1_30

Origin

The Roman poet Sextus Propertius gave us the earliest form of this saying in Elegies:
"Always toward absent lovers love's tide stronger flows."

The contemporary version appears in The Pocket Magazine of Classic and Polite Literature, 1832, in a piece by a Miss Stickland:
'Tis absense, however, that makes the heart grow fonder.

The phrase was also source material for the lewd wordplay:
"Absinthe makes the fart grow stronger".

He called her again that evening. She didn't answer. "Hey, I didn't catch you this morning, so I thought I'd try again. I know you've been complaining that I don't call as often as I should, but you know that I hate phone conversations."

He paused to take a breath and think about his next words. "I just wish you could be here, and we were face-to-face, you know, like we used to be."

He had rehearsed this conversation before he dialed. He didn't remember his lines. "It's just hard, because you're not here, and I can't . . . I hate phones."

Silence greeted him.
"Well, I just thought I'd call and let you know how much I miss you, and I love you and stuff, and . . . It's hard being apart, you know? Wait up, I'm getting a call--"

It was her on the other line.

"Hey, baby?"

"What's up? I'm sorry, I missed your call, it's pretty loud here."

"What did you say?" He plugged his other ear and still couldn't hear what she was saying.

"I said I'm sorry I missed your call. What did you want?"
"I'll call you back later. It's too hard to hear you." He was yelling at the phone, getting frustrated.
"No, if it's important, tell me now!"

"It's not, just . . . where are you?"
"Oh, you know - at a friends'. Why, where are you?"

"I'm studying. I . . . nevermind."

"You called me for something!"

"While I've got you here, let me tell you about this crazy thing that happened to me today!"

He paused and listened to the thumpthumpthump in the background and the yelling voices and the shrill scream of the woman he missed.

Then she stopped talking and he heard a different voice. "Hey, who is this?"

"Where's Stacy?"

"Dude, she's at a party, and you're harshin' the vibe, bro. Cell phones no comprendo fiesta, mi hombre!"

Fratboy. "Dude, that's my girlfriend. Can you just give her back the phone?"

"No can do, bud."

"Who the heck are you? Can I just get Stacy back, I have to say goodbye."

"Whatever, man."

"Hey, sorry!"
"Who the heck was that?" He tried not to sound angry.

"That's my ex, I was just over at his house, and--"

His phone made a pinging sound as it bounced down the hallway.

1_29

It slipped my mind.

Why do we say that? Slip? How does that make any sense? Do memories run too fast down the slope of your consciousness and fall right off the edge? Or do they hurl themselves, face-first?

Mine seem of the hurling variety.

"I'm sorry, I didn't remember what your birthday was. I'll mark it on my calendar." And I forget to mark it on my calendar so that I can have a chance to forget to look at it so that I can have a chance to forget that your birthday is coming up.

"I'm sorry, was it our anniversary? Is that important?" It's just a date, anyway. A single unit out of 365 that just happens to have significance to you.

"I'm sorry, was it my turn to walk the dog?" Because he's fat anyway, so I doubt it will make a difference.

"I'm sorry, were you not my wife? I got so caught up in the moment that I forgot."

I guess I should work on that.

1_28

I don't want to start. Are you joking? That's too many words to write, and I have no idea how I'm going to fill them. I don't even want to fill them.

At a certain point, my mind rebels against responsibility. If it's small and achievable, then sure. I'll do that. You want your basket carried to the car? No sweat. If it's big and impossible, you'll see the back of my head as I run away. You want me to write what? No, but thanks.

And now I've got myself all backed up into a corner because I have no idea about what I'm going to write. I don't want to write. Here, let me just watch a youtube video. It was posted by one of my friends, and they'll ask if I saw it. I can't lie to them! I'll forget about it otherwise! Just . . . three minutes. I'll start in three minutes.

Thirty minutes and seven videos later, I realize that I've been slacking off. OKAY I say, this is the time. I'm going to start.

