge that these three characters are her invention, she’ll have an easier time making real friends.”

“I already have an easy time making friends,” Ashley mumbled, folding her arms.

“This way you’ll have an even easier time,” Counselor Julian winked at Ashley. The two smiled at each other again.

The mother stared at Ashley for a few seconds, then shifted her gaze towards the counselor. She pressed her lips together, opened them as if to speak, and then pursed them again. With a forced smile she said, “Well. This is good news. It sounds like things are going in the right direction. I’m so glad to hear it.” The two woman locked eyes for a moment, and challenged each other with their gazes.

Sensing discomfort, Ashley handed her mom the stress ball. “Check this out mom. When you squeeze it the colors swirl around inside. See!”

Counselor Julian let go of the mother’s gaze and smiled at Ashley. Placing her left hand on the girl’s left shoulder, she squeezed it gently and smiled, “She loves that thing. She’s always playing with it.”

“Well, her birthday’s coming up, so maybe…” hinted Ms. Ackers.

“What a good idea.” The counselor winked at Ashley. Comfortable again, the girl smiled and laughed. She looked at her mom for approval but could not find her mother’s eyes.

Ms. Ackers was busy rummaging through her purse in search of her phone. After pulling it out and checking the time, she said, “It was nice doing this. I have to get back to work.”

The counselor looked up in surprise. “I understand you having to go, but we’ll really need to meet again. I was not quite finished talking to you about your daughter.”

“Yes, sure,” Ms. Ackers said, making to get up. She reconsidered and said, “You know, it’s not like I didn’t know about Ashley’s imaginary friends. I’m perfectly involved in my daughter’s life. It’s just that Jim and I, well, we see nothing wrong with a 12-year-old who has an imagination.”

The counselor nodded and said, “Well, maybe you could bring Jim next time?” Ashley looked down and started picking at her nails.

“Yes—maybe—but Jim works very late, so I’m not sure…” Ms. Ackers said.

“It’s ok, Mom. We can admit these things to Counselor Julian,” Ashley said. She took the stress ball from her mom and started tugging on either side of it to elongate the shape. “Counselor Julian,” she continued, contorting the ball into a knot, “We have something to tell you: Jim—he isn’t real; he’s imaginary.”

It had been a long morning in the cold already: The interfaith minister had delivered the invocation; the chief of the teacher’s union local had offered remarks; the liberal congresswoman had pledged her support, and the head of the city’s peace activism non-profit had inveighed. Now an old writer/artist/freelance political thinker, a grizzled veteran of the ‘60s, gyrated at center stage in the throes of a musically accompanied poem he had created to mark the occasion. His long silver beard and faded plaid smock tumbled in the breeze, in transcendent intercourse with one another and the bongos. He blasted a cascade of notes from his conch shell before bellowing into the microphone, “Tell George Bush he can kiss my ass!”

The members of the crowd around Michael murmured their approval and shifted their weight from one foot to the other. The two-dozen or so police officers on horseback monitoring the scene sat stony-faced, unfazed by the outrage against dignified discourse. Michael wondered whether the organizers would, in fact, be serving hot soup at the conclusion of the oratory like they had promised. He hoped that the rhetoric, already two hours long, would end soon so that the scheduled march on the courthouse could begin, and his numb feet could warm up.

Michael certainly didn’t consider himself a radical. Super Mario, Pokémon versions Red and Blue, and all the Halo games had provided him and his friends with hours of amusement. Furthermore, he was a fan of cheesy macaroni and Cartoon Network. Despite his sensitive curiosity, he was an undistinguished student at an undistinguished institution; it was tough to stand out among 3,000 teenagers of astonishing diversity at the local city high school, which chronically struggled to make its inadequate allocation of state dollars go a little further. Occasional drug busts and fistfights would bring the authorities to campus, but Michael only ever heard the clipped chatter of police radios in passing. No big shot, he was already wise enough at 17 to leave well enough alone.

