Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
She was bewildered, as she liked to say, by the person she was; and like soul-nauseous of some inner deadness, or, maybe, not deadness but a sleeping numbness, like a soul-part that had been so constantly, and violently attacked, that it no longer felt. It, this void, sucked everything in, or distorted it. It was a monotonous routine that bored into her soul, and anchored it to the floor. It seemed like nothing was happening. The future merely seemed to be waiting for the past to swallow it. There were wide gaps of blackness littered about her memory. She could only recall small segments of her life, but the rest was in a void. But, as she liked to tell herself, repeat to herself, over and over and over, in times of self-inflicted cerebral torture: I am not a bad person. I am not a bad person. I’m not. But she knew that she probably was.
She maintained a significant other despite the constant disturbance that took place in her head. Her significant other existed exclusively, like an actual human being against the backdrop of millions of shadows. He was truly, truly, truly in love with her: truly; or, at least, that is what she used to think, and, even then, just because it sounded sweet, it sounded nice, like something worth believing in against all odds, a justifiable lunacy. There was no harm in it. He wrote her beautiful letters, and brought her hand-made gifts on random days. He was unbelievably, at least to her, sweet.
She, nevertheless, emerged each morning with unkind thoughts in her head. Each morning was on the edge of existence, living frayed, and the void smacked its Antarctic-dry mouth, waiting for her to give up, so that it could swallow her. Love made only the distance between her and the void seem further away. But lately it seemed like the love was dissolving, evaporating, and the only thing that she could do was run away, and try to place some other distancer between it, and her.
Venus, that’s her name. But no one called her that. They called her V.
V. met Mars. It was after she heard his name called thrice in roll-call, without a response, she knew she was in some sort of love with him. On the third day of the school year he was present. He walked in late, with his lazy walk, and sat in the back. It took her about a week to gather up the courage to talk to him during lunch. She went up to him, as he sucked water from a fountain that had enough sand and gunk in it to turn anybody away, and said: you’re named after a planet too? He spat on the ground, and wiped his mouth with the back of his palm, and told her: I’m named after a god, twigstick. Even his insults were sweet. V. smiled, and said: me too!
V. called Mars, M. M. and V., at first, got along merely because of their planetary names. V. brought M. over to where her and her friends ate their lunch, and that became the area in which he ate his lunch. M.’s mother brought him lunch to school because she didn‘t believe the school‘s lunches were nutritious enough for her boy, and either, for the rest of the kids. Mars did not mind that his mother was somewhat over-protective; the first day his mother brought him his lunch he went over to receive it, and he let his mother kiss him on the cheek, and when he returned he smiled, and said: my mother loves me. V. sort of entered the amative dimension first, and slowly beckoned him over, like a naked Eve, underneath the tree, with her arm lazily outstretched, and the fruit in her delicate little hand. She felt like someone who received a call from an alien planet, or a hey! from the only person with her other walkie-talkie. One night V. called M., after coming back from a house party, more than a little drunk, and told him that she loved him. Although, M. did not love her, he told her thank you, and that he loved her too. The next morning M. showed up on V.’s welcome mat, and asked her if he could walk her to school, and he did. But then he went back home to sleep since he wasn‘t a fan of his first period math class. And then every school day after that M. walked V. to school. And then V. and M. slowly started to create a privacy together.
M.‘s father was a clear eccentric. He lined the edges of their yellowish yard with small-scaled Roman statues, or Mesoamerican square-headed children. He also decorated the walls of their living room, and bathroom, with paintings by Francisco Toledo, that he himself replicated. M., more than half of the days of the week, brought V. over for dinner where she was kindly received; except that M.’s father on more than one occasion mentioned to M. that she seemed more than a little inauthentic, noting the way her opinions could be easily swayed, and a self-conscious air she usually emitted while eating, and the little lies he could easily detect. M.’s mother loved them both with notable heart, like the mother of a bunch of lunatics. His mother (used to) read poetry, by Netzahualcoyotl, or other poet-kings, to him at bed-time. His father read to him the myths of the Mayan, Aztec, Nahua, Sumerian, Egyptian. Both of Mars parents had not graduated from college; although, his mother did receive a nurses certificate, and continued to nurse, while her husband worked as a mover for his own moving company.