Ooh, an email.

I'll just respond to that.

And someone commented on my status update. And my photo. And Janice's photo. And Greg's wall.

Twenty minutes and a hundred comments later, I realize that I've typed a lot - but not on what I needed to type.

I minimize the browser. I close the music player. I stare at the screen and open my eyes wider and wider and wider and wider until they feel like they're gonna pop out of my skull.

I open my word processor and type the word "The." See? Now that you've started, you're three fourths of the way to completing your paper. Good job.

1_27b

I should stop dating these, because it just shows that I missed a day. But . . . now that I've started the pattern, I don't think I can stop.

He blinked his eyes four times to clear his vision and then closed them again to concentrate. He focused on the one noise that he could hear: the air conditioner, its heavy hum sitting hard on his chest. He shifted so that he could hear it equally in both ears. He balanced on his toes, leaning forward just enough so that he was on the edge of falling. He put his hands out as counterweight and one arm hit the lamp. He cursed and turned, slapping the lamp with his other arm.

He gave up and sat down.

His project sat unfinished, almost complete: a house of cards. He was on the last layer. First four triangles, then three, then two, now one. And if he does it wrong, it all comes down. The air conditioner hummed annoyingly in one ear. He shifted to face it, and felt it in both ears and his chest, sitting equal and heavy. He turned the thermostat up, and the condenser stopped humming. He flipped his attention back to the cards. He reached for the vital pair of cards and lifted them carefully to the top of the house. His hands were shaking, and his nausea came back.

He got up, and balanced on his toes. Carefully avoiding the lamp, he stretched his arms out to full extension and then brought them together in front and touched them together. He slowly settled back down to the balls of his feet. One foot rested on a cord, raised slightly. He could feel it through his shoe.

He walked back and sat down. He could still feel the cord. He stood up, walked over, and stepped on the cord with his other foot.

Then he jumped in the air, landing on his heels, knocking all sensation of the cord away. He did the balance exercise again, landing perfectly on his heels with no cord underneath.

The nausea was gone.

He sat down, and lifted the cards to the top of the house. Both of his feet tapped in rapid unison. He held the cards over the house, and with careful precision, slowly let them settle to the top surface of the house. He didn't breathe. He didn't move. He didn't think. His eyes got bigger and bigger until the cards were perfectly balanced unshifting perfect in absolutely the right alignment and they would never fall as long as he held them but he had to let them go and see what would happen and the air conditioner turned on, loud in one ear, and he twitched and yelled and the cards settled as if in slow motion to the ground, slipping off the desk and on the desk and all over kingdom come and he vomited, long and hard, into the wastebasket.

OCD: 1

Mind over Matter: 0

1_27a

More catching up to do. I suck at daily blogging, I really do.

He flew from commitment like an arrow flies from a string. And not just marriage (though Lord only knows how marriage would twist him into a pretzel) but employment and mortgages and even dating. The phrases "over the course of six months, you" and "in the future we will" and "reconvene tomorrow to decide about" made him run like a horse out of the gate. He had nothing more than passing friendships, transitive and changing relationships on which he couldn't rely for longer than five minutes at a time.

"Hey, what's your name?"

"Oh, I'm Ted."
"I'm Stephen. I lost my wife around here somewhere--you haven't happened to see a tall, beautiful redhead anywhere, have you?"

"I saw a woman over that way by the handbags."
"She would! Thanks . . . ?"
"Stephen."

"Thanks Stephen."

And with that, Ted entered the holy sanctum of inner circles, and he knew as much about Stephen's life as anyone else.

Don't blame him, though. He has his reasons. He pushes everyone away because he's too afraid of letting them down. He doesn't want to promise something that he can't deliver. He doesn't want to fall through on someone who expects something of him. He doesn't want to leave the earth an unhappier place because he was here. He doesn't want to break his word.

Because in the end, that's all he has. Well, that and cancer.

1_25

Day doesn't end until I go to bed.