His father, who fled civil war as a young man, had long urged him to be wary of authority or at least to not be too friendly with anyone in a uniform. Consequently he would try to steer clear of the army recruiters who would appear in the school cafeteria every week or two as purposefully as he walked on by the police. One day, however, Michael betrayed a grimace in response to one officer’s salutation as he was passing the brochure-strewn table. To his horror, the slighted recruiter strode out after him into the hallway. The towering man caught up to the alarmed boy, sticking an arm against the wall, across Michael’s path, in a mock-casual leaning posture.

“Whoa, whoa, where’re you going so fast, kid?” he demanded.

“To class,” Michael replied, discomfort clear in his voice. “Excuse me.” He took a step to the side. The recruiter grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back against the wall.

“No, excuse me,” he said with a frown. “I didn’t like your attitude back there. You got a problem you want to explain to me?”

“No sir, no problem,” Michael replied breathlessly.

“Let me tell you something, kid,” said the officer. “Little pricks like you aren’t going to make it anywhere. You keep acting like that, and you’re gonna wind up on drugs or in prison. If you wanna be a man and do something with your life, you come talk to me. Otherwise just put your punk-ass head down and keep on walking!”

The humiliation of the experience gnawed at Michael for weeks. His father told him that these were the sorts of challenges a real man must face with resolve. But Michael still felt sore about it one week in early March, when he happened upon a fellow student who was roaming the school one morning before class, surreptitiously flyering the hallways. It was risky business, as the administrators would quickly rip down the unapproved sheets and would punish their audacious distributor if they caught him. Intrigued, Michael asked the student what he was doing. The insurgent publicist responded that he was advertising an upcoming war protest on behalf of the Young Communist League. Michael accepted a flyer from the other boy’s outstretched hand, as he briefly related his own conflict with the aggressive recruiters.

“Wow, you really should come then,” responded the student. “Don’t let them push you around just cause you’re Mexican.” Declining to clarify that he was, in fact, half-Salvadoran, Michael pocketed the contraband flyer.

When the appointed day came, Michael went to join the ragtag band of Communist sympathizers at their pre-march rally. They stood by the side of a busy road, holding signs saying “Students Against the War,” and “Books not Bombs!” Cars whizzed by, headlights bright and windows dark, their occupants insulated from the chilly morning gloom. A handful passing motorists honked their approval, but most were respectfully silent. After about an hour, the comrades tramped up to the main protest in front of the stage. Unable to feel his fingers, Michael stuffed his poster-board placard celebrating socialism into a public garbage can so that he could put his hands in his “made-in-Vietnam” jacket pockets.

Two hours later, he still stood there listening, at the back of the crowd, under the iron-grey sky. He was upset about the recruiters, and he was upset about all the people dying, but he hadn’t found a way to share that feeling with the Communists or anyone else. As the old writer/artist/freelance political thinker wrapped up his presentation, another speaker stepped up to take the microphone. She promised to keep her statements brief and to rile up the dwindling crowd for the march that still lay ahead.

Michael’s whole body shook with shivers. Beyond his feet and hands, his legs were also beginning to disappear from under him. The empty downtown office buildings stood impersonally around the park, their reflective façades as indifferent to the outburst of anger against the faraway war as the dispassionate gazes of the mounted police. There were no water cannons or tear gas, no Molotov cocktails, no flying paving stones, no flowers at the ends of rifle barrels. There was no great all-consuming passion surging through the streets and electrifying bystanders. There was only the persistent dispersal by the wind of pale words. Finally, rising discomfort and fear of frostbite overwhelmed Michael’s nascent spirit of solidarity. He turned his back to the stage and began walking back to the bus, back to his home.

Adit considered going back, but he was almost home and a chill wind penetrated his lungs despite the four layers he was wearing. I’ll get it in the morning, he thought.

His fingers ached from the cold. Adit rubbed them together as he trudged up the sidewalk leading to the apartment complex. Inside, a handwritten sign told him the elevator was broken. He would have to walk up the six flights.

He patted his pockets as he plodded up the stairs until he found his keys in his jacket. The dim light in the stairwell caught his tiny Excalibur keychain. It brought a half-smile to his face; he had won it at a fair in high school. Another lifetime. One in which he and his father still spoke.

The smile left Adit’s face as quickly as it had come. He had by now reached his door and unlocked it, fumbling slightly with the keys, the Excalibur jingling against them. It was just as cold in the apartment as it was outside. The heating unit had been broken all winter.

