A Very Dangerous Thing

A text message is a very dangerous thing. Mark often thought to himself that if he ever got married and had an affair (which let’s be honest was probably going to happen) a stray dirty text message would be the lipstick on his collar, discovered by his wife, which gave up the game. Also, Mark often feared that he would eventually send a text message to someone other than the intended recipient, which he knew would lead to a thoroughly messy situation.
The most practical worry Mark had, concerning text messages, was the concern that one of his parents might happen across a thread of text messages between Mark and one of his younger brothers. He had three younger brothers. The way he conversed with them in front of his parents, and the way he conversed with them via text messages, were two very different ways. If his mother caught him saying “the f word” to his younger brothers the consequences would surely be severe.
Mark did not live at home during the school year; he was a thousand miles south at a university. His younger brothers missed him but, unlike he in his middle/high school years, they had cell phones to keep in touch with their departed sibling. Mark never felt they were too far out of reach, even while popular belief held that the digital age had destroyed genuine human connection.
Peter was Mark’s brother, two years his junior, and if there were a funnier boy to interact with Mark had yet to encounter him. A text message from Peter always meant a laugh. Mark appreciated Peter’s ability to curse like a sailor without sounding like he was trying, a talent honed by summers spent among farmers and more liberal aunts. On a practical note, Mark also appreciated that Peter, like his older brother, properly formatted and punctuated his text messages. If abbreviations were used it meant that someone was being mocked.
Mark sat in his dorm room on a Saturday afternoon, homework and various tasks slowly being completed. Peter sent him a text message, in search of a conversation.
“Have you read Tom Sawyer?” Said the message. “It’s the most offensive book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Peter lived under the assumption that no recognized literary classics could be shocking or sensational in any way, an assumption Mark was forever encouraging him to give up.
Mark smirked and, having nothing cleverer to say, replied, “Yeah, it’s a regular pulp fiction.” Mark returned to the book he had been skimming. He read half a page and began worrying that his text message had been too final. Perhaps Peter wouldn’t reply. Mark wanted the interaction, so he followed up his last message with an addendum. “R U reading it 4 school? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!?” The brothers felt very superior to their peers when they mockingly replaced words with single characters and added a dozen L’s and O’s for condescending flourish.
A reply! “They’re talking about having orgies once they’re robbers. But Tom doesn’t actually know what they are, just that robbers have them.” Another text followed, “Got your last, yeah Mom’s making us read it in class.”
Mark wasn’t sure where to go from there. “Oh. Good. I think it’s better than Huck Finn. Mrs. V kinda beat the joy out of that one.”
“That bitch would beat a dumb southern boy.” Mark laughed aloud. The joke wasn’t even that funny, but he could imagine Peter’s expression and delivery as though his brother were sitting right there in the room.
“What about the N word?” Mark felt dirty texting the word in full. “Do you guys read it out loud?”
“We read some out loud. Some by ourselves. Mom just says ‘n word.’ They say it so much!!!!!”
“I told you it was pulp fiction. Just be glad no one’s getting raped.” Mark remembered watching Pulp Fiction with his younger brother. It had been after a particularly long day of work. At first he’d told Peter that he was too young to watch it, then he’d recalled how hard the two of them had laughed after Mark, seeing a dead snake, had screamed “Holy shit! Fuck! Shit!” in surprise. So Mark had told Peter he could stay and watch, but God help him if he told Mom and Dad.
Peter’s response message arrived. “Wait… NO rape? What version did you read? Don’t you remember when Tom and Becky were in the cave? And Injun Joe caught them?” Mark wasn’t surprised, but he pretended to be.
“Wow. Nice. That’s like a children’s classic. Also, you should write your essay on how that probably did happen but Mark Twain just didn’t include it.” Mark’s homework lay forgotten. He reminisced and laughed to himself between texts.
Peter responded. “OMG!! AGREE!!!!!!” Mark laughed and worried at the same time. Peter was mimicking some friends of their cousin who had written this same message in a chain email, so the text was funny. However, it was a brief text and looked like steps toward a conclusion to the conversation, which Mark didn’t want. He could think of no way to reopen the topic though, so he replied in similar brevity.
“Haha. Oh wow.” Mark waited for a reply, fearful that he’d put an end to the exchange. Peter came through for his older brother.
“Remember when I snuck down and surprised you at college? Yeah, that was awesome…” He was completely changing gears. Mark was thrilled for the revitalization!
“Yeah I remember. Any time you want to repeat would be sweet.” This was just the start, Mark was certain, of another wave of messages.
“That’s what I was thinking. If only I didn’t have school or need a job, but somehow had tons of money, I really should work on that.”
Mark thought it was time for some trashy humor. “I suppose prostitution is out of the question? I’m sure there’s priests around there who’d give you a cut of the offering for your… services.” Mark sat back in his chair, daydreaming and waiting for a reply. After a couple minutes he figured Peter was working on a lengthy response, so Mark opened his computer and printed a report he’d already written.
The report was stapled and safely stowed in the proper notebook on Mark’s shelf, and Peter still hadn’t replied. Mark didn’t want the conversation to end, so he sent another message, this time legit business. “You should ask Dad and Mom if you can visit at spring break.” Again Mark waited for a reply, but none came. He became annoyed at Peter. The little brat was probably at a friend’s house, or having friends over to visit, and had lost interest in his pestering older brother.


