by Sarah Gerard
I’m a cosmic species.
There are no shadows in a supermarket. There is nowhere to hide. You shouldn’t be hiding things. I can only walk in circles. I walk around endlessly.
Every corner opens onto another aisle. Another curve. Another cluster of brands.
MorningStar. Capri Sun. Ocean Spray. Aunt Jemima. Quaker. Betty Crocker.
General Mills. Bisquick. Duncan Hines. Hungry Jack. Jiffy. Pepperidge Farm.
Mrs. Butterworth’s. Campbell’s. Kraft. Post. Hershey’s. Carnation. Best Foods. Kellogg’s.
Pillsbury. Nabisco. Heinz. Hellmann’s. Hunt’s. Frito-Lay. Keebler. Healthy Choice.
Kid Cuisine. Stouffer’s. Green Giant. Ore-Ida. Smart Ones. PowerBar. Hormel. Chef Boyardee.
Lipton. Uncle Ben’s. Rice-A-Roni. Pop Secret. Pringles. V8.
Ragú. Prego. Tombstone.
I pick up a pepper, I put it back. I pick up an apple, I put it back. I pick up a bag of grapes. They’re meaty inside. I find this disgusting, I put it back.
I read the labels closely. I calculate values. I bite my fingernails off. I touch my own skin. My hair. My lips are dry. I lick them. I calculate minute sums.
Everything is quantified.
I calculate time spent eating and not eating and what that will cost me in the end.
Is there a bathroom?
I stand before the meat. Blood pools in the edge of a pound of ribs. Bacon congeals in its own fat. Chicken feet cluster together under cellophane.
I walk through the frozen foods. I open a freezer and touch a box of Eggo; I touch a bag of Dole cherries.
The glass fogs. I stand in the center of the aisle. The space between the shelves and my body and the door yawns and is immense. I’m immense. I feel the cold of the air.
The fluorescent lights hum.
Go home now.
I pass the breads and come back and pass them again. Entenmann’s. Lender’s. Wonder Bread. Nature’s Pride.
I pass the peanut butter and jelly. Skippy. Jif. Smucker’s. Peter Pan.
There isn’t a question of stopping at the dairy.
Sugar free fudge. Hot peppers. Toilet paper.
I find the bathroom and leave my empty basket by the door and stand before the mirror.
I am a complete slob fat pig cunt who deserves to be alone.
The sink is the kind that stays on for a minute and then shuts off. I push it several times and wet my face.
It’s full of holes.
I find a pimple next to my nose and pop it. Pus on the mirror. I wipe it off with a paper towel and do this two more times for the pimples near my mouth and wet the towel and wet my face again.
My brow is dry and flaking.
My hands are shaking.
I start to cry.
I tear off two sheets of toilet paper and wet them and put them in my mouth. I chew and suck and continue to chew as I pick up my basket.
I walk back to the organic produce.
I throw away everything I’ve accreted.
I shed my outer layers.
I eat dark matter.
We don’t have plans for Charleston. We haven’t made plans all month. We drift from one side of each city to the other, in and out, leaving behind a trail of familiar signs: Chick fil-A, Cracker Barrel, Pizza Hut.
We find nothing authentic in the tour books, so we abandon them. They don’t tell us where the real cities are. We look online and find the same information. We don’t know what we’re doing.
We drive in circles.
We stop in hostels trying to find a more rugged experience. They’re just like motels.
How are you feeling, John?
I don’t know what I feel.
The palms that line the streets of Charleston look down as we pass. We drive back toward the freeway.
We check into a room in a motel advertising heat, but the room is wet and freezing. I lie on the cigarette-smelling comforter and pull up my shirt and look at my hipbones. Razors. I feel happy, then I notice that my ass spreads underneath me. I pull my shirt down. I curl into a ball and touch my cheeks.
John spends so much time in the bathroom that I think he’s trying to show me he’s angry. When he comes out, he’s calling his parents. I sit by the window. I smoke an Ultra Light. Not listening.
I stare at the palms that stand in a row at the edge of the lot. Skinny. Fronds bursting.
I take out a magazine. Ten Easy Tips to Grow Your Hair. Tricks to Make You Look Taller and Thinner. The Most Iconic Swimsuits Ever.
Look Your Best. Get Star Style.
Trends We Love. Trends We Hate. Perfect Pieces.
Secret to a Gorgeous Face: It’s the Eyebrows!
Your mother called my parents. Do you want to call her?
No, I’ll call her tomorrow.
When was the last time you talked?
A few weeks ago.
Do you not want to talk to her?
I just don’t have anything to say.
I’m going for a walk.
Should I come?
No, stay.
I sit in a room of shadows.
Each night, I find the center of my hunger in the center of the floor, in the center of the room. The walls breathe the space between them and I am the space, condensed and expanded and condensed. I pulse. I’ve burned myself to cinders.
I feel that I and the sun are the same, shining on a side of the world where no one can see us. I am made of the matter of the sun, but I’m no longer burning. I’ve shed. I have little time remaining.
I pulse and see my structure.
I cool, and as I cool, I crystallize.
There is work to be done but I am work. I have goals. I am driving through space to reach them.