His roommate’s snores were cutting the air in the apartment like a buzz saw. Adit sighed. He was too light of a sleeper to be able to rest in this din. He wished he lived alone, but he couldn’t afford it. He had taken a job as a waiter, but it didn’t pay nearly enough. He hated it. His boss was hardhearted and Adit knew for a fact that he didn’t make as much as his fellow employees — no job experience. He had never needed a job as long as his parents paid his tuition. That changed the minute Adit dropped out of medical school.

So now he lived with a roommate, something he hadn’t done since he was an undergrad. His roommate was always with friends, out partying or with his girlfriend, whereas Adit was always studying. It made him feel like a hermit.

Always studying. He felt like he’d been studying his entire life. At least now he was studying something he liked — literature. Memorizing Shakespearean sonnets took as much effort as it did to memorize the 206 bones in the human body, but the former somehow seemed more fulfilling. He didn’t know why. Of course, that was one of the things that infuriated his father; not only did English literature not lead to jobs that paid well, but Adit couldn’t even explain why he wanted to study it.

He went to the fridge, but nothing looked appetizing. A note from his roommate invited him to polish off the rest of the spaghetti, so Adit ate it cold. Another thing that had irritated his father to no end. “There are hot meals in the house,” he would say. “You don’t need to eat like you live in a dorm.” But Adit liked cold food.

His roommate’s raspy snores were the only noise in the apartment. He poured himself a glass of milk, took a large sip and promptly spat it out. He checked the carton. It wasn’t expired, but it still tasted sour.

The phone rang. Adit could hear his roommate’s snores cease abruptly as he answered it. Oh, sure, Adit thought bitterly. He’ll sleep through his alarm but the phone’ll wake him up.

He listened to the other line. His roommate emerged, bleary-eyed. “Who is it?” he asked, his voice hoarse with sleep.

Adit held a finger to his lips, brows furrowed. Eventually he hung up.

“What happened?” his roommate asked.

Adit stared forward, pensive. “My father died of a heart attack,” he said carefully.

His roommate’s eyes widened. “I-I’m so sorry,” he said, stumbling over his words in his sympathy. “Are you going to go home?”

Still gazing at the space directly in front of him, Adit bit his lip. “No,” he said after a pause. He stood up suddenly, brushing past his stunned roommate, striding into his bedroom and shutting the door with a very final-sounding click.

The blaring white glow of the blank document seemed to mock the dark circles under David’s eyes. He rested his chin on his hands and rubbed his face, urging it into creative awareness. The idea of writing her a letter had seemed so simple in the state of half-dreaming, half-consciousness last night as they lay in bed together.

In the moment of itching motel sheets and blaring ambulance sirens outside, the softness of her skin as he stroked her arm and the gentle rhythm of her breathing has seemed like a respite. Sitting before the computer screen, he grasped for the lines of poetry that had sung through his head the previous night, but the scent of instant coffee and the incessant clicking of people typing, printers running and copiers beeping all around him was making it impossible to recall anything. Combined with the sense of urgency now impressed on the situation from their fight that morning, he could barely think of anything except the way her green eyes had seemed to glow in the dark as she threw pillows at him while he attempted to get dressed. He placed his hands on the keyboard and one letter at a time forced himself to write.

Last night while I was lying next to you, stroking your soft skin, smelling the scent of citrus in your hair, the idea for this letter came to mind. I realized I never tell you how much I love you and how much you mean to me.

He stopped and re-read the first few lines. It sounds like a load of bullshit, he thought. Why was it so difficult to recall the feelings of the night before? This seemed a perpetual problem to David. He opened a game of solitaire and absentmindedly played as he wracked his brain for ideas of what a love letter should contain. Even trying to recall the first time he’d seen Sarah was a blur. All he could remember was that she was wearing a black skirt and a red top, the details of both were unclear, and he was fairly certain that vaguely describing her attire from that trip to the dentist’s office was anything but romantic. He tried to think of what she might like and wrote again.