Two days later Mark was home for the funeral.
Not watching the road while attempting to forge a succinct and humorously potent text message, Peter had swerved into an oncoming Ford. It was the same kind of shitty monstrosity that Mark and Peter had driven to countless fields over the course of seven summers working together.
A friend of the brothers’ parents had to call to tell Mark the news.
Mark had told Peter so many times not to send text messages while he drove. “Do as I say, not as I do.” He’d told him to be careful who saw his phone. He told him to use a little common sense every now and then. He’d told him so many times. A text message is a very dangerous thing.

The Road to Hell

Joe thought it was unsafe of Laura to go running late at night in the city, and he told her so frequently.
“What if something actually happened to you and I was left feeling guilty because I never warned you?”
“You’ve warned me more times than I can count.” Laura was an athletic girl and carried pepper spray, so she considered the matter closed.
“Yeah, but you don’t listen to me, and it is dangerous and you know it. Half of the time I can’t even sleep because I’m imagining you running around out there.” He didn’t want to fight with Laura, but he worried about her.
“This is about your peace of mind, then?”
“No. Or maybe. I don’t know what you mean by that. The point is, can’t you go in the mornings or something, nobody’s out at midnight, or anyway nobody safe.”
Laura laughed and chided him. “You watch too many movies.”
“Oh wow,” Joe said “nice sidestep of my point.” Laura rolled her eyes at him and he kept talking. “It’s so easy for you to say ‘you watch too many movies’ because it makes me sound irrational.”
“Joe, you are being irrational.” She stressed the word “are.” He became more frustrated.
“I’m not kidding around, alright? I’m serious. You could get hurt.”
“I could die in a car crash this afternoon too.”
“Why doesn’t Alan go running with you? At least you’d have a guy with you.”
Laura didn’t like Joe bringing gender into the conversation. “Because he’s got eight thirty class Monday through Friday and the only time I have to run is after midnight. I don’t need a guy to protect me while I exercise.” Joe realized he had made a mistake mentioning Laura’s boyfriend.
“I’m just saying, gang bangers aren’t going to attack and rape a girl if she’s running with her boyfriend.” He whispered the word “rape.”
Laura raised an eyebrow in surprise and mock. “What if they rape him instead?”
“How is it that you still don’t see I’m not kidding? This isn’t some kind of fucking joke.” He did not whisper the word “fucking.”
“Relax dude,” Laura took the tone of a mother comforting her child, “nothing’s going to happen, I’ll be fine.”
“Whatever, I just don’t want to wind up at your funeral or seeing you in a hospital bed.”
“You’re not going to see me in a hospital bed. Thanks for looking out for me.”
“Then let me go with you.”
Laura was surprised by the suggestion. “You don’t even run.”
Joe took a condescending tone “I’m sure I’ll be fine, how far do you go?”
“Between two and three miles every night. It depends.”
“I ran track in high school, two or three miles is fine.”