I decide how long my day is, not some arbitrary Roman with a penchant for astronomy. I can stay up until (what should be four) whenever I want. As soon as my head hits the pillow, that's when my day ends.

I'm pushing back the clock.

I'm stopping time.

It's still the 25th. It's still the 25th. It's 1:00am, the morning of the 26th. It's the 25th. If I tell myself enough times, I'll remember that it's true. I'll remember telling myself, and forget the moment that I ever decided.

Why are memories so much stronger than decisions? Resolutions are broken every year, and old habits remembered. Old sorrows renewed, new joys postponed. Old days lengthened until geriatric, filling the hospital beds and pushing out the baby days, still embryonic at the small hours of the night - why am I killing the young in favor of the old?

In minutes, I'll sleep, knifing once and for all this 25th day of January, year of our Lord 2009, Earth-time. It won't come back. One more opportunity to make a decision, gone. One more botched day to remember.

Someday, though, I'll make the decision to start making memories with you.

Wait for me.

1_24b

He always got the best grades.
Teachers loved him. Professors ate him up. His parents bragged to their friends "My son is in honor roll marching band student association math club deans list." His friends asked him for notes. Friends of friends asked him to proofread.

His car was broken, his grandmother was lonely, his dog was fat, his clothing was ratty, his room was messy, and he was completely alone.

And yet . . . he always got the best grades.

1_24a

He knew it was cold, because of the sound of the snow. When snow is so cold that it's dry, it squeaks as you step on it. The tiny grains make so much friction that they protest as they rub against each other. Squeak.

He knew it was cold, because of the way his breath fell. When it's cold enough outside, your breath rises as soon as it leaves your mouth and it doesn't even wait to stop moving forward. The condensation escapes towards heaven.

He knew it was cold, because his clothes crackled with every step. When it's cold enough outside, the fibers in cloth freeze and break as you walk.

He knew it was cold, but he couldn't feel it. When it's cold enough outside, your system shuts down and your brain starts eating itself.

He knew he was dying, but there was no stopping it now.

1_22b

"She flips out way too easily," he thinks.

"Get out of my car!" she screams, slamming on the breaks and throwing him forward.

"Really? Seriously? You're gonna kick me out?" He flips the door open too hard, and it slams again on his leg. He kicks the door and hauls himself out. Slam, and it's closed again. "Whatever. (*&#ing women."

He leans over to say he's sorry through the open window, but she almost clips his head as she peels out and away. He overbalances, pulling away, and sits down hard on the sidewalk. He wouldn't have meant it anyway. "Okay. I'll . . . wait." He flips his feet out in the road and leans back on the grass.

"She'll be back any minute now. I don't even have to walk to my house, I'll just stay here, and wait. I'll just stay here. . . ." Five minutes pass.

"She's gotta be just driving up. That sounds like her car." He raises his head a little to see the wrong car go by. "She'll be here any minute now. She can't leave me. #$&%ing woman." He sets his head back down. Ten minutes pass.

He sits up. His eyebrows are so close to his eyes that they fill half of his vision. His jaw is clenched so tight he can almost taste the pressure. His fists clench and unclench. Clench and unclench. He stands up. His legs tighten as he pulls in air. He lets it out, slowly.

"She'd better come back any #&(!))#(@$* minute now."

She didn't.

1_22a

"Get out of my car!" she screamed and slammed on the brakes. He flipped the door open and sulked out. The tires squealed and she sped away as fast as the asphalt would take her. Tears blurred her vision as she tore his watch off her wrist.

He cursed like a sailor.

He neglected her.

He forgot what was important to her.

He burped.

He was crude.

He was lewd.

He was shamelessly flirtatious with other women.

He was a lack-luster lover.

He never clipped his toenails.

He was pushy.

He was emotionless.

He was missing a molar.

He had poor taste in music.

He had horrendous friends.

He was unfaithful.

She slammed on the brakes again, yelling monosyllabic, guttural, animal, and wild.

