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Breath

The glass was almost empty, he stared down into it, the liquid sloshing against the sides, mini ocean of apple juice yellow, white caps of foam lapping over themselves. He breathed heavily thinking he could exhale everything that made him come here in the first place. The place was dirty, he had one foot against the bar and one firmly planted on a sawdust floor, elk head trophies lined the walls. A few scattered people
dotted the rest of the bar, probably regulars, who else would be here, he
thought. The people around him were heartily laughing and feasting on
the fact that they were not alone. He knew better than to feel like
them, he had given up on that kind of optimism and reckless thinking,
he knew they were really alone, that everyone was really alone. If not now then soon, they were just blind in the stages between the loneliness,
believing that their happiness could last. Thinking like that will only
hurt you in the end he muttered to himself, knowing that he was being selfish and misdirecting his ill will towards the innocent bar patrons. He didn't even know what that had meant, what would hurt them in the end? Living? Laughing? Yes and yes he nodded. He figured he had stopped living that night in August, too much pain, he had to shut it all off, move forward, just keep trucking, stop and look and she'll kick ya in the balls, life was a ruthless mistress, better to ignore her than to have to deal with all the shit she throws at you.

          It didn't used to be like this, he wasn't always this way, lone wolf hunched over the bar, a shadow of life, red flannel glob of regrets and denial, denying his world, his life, his emotions. A sealed envelope already mailed. Too late to stop, sometimes he wanted to walk into traffic, lay down on the train tracks, disappear, change it all, start over, try
harder, he could have stopped it, one moment pissing his life away. He
had done his best, tried for her sake, pasted that smile on and held
her hand through it all. He had hope when all was hopeless and now he
had none left, when prayers go unanswered what's the point. When it all
rains down and your umbrella has holes, then just accept that wetness,
that cold, pitter patter on a face that you can never hurt again, could
never bring down again. Because he had never gotten up, not after all
that, the months, and months of treatment, tests, doctors, nurses,
flowers, and jello. She hated that jello but she ate it, when the pain
wasn't too bad, he would tilt her head back for her, nurse her and wet
her dry lips, hold her head in his hands, so light, deteriorating, but
not hopeless. Not yet, as long as her chest rose and fell, that glimmer
flickered, that light that had filled his life with purpose, happiness,
golden days of the future.
       
        The future he thought to himself and almost chuckled, they wanted to
have two kids, she wanted a boy and a girl, he hadn't decided, he just
wanted her. Breakfast in bed, flowers for no reason, unable to kiss her
enough, the brightness of her illuminated his world. Whatever happened
in his day, in those long days at work, he knew she would be waiting,
he would come home and lay his head on her lap, her hands caressing his scruffy cheeks. He stared up into her brown eyes, the reflections of
the universe and all the beauty of the world. Angels swam in those
eyes, fireworks and symphonies, he would have to remind himself to
exhale while looking at her, that exhale of pure contentment and the
release of the day. Finally relaxation and comfort I am home, here in
your arms, I am safe, I am home. Her smile large and toothy, her laugh
full and uncontrollable, her head going all the way back and the laugh
starting like a geyser working it's way to the surface, a deep laugh
spurting to the top, he would give anything to hear that laugh again.
"Give me another bartender"

         They had met years ago, they  were both young both attending the
state school closest to their respective hometowns.   He
remembered that first glance at her, her hair was long like golden
sunshine sauntering back and forth.  She wore a knee
length grey skirt, he thought she looked so proper.  Her eyes
encased in those bulky glasses that same smile and that beautiful
laugh.  It was so full of life that you could just feel it warming
up your soul, even when you didn't know what was funny, you had to join
her , that laugh beckoned, join me, enjoy life.  Her laugh was the
greatest gift he had ever received; he had been writing a thank you
note since the day he met her.  She walked in front of him on the
way to her part-time job at the copy store on campus.  He scanned
her slowly, in awe, molten lava heart, bubbling.  That
breathtaking grasp on a heart so recently discovered.  He had to
remember to exhale.  If you had asked his other friends they would
not have said anything particularly flattering about her, they would
say she laughed too loud.  They would tell you that she was not
all that attractive.  They would ask you what's up with her
glasses?  But they would also tell you that they had never seen
him like this, that he floated down the hall, he was on the phone
for hours, he entered the living room beaming like a moron.  
But on that first day he was nervous, for along with
molten lava heart comes parched throat and the communication skills of
an eight year old. 