Between two or three miles was not “fine” for Joe. After three quarters of the first mile he had sharp pains with every breath and he realized he was in terrible shape. When Laura asked him if he was going to be ok, he gasped “yes” and pushed himself harder. After a mile and a half he could not pretend anymore.
“Laura.” He sounded dead. “We gotta head back soon, I’m going to pass out.” He slowed to a walk and Laura slowed to stay with him.
“I usually run to the highway when I go this way and make a loop back around,” she indicated an intersection ahead of them, “we can turn up there and make a smaller loop. Are you going to be alright?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine, It’s been so long since I ran” Laura smirked but didn’t say anything. “You can tell me you told me so if you want, but at least you’re not out here alone.”
“I’m not going to tell you I told you so, I just said I wasn’t going to get raped, I didn’t say you were going to wipe out fifteen minutes in.”
They reached the intersection and turned right, down Cardinal Street, which was lined with industrial buildings on either side. They were walking quickly, Laura trying to maintain some semblance of exercising, Joe trying to move as slow as possible without falling behind.
It was dark and neither Joe nor Laura saw two men waiting in shadows on the sidewalk to their left. The men on the sidewalk saw Joe and Laura and they saw their cohort fall in step behind the two.
The man behind Laura grabbed her, one hand on her left wrist, the other clamped around her mouth cutting off a scream. The two men, swinging baseball bats wildly, rushed at Joe. A rib breaking swing to torso sent Joe crumpled to the ground. He was aware of someone tearing at his clothing looking for a wallet. Neither Laura nor Joe carried a wallet when they ran.


The police found the bodies of Joe and Laura thrown in the corner of a warehouse on Cardinal. Laura had been raped by two of the attackers and then strangled. DNA samples were taken for evidence. The right half of Joe’s face was beaten beyond recognition. A baseball bat had dislodged all his teeth and shattered his jaw.

Mike, Brass, Strippers and Nuns

Mike was a talk show host and nobody liked him. Depending on whether you asked a stripper or a nun, you’d be told that Mike’s show ran in the latest hours of the night or the earliest hours of the morning. There were no nuns who listened to Mike’s show, and only a few strippers.
Mike’s show was about supernatural phenomena. For the first few years of his broadcasting career Mike worked with another personality called Ike. The name of their program (not to be written here) was obvious. It wasn’t to last however, because as you may recall nobody liked Mike, not even Ike. Especially not Ike. After Ike left, Mike hosted the show alone. “Midnight Mike!”
To make matters all the worse, Mike’s show aired on an AM station, so the listening audience was already limited to the elderly (asleep by 8:30pm), the collective body of the local FFA (teenage night crews who know better than to attempt a station change, risking the damnation of static), and strippers like Bernice (lucky enough that her vehicle possessed a radio, even if FM was beyond its reach).
Like many obnoxious people who manage to get away with existing in the real world, Mike kept his career afloat on the disintegrating reputation of his predecessors. Mike’s father had co-founded the network that aired Mike’s talk show. Mike’s father William died long before Mike took the job in broadcasting. Neither could have suffered the humiliation of having to work with the other. In William’s eyes, Mike was an appalling failure at life, and in Mike’s eyes this had been William’s fault. However, network owner Joseph Hardy (no relation to the fictional teen detective), owed his penthouse apartment, beautiful wife, even more beautiful mistress, and dynamite social standing all to William, so when Mike came looking for a job Joseph gave it to him.
This story doesn’t begin with Bernice the stripper, who went by the name of Lola Sapphire on stage, it begins with Mike the talk show host, who went by the name of Mike while behind the mic. At present, all that need be said about Bernice is that she drove home six nights a week between the hours of 4:00 and 5:00 AM, which put her in Mike’s clutches on account of his program running from 1:00 to 6:00 AM. Bernice didn’t think of herself as being in his clutches. She enjoyed his program.

