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Prism by Andree Rose Lost Love by Michael R. Beichler
by Andree Rose It's time I told a little tale. I just finished this Carlos Fuentes novel, in which he tells the whole tale, only in flashbacks within flashbacks, a dream like a prism, the whole contained in all the parts. I'm sure that's the way all stories come out. And mine isn't chronological anyway, so any reader of this should not feel cheated by its non-linear nature. I will just take what comes, and commit it here. Like a chaotic repeating figure, it will all make sense in the end. There I was at the ruins at Tula, having just climbed the pyramid. I looked over the skies and noticed the haze. If only the weather were just a bit better, I mused, I might be able to see forever. Then I thought about how close I was to Mexico City, Mexico Districto Federal, and realized that the haze, which I thought had been sent from God, was merely pollution. Man made, not of God at all. On the horizon, I could see the source: a vicious collection of smokestacks stood, modern totems, at the edge of my purview. Spewing vile. And then I was back in Baltimore, at the end of what took so long to end. You had gone out for a night of Dungeons and Dragons, and to be with her. Saturday night. I knew what I was going to do, had known it for some time, and yet the doing of it was as a dream. I felt lightheaded as I packed what I could into the suitcase I'd had forever, and tossed it down the stairs toward the open door. Other bags followed, Hefty bags filled with what I could take from the life we'd led, stuffed, but later when I opened them, I found them half filled with air. The furniture I'd bought from nothing, the bed on which we laid, saying farewell for years...I bet you still sleep on it today. I know you live in the same place where we lived. How could you stand to live there, with her, with your children, with our old dreams hanging in the corners like spiderwebs? Perhaps the dust doesn't bother you, my first love. Perhaps. I have only recently come to know that the love I bore you should never have existed, should not exist in a sane person's world. Yet I know now what it may have been like to be a faithful Nazi soldier, or a fervid IRA member, or one of the jihad. I know what it's like to face down demons for the love of a god. But in the end, I realized that it was me who had deified you, given you power you did not deserve. And I, for my sanity, took it back. Now my mind turns to you, another flavor of man entirely. You, with sunshine smile, rapier wit, beacons of light emanating from your eyes. You with mischievous ways, a vagabond's heart, and a core center of molten lava. Please don't misunderstand, for you are the man I never knew existed. You are his bold face, the other side, and finally I am allowed to bask in a solar supernova. I love you deeply. At times, our love has been an experiment in homeostasis, a balance between love and freedom. You, kindest of teachers, always remind me when things get out of whack. Oh, I know it's because you are here to teach me the lesson of unconditional love, one which I finally must master if I am to do what I have to do. Yet, at times, I fear losing you, because you, at times, do not want to be found. For to find is to possess, and to be possessed is to submit. You did that once, or twice, or a hundred times, I do not know. But with me you will not. I must learn from this. I am five foot seven. I measure, at last measure, 42, 30, 42. At least I have an hourglass figure, she mused. I am large boned, and carry the weight well. Sometimes I think I look like a goddess from another time, for my face is beautiful and my body, while rounded, is attractive. Yet goddesses don't carry scars, and I have some. A scar on my belly, from where I lost an ovary at nineteen. I wonder what that doctor thought, taking half the fertility of a teenager. Can't ask him, he's dead now. A shorter, thicker, keriotic scar on my right forearm, just past the edge of my hand, the result of a roller skating incident at the age of seven. I don't think about this mark except when someone asks me about it, and then I am tempted to tell them a story. It was a rainy night, and I was out walking alone. I wanted to get home so badly, my stomach ached, and my legs seemed to have no strength. A man approached, an old man, grizzled with alcohol breath, armed with the stench of the streets. Evil intent was in his eyes, and something was at stake. Me. I ran. He caught me. He had a knife. I fought, with all the fight that a little girl can muster. He gripped and heaved, trying to control me. Just as I was about to wrest free of his embrace of malintent, he nicked me deeply, on my forearm, just past the edge of my hand. Yet I broke free, ran like the wind, and here I am to tell you the tale. Right now, my nails are painted red. I am wearing my lover's gray polo shirt, which he must have gotten from some other lover, because it's from Express, and my most comfy almost too big flowered cotton undies. The television is on. The basketball championship just ended, and now there's a sitcom about two people madly in love. I am wondering about the desert: the hours and years between those who live there, and my brief experience of it. How nothing grows except that which can grow well, and even that protects itself with spines that no one should touch. Yet the Mexicans eat cactus. How much do they pay the person who cuts it down, picks out all those pricklies, and prepares it for market? What do they say when they hire someone for that job? How does that person feel when he or she goes home at night, home to a little shack somewhere on the edge of the desert, to a spouse who wants love and affection? Not tonight, honey, I've got too many holes in my skin? Where I am. On the precipice. Poised, and ready to strike. I wonder exactly when the sense of release came. The healing. Was it as I sat on the roof of the hotel in Guanajuato, looking out across the diamond visage of that great old town, as the cooling nighttime desert wind blew across my body? Was it with the magic six, women of phenomenal strength and beauty, when I realized I was one of them? Was it that visit to the remote peasant village, when I met Elisabeth, and looked at her child's face and bad teeth and innocence, and reveled in the sight, recognizing kinship? Could it have been the waiter's smile, the eyes of the street child, the revelry of the Mexico City night? Was it simply the long bus rides through the desert, barren mountains that hold great secrets, worn and weary and magical, Mexico herself? Yes, I think it was then. I was listening to the tape my lover gave me to remind me of himself while I journeyed. An Allman Brothers song was playing, don't know the title, it's a long instrumental. Suddenly, an overwhelming feeling of peace engulfed me, and the muted colors of the desert became vivid. Maybe it was the touch of some angel, some metaphysical blessing. Or maybe the desert is the place to let go of old spirits. I don't know. But then, and since, I haven't felt the pain that I have felt since I can remember. The way is clear.
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And so that is it. Everything is before me in its full perspective. All of the new and old, past and present black bile is thrown up into my very being. My being reeks.
My heart aches. Not figuratively, but physically. I can feel and sense the pulsing of the aorta. It has taken on a life and sorrow of its own. Throbbing against the chest, pushing at the throat, coursing through the temples. Each new beat sends the shock throughout my body.
My mind is dazed, bewildered, confused, numb. I can't sleep, I can't eat. I shake sporadically. There is no anger within me, no repulsion. I wonder if there's anything within me. I just feel kind of empty.
I wish I could do something. Scream, yell, punch something. I want to cry, but there are no tears. I want to feel something, but there is no feeling. I try to laugh but only choke. I want to yell, throw a fit, throw anything, but the rage has been used long, long ago.
Some say there is only so much love and hate in themselves. Well, my hate and anger is all used up. There is no more. Just a dull ache and numbness where hate and anger used to be.
And what of my love. It's all there. Every damn bitter drop of it, with nowhere to go, no outlet, no opening.
They say wine, the spirit, improves with age when it is not opened to the world. But what of the staples of life, milk and bread? My taste of life has not sampled the fruits of good wine, just the moldy, sour bitterness of old bread and milk. My very being is malnourished and yet my wine has seemingly turned to the vilest cider and vinegar. I starve in the land of plenty.
Something within me this last time has clicked. Something has short-circuited, some fuse has blown. Some part or piece of me seems to be on the verge of madness.
And yet despite all of this here I sit cooly calculating my misfortunes, just as if I were some shrink studying a psych case, clinically, concisely. I dont feel human and it scares me so. I want to cry, pout, scream, curse, and yet I am empty. There is some valve that has shut my emotions off from reality. It's as if I've lobotomized myself.
I'm scared. Alone and scared.
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