Unfree

My desk is a piece of art. That is because I see it every day. It is lithe, angular, white like marble. It stretches from one corner to another, a liaison between two walls, between two pieces of my life: the actual and the mediated. The former is growing scarcer, I’m loath to report, because school. I’m too afflicted with chronic vexation to elaborate on this sore topic. Suffice to say that it’s been some good weeks since I’ve left campus. Bill’s doesn’t count, though, since it’s still Forsyth and the presence of the College magnetizes, malevolent, even there.

No, one must be at least ten miles away to feel freedom. Freedom is felt chiefly with the ears, in case you didn’t know. It’s probably the legacy of our ancestors the dogs. When you’re rolling on a road, any godforsaken road, window down, ears flapping in the wind, and you’re moving away and not toward, that’s the life. You feel yourself liberated, the shackles undone. You rub your wrists to alleviate the pain or to check if they’re still there. Yes, I have a body, you conclude exhilarated, a whole body not just an ass, not just flesh that sits but flesh that moves and runs, blood that flows with glee delivered from stagnation. You rediscover small organic weaknesses like panting and flushing from all the movement, and it’s like an epiphany.

You want to run and hug strangers on the street, tell them you’re so happy that legs hold you up, that there’s all this sinew that you’d forgotten about, and it’s still there, and you’d almost lost hope, thought you’d turned to stone sitting at your desk, probably your resting place too. You used to be Homo Erectus, but adapting to the circumstances had developed into Homo Sedentarius. What a bad dream, you shake it off at once. Then you come to, and your fingers are still typing, eyes narrowed into the incandescent screen. It was the escape that was the dream. You’re not going anywhere. Still Homo Sedentarius, wasting your time with callow daydreams. And in the meantime, there’s the desk.

Fifty pages of pompous poppycock, equals exactly two weeks of zombie-scribbling, equals coffee scent that’s so deep into my clothes, into my flesh, that I’ve resigned myself to making it permanent. But hold that razor – I think the end is near. Everybody hates their thesis, he tells me, and I nod. But no, wait a minute, actually, I wanted to like it. In fact I remember a time when I did, it seems an antediluvian time, it must have been before I plunged into the quagmire headfirst, thinking it was water. I couldn’t see well, it was dark. Now this slimy creature’s enslaved me and won’t let me go. He says his name’s Perfection, the bully, but I just call him Dick, since that’s what he is. The end is near, I whisper to quiet myself down. The end is near. The sobs are dying down. One more guileful promise like this and I’ll fall asleep.

Friends? I don’t know you anymore. I’m quite lost to the world, as the situation will have it, but there’s still hope left for you. So save yourselves. Just run, toward the light. I’ll just close these blinds to see the screen better, and I think I’ll seal them with tape too, since I don’t think I’m ever getting out of here. And you know what? get me some chocolate when you’re out, please.

Into the tunnel

Seven a.m. and Georgia rain says Good Morning, rapping relentlessly on my hood, seeping deep into my shoes. Yeah, well, fuck you too. Steam envelops my glasses and I greet this person I bump into, accidentally touch her breast to steady myself. Ha, ha, it’s all right, she says affectedly, and I’m sure she’s making unflattering remarks about me on the inside. Of course we can never say what we mean.

So, what do I think about when I’m swimming? Nothing in particular. I move after dictation from the clock, a prepossessing supervisor really, more a foe than a friend. Speed is distance over time, I tell myself while wheeling my arms backwards in continuous motion. Whatever the result it’s not enough, so I smack my lips in dissatisfaction, spit the pool water out of my mouth and fasten my seatbelt for godspeed. The woman in the other lane is hefty and breathes hard. She smiles at me from a distance, I only see a fuzzy spot where her face would be, the pixels slightly shifting. I smile back half-heartedly. Maybe she wasn’t really smiling at me.

And as I amble to the cafeteria to be fed I can only think of one thing. A fifty page endeavor that’s still in embryo. I’ve foreshadowing promises of pride about it, as if from a child I’ve spawned. But not yet. Now there’s only the idea, like the potential energy of an object that has weight but doesn’t do anything. I predict nights of feverish writing in the night, the rush of caffeine already placebo to me, given that energy from ideas and prickly fingers on a keyboard is so much more nutritious than any energizing drink. This is me being positive. An angle I’m not used to.

Is this treatise going to be ready on time? The devil sits perked on my shoulder, the other shoulder angelless, and whispers all sorts of discouragements in my ear. His lips tickle, suck the sleep away until there’s no serenity left. Four in the morning comes, worries haunt me and I’m nowhere near action. I’ve potential energy, you’d argue. Thus hopelessly stuck at cathode, say, where’s that positive angle when I need it? Why doesn’t optimism visit more often? I’m not old and smelly. I don’t talk too much. I don’t understand. I crawl back into my cave and wait.

The rush or the patience

"I’ve been blinded by glitter and gold
My eyes need to rest from this light
And sleep well at night."

If I could get drunk every day, I’d forget a little. I’d loosen up, you’d say, but with loose not being my manner at all, I’m not entirely sure it would be a good thing.

Too many ideas and too human a body, not even fit to grapple with sleep deprivation anymore. Getting old, is this what you were talking about? Perhaps it’s abuse taking its toll, a visceral reaction to this Poker I’m playing with my future. “Going for a straight?” he asks tentatively, nudging me with his elbow. I’m not that lucky, I whisper to myself. “Come on, girl, play,” they beckon. “It’s a full house in here. “ Give me a minute, I can’t hear myself think, I plead, flushed. There’s too much noise here. Perhaps I should step outside, I whisper to myself between swift hands exchanged.

Perhaps I should step outside, I goad myself in the rear-view mirror as I sit in my car clasping the wheel. Ready to take off. Destination irrelevant. Into the real world, as she and I chuckle between bites at lunch. Our lives are makeshift, insubstantial like bubbles of soap. Only time is real and inclement, like an ice storm beating you up after you’re cold and wet and hunched with the weight on your shoulders. Target nowhere in sight. Or, maybe, somewhere beyond the fog, beyond the manic suspension, maybe it’s there. We’re creatures of hope, after all.

They say, life is what happens while we are busy making other plans. If this is life then what is living? Is it flurry, Brownian movement? Is it the rush or the patience?

* The Cardigans - Lead Me into the Night

From the Calendar, with Love

Here is a January of more guilt, more crumpled sticky notes on the floor, items half-checked off to-do lists. Postponed. Everything postponed while I am trying to graduate from this beloved institution and off into the godforsaken land of no-jobs. Everybody complains about the future, while my future is now and I'm staring it right in the face. Wanna step outside, future? I say, brandishing my silver tongue.

If only there were more time, I grumble as afternoons segue into late nights and mea culpas, and futile questions like, why in the world would I take a whole hour for dinner? Did I really need to hear all that? To hear myself talk, to hear them babble? Why can't I be a hermit as befitting my career goals? And so on. I will eradicate meals, it's the only way.

So this is the last lunch we have together, I told her. February is my month, censorship of activities enabled, entertainment be damned. I'll be a Road Runner through the cafeteria, gone before you know it, too fast even for hellos. You'll see. February's for 50-page papers and more overnights in the dark room. It's all about timing, my dear, and you should understand since you sleep so little, too. So after I told her all this with a grave voice we stayed, nostalgic, in the cafeteria until dinnertime, for five hours or so just talking, with the surly staff cleaning around us, assuring us we're not in the way. We stayed, for the last time. Unless they have cookies tomorrow.

And now, the February of guilt, staring me right in the face. Come on, February, wanna step outside with me?