I wish I could provide you with everything you want. I mean diamonds and trips to exotic beaches, yes, but more than those things; I mean my time. When I have to, at times, cancel our plans, your silence on the other end of the line snakes out of the receiver and constricts my heart until I can barely breathe. All I can think about on those nights is the image of you leaning against the counter near the phone in your kitchen, clutching your pink, silky bathrobe tight around your shoulders, biting your nails, hoping I’ll call back with news that I’m coming over anyway. Thinking that maybe tonight is finally the night. The thought that I can hurt you, whom I love so much, makes me sick with disgust and self-loathing. It makes me feel like something less than human, not worthy of even knowing your name, but I take solace in the fact that someday I will find a way to make it up to you.

The last sentence jolted him. Caught up in the image of them together in a setting outside of the bedroom, he had begun making promises. Closing his eyes, he pictured her reading those words. She would be twisting one blonde ringlet around and around her finger, one arm curled around her torso, the other holding the letter out in front of her. He could picture the tears following each other one by one down her face. The image was at once exhilarating and terrifying. How easy to write suddenly. He read back over the letter again thinking how clever the line about the snake and how she would surely comment on his brilliance. Sitting up straighter in his chair, he clenched and unclenched his finger, then caught a glimpse of a pair of blue eyes staring back at him from the picture frame beside his computer. Instinctively, without hesitation, he slammed the frame down on its face, the picture now facing only the gray plastic veneer of his desktop, and returned his attention to the screen.

Today, this letter is helping me recover from our fight this morning. All day I’ve been sitting at work staring at my computer screen formulating ways to prove my love to you and plans to reach our goal of ultimate togetherness as soon as possible and overcome all the frustrations you shouted at me this morning. I’m a little embarrassed to say it, but I kept getting distracted by how beautiful your eyes looked in the soft glow from the window this morning, the green even more vibrant and intoxicating than usual. I wish I could have told you that in person and that I could have stayed with you all day and worked out everything, but I know you understand, and your patience is just one more check on a list of reasons why you are perfect, and soon, very soon my dear, everything will be just as you want it.

His fingers were hitting hard on the keyboard, pounding each letter with force.

I know that you’ve heard these things before, but I feel like putting it down in words makes it real, like a contract of my love. With this paper I’m giving you a promise, just like the ones I’ve whispered in your ear in the dead of night and when I’ve pulled you close before a parting kiss, but this you can keep under your pillow to help you sleep at night when you’re missing me. When you’re lonely and it’s too early to call because you might wake her up as well, just pull out this letter and know someday, every night, we will be lying next to each other, and you won’t need this letter anymore.

Love,
David

He was excited now, face flushed and hands tingling from flying across the keyboard. Surely this would win her back, and it would be so easy. This could even hold off all the pressure she’d been putting on him, at least for a little while. About to hit “Print,” he was interrupted.

“Baker!”

David jumped, hearing his last name. Recognizing the voice, he frantically closed the window with the letter just a second before his boss’s head appeared around the cubicle wall.

“Have you finished that budget report yet?”

“Um, it’ll be done in about fifteen minutes.”

“All right good.” The man started to move on to the next cubicle, but paused. David’s breath caught in his throat as his boss’s eyes moved past him and toward the computer screen.

“Look, your picture of your wife fell.” He reached past David and righted the frame. Turning back to his screen, David was distracted by his wife’s beautiful bright blue eyes staring at him, and his eyes kept flashing back and forth between the two sights, so it took a second for him to realize that he had not saved the document. For a second he was filled with fury, a mixture of anger at himself and frustration and sense of loss. So much work, so much creativity, so much passion lost!

He looked at his wife.

someday, every night, we will be lying next to each other, and you won’t need this letter anymore

Perhaps it was for the best. At least for now.

He told me after the first time we had sex. The bed creaked and groaned as he shifted to his side. I was worried the wooden bed frame might collapse, but didn’t say anything, not wanting to ruin the moment. He leaned in, stroking my hair with one meaty hand that seemed to cover my whole head at once, and between gasps and pants filled silence with his fear of wasting away to nothingness. The heat of his breath, damp and heavy in my ear seemed to make the threat seem real.

Now the silence is filled with my wheezing breaths. I’m trying to convince myself that I think of this bed as a symbol of our passion, and not the place we came to so I could absorb his fears into mine. Instead, I’m focusing on the good moments, like when I first saw him and fell in love.