Occasionally Mike had guests on his talk show. Sometimes a palm reader or mistress of the tarot cards, he’d also managed to find specialists on the topics of UFOs and Big Foot from time to time. One night Mike hosted a guest who called herself Madame Collette. Her real name was Jones, Mike never managed to get her first name because she insisted he call her by her “professional name.” On the air, by way of an introduction, Mike promised his listeners “a real treat this evening as we’re being joined by Madame Collette – interpreter of the abnormal and guide to the supernatural in all of us.”
Madame Collette spoke in a quiet solemn little drone, lingering on words at random to give listeners the impression that she was weighing her verdicts with the utmost care. Mike privately held the opinion that Madame Collette Jones was as monumental a failure as he was, but he responded to her declarations with all the appropriate reactions.
Said Collette, “without a doubt you, Michael, were an entertainer not simply in your previous life, but in many of your previous lives.”
“You don’t say? Is this my natural calling, then?”
“It is, yes. To be sure it is. I feel,” here she paused, “I feel that in some of your previous lives you were a revolutionary. Tell me, do you have dreams or fears of being murdered?” She pounced on the last word with some glee.
“Well, yeah, but doesn’t everyone have nightmares?” He feigned ignorant curiosity. He had never dreamt of being killed.
“Hmmmm, yes, I thought as much. Not so many as you might think Michael,” she paused again and occasionally hummed meditatively, “I’m sensing that you were killed once for having spoken out against some authority.”
“I wasn’t Jesus, was I?” Mike erupted in bursts of laughter at what he considered a gem of broadcasting humor. Madame Collette, too, allowed herself a brief deep chuckle.


In her break room at the club Bernice laughed as well. She rarely understood these sorts of intellectual/religious quips, but she was fairly sure she was entitled to laugh this time. Later, when trying to recount the setup and punch line to a coworker she would scramble the retelling, effectively killing the joke. She was a dancer; communication skills weren’t a prerequisite.


Mike, ecstatic following his Jesus joke, informed Madame Collette, and his listeners, that after “a brief word from our sponsors” the lines would be open for callers with supernatural dilemmas. While commercials played over the air, Mike and Madame Collette sat uncomfortably in the studio. A cardboard box sat at Madame Collette’s feet. It was unmarked and she had not mentioned it since bringing it into the studio with her. Mike took a somewhat exaggerated glance at it, hoping that this would prompt the woman to tell him its contents. She remained silent, but met his eyes with a look of vacancy, as thought the idea of expecting information from her was utterly ridiculous. The lights on Mike’s telephone began lighting up, and the last commercial drew to a close.
“We’re going back on.” He told Madame Collette. She nodded. The introductory audio clip played, informing listeners that it was time for more “Supernatural Insomnia with Midnight Mike” and Mike launched into his rehearsed speech about callers being limited to one question and only using their first names. Four and a half hours to finishing time stretched ahead and Mike hated his life, his job and the blank secretive guest in his studio.


At 4:30 AM Bernice stooped down into her car (it barely ran), turned on her radio (it only picked up one station), and began the drive back to her apartment (shared with four other girls none of whom could consistently produce one fifth of the rent). Bernice didn’t hate her life, but she was dissatisfied, and was constantly promising herself she’d sort herself out sooner rather than later.
Midnight Mike was still broadcasting, and Bernice remembered that he’d brought on a guest that evening. Madame Collette was in full swing as Bernice pulled onto the freeway. Callers joined the program, telling their first name and asking Madame a question, and she was quick to tell them about their previous lives and what they could expect to find in their near futures. Her proclamations were greeted with murmurs of approval and occasionally shocked whimpers of “how did you know?” and “do you really think so?” Always Madame Collette insisted that she was absolutely confident. Mike interjected whenever there was a room for a noncommittal comment. Bernice followed an exit ramp down to a four way stop and decided she was going to get on the phone and find out what the future held for her.
Not having a cell phone, or a landline at her apartment, Bernice decided she would have to use a pay phone if a working one could be found. Scanning corner convenience stores and the patches of light beneath lampposts, Bernice continued home, listening to Madame Collette’s latest verdict.
“There is no doubt in my mind,” Collette divined over the frequency bands, “that you will find love within three months if you move out of your wife’s house before this coming Wednesday.” Bernice wondered if she would be given such drastic instructions.
“Oh!” Bernice yelped, sighting a dilapidated payphone protruding from the stucco wall of a Laundromat. With a sickening rattle of loose pieces, Bernice’s car climbed into the parking lot and halted straddling a faded yellow line. Without waiting to hear how the disgruntled husband received Madame Collette’s advice, Bernice shut off the car and hustled over to the payphone, dialing the number she had heard countless times.


