Secret Stories

by Dwight Peters

  Part of the problem was that he was now simultaneously convinced that he could have easily ended up being in the same exact position as the driver, and that if the same exact incident were to happen again, he would do the same thing.

  Over As Well As Under Development

  The fog moved further than usual in some direction, as it sometimes does. Another naked morning in a folding chair, eyes of abstractions—stared too long into the screen looking for what wasn’t there. He moved to the window, but it made no difference. He felt pleased that he lived in an apartment that would surely fall apart in an earthquake—or on top of him (perhaps in his sleep)—he liked to see his environment as a mirror to himself, natural disasters and beat down foundations and surroundings gave him that. Nothing else quite did in the same way, despite serious efforts.

  Let us now move on to someone else for the moment. We will return to him when we want and when we feel it is appropriate. Not before.

  Her—her from there her—her from here—she, of the deep-shimmer, oh my—skin, sweet-sweat shine in sun. She walks. She walks by not looking once but seeing more fully in some ways then most ever see of her in their minds.

  So that is her, or at least what most sort of get to see of her, and unfortunately pretty much all of what is here about her because what is about her from now on is about someone else.

  He seems prudent now because he saw her, and she didn’t see him (his thoughts not ours)—though this was before and not the naked morning that we have yet to finish up with. She walked right past him. He wanted to say something to her, looking away from the fact that he never made eye contact. There were thoughts of running after her and making some excuse or ridiculous story or playing innocent and ironic saying something like, “I bet you never met a guy like this before”—but, then, realizing that if he said it differently, he could have said, “I bet you’ve never got with a guy after he chased you in the street.” Total disregard of ambition concluded as silence: he never spoke to her.

  After his short fling with the window, he spent an hour and a half getting ready, during which he thought of her several times, to go out for the day and enjoy wherever he lived. He walked up and down hills, past shops, into shops, sat at a cafe, and had a cup of coffee and then went back home. He was out an hour. He took his clothes off again.

  The Eye Of Acquaintance

  Someone compliments someone else many different times on many different occasions, and each time the person complimented speaks back with words that are self-critical—saying something that goes against what was put forth as positive in the compliment.

  But, after each time, the person complimenting keeps complimenting so disregards the negative criticisms and continues to be loving towards the person. And this is so until a time where within the mind of the one who used to compliment there begins to grow something negative where all the self-criticisms that the other person put forth begin to solidify and manifest themselves within this person as being true.

  So, the next time these two people come together there are no compliments, no loving actions, and there is nothing being put forth as positive—rather, in the place of these are the beginnings of hatred, fears that are the beginnings of destruction.

  For both people, there is a deep, inexplicable sense of loss and helplessness.

  The Wait

  For his first fifty years, aging didn’t bother him. He liked it, really—recognizing his developed confidence along the character of his advancing skin.

  After fifty, he felt something deeper in his flesh. His confidence would now quietly leave him. Years that had moved naturally now had long, loud pauses of doubt; here is where the obsessing began with analyzing his own picture: a picture every week of every month of every year—each the subject of a demanding critical review.

  He turned 62 and discovered the problem. He was decomposing. This was very clear from his pictures.

  All the pictures were taken secretly when alone. He told no one anything.

  Alone Again

  Our love became a tire that was shot through and hit with an axe—where we used all our air trying to blow air into it. We tried to save our love, but we had no trust left and were frightened of each other and ourselves with each other.

  After a year or so, we did break up. Then, one day as I brushed my teeth, I relived the entire relationship in a few moments while I stood over the bathroom sink staring into the light shining through the window onto the mirror. This shocked my body so badly that it somehow caused me to grow to twice my normal size and stay that way.

  Two-and-a-half years later, I went out to a specialty shoe store, and sitting in a child’s chair was you know who, half the size of before.

  Later, we talked about it and agreed: we both had the same thought at the same instant when we saw each other again—both taking very deep breaths—this is going to work!

  Nature Walk

  There was someone who lived in a city who walked to and from everywhere in the city that there was any going to or from.

  A car hit this person, and the person slipped away through the concrete into the land that the city was before there was a city there—where the whole of the landscape was visible with a single sight.

  An Interview With A Social Worker

  He explained that he wanted to sleep outside even if the weather was harsh because it made him happy, and because being inside quickly made him feel like he was locked in a decorated cage that kept getting smaller until tight on his body, causing panicked horror. Being outside was not all a bad thing for him; he enjoyed the company of trees and all the freely moving things that he knew weren’t unlike him.

  The Gift Of Strength

  The breakdowns he had become more severe, and he could not see any possibility of getting through them; there seemed no way to move or breathe and no way to consider a future: the only feeling he could identify with was a horrific emptiness. After his last breakdown, while he was in the hospital, an older woman who was there for similar reasons as himself smiled at him in a peculiar, knowing way. She said very little than hello at first. And, then, on the day that she was returning home, she approached him and gave him a book, and told him that she had read it many times over the years and that she found something in it every time she read it. It was a paperback, pocket-sized book of a play written one hundred years before, and its spine was broken in several places.

  Later, as he went to sleep—right as he closed his eyes—he felt himself taken away into the experience of the woman who had been so kind to him; he felt that she also knew the same horrific emptiness but somehow found possibility.

  A New Fullness

  He nodded his head in thanks to the person who had saved him when he began choking on his food at the restaurant. As his eyes teared up, there was a desperate need to escape all the people that were now around him, so he pulled out what was nearly twice the money that he owed for what he ordered, putting it on the table as he left.

  In the street, alone, there was a soft rain but also sun. There were ten blocks walked in panic. He couldn’t figure out why he was so upset. By the eleventh block, he had made his way back to what he thought was his confident self, looking up at the sun and rain. But, by the next block, it all came back upon him, and he said to himself, “I’m afraid of not having the control that I have been able to have while being alive”—feeling that he couldn’t handle not knowing how things would work for the others in his life if he had choked—thinking of all the people close to him and of their lives. Then, briefly, he questioned the value of himself to others, though quickly knew better.

  Twenty-five blocks from the restaurant, he found himself still not having any belief or disbelief in any religious ideas—the same as he always remembered being, still very logical—but he discovered that he was doing something that seemed like praying—not to any faithfulness—but for faith.

  Documentary

  A person never existed. But a few people wanted to make a documentary ab
out this person who they thought had existed.

  They traveled to a very small place that seemed enormous in the endless view unblocked by big buildings. They talked to the few people that lived there about the person, and all of the people were happy to share their stories.

  The film was not very successful at first. There was no audience that wanted to watch a movie about someone that they had never heard of and their friends had never heard of.

  But slowly a fair amount of people did watch it. Everyone told everyone else about this amazing person and the movie that was made that they had to watch. Twenty years later, everyone believed that the person that had never existed had existed.

  Introduction

  When she closed her eyes, she saw their whole lives—from birth to death—one, and then another, each very quickly—having no idea of who the people were. The intensity of these experiences caused so much trouble within her that she had a difficult time sleeping and became sick. Part of her knew these experiences were good, but she didn’t know what to do with them or how to manage them emotionally.

  In a few months, as the experiences continued and increased, she could see the birth, death and lives of these others in her worn body.

  Soon, everyone she saw caused within her the same kinds