I had just moved to the city and still didn’t know anyone. When I first saw Jason I was eating alone in a small café, the kind with low lights and red wine walls, down the street from my office. I just happened to glance up to see the waiter bearing the most enormous dessert I’d ever seen.

A huge chocolate tower shot up half a foot in the air surrounded by mousse, scoops of ice cream and whipped cream with caramel and chocolate drizzled over the top. When I saw the waiter walking toward the six-person table, I thought they would be splitting the dish, but he set the plate in front of the man facing me, and despite my obviousness, I stared.

From that moment on, watching Jason eat became a fascination for me. Lying here, I can picture the motion of fork to mouth and the way he closed his eyes from enjoyment. I can even hear the almost imperceptible groans of delight he would sometimes emit. But I was never able to discover why watching him made me want to eat—the only time I ever wanted to. I think that might be what I will regret the most.

He caught my blatant ogling and winked at me once. I immediately put my head down and focused on rearranging the last few leaves of spinach on my plate. When the waitress came with the bill she also handed me a note that just said “7:00 a week from today.” That boldness. I never was able to wrap my head around that either.

We always went out to restaurants and the conversation was easy and light. We didn’t talk about food, but I told him all about my past and the small Ohio town I grew up in, and I loved the way he seemed to soak up everything I said. I listened to his jokes and watched him eat. We ran into someone he knew everywhere we went and he would introduce me as his beautiful girlfriend Jennifer. It was a role I could see myself playing.

Looking back, I never questioned anything. I didn’t find it strange that he introduced me to so many people, but we never spent time with anyone but each other.  When he told me that he’d seen a commercial for a charity to help starving children in Africa when he was four years old, I never wondered if this connection logically could cause his fear of starvation. I didn’t wonder if he was worried about me starving.

One night when we were lying in bed, close but not touching and I looked down at the bed to see that the mountain he created made the sheets into a tent of sorts, so that you couldn’t even see the small mound of my body. As if I wasn’t in the bed at all, but we were just one entity, one person, and I could pretend I was just like him, caring about life enough to fear something so unlikely to end it.

I never had to work so hard not to eat as when I was with him. When I was in junior high, a girl in my class was overweight, and the guys didn’t tease her much to her face, but I heard them talk about her. Heard them say that even if she lost weight, she was ruined forever. Speculate how someone could let herself become that disgusting. Say cankles were worse than having a million blackheads. They weren’t talking about me, but I didn’t want to be added to the black list for the rest of my life, so I convinced myself that food just didn’t taste. That it wasn’t necessary.

But Jason made food look like it could send you into a state of ecstasy that only drugs should reach. I think it must have been because he had that primal instinct of fear driving him. I’ve heard that people can lift cars in life-threatening situations with adrenaline rushing through their veins and I guess he had that on a smaller scale every time he ate. It’s strange that I have no feeling like that now. I’m sure that death is only a few hours away, but I can only think about the fact that I wish I’d told him I’d loved him more often.

I wish I’d told him that I was fascinated with the way he ate, that it never bothered me that he didn’t have the breath to have sex long enough for me to orgasm, or that I don’t care that he never asked what I’m afraid of.

I know I should be trying to summon forth that adrenaline, or at least try making a few last attempts to push his cold body off of me, but I can only think about how I can’t see any of my body. Now that I’m numb, I feel like our bodies have become one and I’ve disappeared into nothingness, just like I always wanted.

“Oh, thank you dear,” the old woman smiled thinly. She almost never showed her teeth. Tanya let the door fall closed.

Inside, the air felt damp, and the adolescent girl smelled wet stone and incense. She approached the familiar holy water fountain and bent over slightly to dip her hand into it. As she made the sign of the cross with her wet hand, she thought about all the grime from other people’s hands that was probably floating around in the water.

Tanya looked behind for her grandmother, but her grandmother was already ahead, at the pricket stand lighting a candle. Tanya walked over to the old woman, stood beside her and felt the heat from the prayer candles. As the girl stood there, she stared into the eyes of the statue of Mary that was planted behind the candles. The statue stared back at her with a blank face and watchful eyes.