A year after M. had first dinged V.’s doorbell he wanted to take her to the lake to have themselves a picnic. As they walked the trail M. told V. that all the flowers in the world were for her, and that he would prove it to her, and so throughout the trail M. yanked out any nice-looking flower, illegal or not, and collected them for her. V., with the unbearably sweet gesture that was no longer necessary, excessive even, slowly started to unravel her pretty mood, like the way handwriting starts off legible, and then goes hay-wire, because she knew that on this day she would tell him. M. didn’t notice it because he merely enjoyed her presence. He could live on her existence, he told her once. It took them more than a couple of hours, since M. was a bit of lollygagger, when it would usually take them a little under an hour, to reach their destination.
M. and V. strolled across a park, and chose an ideal position for a picnic. She spread the blanket underneath the shade of a fat tree, and M. placed the basket on it.
It was a very clean day, bright and thin. Trees in the gentle throes of the wind. The lake was an earthly color, deep and permanent. It felt as if there was no distance between them, and the sky.
They ate, and watched birds squawking around the lake, pecking at what might be food. V. noticed a bird with a sick leg. It curled into itself, the leg. M. stared at the sunshine glittering on the lake surface. We should give her some bread. Okay. M. reached down, and grabbed the top slice of the loaf, and stood up, and walked the bread over to V, and said: do it. And then he walked back to the blanket.
V. beckoned the pigeon over like she would a dog, with knee pats and easy whistles. I don’t think birds respond to that, V. She tore a piece of the bread, and threw it near the bird. The sick-legged bird. The bird did not react, and, instead, hopped away. This frustrated V. Damn hopping bird. Eat what I give you. You should coo, M. said. Coo, coo, coo. The bird hopped around, with its clucking neck. V. followed it, and threw pieces of bread near the bird, but it kept running away. I want to help you birdy.
V. returned to the blanket, and knelt herself down in front of M. I want that bird. M. looked at her, and told her: when I strike oil in my backyard, and I get me a ton’a money, I will buy one of every kind of bird in the Amazon for you; I love you; Yes, I know; Good; Very.
V. told him he loved him just to see if she still did. To find out whether the words weighed anything. V. had always been quick to tell her boyfriends she loved him, even when she knew that she didn‘t. It was a reflex, or some-like strategy. Unlike M., who had only ever uttered the phrase to his parents, and rarely ever replied to his previous girlfriends, but sort of huh‘d with his soul, and the relationships soon ended, awkwardly. V. was the first one that he actually loved, or something like it.
V. sat still, and gazed at the heavy color of the lake. Birds flew in the blue sky, curved in a free roaming phalanx attacking nothing. He stared at the back of her head, sunlit brown, and the pretty bow that twirled, and brought her hair together. V. can barely comprehend anything about the moment. She looked at the lake, at the waddling trees, at the far-off shadowed hills and mountains, but her thoughts had taken a hold of her. M. could sense when V.’s pretty head was engorged with thoughts.
M. turned his sight from V. to the lake, and the trees, and said: when you see the amount of meaning the world already has, it seems silly that so many people try to top it, to add to it. It all ends with confusion, angst, all those wicked blues. All that extra thinking will construct filters, world filters, reality filters, and drags us further away from it. All those abstract and complex thoughts that haunt our, mine, anyway, mind sucks us back into our heads, and we forget about the world because we are so caught up with our own invisible problems. It’s strange as hell that something as beautiful as life can be so right in front of you, and you can still miss it. I mean what are people looking at?
V. wandered her lips about her face, thinking profusely. She could feel her thoughts waggling in her head with jagged edges. M. told her to stop thinking so much, once, but that never helps. Milo needs me more than Mars does. I know she does. My identity holds hers by the hand. She’s nothing without me. She hurts so much I need to care for her. I need her to need me. I need that. I want it.
For the last few months V. had been ambivalent about her relationship with M. She, also, started thinking her mind was falling apart. She had let her thoughts strip her of reality. She couldn’t talk to anyone close to her about it, for fear of judgment, but, no, not judgment, some unnamable fear that hid behind words, behind feelings. She signed up for an Out of the Blues group. There she met Milo, a girl who shamelessly asked for compliments and cried at nearly every group, almost like she was doing it on purpose. Milo was a lesbian, as she made it very clear to any male that sat next to her. V. went up to Milo, before group started, as she smoked a cigarette, and bummed one off her, even though she herself did not smoke. They chatted, and chatted, and after the smoke they sat next to each other in group. Then weeks later the therapist asked the group to tell the person sitting next to them one nice thing. Venus told Milo that she had cute hair. Milo told Venus, even though it was supposed to be a clockwise rotation, that she was the most beautiful girl she had ever seen, and that she knew she loved her from the first moment she came into the group. V. told her that she loved her too, even though she knew she didn’t. And soon after that they stopped attending group. V. never told her about M., and even said she was a lesbian too. Milo told her all about her awful life, and V. listened, like some half-hearted humanitarian would listen to the problems of an orphan born in an African slum, with awhs, and poor dears added for effect.