My goal for the night: 95. I drink ice water. I urinate, fill, empty, fill, empty, fill, empty.
It is about personal purity. It has to be.
Someday I’ll be a perfect black body. I’ll be perfectly smooth and white. I’ll be obliterated.
Dark matter. Antimatter. Unseen, unfelt, unmatter. I unbind myself.
I don’t matter. I am matter. I matter. I’m in the mirror.
If you touch me you have to hurt me, John. If you touch me, I’ll be hard.
I want you to touch me.
Even if I don’t want you.
I want you to hurt me. Make me absorb your radiation.
I am a diamond. I’m a diamond becoming myself.
Under pressure: the hardest.
Material.
That I will be the most valuable thing is predetermined.
I’ll be perfectly clear and luminous.
I am hated. I’m a genius.
I’m perfectly smooth and white. I am rough. I’m full of craters.
I am one long line of everything you hate.
I am made of so many lies.
You see through me already.
I have curves. I have mixed feelings about curves.
I want to be perfectly straight and simple and complex.
I want you to want to touch me. I want you to worry about me. I want your attention. I want you to fill me. I’m empty.
I make you do it.
I make you bad.
I want you to empty me. Make me feel like nothing. Tell me I’m nothing. I feel nothing.
Project all your untamed desires onto me.
I’m a star that radiates but is dead. I’ve been dead for a long, long time.
Let me be the reason you’re crazy. Let me love you.
Fall off your axis about me and my vacancy.
Show me how tortured you are.
We’ll go around in circles finding out why.
I’m sorry.
I’m a sorry excuse for a woman.
Here’s a list of things I care about: Givenchy. Hermès. Louis Vuitton. Prada.
I have never seen any of these things.
Jennifer Lopez. Donna Karan. Kristen Stewart. Demi Moore.
I have never seen any of these things.
I know nothing of any of these things.
I don’t care.
I have never seen you open and flayed like a raw piece of meat, which would make us equal.
Let me see you. Let me see what you’re made of.
You took us to a bar by the beach and all I did was panic.
We have nothing else to do here and it’s been dark for hours in Charleston where boats trace delicate white lights through the water and the horizon line is lost in the deep black of night. The air is chill. I have taken too many Zantrex-3 and I buzz all over. I’m sweating.
I’m sorry.
My skin is numb and smooth and wet, like the mouths of the people around us. They eat peanuts, onion rings, jalapeño poppers, soft pretzels with cheese and melted garlic butter.
I hate that I’m material.
Are you sweating? John asks me.
Maybe, I can’t feel my fingers.
You’re hungry. Eat your salad.
The breeze from the ocean moves your hair and for a moment I think I love you and then I realize I don’t know you.
I’m sick.
Maybe you’ve had enough to drink.
I rise and I sink.
Just sit down. Are you okay? You need to eat. Have some bread.
No, I’m not. I have to go. Where’s the bathroom?
Inside.
I’ll be back.
John pushes my water toward me. I see his fingertips wet through the glass and I picture them on my face. The sight of his flesh makes me dizzy.
You’re drunk.
You’re drunk.
Yes, I’m drunk. But so are you.
You promised.
I lie.
Thank you for telling me.
He swallows the rest of his beer in a single swig and orders another. I watch the waitress look at him longer than she should. My heart is racing. My legs are weak.
I’m crying.
I feel like I can’t breathe.
You’re breathing right now.
I’m going to die.
Of course, but not now. You have time.
It’s a matter of time.
That’s right.
I feel that everyone is looking at me. They masticate their food. They think I’m funny. They’re all as fat as I could be.
I’m ugly. Don’t touch me.
I’m not.
Leave me alone.
I’m over here.
I have to leave.
Where are you going?
I’ll sit in the car.
Just sit down, please. Relax.
I’m going to die.
You need to stop talking like that.
I stand. I kneel and vomit into my hands.
Jesus Christ.
Everyone sees me.
I’m having a heart attack.
No you’re not. Is there a doctor? Anyone?
It’s coming through my nose.
I know, I see it. Have some water.
I’m sorry.
Wipe your face. You need to eat.
I’ll throw it up.
You’d better not throw it up.
I’m floating away.
I’m carrying you. Stop being dramatic.
Do you think I’m pretty?
You’re fucked up, you know that?
Aren’t you drunk?
I am drunk. Just shut up, please.
You put a rag on my face in the car. You give me water.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
Is this better?
Why are you drinking?
I’m not sure. Why aren’t you eating?
I am.
No, you’re not.
Yes I am.
John’s breathing stops some nights and I have to move him. The Seroquel he takes to sleep makes him sleep too deeply to know that he’s choking. I can only help him when we’re together. When he’s in Chicago, I’m useless. He stays out drinking late at night and takes the pills anyway.
Some nights I stay awake expecting he’ll call me to say that he’s dead.
Some nights I stay awake expecting to feel that he’s died.
As if something connects us across the distance and he disconnects.
I cradle the sphere of his skull in my palm and lift it up. I turn it left and right, left and right, until it’s perfect. This doesn’t last.