Mike reminded himself that there was only one hour remaining until he could thank Madame Collette for her appearance and bid his listeners farewell until the following night. He looked at his computer screen, scanning the information that his screener had collected about the next caller.
“Lola, welcome to the show!” Bernice had used her stage name.
“Hi, hello. Is this Mike?” She was nervous and beginning to have second thoughts.
“This is the one and only Midnight Mike, what’s your supernatural dilemma?” Bernice was really regretting the call at that point; she didn’t even have a dilemma, just a question about life.
“I don’t think I have a dilemma, I just wondered if Madame Collette could tell me what to expect.”
Mike began to poke fun at Bernice, deciding that she would be a chance to coax a few laughs out of his audience before moving to the next real caller. “Expect people to screw you over at every turn, never fails. How’s that for an answer, Lola?”
“Oh,” Bernice could not decide if he was laughing with her or at her, “I thought Madame Collette was taking questions, isn’t she?”
“Lola… Lola, like the song.” Mike wasn’t going to give the girl a chance to ask specific questions. “You’re not a man are you?”
She laughed, embarrassed. “No, I’m a girl”
“A showgirl?” Mike started singing. “With yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there.” He was having a grand time, mostly because he’d kept Madame Collette from inserting herself into the conversation.
“I guess I’m sort of a showgirl.” Mike stopped singing.
“Some kind of actress? Hoping to get your break?” He loved eager young performers because he could assume they’d one day fail just as he had.
“No, I’m just a stripper, but I’m quitting soon I think. That’s why I’m calling really.” Mike had a mild twinge of panic, this was the part where Madame Collette overthrew him again and took back control of the program to deal with the caller. He cut Lola off before she could continue.
“Good for you sweetheart, you don’t need that job and the best of luck to you!”
He intended to hang up but before he could press the button, Lola said, “Oh.” And Madame Collette cut in, her voice monotonous but dominant.
“That would be most unwise.” Mike rolled his eyes, hating the old fraud for speaking up. Lola gasped quietly into the phone and begged for more details.
“How do you mean unwise? I hate the job, and isn’t sort of, you know, demeaning?” She half whispered the last word, not wanting everyone to know how much she hated herself for her career choice.
“My young child, you are loved in what you do. I sense that you have always been a comforter of people and a beautiful woman, in all your previous lives, but this has been the calling all along!” Mike hated the Jones woman as he stared at her. He was sure she never called younger women “my young child” in real life.
Bernice was surprised at this advice; she had assumed that forsaking the skin industry could only be viewed as admirable. “Don’t you think though that there’s a better way to comfort people? I mean, without taking my clothes off?”
“Dear, people are, at their basest, animals, and like all animals they need basics to survive. You don’t feed them food or water, but you are filling a need for them. Is that not love?” She paused here for emphasis. “And is love not the highest calling?”
Bernice was very confused now, she thought love was great, and loving other people was a good thing, but she wanted to hear Madame Collette tell her to leave the strip club and work in a soup kitchen or read to blind children or something. “I suppose I’ve never looked at it that way before.”
“We rarely do child, we rarely do.” Mike hated Madame Collette Jones or whatever the hell her name actually was and he wanted her out of his studio. He also hated Lola, but only because he felt sorry for her. He had been to strip clubs before and he’d never felt loved. Madame Collette continued her advising. “You are a brave girl, Lola, and I can see that you have been the comfort to many lonely souls. Hold on to your bravery.”
Mike expected Madame Collette to continue speaking. He felt as if the girl hadn’t been given any real advice to speak of. The old woman sat back in her chair and gazed at him serenely. He took it upon himself to bid the caller farewell.
“There you have it, Lola the showgirl, keep up the good work!”
Bernice said, “Thank you.” into the receiver, but the line was already disconnected. She was not thankful for the advice. When she entered her car again and turned on the radio, she heard the last advice from Midnight Mike once more, “…Lola the showgirl, keep up the good work!” Then it was on to the next caller. Bernice shut the radio off and drove to her apartment in silence. Her eyes burned, and she realized that she was at the bursting point of tears. She shook her head slowly and breathed heavily through her nose. The urge had passed by the time she arrived home. She could not sleep though, but lay awake on her mattress conflicted.