Why was she in front of his house?

1_20

He is bubbly.

He is talkative.

He is smiling.

He is sad.

Everything he does, someone does better. He doesn't get the best grades, or draw the best pictures, or make the funniest jokes, or have the most friends. He doesn't sing, or dance, or love, or write, or jump, or anything better than anyone else. He has no identity. He's not "the guy with glasses." He's not "the guy with a fast car." He's not "the guy who ran three miles." He's nobody.

And he hides it, because if somebody else finds out--if somebody else notices that he has no identity, he'll break. Snap. Crumble. They'll laugh, and he'll have no response. "What are you good at?" Crunch. Crack. "What do you want to do when you grow up?" An implosion on a personal scale.

As long as he can hide the fact that he has no idea what he's doing, he'll be alright.

1_19

Dear Diary:

What?

She said no, but . . . I asked why. Note to self: never question why. She didn't have a reason, which is worse than having a reason, because it means that she doesn't even value me enough to come up with one. She just turned me down.

Cold.

Flat.

Nonchalant.

"No."

I was expecting the "let's be friends instead" speech. What I got was like . . . ten times worse. I got "You're a great guy and I'm sure you'll make some girl happy someday." What is that even supposed to mean? I'm a great guy, but I'm not good enough for you? GREAT <>cuuuuuuuuse me if I got the wrong idea. I guess I'll just start dating for kicks and giggles now.

"Hello, ma'am. You look like a ho, so I assume that you'll be easy to get into bed. Are you free on Saturday night?"

I can't deal with Maggie right now. Ugh, her name sounds like a curse word now. Maggie.

For the first time in months, I'd rather do World Civ than think about Maggie.

1_18c

Dear Diary:

. . .

Seriously? Black mood right now. I asked her out - totally suave and everything. I got a rose and I put it in her book bag. She saw it and just looked up at me, so I said "It's weird if I give you flowers when you're not my girlfriend, right? So I have a remedy for that . . ." and she looked at me funny, so I just had to finish my statement, of course, and it was really awkward because I could see what was coming and I said ". . . do you wanna be my girlfriend?" Then I crossed my fingers and toes and waited.

BLACK MOOD RIGHT NOW.

She said she'd think about it. Think about it? Really? Is that all you got? Its a simple question, yes or no. I won't explode if you say no. Frikkin' women!

If I could express myself using my pencil it would look like kkkkfggjttbkdddtbfkkkcccxckttfqxc. A string of harsh consonants and anger.

I guess she hasn't said "no" yet, so I'm technically still in "consideration." I hate my life.

1_18b

Day 2 of makeup.

Dear Diary: I think you know about her already . . . I've certainly talked about her enough. But I just don't want to put it on paper. That makes it so final, so definite.
Maggie.
Oooooooooo tingly. But seriously, she's awesome, and beautiful and amazing and . . . I think I have to say it. I have to man up and say what I need to say. I like her. A lot. (Big surprise.) There, it's on paper, with pen, and I can't take it back. It's as if I wrote it using blood, straight from my heart. There's no taking that crap back. Maggie Maggie Maggie Maggie Maggie. I'm acting a little immature, here, and I really really need to stop if I'm going to take myself seriously.
How am I going to ask her out? CRUSHING DESPAIR this sucks I have no way to do it. I could ask "Hey, Maggie? I want you to be my girlfriend STUPID STUPID THAT IS STUPID. Ugh. Why does this have to be so hard? Okay, I've got to plan my phrasing. I've got to sound like I know what I'm doing. Wear a tux. I have to be like "Friday? You're free? Well, I suppose I can spend that time with you, but I'll have to do it after I play poker with my friend who is a spy." I wanna be James Bond so much. I can ask her . . .

