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The story: Fiction inspired by the cinema of David Lynch. |
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All she sees before her is an image of squareness, made up almost wholly of color, or colors now...no definition in between. It's getting smaller and smaller until she can see what it is - her house, high up as seen from the lowest point of her front lawn. She is lying, head down in the grass next to the sidewalk, just waking up there. This is what reality looks like. It's a day, and she's herself, but as she stares deeper into the picture windows, that's all she can see so far. She's remembering a time with Joe, a good time, when she'd come home and he'd already been in bed. She didn't fuck him...just watched him. Counting his breaths and delighting in the fact that he was alive. Under the memory, the sight of her brown coffee table in front of her becomes heavier, becomes too much, and she's sobbing, calling for help, echoing words that don't even exist to people who aren't there. And this time she's remembering a time that was not good. He was awake, was conscious, and she was sitting where she was just now... Her feet planted in front of her like roots, hands clenched, eyes on the cuckoo clock. He'd come in, got home, and told her there was some bad news. He didn't tell her what it was. "What?!" she'd screamed. "Are you just going to tell me there's bad news and not even say what it is?!" Yes, he told her. That's exactly what he was going to do. They'd take rides out on winding autumn roads. Wind in their hair, through the windows only. They couldn't afford a convertible, though Sandra had always wanted one. She'd always imagined how people would look at them over the shiny red doors, her hair long and wind-messed (it had always been short), and Joe with his arm back, so he could hold her with both of them. He was never the kind of guy to start a fight. And he never drank. Didn't need to. He would do something so she'd have to start one, and so she'd have to be drinking when she did it. He was the cause and she was the effect. That night they were fighting in front of the fire, bringing up every little thing that either of them had ever done wrong... And she didn't need anyone to tell her she was right. It's something you just know. Not everyone is always right, but everyone knows themself. There's no use pretending you're someone you're not. "At least I remember where I park my own damn car," she'd said. "Bitch!" Joe screamed. He had grabbed a squirrel head in a plaque from above the mantle, but he wasn't going to do a damn thing with it. Instead he just stared at it for a long time, until he was crying, as if the sight of it was just too much for him. Like maybe it meant something besides just what it was. I know it sounds crazy, but I started crying too. I'm watching her through the window, seeing her enter her house from the front. She'd been lying out there for hours. I thought about going out there, but what could I do? I see her now, inside, spitting into the kitchen sink, then blowing a spit bubble cause she thinks no one's looking. She takes off her dress and dances around in her underwear with two kitchen knives. She stab stab stabs the air before her and cuts herself just once, just a papercut really, on her left wrist but she doesn't notice. Even when I'm not watching I know she's in there living. I try to imagine the life she leads behind closed window blinds. I fill in the details. Sometimes I see what she's doing but I still wonder what she's thinking. I wonder what happens while I sleep. Sandra is checking the mail in the middle of the night. Bills, she can pay those. She tosses them aside on the front lawn and immediately forgets them. Then she opens a letter and reads from it: Dear Honeydoll, Why don't you answer my letters? it asks. Don't you love me anymore? She feels nothing as she helps the paper back into the envelope. Doesn't even need to crumple it. Music is coming from places where music does not normally come from. She goes around to the back of the house, fiddling with the lock on the cellar door. Once she gets it, she steps down inside. She didn't bring a flashlight and it's all but pitch-black. She has to feel her way around. Her hands slide aimlessly across the cindery floor. She doesn't even know what she's looking for, or that there need be something to look for. She isn't thinking about what anyone else is doing. Once in a while her fingers scrape rough fur or pointed metal. The sounds inside are all muffled, most of them really come from outside. She comes to a small door, big enough for a dog, behind the furnace, in the wall. She lifts the door and it squeaks loudly, dust flying off and up her nose. She sneezes and climbs through. The little door closes behind her. Now it really is pitch-black, and there are no sounds except the ones she makes clawing along. Her pants are torn, her hair is half-ashes. She can't see her face. As she reaches the end of the tunnel, she knows she'll have to crawl back backwards. As she lifts up one more wood door, too small for anyone to fit through in one piece, she thinks of Joe, and their old life, how far normal will get you. She finds his bones beneath the door, bones she'd stroked through skin and despair. She knows to be human is to suffer, so why can't she stop smiling?
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