Your stare is wasted on me, Tanya thought to the statue. Quickly, she walked away from it, following her grandmother into a pew at the back of the church.

After the two had taken their seats, the old woman pulled a tarnished metal rosary out of her purse and closed her eyes. She moved her right hand along the beads of the rosary as she prayed. Her movements were both routine and ceremonious.

Meanwhile, Tanya shifted uncomfortably on the wooden pew. She let her eyes wander the nearly empty church. Not many people go to mass on a Thursday morning, she thought. She pulled her phone out of her pocket to check the time. 7:28 a.m., it told her in bold, blocky font. Good, she thought, mass will start soon.

As if to answer Tanya’s thoughts, the organist began to play “Come Holy Ghost.” The older woman sung the words she knew by heart. Tanya opened her hymnal to the proper page but did not sing.

During mass, Tanya stared up at the lights that hung from the ceiling. When she squinted at them, they seemed to shine more brightly than they shined when she looked at them with relaxed eyes. She wondered if this was normal. It probably wasn’t.

The priest began his homily, and Tanya’s thoughts drifted back to a conversation that she had a few days ago. A friend had asked her if she believed. She said she didn’t.

As Tanya’s grandmother drove the girl home from church, the pious lady asked Tanya how her summer break was going.

“It’s nice,” Tanya said. “It’s nice to be free of worries.”

“So, is school the only thing you worry about?” the grandmother asked.

“No, it’s not,” Tanya frowned. “I suppose I should say, it’s nice to have fewer worries.”

The two arrived at the girl’s house. “We should do this more often in the summer time,” the older one said.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” replied Tanya. Then she hesitated, “Or maybe instead, we should get coffee or something.”

The old woman nodded but did not say anything. Tanya brushed a few pieces of hair out of her eyes, then waved goodbye to her grandmother. “See you soon, hopefully!” she yelled as she walked to her front door.

When Tanya got inside the house, she tossed her purse down on the kitchen counter. She felt very thirsty all of a sudden, so she pulled a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water from the sink. She took a sip. After taking a few more sips, she tossed the water out. It had a sort of metallic taste that made her not want to drink it.

The morning had made Tanya anxious. From one side of the room to the other, then back again, she paced the kitchen. Dissatisfied, she flipped the TV on, changed the channel a few times, breathed heavily out of her nose and flipped the TV back off.

She was unsettled. What did it mean? Could she be wrong? Since she told her friend that she didn’t believe, a slithering voice had been creeping in the back of her mind. It asked her why, then, did she feel like she was sinning?

Quickly, Tanya grabbed a celebrity magazine from the pile her mom kept near the fireplace. With the magazine in hand, she marched to the backdoor of her house, opened it and walked outside. For a moment, Tanya stood on the back porch and looked at the sun and then squinted at it. The sun did not look brighter when she squinted.

Tanya walked to the middle of her yard and took a seat. With her legs folded Indian-style, she sat in the grass in her backyard. Her magazine sat next to her, opened, but she did not read it.

Looking off, not at the grass, Tanya uprooted one blade of grass from the ground, then another. She tied the two together to form the shape of a cross. Then tightly, she squeezed the cross to her palm with four fingers. Was it her imagination, or did it burn, a little? With a short, jerky motion, she threw the cross back into the grass.

“What do you like to do?”

I.The Child, age five and only drinks blue Gatorade.

I like to play music, just like Grandpa. When I grew out of my baby chair I turned it on its back side and made a drum. It makes a very pretty grumbly sound when I slide my spoon back and forth on its belly. I draw on it with my crayons so that I know where to make the noise. I got the idea from this book I own, it’s called connect the dots, and it shows me how to make magical people from a blob of dots. And then, after I’ve made my own dots on the drum, I color the inside of the belly with my band name. “Iguana.”

It’s my favorite animal. I found one on our window, and decided that it should become my band name. It has many more vowels than all of my other words. That’s why I like it for the band — it’s full of sound notes. I play my drum until my bath and then I go to sleep and then I wake up and beat on my drum again. I am just like a rooster, more like a rooster-iguana transformer. They’re both very nice animals, but Grandpa says he likes iguanas better ’cause they do more than just rest on top of roofs so I named my band Iguanas, just for him.

