Richard woke up with the reverberations from the zeppelin crash still moving through his body. His skin was still hot from the fire, some of his hair had been singed. In fact, Richard felt completely scalded, and when he finally opened his eyes he thought for sure the next sight he was due to see was the afterlife. In a way, he was right.

What he saw in front of him was a literal wasteland. It was a desert, to be sure, but not the kind of desert that has had the luxury of existence for thousands of years. There were no cacti, no beautiful hills and no refined sand. There was only dirt, and dirt that looked as though it was man-made, the result of being plowed again and again, overturned and dried up and abandoned. The land stretched on forever like a sort of valley, but it did curve and rise at times, and in places it rose quite severely, Richard noticed. There were still the remnants of strong trees that once grew in probable abundance, just stumps and wisps now, stretching to the sky in desperation. They looked like ghosts; the truest vision of the undead. The valley was full of silence, except for the gasps of Richard as he realized his lungs were full of dirt. He coughed a great amount, while covering his face from the burning sun.

Ah, the sun. It was still there, shrouded in its usual grey haze. It was the same sun, fading and tiny, that Richard had always known, and it was the only way he knew that he must still be on earth. It was then Richard realized: he was in what citizens referred to as The Dust Bowl. A common expression for the plain states from the 1930's, it had become the popular title for the central, government-owned dessert property. Now devoid of any substance once the counties had learned to irrigate its water and oil, it had become the dumping ground of the States and sometimes the world. The Zepps did not even fly over it anymore. Richard gave a start. The Zeppelins did not fly over the Dust Bowl anymore. And he had been left in the Dust Bowl.

ew gross.

A week later, a traveling family of five spotted what appeared to be a human carcass scraped of most of its flesh. The day after that, a teenage girl, skinny but very much alive, was found. Though it was ascertained that she had been lost for weeks, she would not say how she survived.

i would make a terrible God.

So anyway, the dishwasher is running and the linoleum is peeling and I am taking out the perfectly mixed cat food for my fluffy cat who, at the time, hated everyone but me, and even hated me a little bit because I, at the time, slept at the top of a bunk bed which was much too much trouble for her climb every night. She took out her rage about the situation on me every now and again, but I suppose I didn’t mind because she was declawed in the front paws, and therefore took to taking tiny-cat-slaps to me if ever I made quick motions. If my ankle fell into her sights she would first sideswipe it, then slap it violently with both outstretched paws as though she were both players in an intense game of badminton. I guess that eventually she got her desired effect- the swiping got so annoying that she would be eventually chased down and picked up, which gave her a chance to hug you with her declawed kitty arms and scrape at you with her quite clawed back paws, using one’s human arm as the equivalent of stomping ground for charging bull behavior. Ho hum. I loved her anyway. In this memory I was feeding her, after all. In this memory I turn to her bowl on the floor, bend, and let the little cat treats make that kind of comforting plinking noise that they do when they fall into an empty bowl- you know the sound- and in that bizarre moment I found myself gazing at the backdoor. It was white, and we never used it unless we needed air flow in the stuffy house, and in the middle of the door, strangely, the paint had begun to peel, the kind of peeling that starts with tiny cracks and then, thanks to Texas moisture- for Texas is moist, sometimes, always in some places- pulls apart and reveals the wood beneath. The sound of the packing and rustling in the next room fell away for a moment as I lifted the cat food box from the bowl and gazed, still in a semi-crouching position, at the peeling backdoor. I could smell the summer heat seeping through not only the screen and the windows but the walls, up through the floor at my bare feet. Solemnly, I stared down the half-open, cracked, almost useless backdoor and I knew this strangeness, this memory- for as the half-seconds ticked by it was already becoming a memory- would be frozen to me; solidified, stored in my heart though I had no love for that backdoor, that g-d washing machine, that house. That isolated moment was my belonging, and even if I wanted it gone it says too much about my existence to be discounted, and my choice to set it apart, to freeze it in the first place… well, that says something too.

I do not recall with the vividity that I should my first glimpse of Avi, though that is one thing I feel like he feels like I must remember*. The fact is I never thought too much about Avi or any other guy that I crossed paths with when I was 20. They were no more than flashes in periphery, either existing to make me feel uncomfortable and uninteresting or as a stepping stone to their own tower of self-esteem. I had come to the conclusion through my pointless interactions with “their kind” that I had no desire to be around people who did not make me feel good, whether or not they were attractive. I made the conscious decision and stood by the idea that no “real life” guy was a real man, and aside from the smiley dorks that my over-zealous friends had married off to the only human males suitable to spend time with could be found in the pages of good literature (yes, good literature, no, not paperback trash. And no, not Austen specifically- I have never fetish zed Mr. Darcy in the way that dreamy-eyed American girls seem to, though Mr. Knightley from Emma always seemed patient and rather choice). Real men were only real in print, or in film, or hidden away in old, grainy photographs of nameless friends that strangers used to know.

There is something else, some weird habit or tick I have, usually when I need to calm down. I go into the bathroom, shut the door, and bury my face in the towel hanging from the wrack. It’s usually just taller than me, up on it’s hook on the back of the door or on the second wrung beside the bathtub. Sometimes the envelopment, the textured surrounding makes me cry, but mostly it puts me at ease. The smell is generally either of soap or fabric softener, the texture is usually soft but more alive to me than a sheet or comforter too easily found tossed on one’s bed. When my grandmother died I didn’t cry or really feel sad at all, I didn’t go to the funeral, but I got her towels. One day I went to them for comfort- forgetting their origins- and the smell of grandma’s place, of rust and cookies and cleanliness mingled, oxymoronically, with smoke, seeped through me at the first inhale and all of a sudden I was mourning someone I never thought I knew. When Avi and I were together I didn’t seem to hug towels all that much.