Midnight Mike was coming to the end of his program and he could not have been more impatient to be rid of Madame Collette. She was a fake and an incredibly boring one at that. He despised her slow speech and faux wisdom. Before she bid him farewell she had a gift for him.
“You may be wondering what is in this cardboard box, Michael.” Mike had been wondering, but didn’t want to give her the satisfaction, so instead he merely said,
“I can only imagine.”
“Imagine no longer!” With an unnecessary flourish she produced a brass birdcage from within the cardboard box. The cage was empty.
“Will you look at that,” exclaimed Mike falsely, “it’s certainly beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yes it is, but it’s practical too, you know, I suppose you must know that it isn’t as empty as it looks?”
“I had no idea. What exactly is inside?”
“Good fortune is inside, Michael. I’ve trapped it for you, and as long as you keep this locked up tight it will be yours!”
“I’m speechless.” He was speechless, from shock at the old woman’s stupidity, not from gratitude.
“Say nothing, except that you’ll keep it safe.” Even off the air Madame Collette appeared to buy into her own fraudulence, from what Michael saw, and he could not believe she was taking herself seriously.
“I’ll put it in my office at home, a prize possession.”
“And thank you so much for letting me be your guest.”
“Any time you want to return, just say the word!” Mike never wanted to lay eyes on the woman or her bullshit “gifts” again as long as he lived.


Mike sat in his car at the curb. 6:25 AM. He’d driven home. He had only to climb the stairs to his dumpy apartment and crawl into his bed to forget how much he hated his job and his life and all the people he’d ever wanted to be friends with. The old fraud’s birdcage sat in his passenger seat, mocking him with its worthlessness. Mimicking him with its worthlessness. He attacked it with a vengeance. He tore the small door off first, breaking the feeble lock, and then he tore the roof off and began tearing at the rods and wires that held the unimpressive cage together. He hated the woman so much, and he hated the birdcage even more. It didn’t take him long to dismantle it. Soon it was in pieces on his passenger seat. The sharp wires had etched slits in his hands and in a wild tearing motion he’d managed to put a gash in his already too-worn leather seat.
“Fuck!” He screamed as loud as he could. He held his hands in bloodied fists and beat the steering wheel repeatedly. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” His hands burned but he reveled like a twelve-year-old boy in the word he wished he could have shouted at the pathetic old fraud he’d been stuck with all night.
He gathered up the pieces of the shredded cage and dropped them in the curbside dumpster on his way into his apartment.