1_18a

Wow, I skipped 2 days this time. On the plus side, I always make them up. Will you forgive me, Lale?

fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggghis head whipped up off of the keyboard. Mr. Larret just looked at him.
"What's up, boss?"
"I need you to get back to work. Tomorrow, get a full night's rest, okay? We can't deal with this again."
"Alright, I'm sorry." His cheek stung in the pattern of his keyboard. He could feel the homerow pressed into his cheekbone. He could probably type on his face.
He tried to stay awake. His heart slowed, so he bounced his legs and squeezed his toes, trying to keep blood circulating. His mind blanked, so he sang a song to keep his mind occupied. His breathing stopped, so he hyperventilated to keep his lungs full. His eyes unfocused and he trie to aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa;akkkkkkkkk his fingers stuck to the keyboard. He shook his head and huffed four times and opened his eyes as wide as they would go.
hjgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggjjhis head whipped up off of the keyboard.

1_15b

A man reserves his true and deepest love not for the species of woman in whose company he finds himself electrified and enkindled, but for that one in whose company he may feel tenderly drowsy.

--George Jean Nathan

He hadn't let her know yet (you never ever let them know, that spoils the game). He saw her and sat down next to her (just far enough away to be polite, just close enough in to feel her elbow rubbing his). They talked about work. They locked eyes (she pulled away). He trailed off (when there's nothing to say, why say it?). She crossed her legs (and her foot put the tiniest pressure on his shin. His insides laced with fire. He couldn't move his leg or his eyes or his lungs or his self. Fire. Blood hissed in his ears. His hands grew slick. Eyes locked straight ahead, head wondering if she knows that she's touching him, heart pounding. Fire.) She glances at him (and life slows as she flicks her head away and hair washes past him, drowning him in perfume.)

Six months later: another woman, another foot touching another shin - fire.
High school.

1_15a

Missed a day, sorries.

He ripped the bag open and threw a chip in the air. It landed on his nose, bouncing and sliding into the couch. He sat and watched as it settled into the crack, gone from mortal life, trading its eternal doom for one just as black and forbidding. He threw another chip. Toss, miss, rinse, repeat. Six months from now, the vacuum is gonna sound so wicked cool when he stuffs it under the cushion. Toss, miss, rinse, repeat.

He catches one in his mouth and crunches hard. The rest of the chips in the bag quiver at the crispy, inevitable destruction. What runs through the mind of a chip as it sees a cratered maw fast approaching? Does it make peace with its tiny chip God? Does its life flash before its eyes? Or does it just hope that maybe, just maybe, it'll bounce and land in the couch?

1_13

Sparkle --
anyone know a metaphor on how a girls eyes sparkle (not using like or as)
thanks ;]

of course a metaphor doesn't use like or as...only simile's do that.
Why do people always feel the need to make eyes sparkle in literature?
Her eyes were the moonlight shining off the still lake.

Her eyes don't sparkle.
He isn't handsome, and she isn't beautiful.
They date.
Tara isn't someone who you'd look at twice. Rory looks dumpy even when he wears a suit. They have conversations about transmissions and trestles and turnips and the tictoc tictoc tictoc of a grandfather clock. Boring. There's no fire, no passion, no excitement where they're headed. Just a long, slow, winding stair to eternity. Tara looks at Rory with a purely utilitarian eye: a future husband, perhaps. Maybe just a boyfriend. Definitely just a man. Rory doesn't think about Tara after he goes back to his house. Video games? Most definitely. Tara? Boring.
He gets his hair cut. He looks worse.
Tara starts listening to country. Rory hates it, but she doesn't care enough to change. Rory forgets to care.
A year later, on their anniversary, Rory tells her that he's moving to Washington. She stares blankly at him. He starts again. "I'm moving to" She interrupts "I heard you. When do you leave?" Tears? Decidedly not.
Rory breaks up with her over the phone, on the plane to Washington. Like an afterthought - I forgot to break up with you, so here it is - you're free now. Tara stops listening to country.