* TV SET
**WHY WE ARE NOT TOGETHER ANYMORE

shorty

Shortness. It is the curse of man seeking female. I shouldn’t say female anymore, she always remarked something about that. How she wasn’t a bug or something to be categorized and microscoped. She’d always soften up after she’d said it, because she didn’t want to sound like some intense feminist, she said, she just thought female was stupid. I agree. Ha ha ha.

I haven’t had good sleeping habits lately, I mostly watch terrible reality shows on TV (or outside my window- my attractive and very subtle condo which I am about to lose because I am jobless- is funnily enough located across the street from a very basic, very oddball bar called DJ’s. I guess it’s pretty generic except for the fact that bikers have started to like it very much lately, though, like I said, it’s pretty generic and not, I don’t think, seedy enough to be considered a cool place for them. But hey, that is coming from the guy who gets shaken up by their repetitive grand exits at 2 in the AM. I guess it doesn’t matter all that much, considering I don’t sleep very much at all, but it does occasionally make me strangely angry. Sometimes I will go to the sliding glass door, huddle by the fence where I cannot be seen, and start to yell curse words at them. Usually though the words turn to mumbo jumbo as they roll out and the most response I’ve ever gotten is the perking of their ears- more muscular appendages than my calves- after which I usually realize quickly how cold it has gotten and quietly retreat to my kitchen. )

hot air balloons

George and Pattie had lived on the island all of their lives. There is a story there.

Some years ago, George's father and both of Pattie's parents had been missionaries, deciding amongst themselves to bring the gospel to the tiniest island in all of the Oceans. It was so small it didn't even have a name-- not a good name, anyway, just a gumble of numbers and letters that indicated its existence to some mapmaker somewhere. George's father, Richard, reasoned that the Gospel should be brought unto the least of these, and Pattie's parents, John and Cynthia, reasoned that the least of these must inhabit the island. In fact, in order for the island to be populated at all, the inhabitants must be of miniscule proportions! Poor as her logic was, all were in agreement, and her assessment turned out to be surprisingly accurate.

Richard parachuted, small George tied to his back, onto the island (nearly missing it at the twinge of a breeze), and John and Cynthia with baby Pattie were gently lowered to their destination by the tightly held rope belonging to a steam boat. They found each other instantly, then set about to find the natives. When they found them, it could be said that all were fairly disappointed. There were just a pair of human inhabitants-- an elderly couple, enjoying their last years in a hundredth honeymoon of seclusion. Their names were Paul and Jane, but that is not relevant. Jane was a Little Person, as they call them now, except she was different from the types you see today-- even smaller than the smallest, and more proportional. She wore doll clothes and her voice was tiny yet all that she said was well enunciated. Paul was the same, only less so. His voice came out more normal, and his eyes were less vacant. They were both old, and unhappy to see their last holidays interrupted by mission workers. Richard and his friends felt terrible, but they realized that they would have to wait for another boat or plane to come by before they could leave the couple be. Richard offered to share the Gospel with the Paul and Jane regardless, but they had already heard it. George offered to kill the threatening wild life so that Paul and Jane might be safe, but they had nothing to fear. Cynthia offered to help build them a house, but Paul and Jane liked the sky for a ceiling. And baby Pattie cried.

happy birthday to me

i feel like i notice things in him that are so particular, the way i notice things in everyone, except these are the things i could spend the rest of my life smiling at, or realizing the deep humanity and gravity of. a look, a gesture, a comment on something he has noticed and loved. many of these things are preconceived, for he is so self-conscious, and while some of those actions are endearing anyway because the intent behind them is usually so obvious, so readable, it is the candid moment that explodes my heart. my heart does not beat faster because of the unexpected, rather it rages for the excitement of understanding-- candidness is always a reveal, and when you see something real all of a sudden it's like you just found enough change to buy a candybar or found the missing piece to make the gadget work. the big picture gets bigger and bigger and you are more in awe because you are starting to understand what it is to understand, and what it is to understand a human person. a soul.

she, i can tell, sees these things too, and she sees these things in him like i do. this makes me glad, because sometimes i cry with worry about the idea of dying and the world losing track of me-- not me, i don't think i'm all that important, but what i love in people. that love will be invisible when i'm dead, and my loves will eventually be dead, too, and all of those quirks, passions, habits, all of that immensity will be gone. not only will i and those i love wither, the way we care for oneanother will also pass on. this is another reason why people get married; that is one small way for this bond between people/this declaration of love to outlast time.

i am also sad that she sees these things in him. it means i am dispensable. i can no longer say no one will love you the way that i could have.

Lots of relationships don't work out. Ours was no exception.

I think I read somewhere that more than half of the relationships in the world are doomed to fail. In my opinion, those odds are not improved by making that fact common knowledge-- it makes people feel like they have an expiration date. Once you realize that what you have is what you want more than anything, that is when you'll begin to see it slipping through your fingers. To love is to lose.

Mason Funeral Home closed the ninth of December, 2005, and it was not lost due to neglect. Mr. and Mrs. Mason had tried to make it work.