Bernice still couldn’t sleep. It was morning then, or anyway the sky was light outside. She snuck outside, careful not to wake her roommates. Not because she wanted them to get their sleep, but because if they woke up they would probably try to bum cigarettes off of her. She’d stolen a pack out of the owner’s office at work the night before, and she intended to enjoy each and every one exclusively.
There was no ashtray available, so she walked to the dumpster at the curb. The first cigarette was heaven in her mouth. It burned just a little, but that was alright. Like all first cigarettes it was gone too soon, so she lit a second. The second one she smoked slower. Bernice might have claimed it was the smoke that set her off, but it wasn’t. Sometime during the second cigarette the tears came and didn’t stop coming. They dripped down her cheeks and nose, clinging to her face and chin until they disappeared into her sweatshirt at her collarbone. She smoked a third cigarette and, as she had with the first two, threw the butt into the dumpster when the tobacco was exhausted. Worried that her spent cigarettes may have landed on newspaper and kindled a fire Bernice peeked into the dumpster before returning inside.
She forgot about the cigarette butts when she saw the curious mess of tangled wires and brass pieces. She thought that some of the metal looked like it was bloody. She didn’t know what possessed her to take it but she pulled from the mess two brass bars, the size of pencils and some loose wire.
Back in her room Bernice watched her roommates to make sure they were really asleep and without thinking much about what she was doing she bound the two brass pieces into a tee, winding the wire around the crossing bars. She shoved the creation under her pillow and crawled beneath her threadbare comforter again.


Bernice’s roommates never knew she was moving out until after she had done it. Somehow she’d managed to collect her possessions and vanish from the area during one of the rare times when all four girls were away from the apartment. They assumed she would be back. She never came back.
Her boss filled her late night shifts within a week. He didn’t care that she’d left without warning. She’d forgotten her last paycheck, and he strongly suspected her of stealing his cigarettes.
Bernice never heard Midnight Mike’s 1:00-6:00 AM broadcast again. Strippers and nuns keep overlapping hours, but there were only some strippers who listen to Midnight Mike, and there were no nuns.