II. The Frenchman, emigrated from Toulouse and is fascinated by Chicago’s affinity for foam soap.

I play for the American bands of music. A school person in Europe, I learned how to make the stable drums resonate, and I having decided to come to the States to show my talents. I interest myself with American rock, the bizarre beats of rhythm and like the industry of music. I adore the sounds, the grand expressions, of my breadsticks of the drum. Yes, the food of the drum. I feed the circles of music in front of myself, give them half the breaths of myself. I, having forgotten my baguettes, cannot demonstrate to you here, but you can come later for seeing them? You should pass by my home, after we are finishing this drink?

III. The Octogenarian, survived two wars and only wears navy socks.

Since no one else here can hear, except for me, I get to pound on my drums as hard as I damn well please, or at least as much as my hands will allow. I never used to play, until I found myself situated inside the cage of a walker. Everyone knows that we expire, but it took a walker and a hell of a lot of tapioca pudding to make me understand. So, I’ve taken up the drums in retaliation. Even my grandson has decided to try it out. He’s only four, so I’ve already got a working legacy.

Who teaches me? A European fellow comes once a week. Sweet, but a little rough with his vocabulary. He keeps telling me to “resonate the drums,” but I seem to be improving, so perhaps it’s some weird French method. He’s just so young, no older than twenty-five. Twenties are such a great time. Young enough to still make every mistake and have it all wash away in the morning. Nothing is as forgiving as a twenty-five year old drunk on love.

“So why do you play?”

I play to be just like Grandpa and because I like iguanas and because I like to make my connect-the-dots with music. I like seeing the swirly maze on the belly of my drum at the end of my playing.

I perform the drums to express my insides, to create from my imaginary head. Every pound is putting the weight mass on the drum, but not enough to make it break onto itself, just having it trampoline almost to its bottom.

I play to see the remains of something in between now and then, before everything turned into this horrible beige, hospital color. It makes me different from all the other pudding pushers in here. It reminds me to breathe through it all.

Eight.

He’d been scribbling for so long that the beige envelope was starting to rot into the table, growing roots with each punctuated bleed from the pen. It was clearly an apology card. Beige sentiments are those too delicate to handle a real hue, too uneasy for the frothy pastels of graduations and anniversaries. He probably forgot his daughter’s birthday for a poker tournament, or something potentially worse. He looks like he could have been imprisoned for something — he’s too meek for murder, but definitely a felony. Petty robbery or some crime like that. Nothing a card would erase.

He was married; at least the band gave a rather convincing argument. Was the card for his wife? I bet it wasn’t. No one writes long letters to their spouse after they no longer need to, after they have already been pursued, promised, and processed. Marriage is just like that journal you started when you were twelve. The first few days are all dutifully recorded, preserved with puerile similes and purple pens. After about a week, you figure out that there really is nothing newsworthy in your life. Everything is pretty fucking empty, and no one really cares about what happened between Suzie and Jimmy at the ice cream social, or how amazing your night making friendship bracelets was.

He quoted the Bible, slightly too careful with the pages. It must have been new, because the cover kept springing back, persistently begging to be left alone. Maybe he owned it, filed it under his seat in the Cobalt. But I bet he was just another man who lost religion about the time when he was supposed to find it, a guy who never learned Bible verses, and instead drowned his mind in pick-up lines and whiskey sours. He probably just took the Bible from the racks to have some filler for the card. How pathetic.
Godless. Publicly married. Criminally charged. Drunken. What else could he be?

I know it it’s fact. I once bought a card to say sorry. Now I just sit here and watch people attempt to find their feelings, getting a rush out of knowing that others still have something to say. I like to know that every day, there’s another guy who will join me on the other side — crumbled, alone, and coated in flat beige. People think they will never give up, and that’s why they buy the cards, write the songs, make the apologies, and do all sorts of other stupid emotional shit. Truth is, most of us end up creased on the couch, unshaven and glossy from the glare of late night on our televisions.

Someone should really make a card for us, and watch how no one cares about a folded piece of paper and some scribbled verses.