Tara finds someone new - he winks at her in the movie theater. They talk. People throw popcorn. They run out, he's laughing. Danny is perfect. He's like that guy, in that movie. The one you can never name, but you know it was good. You should watch that movie again. Danny smells like lemons and laughs loud and hard. He shows up randomly with gifts. He freaks out when she's acting funny. He's sensitive and caring and handsome and loving.
Her eyes don't sparkle.

1_12

He crushed it methodically with his thumb, rubbing it back and forth with his thumb, clock and then counter. The juice spread through the cracks in the wood, staining it a deep red. He looked up at the sky and sighed, his thumb cooling in the breeze, blood evaporating.

He saw another. Crush.

1_11

He burps reaaaaally loudly sometimes. He forgot to bathe for a week once. He works on cars sometimes, and breaks them just as often.. He has never read poetry, and he has no idea what an integer is. He once ate a slug on a bet (the guy didn't pay up) and then threw it up in his mother's kitchen sink. He cleaned his ears once. He has no aspirations in life, no hopes, no dreams, and no chance to change it now.

And yet--she's dating him instead of me.

1_10b

I stepped outside into the downpour. The torrent from the broken gutter slapped at my face. The crush from the skies wet my clothes and weighed me down. I slumped to my knees, with all the heavenly wrath blasting down towards me and pinning me to the surface of the earth. Cold chills of water ran down my back. Pools of water gathered in my shoes.

I can't win. Memories pelted me with each raindrop, pushing me to the ground. Drop. Failure. Drop. Regret. Drop. Third grade, my friend left me for Colorado. Fifth grade, I was caught cheating. Seventh grade, my family moved. Eighth grade, I had to acclimatize to a new classroom, only to leave it again for highschool. Ninth grade, I flunked three classes. Eleventh grade, I was nearly kicked out of school. Twelfth grade, I fought with my best friend. College . . .

All I could hear was the rushing of the blood in my ears, and suddenly I noticed I was up and running as fast as I could, past my lawn, across the street and down the road. I ran until my breath went ragged and I was limp and cold. I collapsed on the pavement and let the rain crush me into a fine powder. Drop. Defeat. Drop. Guilt. Drop.

1_10a

I skipped on Sabbath (accidentally) so I'm just gonna do two right now. I hope that's how the rules work.

Dancing sideways, I avoided the splatter. The downpour from the broken gutter was erratic and rushed to the ground with all the control of a kamikaze pilot. I stepped back a bit further within the doorway and looked at the rain. It was despair rain - precipitation that depresses you, physically and mentally. The fat drops seemed quarter-sized, and they fell with violent intensity, battering the trees and grass outside. Gusts of wind barely seemed to move the giant drops from their pell-mell journey to the ground. This rain seemed determined to subjugate the earth below.

I stood and watched. Rain crushed the foliage. And yet, maybe it knew something I didn't. The rain was free, and I was trapped. The rain raged against the earth and I fumed inside. With each thudding drop, the downpour came closer to flattening the earth, driving all the dirt away in great torrents down to the sea, and where was I? Cooped up in a doorway, too afraid to go out but too stupid to go back in. Crushing rain pelted the earth and I--afraid to join it.

1_8

He grunted twice and rolled over. He was swathed in sheets, tied up and left to sleep for all eternity. His pillow was too warm, but he didn't want to pull his arms up to his head to turn it over. He just pushed the pillow away and laid his head on the mattress instead.

He twitched, his body falling asleep, and his foot shot out from under the blanket. He slowly pulled it back in.

He sat there for three hours in a black mood. He couldn't find a motivation to get up. He could feel the sun rising and hanging overhead. He started counting to sixty. Sixty. Sixty. Sixty. He reached sixty sets, and he started all over again. Sixty. Sixty. Sixty. He noticed dust slowly falling in front of the window, each mote falling imperceptibly. He found one mote that fell like time and started following it down. It drifted from the top of the window, almost to the floor. He suddenly realized that he long since stopped counting. Then he realized that he had focused too much on the numbers and he had lost sight of the mote. He found another and started counting again.