"Can I help you?" She looked into his eyes and he felt like she knew him already.

The path that they could tread on was visible to him at this moment. Not the twists and turns, those little misdirections, that every couple has. But that path they would one day travel down was just beginning to appear. She gave him that feeling of possibility, of motion, and lit that path to their future.

"Yeah actually you can, my name is Jonas, what's your name?" He smiled at her, trying to display his warmth but conceal the longing that even he felt might be a little much, especially for not even knowing her name.

"Nice to meet you Jonas, my name is Dorine, but everybody calls me D." He thought that it was a good sign that she had told him what other people called her, not just her formal name, he read it as a sign that she was allowing him to become more than just a customer.

She had welcomed her into that circle, the one inhabited by people who called her d and shared bottles of wine with her while feeding on her laughter. He assumed this is what she did but he really had no basis for this speculation.

"Ok D I need a reader for english 106, with professor Sinclair." He had just made that up, he was in the class but he knew there was no such reader.

"Alright let me go look it up, I'll be back in a sec." She walked through the back of the store, he heard her shuffling through papers searching for his imaginary reader.

He had not thought of what to do once she informed him that there was no reader for his class. Should he tell her the truth? I just came in here because I saw you walking and was automatically drawn to your presence, you're beautiful. Maybe too forward, maybe a little scary. Small talk, jokes, and a coffee date, this plan sounded better but he still didn't know how to get from point a to point b. While these scenarios swished around in his head, she reappeared readerless.

"I didn't see a reader for Sinclair, what was the class?" She looked back at him not accusingly, but he felt like she knew he was lying.

"Oh it's for english grammar, really interesting stuff."

She shook her head before responding, "Yeeeah actually that doesn't sound interesting at all."

He liked the way she looked at him, she probably looked at everyone this way, but he basked in the spotlight she bestowed upon him.

"You're right the class is horrible, haha but it's required so what can you do?" He shrugged his shoulders as he said this.

"I guess you can't do much, what major are you anyways?"

He was happy that the conversation was still in full swing, they shared a rapport, or at least enough of a connection to make it past the lie that had garnered her attention.

"I am an english major, which basically is the art of reading books and talking about them like your opinion is more informed than the next person's."

"Are your opinions more informed?"

"Not at all, but that's the thing about english, I can just support my opinions with segments of the writing and people have to accept them, it's just arguing about unknowns."

"Yep as long as you can support it with the text you win right?"

"Haha yeah you win, so what's your major?"

This was the natural flow of a college conversation, the same questions that everyone asked each other, name, major, where you from. These were always questions that were asked and the answers were forgotten as soon as they left the other person's mouth.  Then when you met the person again you might add other questions like what classes are you in, where are you living now.  Things that get asked, answered, and forgotten multiple times through out a semester or a year.  This was different though, he hung on her every word, he would not forget, he would never forget. They ran through this obstacle course of recycled questions, before they emerged into territory that is reserved for those that you might actually spend time with, not just see on campus and run through the laundry list of acquaintance protocol. Somehow he had managed to invite her out for a cup of coffee and she had accepted. He had written her number down and shoved in his pocket before saying goodbye, and heading out the door of the copy shop. Step by step we tread down the path, our path. He was excited; he felt carbonated, fizzy ears and bubbles in his chest cavity. He pictured a doctor opening his chest and a flow of bubbles escaping and filling the sky. Bubbles with happy faces that had been squeezing his heart, animated and happy, he could feel them in there. He never wanted for them to escape, squeeze my heart, hug it, stay with me, if he could feel like this for the rest of his life he would die happy. He wanted to grab the light pole as he walked by and swing around it, just to be cliché. His friends would say they had never seen him like this.

