Secret Stories

by Dwight Peters

intestines, and it was lonely and dug and bit at the walls of the intestines to get attention.

  The doctor at first wasn’t sure what to suggest or do because it seemed that taking the dog out would, even with its very small size, be fatal for both. The doctor then had an idea: “The dog won’t do any harm if it is happy. So, if you can learn to talk to it, then it will stop biting and digging. So then you will both be fine.”

  It took some time, but the idea worked. And the doctor and everyone else who knew of the dog agreed, the dog’s existence was to be kept a secret.

  Nothing Normal Is Normal, Normally

  There had been a great effort made to be closer to what was thought of as normal ideas of what normal seemed to must be in ways of living for others. And there become a troubling, an exhaustion, though the failure of doing this.

  There was the wanting of language that felt connected and true. Animals sometimes seemed to make noises more honest than any human words. And the wind sometimes seemed to gust through a secret tunnel from one spot of the earth to another, making its way through the core, going to and coming from a far off place of unknown planets and stars. There was the need of support, of interaction, of the intimate connection of care—where living unites with like this—a need of a system that supports heaviness so there is a suspension of burden and all floats, as was thought normal; there was a need for relationships where what is joy and what is able to be beared are greater—relationships of the highest beautiful balance—where possibilities are not considered but are.

  This person thought that this new normal was built. But all of the strings suspending the previous weight snapped. The person was anguished in fog. There was no knowing of where or what everything was within oneself or others. The whole of the world was mysterious, grey and damp. Even the idea of normal was lost; along with its loss so too was lost the comparison of oneself to others: during this time the person couldn’t notice these losses and it had no affect then. The person lived in this miserable state for several years where everything was unclear and distant from knowing. There was no connection, no intimate warmth of care and support.

  When the fog burned off, the person looked around again and again in shock—talking to everyone, asking questions. Everyone seemed to have become different bodily mixed up combinations of physical parts; although, somehow, all could still talk. There was one person who seemed to be a normal human shape but when looking closer was discovered to be only hands piled together. Some that were, umm—less fortunate. Some, perhaps—more, depending. There were others that were legs and faces only; there were many of combinations and shapes so various it was rather exciting in many ways for the person. When the person talked with these others, the person thought some were familiar in personality and voice but realized all were also made from bits and pieces of many personalities. There was something that made sense in all of this, and the person didn’t ask what was normal or not anymore.

  The person lived happily interacting with and enjoying the new strange possibilities of life for another several years. Finally the person seemed to meet someone who was normal—talked as if one individual, looked at if one non bodily mixed up body— but the experience of this, and the thoughts that come along at the same time were rather upsetting at first; it was so strange to find a normal individual—especially one so unusual. The person felt as if the anguish and fog was going to return again for a few moments. But then, the person felt a light burning everywhere in and on the person’s body; then a tingle through the spine heating and exciting the rest of the body even further. The person smiled, and the feeling of fog returning burned away.

  Pet Friendly

  The person had been hurt by people in the past so avoided intimacy with other people, preferring the companionship of animals. Animals, the person thought, were not hurtful like people: even when an animal is scared and bites, the reasons for it are easily understood; with people, however, there is a sickly danger. For a long time, the person thought like this so was reactionary to and self-isolating from others, mostly finding companionship with dogs and cats, but sometimes other animals as well, often saving hurt and suffering animals that otherwise would have little chance of living well or living at all.

  There came a point, though, when the person saw other people in a similar way as was the person’s perception of animals: imagining people naked and pooping and peeing outdoors, as needing petting, as being motivated by treats, as uniquely cute in each individual’s own goofy way, and as sexual beings not disappointing or disgusting but as having a doggy-like style that could be appreciated. When the person thought like this, the presence of an odd inter-species empathy appeared where intimacy and companionship with the hairy, nude, human-beast was allowed.

  Flowers

  A botanical garden covering ten acres, full of thousands of plants and hundreds of trees collected from all over the world—there are two women who live nearby in a home for elderly people. Most days when there is no rain they come to the garden. Today there is no rain; they are there. One of the women is in a wheelchair sleeping; she is breathing oxygen in through a tube in her nostrils that runs to a tank hanging on the back of her wheelchair. She is ninety-four. The other woman is crocheting; she has crocheted since she was a young teen. Now seventy-eight, she crochets three to four hours a day. The older woman can’t get out by herself, but the younger woman makes sure she gets out to the garden. The two women sit near a tree that partly shades the older, sleeping woman. There is sun, but the day is cool. The older woman is wrapped in several large blankets with a jacket underneath and a scarf around her head. The younger woman wears a sweater and jacket with a small blanket on her lap.

  Sea. Transparent. See.

  A person came to a place where the interactions of relationships within the world presented certain other people as examples of warnings—but in a way where each were real people experienced as another, as possible future selves, as possible past selves, where what it was to be oneself extended throughout all of possibility. When the person saw someone that warned through who they were of a self that was angry and quick to react negatively through fear, bitterness and distrust, there was no judgment against this someone, only animated awareness that was experienced as if it could be the truth for this person too. Because of this, the person was silent towards these other selves unless what was said was something that was kind or could add an element of positive possibility where new futures for these someones could be more likely through the expression of what was experienced by the person.

  The person lived not an extraordinarily long life but a life where during the time alive had many experiences of both joy and difficulty. Many of these experiences were adventures in the world. Many other experiences were explorations within the self of these someones and the person’s self, taking place in different possible selves and different possible worlds. All were partly a mix of selves and worlds. Within any given moment the person had of experience of such possibilities, the truth of the experience was seen as a swirling ocean, flowing out from the swirl to moving sand beneath feet, to solid earth, in infinite waves of hellos and goodbyes.

  In this person’s life, there were many honest smiles for what was more than self-happiness as well as much intense pain for the pooling tides of everything, where lying naked in the salt water pool was the person and all of what warned and was another.