Some nights I turn his whole body back and forth for hours. He breathes and then his throat relaxes, sputters, and stops, and breathing is a struggle.
The sound is so loud that it scares me. I’ve tried to sleep on the couch but I think that, if I don’t go back and save him, I’ll wake up alone.
I’ve told him to talk to his doctor. He’s changed medications over and over. They all do this.
I’ve told him not to drink with them but I know that’s ridiculous.
He snores so loudly sometimes that he wakes himself up and looks around like he’s surprised. In the light from the neon sign next door, I can see that he’s seeing visions. He looks at the backs of his eyes.
Sometimes I wake him on purpose and ask him to stop but this makes him angry.
That’s if I can even wake him. Most nights I shake him and shake him and he never wakes up.
Or I shout his name directly at him many times, but even this doesn’t work.
The day after one of these nights, he’ll sleep until four in the afternoon. I spend the time that he’s sleeping reading on the leather couch, or wasting away on the Internet, or playing with Dog.
I’ve never had keys to his apartment. He won’t make them. I’m afraid that, if I lock myself out, he can’t let me back in.
I’ve said this to him many times but he says that there’s nothing he can do, that I’ll have to get used to it.
I sit on the back porch for hours with Dog. By four o’clock, I feel like I’ve opened my skull and scraped the inside clean and filled it with dust.
I think that, if I can find the center of the noise, I might be able to make peace with it. That maybe, if it’s the only thing I hear, I won’t even hear it.
In order for this to be true, there would need to be no other sound. But there is Dog, and there is the fan, and there are the sounds of the building settling. Then there are neighbors.
I think that his neighbors downstairs must hear him.
They must have said something, if not to John, then at least to the landlord.
They are like watchdogs.
Do they lie awake worrying he’s died when the sound stops suddenly? Do they think about coming upstairs? About knocking on the door, to be sure he’s still living?
Would they do that?
Or are they only concerned with their own sleep?
I’ve thought about calling John’s parents but he would consider that crossing a line.
If John were to call my mother, I don’t know what would happen. Something drastic, I think.
THE SECOND DREDGE-UP
THE RED GIANT HAS TWO SHELLS: ONE INNER, burning hydrogen, and outer, helium.
The star begins to cool and hydrogen burning is pushed to the core. The surface grows opaque. Convection extends inward.
The convective envelope penetrates the hydrogen, and dredges to the surface the products of the burning.
This is the second dredge-up.
I sleep a deep, hyperbolic sleep all the way to Raleigh. I awake with my face in the sun. It is wet with sweat. I’m nauseous. My mouth tastes like acid.
We’re stopped outside a Shell gas station, and a thick brush forest behind the Shell. There’s a picnic table between the forest and the curb, a few thousand feet from the freeway, where a family sits eating Lunchables and passing around Juicy Juice boxes.
The sounds of cars are a hush in the distance. A sign by the freeway tells us we can also find Cracker Barrel, Subway, and Quiznos at this exit, and a BP further on. John opens the driver-side door.
What do you need?
Aquafina, Red Bull, Ultra Lights.
Banana?
No. I’m nauseous.
I watch him enter the store and then I open the door and step into my Converse, leaving the laces untied. The day is cold and bright. I close my eyes and stand. Blood rushes from my head.
The hard air blends with the sweat on my skin. I’m alive. I have breath. I have heat from the car. I expand and I cool.
I sit on the curb and pull up my sleeves. My wrists are thin and pale and I turn them over, hold them away from my body. A semi-truck hauling milk passes another semi hauling bread. I place my hand before it and let it drive through my palm. The road curves. The truck follows it.
I feel that, starting here, I could become anything.
I feel that I could climb into any car in this lot. Go anywhere.
Who would stop me? Not John.
Red Bull, he says. What are you looking at?
Nothing.
I got Corona. Let’s sit at that table.
I’ll follow you anywhere.
He seems to like this.
We call a Days Inn and reserve a room with a queen-sized bed and a flat-screen TV, which makes John happy. I use the bathroom in the gas station and smell the soap and rub it under my armpit and wipe it off on a rough hand towel because I don’t feel like showering later at the motel. I don’t feel like seeing myself naked.
We bring John’s Corona to the picnic table and I sit across from him drinking my Red Bull and shivering, smoking an Ultra Light, which tastes like air. He slides a bottle into a paper bag, opens it, and offers it to me but I decline. Behind him, cars are turning on their headlights and exiting toward Virginia and South Carolina as the night falls, going wherever they’ve decided to go. Or at least, wherever the road leads them.
I think we should live together, says John.
I ash my cigarette. I don’t know what to say.
You think so?
You’re not excited.
I just didn’t know you felt that way.
Don’t you?
Of course.
John picks at the beer label.
It’s hard being apart.
Of course. I miss you, too.
When we originally went to the moon, our total focus was going to the moon. We weren’t thinking about looking back at Earth. But now that we’ve done it, that may well have been the most important reason we went.
The family that ate their dinner here earlier is exiting the gas station and walking toward their Honda Odyssey. They open the back hatch and pull out two overstuffed duffel bags. The kids each take one and walk them inside, with the parents following. Everyone is eating Fruit Roll-Ups.