Behind The Gym

I was walking behind the gym when this first happened to me. I say “when this first happened” but that could be called misleading because actually it’s still happening now. I was walking behind the gym when this all started.
The rose bushes hedging the path behind the gym were past their prime. The flowers were no longer white or red, but all a similar brown color and very dry. When they’re dry like this, to the point of being brittle, you can flick at the dead flowers and they’ll either snap off in a tight bundle or explode into a mess of dried out petals. I had been flicking off old heads for nearly a whole minute when without explanation I left the earth. That is to say, I started rising from the earth without effort.
Thinking back on the event it seems a good deal more preposterous than it felt at the time. It happened fast but there are things I remember about it. I looked down and could see that my shadow was disconnected from my body. I felt my backpack slipping (it was only on one shoulder at the start) so I slid my left arm through the strap to secure it. I couldn’t feel any sort of gravity on me, so it felt like I was standing still and the ground was falling away. It was very quiet. In an airplane, or a helicopter if I’d ever been in one, it is a loud droning affair to take flight. It was not so in this case.
There was an awning that extending from the roof of the gym, and ten seconds after my ascent began I had to make the choice of whether I would reach out and take hold of it to halt my climbing, or let myself float past. I caught the warm edge of a protruding girder for a second, but chose the latter and let go.
Once above the gym’s roof, the sunlight no longer obscured, I had a sudden thrill accompanied by a lurch in my stomach and a momentary urge to call out to the people below. Why shouldn’t they look and see me soaring up from behind the gym? I probably looked impressive, and at least it would give them all something to talk about. My mouth was opened, the corners of my mouth smugly upturned, and the announcement practically begun when I thought the better of it and closed my jaws with a fierce snap of my teeth.
Why should they look and see me soaring up from behind the gym? It wasn’t as if they’d be able to stop me. If there was a chance of anyone joining me I didn’t want to run that risk. This was my adventure, not some cosmic field trip, and wouldn’t it be terrific fun to watch the people scurrying around down there unaware?
I tried to remain interested in activity below me, but shortly after not making my fading presence known my mind began to wander without restraint. I wondered what sort of trip I was taking, and whether there would be a return. Would I slowly descend to my starting position? Surely I wouldn’t be pulled up to a dizzying height and released to fall. This prospect made me nervous, and I wondered if I shouldn’t perhaps have held onto the girder and contented myself with life as a human balloon, floating but anchored.
I remembered that as a self-proclaimed intellectual person the observation of candid people en masse ought to be of interest to me and I focused again on the ground. I had risen too far. I could no longer see individual people, just the shapes of buildings. My dismay did not last, I was among clouds at this point and the view on my level pushed the dismal view below further down.
They were like magnificent icebergs in the sky, which was all my feeble mind could come up with at the time. It turned out to be a better description than I knew; I was only comprehending about ten percent at that time. I started thinking of all the things I’d left on the ground. I broke things off with my girlfriend a month ago: escape from that awkwardness. I’d had no idea what to do with a degree I probably wouldn’t have finished on time anyway: how long does a university wait before they close a student’s file permanently? Everyone was always telling me how funny I was: no more cheesy grins and repeated jokes to keep them interested in me. No more worrying about my parents making ends meet to get me through school. No more calculated conversations of strict meaninglessness with my brother. No more faking. No more demands.
I thought of my calendar, on which I wrote every assignment, date and appointment of my academic, professional and personal lives. The calendar existed so that I could strike the lines through with my quick black pen as soon as each was complete. I abhorred it. I would never see it again. My eyes watered and I looked upward. The clouds were mostly below me then and the atmosphere was becoming less blue. I wondered if I’d die without air to breath in space. Maybe I was already dead. I’d always heard that the air was cold up high. I hadn’t frozen, so my fears of needing oxygen in space subsided.
When I finally estimated that I was completely free of Earth’s protective sphere, I tried drawing a breath to see if death was imminent. Nothing. I tried holding my breath. Nothing. No pain in my chest, no urge to take a breath. It was nice. As soon as thoughts of breathing slipped my mind, my body resumed thereafter-meaningless breathing. Force of habit, I concluded later.
The planet was a sight to behold. When it finally fit within my field of vision I could do nothing but marvel. Unlike a skyscraper, or a mountain, or an elephant in the eyes of an infant, this colossus was unsupported on all sides. There was grace in it being so big and at such peaceful rest. My eyes felt wet again and not wanting to have this vision marred I dried them with my bare hand. The dust from dead rose petals is not much softer than other varieties of dust, and certainly not less irritating. I spent the next minute grinding my fist against my closed eye to satisfy the itch. I would call this a mistake, but it was worse; it was my final separation.
When the itch subsided and I looked at the planet again my connection to it was gone. It wasn’t the world I’d come from; it was the size of an orange and diminishing still. I couldn’t imagine myself having ever been on it, and I couldn’t make out the shape of the continents any longer. The colors muddled together until it was just blue, and mild at that.

It isn’t like the movies out here. In some movies where space travel is involved the characters move among the stars like they were walking through a swarm of fireflies. This is heartbreakingly not the case. It’s big black and empty. I can see stars a long way from me, but I’d be exaggerating to make some romantic claim about “being among them” and if there’s one thing I won’t have it’s my slow descent into misery being sullied by romance.
Like I said, this is all still happening now. I don’t think I’ve slowed, nor have I sped up. How would I know, right? Before I was flicking the dried roses, before I took that path behind the gym even, I was in my dorm room and I decided that I’d go ahead and leave my English literature anthology on my shelf because I probably wouldn’t need it in class today (Or was it yesterday? Last week?). I’m a moron. The contents of my backpack comprised three black pens of differing brands, flashcards for a test long since passed, and a thoroughly mediocre journal which is now on its own frictionless slide through vacuum. The pack itself was made up of numerous pieces of fabric, padding, elastic strips and zippers. Disassembly was easy, and like my clothes I left the scraps as bread crumbs to follow home.
I’ll be going home soon, I’m sure. I saved my best pen of the three, the quick one. It’s so quick you wouldn’t believe it, and the line it leaves is wicked thin. My calendar isn’t going to cross itself off you know. I’ll write in a few things I’ve already done, so I can cross them off directly. I know that’s kind of like cheating but it makes the proportions look so good, and really it’s alright to balance these things out. It’s not such a bad calendar after all, I mean, it’s no space flight or anything. But it’s a nice sort of calendar and I know where it’s going.