The mote settled to the floor, and time slowed to meet its speed.

one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen

fiftyeight fiftynine sixty one two three four five six seven eight nine ten

Then a wind ripped past the house and gushed in through the cracks and shifted through the room and

the mote

twentyfour

rose

twentyfive

calmly

twentysix

twentysix

twentysix

twentysix

twentysix

twentysix

twentysix

twentysix

and time stood still.

1_7

This is a "creative" writing course, not a "writing" course, so I'll try to be creative. SIDE NOTE before the creativity: I'll try to update this more often, because there is NO LIMIT to the number of wonky things you can write when you're trying to be creative.

He tripped on his tie. His coat dragged on the floor. His feet slid in his shoes. His hat obscured his vision.
He looked like Dad.

1_6

The shower this morning was wickedly cold. Someone had left a showerhead just running, wasting all the hot water in the entire building. I stood in the cold, shivering like an ice monkey and wishing that humanity wasn't so stupid.
At a certain point, I turned off the water and just stood there in the draft from the fan, letting water evaporate off of me. I was hoping that when I turned the water back on, it would feel warm in comparison. I was wrong.

1_5

June, when the light is oppressive. Grant walked outside. The meal sat heavy in his stomach, distending his belly. Grant blinked at the light. He looked up and saw the sunlight, filtered through the trees. He remembered documentaries about fish: the light always has a grainy, solid feel to it as it washes past all the debris from the surface, the detritus from the creatures above. It looks as if you could reach out and snap a piece of light off, like an icicle. He walked out of the shade of the tree and felt the light smash down onto him. Photons with weight. He could feel the heat radiating from the ground, pinning his arms to his sides.

Grant got into his car and inhaled. Warm, stale air. He gripped the belt buckle and felt the warmth of the metal on his skin. It clicked when he put it together, but it felt muffled and slow. He turned the key in the ignition and felt the engine turn over slowly and methodically. It was slow and distant, and he felt as if he was watching someone else turn on his car and drive away. He hyperventilated as he drove. His hands gripped the steering wheel and his knuckles turned white. He reminded himself that it was him driving, that he wasn't watching someone else. He watched as someone else's arms guided the wheel. Someone else's car glided slowly and effortlessly through the curves on the road. Someone else's legs crushed the brake pedal. Someone else's chest heaved. Someone else threw his door open and ran into the field across the road. He ran until he couldn't run anymore, and dropped to his knees and panted. The light smashed down on him once more, the heat radiating off of the ground and pinning his arms to his sides.

January on the top of a mountain. Mary pulled her ski boots tighter and cinched down her gloves. She looked down the mountain and pulled in as much air as she could manage. It felt empty. She pulled off her goggles and rubbed her eyes. It was too bright, but it didn't feel as if the light managed to accomplish anything. Light ricocheted off of the snow and ice and smashed into her eyes, but the light felt thin and useless. She stood. Skiiers sliced past her, leaving thin trails in the snow. They shrank and then were swallowed up by the next rise. The trees below her were tiny and pitiful. They looked like a thin veneer of tree that had been spread over the slopes by a paintbrush. Mary wiggled her toes, and they felt far away, like they were connected to her by miles of tether. She smashed her feet into her skiis and pushed away. She flew down the mountain, but the air didn't feel like it was moving past her. She sliced straight through it.

Nothing felt real; Mary bit her lip and tried to think. Nothing.

Suddenly, she was at the bottom of the mountain. She threw open the door to her hotel room and flung her coat and skiis to the floor. They settled slowly and gently to the ground. Not satisfied, she picked them up and beat the skiis on the floor. They raised little puffs of grainy dust that floated gently through the air. She got up and ran at the wall as fast as she could. She bounced off of it and hit the ground hard. She lay there panting and beating her fists on the floor. Solid. She turned all the lights on in the room, yanking chains and slapping light switches. She crawled into bed and pulled the covers over her head. She sat there with her legs crossed, panting, holding her flashlight and flicking it on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off.