by Jones, Nath
I laugh at this. Of course it will. It has no survival. It is the wind and rain and snow and sun and dry air and rising heat. Love will survive. But will we?
Will we survive the changes? If I see a crack here under the window, which was fine in the summer when we needed a little more breeze, when will it be fixed? I begin to fidget, to question and complain. In winter the cold should be kept out. It only makes sense. The breeze will be a wind. And snow packed in the crack will freeze and thaw, freeze and thaw, and could conceivably wreck this house around us.
“No, that's stupid. It doesn't matter."
Are you really that self-destructive? Are you really that blind to what Love and these other emotions can do to us? They can shred us. They can kill us. Don't you understand that?
Already with those last words the crack has grown. The house will fall and each of us, he and I, will wander aimless in our blanched-sight brutal exposure. We will be lost, delirious, and will walk in slow circles around the fallen else.
When the season changes again and Love returns, as always happens, there will be no house. No relationship. No people left sharing it. And Love will sit down there, where that house used to be, looking hopeful, with searching eyes on the horizon, and she will settle down into a quiet grave as she has done before so many times. Because she is gravity, earth, time, and the constant change from life to death and death to life.
Cry if you want. You fool. But she is simple. Love is understandable. It is we who you should worry about. Crying over Love as though her death is a tragedy. No more a tragedy than those houses built without heed to the fault lines beneath them. We know how to build houses that stand through earthquakes but we don't. There is no tragedy then when we cry, except of our own foolishness. Be sure that she is crying for you because she knows and understands that loneliness is far, far worse than any of her stupid deaths.
BURN VICTIM
We talked about each other's armor but tonight I see you, young child, without flesh, stripped from your dressed-up world. Every tough painful thing is too close and I know my kisses will infect you. So I keep my lips away from sore, pulsing, raw, bleeding, open-sore flesh. You’re still here, so close, sleeping burnt in my arms. But I’m without protection from your screaming for skin. Why do you insist that I spend my life getting pretty? Pretty exhausted with a white-toothed smile. Pretty tomorrow with nothing to say. Pretty much heartless but surrounded by mirror-skin that leaves the healed curtains open for the pretty-watch-me day.
ORDERLY
Here I am at the end of a wonderful life. And this is the way I want things. I still look pretty good for my age. Must have been all the years of laughing with my husband. He is doddering around here somewhere and I am enjoying a few minutes of sunlight on the back porch. There is a warbler in the cherry tree and I can almost see all the springs with their warblers passing through.
My husband has just come into the room but seems to have forgotten something and is leaving again. I am smiling at his frail intensity and remembering all the years we've shared as the sun filters onto the lawn.
He's back now. Satisfied by whatever accomplishment he made. There is no evidence of whatever it was, but he kisses me on the top of my head and pats my shoulder with an arthritic hand. And as if any activity might be superior to stillness he moves around behind me and draws the blinds so that the sunlight is no longer with us, blinding.
I would rather have enjoyed the sun—its warmth and emboldened light—for another hour. But it is no matter. He leans on my shoulder and strains to turn on a lamp next to me. It is what he wants me to want. It is the way I will likely want things in an hour when the warmth and boldness of my golden lawn have disappeared into the blue-gray garage shadow.
My husband does not notice sunsets. He cares about what time it is and tends to my evening, as is his habit. He is concentrating and too distracted to take my hand as he offers me nothing in particular but assures that my book, my newspaper, my basket of knitting, the remote for the television, a card from our granddaughter, and my teacup are all within easy reach. They are all here, all the choices I could ever call out for him to come and find.
I stare at the drawn blind, hating the lamplight.
Satisfied with my well-being, he trots off again to busy himself in another room.
ABOUT THE ON IMPULSE EBOOK SERIES
On Impulse Series Titles:
The War is Language: 101 Short Works
2000 Deciduous Trees: Memories of a Zine
Love & Darts
How to Cherish the Grief-Stricken
About the On Impulse eBook Series:
We each have an impulse to share our experience. These four collections of short works explore storytelling from catharsis to craft. Over the course of this series Nath Jones's writing style develops from the raw, associative, tyrannic rambles of cathartic non-fiction, flash fiction, and rant in The War is Language and our digital domains, to the delightful rough-hewn vignettes of 2000 Deciduous Trees, into the compact characterizations of the fictionalized tellings in Love & Darts, and finally toward How to Cherish the Grief-Stricken's fully-crafted short stories that use literary devices and narrative elements to reveal a world well-rendered.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nath Jones received an MFA in creative writing from Northwestern University where she was a nominee for the Best New American Voices 2010. Her publishing credits include PANK Magazine, There Are No Rules, The Battered Suitcase, and Sailing World. Her current e-book series, On Impulse, explores the spectrum of narrative from catharsis to craft. She lives and writes in Chicago.
CONNECT WITH NATH ONLINE:
Twitter
Facebook
Author Website