Friday, May 24, 2013

The Tempest

It’s late on a Friday afternoon, and I’m alone in my dorm room. I ceremoniously rip up his handwritten note, but can’t quite bring myself to release the bits of torn paper from my hand. I, instead, hold them clenched in my right fist.

I go for a walk and end up in the music building where I wander around through the empty corridors before finding a trash bag that is definitely going to the dumpster that night. I release the crumpled, and now damp from the sweat of my hand, paper pieces, and watch them flutter in around the rest of the trash in the bag. I then push down the feelings of overwhelming sadness that threaten to envelope me and decide I have to try and wear myself out with exercise. I decide to swim as I’m certain I can’t cry with my goggles on.

I dive into the cold water.

The school only just reopened the pool two weeks ago and there hasn’t been time for it to come up to its usual temp yet. The rush of this icy sheath against my skin seems to purge my senses at first and I think I am saved by this baptism. Stroke after stroke, with only the sound of my own body rhythmically breathing in and blowing out air, I do ten laps, then twenty. As I make the turn into lap 28 . . . epiphany. I know how I will respond. I suddenly can’t wait to finish swimming but can’t stop. My speed picks up, thirty laps, forty laps, fifty. The adrenaline surge kicks in—a mile. My fingers and toes are now numb. Anesthetized.

I should have recognized the first signs. But, I don’t. Everyone in the dorm is exhausted. Exams are next week. But, I am wide awake and not tired. I type up my bitter response and then head to bed. Lying in bed, I start to shiver and the tears start to come. Sleep eludes me most of the night.

On Saturday, I clean my room, trying to work, work, work, seeking the solace of exhaustion. I do some studying and, at night, drink warm milk depending upon its soporific qualities. It works. I sleep from 11:30 to 4:30 and then fitfully until 7:30 on Sunday. At 8:00 I write, write, write, trying desperately to puke up something more meaningful than the hairball of bitterness that’s forming in my belly. I’m not jealous—a state of mind I can’t even imagine myself into—although his disclosure that it is Leslie Solinski is a literary irony that would put even Charles Dickens to shame. I swim another mile and write, write, write. I have decided not to send my first response and have written something much, much shorter.

At the start of a relationship, there’s mutual consent. The end can take place by the sheer will of one. It is a rape of sorts where the will of one person is forced upon another without consent. In our case, it is especially difficult for me to understand as it seemed by all standards I am used to monitoring in a relationship, everything was great, headed for a climax of magnificent proportions.

The only clue I have that my body needs food is the gnawing sensation in my gut. Nothing has a taste and I force feed myself with what I remember to be my favorite foods. I can’t even tell if I’m full only that the gnawing has stopped. Monday morning comes and I’m still gagging on my own saliva, finding his announcement difficult to swallow. I work on a problem that’s been hounding me for a month. I actually might pass the statistics exam. I run a mile and half even though the cigarettes I like to smoke on weekends make my chest burn. I try to find my sense of humor in the top-40 tunes that play through my radio imagining that he feels the way some of those songs sound. Around 6:00 I feel the melancholy start to move through my bloodstream, a knock resounds on my frontal lobe and inside my head I scream, “Go away!”

Day four . . . oh Christ! I’d forgotten this part—the self-loathing begins. “You are an idiot; did you really think it would last? You’re not pretty enough, sexy enough, you make yourself too available, you love too easily.” Synapses firing like a semi-automatic, I have an insatiable desire to know everything about her. How did they meet? How long has it been going on? Besides her being so very near him, what else attracts him? Where does she live? Does he sleep with her? But, most importantly . . .  does she treat him well? I want him, above all else, to be happy.

I am angry in a selfish way. He has not entirely ended us. I think, “How dare he suppose that I could possibly understand? Has he no mercy for my feelings? Be a man, thrust the dagger in all the way, kill me completely, but don’t leave me suffering like a wounded animal. If you’re going to close the door, close it all the way. Leaving it open a crack is cruel.” I wonder at this keeping the door open. Why is that? What does trust have to do with all of this? I am so grateful for that open door.

I take a shower and snap, another synapse fires. I ball up my second response and throw it in my trash can. I compose a third one.

Dear Thomas,
Your bomb successfully landed and since I am already your conquered nation, your wish is my command. I noticed you left the door open a crack, so I’ll return the favor and leave a candle burning in the window. Must say, I was surprised considering . . . well that’s irrelevant now I suppose, so never mind.

The Tempest; Act 5, Scene 1  MIRANDA O, wonder!; How many goodly creatures are there here!; How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in’t!


Copyright DJ Anderson, 2007

1 comment:

  1. From a friend through email: Enjoyed as usual. She ended up sounding so calm, cool and collected, completely in charge of her emotions, unscathed by the brutality of the message. Oh, the trials we go through to appear whole rather than reveal the anguish of being blotted out by pain of rejection and not being "enough." Good thing they were typed responses that could be contained and disposed of rather than an email that offers simply the momentary pause between dignity and "send."

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