This was how they had started. Built upon a lie their relationship flourished. They went to art galleries to feel sophisticated, they had picnics in the park, wine and baguettes, it was the best time of their lives. They were safe from the real world. They had classes but no real responsibility, their life was their love, they were attached at the hip, their friends got annoyed because they never saw them apart anymore. The guys got angry when she dragged him away from poker, the girls missed her at their weekly dinners and their shopping trips. Their path led them away from everyone else. They walked together and that was all that mattered. Everything took a backseat to their relationship, and this is how they thought it should be.

As he sat at that bar he wondered what things would have been like if he had never met her. He couldn't imagine not having her in his life, but the pain he felt now made him think of the choices they had made. Knowing how things would end, would he still do it again?  He saw her looking at him in a picture from their trip to Monterey. It was just her in a black bathing suit, sitting by the water, she smiled as she looked over her shoulder at him. Oh how he missed her, the tears forming in the corners of his eyes, sniffles brought on by her smile, that warmth that had left his life so long ago. He figured that if he hadn't met her he would not be in this bar, alone, shattered.  How long should it take to get over  such a loss?  His friends tried to comfort him, they tried to console him but he kept them a safe distance away from his pain.  He shouldered it all himself they did not know his loss, they would never understand, he knew they we're only trying to help but their comforting only distracted from the penance he pushed upon himself.  He had taken up suffering as his main occupation.  He owed her for the life she had breathed into him, he saw the days before him and the suffering that would ensue as payment for the time he had spent with her.  The ups and downs, the sweet chased by the bitter.  It had been years of bitterness though, the cycle had been broken and no light had entered his life since she had extinguished it.  It was now just bitter followed by bitter, and he stood resolute in the face of these challenges.  He deserved it he said, the depression like a slow moving cloud, he saw it approaching and he could have moved but he felt it was his sentence in life.  She had blessed him and now he must pay for the time he had spent with her.  When will it be enough he thought?  The tears he had shed were almost equal to the laughs they had shared.  But he would never let her go, he would rather live with her memory and the sadness it brought with it, than to let her be phased out of his life.  She was always in the forefront of his mind, he had reserved her that space and there was no double booking.  Even if he wanted to he could not bring himself to stop missing her, how could one bring oneself to forget the greatest thing in their life?  The juke box changed songs, Jim Croce sang, his voice weaving through the bar, lofting above the crowds and blending in with the noise of the patrons at the pool tables.

     He gathered his jacket as he stumbled towards the door, his medicine, his painkiller, slurring his thoughts and stunting his ability to walk as he pushed open the doors of the bar, he felt the cold air rush around him, his feet crunched in the freshly fallen snow.  The world was getting a chance to start over, a fresh white slate to begin anew.  He fumbled with his keys as he fished them out of his pocket and unlocked the door to his truck.  The engine sputtered to life and he slowly backed out of the space and onto the road.  It was only a short drive to his house but he didn't even know if that’s where he should be heading, the emptiness of the house was all he could picture as he putted down the white road.

    His vision was a little blurry; he might have had a little too much to drink.  The truck strained up the hill, desperately trying to grab the road.  It fishtailed before righting itself, the ice forming thin layers on his path.  He was tired, his eyelids slowly closing and then snapping back up as he shook his head and turned up the radio.  As he rounded a sharp curve the truck began to slide towards the guardrail.  His reaction was slow and it was the wrong reaction.  He jerked the steering wheel hard away from the guardrail, which made his car start sliding even more.  He went into a tailspin, the truck whipping around as he tried to figure a way out.  Out of control instead of trying to save himself he just sat and welcomed what he assumed would be his end.  He saw her staring at him, her smile, the lights of that smile.  He gripped the steering wheel hard as the truck slammed into the guardrail and busted through.  The truck tumbled down the cliff, bouncing and spinning.  He closed his eyes held his breath and smiled, I'm coming home he thought.  He was still smiling when the car hit the water and knocked him unconscious.