M. liked the quietness of moments uninterrupted by speech, and he savored them. Silence is a wonderful thing, and it‘s everywhere. M. has no idea what V. is thinking about. M. wasn’t really thinking about anything, besides some apparent movement-like thoughts. He let an ant crawl up his hand, and arm. And he just looked at it.
When M. was seven years old, on a boring day during recess, stared at the sun. He parted his eyelids wide-open, and forced his glare on it. His eyes teared, and it was the moment he realized that honest beauty is painful.
The world is a terrifyingly beautiful place, he said to her.
V. really liked Mars. But, there are situations where that doesn’t matter. V. knew she would break his heart eventually, but she was dreading the days ‘til. She just let the relationship drag on for as long as she could until it slipped out of the ever-moving hand of the present. She was a coward. She knew it. But, that never matters.
She wanted to tell him that she had met Milo. Even though she knew that she did not have to tell him; she could have just as easily broken up with him. No questions asked.
V. couldn’t recall, or remember, a single instance that M. showed any form of negative inclinations. M. was a profoundly decent person, and an even more so lover; but M. did not have the functions that Venus required, the immediate compatibility, the same emotional waves, the vulnerable honesty, or, at least, that is what she told herself, just in case he asked. The lies she used to cover up the truth.
Her soul shivered to a chilly abstraction like some massive fear.
M. sat with a foot tucked under him, and arms to the ground, holding him up. He moved his gaze slowly along anything that caught his eye, with his lips barely revealing his inward smile.
She did not want to hurt him.
V. stood, and walked over near the edge of the lake, and placed her palms on her hips. I like that I have to take care of her. I’m worth so much to her. M. inhaled, puffed out his cheeks, and held it for a moment, for two, three - exhaled. Breathing is under-rated. Existence even more so, darling bird.
She turned her head, and blew him a kiss, half-heartily, like a old starlet sick of the spotlight, a starlet that wanted not just the spotlight, but to be the director, the writer, and the creator of the stage. This would be a lot more easy if he was an asshole, V. thought.
He came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and placed his underchin on her nape. Her hair was thin, and had a synthetic-like texture to it. V. had colored her hair many times. She was born with black hair. You hair smells like cigarettes, M. told her.
V. can see inside of her head M. being oddly sad, with that gaze of his staring nowhere. Also, Milo, and Milo’s anxiety attacks; she thought that she did not feel like she was needed by M., but rather merely wanted, merely loved. She wanted someone that would need her, to need her words and presence to cope with the world. Milo needed Venus to cope with the world. Milo loved her like a maniac, like a stalker, like someone that would kill herself if ever left alone, without her, without Venus. It wasn’t about love; it was about feeling important to yourself by being very important to another person; it was about control.
M. released her, and stood next to her, and gazed at the lake.
When you see the world for what it actually is, it’s tough not to see it rushing at you, realizing that it’s not just about you, you’re walking on Earth, you’re an Earthling. I’m pretty sure that existence is meaning. The meaning of life isn’t a question, it’s just existence with an unnecessary question mark. Like the so-called meaning of life is just humans way of feeling insecure, not being content with what’s already here, the beauty that wraps around us like gravity. Tsk. Damn girl, the world loves us. Aren’t we lucky?
V. managed to catch fragments of what he was saying, but she was being pulled apart by thoughthorses, of Milo and Mars; and whether what she was doing, going to do, was the right choice. It was a selfish choice. She was a selfish person. She grew up with easy parents.
V. sat herself down.
Why aren’t you saying anything?
V. kept silent, twiddling the grass at her ankles, with a look of being very lost in sadness.
Is everything alright?
V. really wanted to cry; she really, really wanted to. But, she didn’t. She turned her head slightly, and faced Mars who stared down at her , looking at her like his heart would break if everything wasn’t alright. He cared for her. But she wanted more than to be cared about.
And then it happened.
It came as a devastating recoil, and neither of them said anything for several long moments, and then Mars coughed, like a cramp-on kick to an icewall, and they talked again, in angled and awkward phrases, and when he stood up and walked off she let him leave without saying much of anything.
And when he left she felt like the inner darkness was erupting. Moments later the sick-legged bird came, and snatched the bread off the grass. V. kept still, and quiet. She nibbled on her bottom lip, and looked at the world like one would look at a very original work of art.
And then she cried.
Monterey 2010