            When he told her he would love her forever he didn’t say it lightly.  He truly believed it.  It wasn't a throw away comment, there was no alternate intent, it was what it was, a genuine declaration of the feelings he had for her.  In his eyes there was no one else for him.  At the time there was not even a possibility that he was wrong.  But after so many years of living the same day, with the same thoughts and tears, logic has to rear its head and start packing up the emotions that tether you to the past.  At least that’s what a logical person would say, what his friends said.  Time is the only cure they said, time heals all wounds, the thesis of the logical when consoling a grievous loss of any sort.   Standing from the outside it’s an easy thing to say, it’s usually the truth as well.  They underestimated his tenacity though, the love that he felt and the dedication that he had.  At this point he was just being stubborn they thought, his loyalty to his loyalty for her is the real issue.  He would never let go, because that’s what people expected, what he was supposed to do.  He worked hard stoking the flames of her memory, keeping her on the tip of his tongue constantly in his mind.  It was amazing how he suffered for her.  She would have wanted you to move on his friends thought; only one had made the mistake of telling him this.  That had ended with a fiery sermon from Jonah and served to only widen the chasm between him and his friends.  He is the definition of inconsolable they said, I just hope he can come out the other end.  He has to; he can’t go on living like this.  He isn’t even living they said.  But how could he not bring his past into the present, how did they expect him to demarcate the best thing he ever had as over, done, part of the past.  We are not saying lock the door and throw away the key, just start living, because this...this right here...what you are doing now, that’s no way to live.

     He saw two hands grasping something in their palms with both arms extended out towards him.  Flashes of winding paths, geometric designs that spread out in exponential growths.  Growth sprouting from growth, branches that twisted and turned creating new branches, new directions new possibilities.  Ripples in water radiating out from a dark source, spreading across wide bodies of water.  He exhaled but no breath came.  

    Sweet Caroline popped on next to his head.  He awoke in his old dorm room in college.  His alarm was blaring and his roommate yelled at him to turn it off.  He slithered out of bed and slowly rose to his feet.  He walked into the bathroom and stared into the mirror.  His face was exactly how it had been in college.  Everything was the same, his old college robe, his old college towels, his old college sink.  He splashed cold water on his face trying to snap back into reality but the face in the mirror only stared back at him.  What the fuck is going on he thought.  He continued to stare at his face for several minutes waiting for something to happen. 

"Hey jackass you almost done in there?  Damn man I have class in like 10 minutes and I gotta take a shit, hurry the fuck up."  His roommate's voice made him tense up as it marched into his thoughts and kicked them up in a dizzying cloud of dust. 

"Yeah one sec I'm almost done."  He replied groggily as he dried his face and opened the door. 

Peter his old roommate stared at him.  "What the fuck is wrong with you today man?"  He asked as he slid by him and into the bathroom. 

"Uh nothing, hey what's the date today?" 

"It's the 6th why?" 

"Just to be sure what's the month and year?" 

"What the fuck?  What the hell did you do last night?  You didn't look that trashed.  Month and year?" 

"Cmon man just humor me." 

"Alrighty then, you fucking weirdo, it's June 6, 1986, is that clear enough for you?" 

"Yeah that is clear enough."  Jonas walked away as Peter closed the door. 

He plopped down on the bed and held his head in his hands.  What the fuck is going on?  He shook his head, the room was spinning, this added to his disorientation and he laid down staring at the ceiling.   

He was a second year in college, he had lived here with Peter almost 10 years ago.  Before everything, before her, before they had become them, before the love, the loss and the pain.  I must be dead he thought, this made perfect sense to him seeing as how the last thing he remembered was flying off of a cliff and slamming into the darkened waters of the lake.  Was it heaven or some sort of purgatory.  Was he really still alive?  Should he test to see if he could die?  Can you die if you are already dead?  How many lives do you get?  Question upon question piled into his head as he continued to lay there staring at the ceiling.

"Hey might not want to go in there for awhile," Peter said exiting and quickly closing the bathroom door.

"Yeah I'll give it time to dissipate."  He said not moving his gaze from the ceiling.

"What can I say taco Tuesday gets its revenge on me every wed."  Peter said laughing.  "And with that I am off to class, get your shit together man you look a mess."  Peter left the room, leaving Jonas alone and still utterly confused.  He rose slowly and started to get dressed, feeling cramped in the small room and thinking that some fresh air would help him to clear his head.

He emerged from the room, down the hall, and out onto campus, the bright sun slapping him in the face like floodlights on an escaped felon, he shielded his eyes, as they slowly adjusted.  His acclimated eyesight was greeted by the campus draped in green, the tree branches weighing heavily with leaves.  The grass lush and inviting.  Kids scurried across the quad, their backpacks bouncing as they hustled along to their classes.  Jonah stood there taking it all in the depression of his past blanched by the sun and youth that unfolded everywhere he looked.  This was the time of possibilities, the time where the future was a far away thing that one need not be concerned with.  What mattered was the present and the uncertainty of what could be, not what was.  He sighed deeply, pushing out the darkness that he had saddled himself with for all those years and then inhaled the sun kissed breeze and the smells of spring that tip toed on top of it.

He thanked whoever or whatever was responsible for this refreshment, this new feeling of hope, like everything could be okay again.  Continuing along his path he headed deeper onto the campus grounds, beaming uncontrollably, something he had not had the luxury of a short time ago.  He greeted everyone with his wide toothed smile, the recipients probably bemused at the grinning stranger, wondering if they knew him and if not what was he smiling at?  He, uncaring and unaware of their thoughts was ecstatic, filled to the brim with a feeling of joy, he wanted to hug each person, thank each piece of the new world for just existing.  Upon emerging from the depths that he had inhabited it was as if mere rocks were objects of spectacle to his previously cloudy eyes.  The clouds having cleared, everything took on a luminous sheen, a brightness that he couldn't help but appreciate.  He carried on like this wandering aimlessly, invigorated and no longer concerned with why this had happened, but just glad that it did.

Too absorbed in the minutiae of his surroundings he had no idea the path he was taking, until he rounded a corner and the copy shop stood like a dark monument, seemingly towering above all of the other buildings.  He stopped dead in his tracks, exhaling deeply, fear beginning to infiltrate what was once filled with that feeling of exuburance, stretching it's dark hands over that brightness that he had just been enjoying.  He was afraid to look inside, afraid that she might be there, afraid of what he would do if she was.  He summoned up the courage after a couple of minutes of staring at the ground and fiddling in his pockets with perspiration soaked hands.  Slowly raising his eyes to the window he braced for impact only to discover that no one was in the window except a customer he did not know.  They stood at the counter, their hands gripped around the shoulder straps of their backpack, but he saw no sign of a worker.

He wondered what he would do if she was there.  The obvious answer was to go in and start down the path that had been the happiest time of his life.  Yet he hesitated mentally going down that road as he considered the ruin that it had caused him, what the loss of her had done to him.  The weight of the two choices made him want to lay down where he stood and give up.  The impossibility of his predicament was debilitating.  Before he would not have hesitated if someone asked him if he would do it all over again, but when faced with the actuality of this quagmire he surprised even himself with his inability to easily decide.  If I could just have the chance to see her one last time he often prayed, just one last embrace, his nightly mantras paraded in front of him.  Those thoughts he repeated as he convalesced on a couch inebriated and tearful.  They taunted him as if to say well here you go, here is your chance.  Knowing the path that this will lead you down what's your choice?  He hated himself for considering the alternative, she was your world, the light, your everything, how can there be another choice?  Because I have a clean slate he thought, the chance to start on a new path, one that doesn't lead to lonely nights at bars, funerals, an  unmendable heart.  Things could be better for me in the end.  Or they could be worst he thought, operative word could he argued, not definite, one leads to her definite death, and everything that entails. 

He closed his eyes inhaling deeply through his nose.   He slowly turned away from the copy shop with quivering legs.  He continued to just stand there, feet cemented to the ground.  The image of the two hands, arms extended towards him flashing in his head.        

R.I.P.