What is a Lid

It is a tiny thing and often impossible to lift. Resting it gives us the time to gain the strength to move it, we say we will give it only seconds. Seconds may turn to entire nights, plans ruined, temperaments compromised. It is a tiny thing and can control us while we are none the wiser. But we let it, still, somewhere, knowing what we are getting ourselves into. Tricking ourselves into adding to its weight. Becoming the lid ourselves, unable to lift ourselves for fear of exhaustion. We are light, little things, doing ourselves in, moment by poorly-rested moment.

Absence of Water

Georgia walks to the water to remind herself that she's doing OK. It is a short distance, a quick pick-me-up. Some people are without water, they've never even seen it. She at least hopes this to be true. Perhaps that's part of the problem. It seems she's found a place where the good in her life is only defined by the bad in others'. It is the absence of water. But perhaps this is a better way to be thankful. Georgia is privileged in many ways and she hates that word, hates admitting it. She can see the water there and knows she is more than OK. Georgia pays her bills. Georgia lives by three grocery stores. Georgia's been out of the country, not for years, but she's been abroad. Georgia walks home at night and never hears a gun. She walks to the water to remind her of these things. But sometimes her thoughts, through no fault of her own, turn to drowning. They even turning to drowning now. Some people, she thinks, could never drown themselves.

Two Guns

I knew when it was brown and not clear that he hadn't done what I'd asked. I couldn't blame him. I'd gotten his name wrong. Or rather, he'd introduced me to the board president and I'd gotten their names confused. But in my defense, Kevin and Karen are very close indeed.

I drank. I stayed and drank until he told me to stop. Until he stopped buying. Until it was just the two of us, lone gunslingers in our own little world. I called him Karen again. I think that's when he respected me, finally. He paid for my cab.

The Clothes

Even with the drastic shift in weather Jones was sweating. He left his house sweating and he would return sweating, he was sure of it. As the degrees dropped like hints and the beads came quickly he started removing his layers. First his hat, then his scarf. Then his topcoat, then his jacket. He loosened his tie and removed it later. He unbuttoned the top button, then the second, then—against everything he knew to be himself—the third. Soon he was down to his undershirt, his beater, with his pants rolled up and his socks rolled down. He looked a positive fright, the type of person he would roll his eyes about as he passed. But it was getting colder, and it was only getting colder, and the clothes were weighing him down. Jones should have liked to have thrown them into the fire, but he couldn't imagine getting anywhere near enough.

Countdown

Five four, three, two, one. It was easier to count them like this, descending. Five, four, three, two, one, getting closer to zero. Somehow that made it all make sense. Or, if not that, then tolerable. If it was leading to zero, to nothing, then he could wrap his head around it. If it climbed upwards then it was all a mess.

It was his way of hiding certain things, masking them and making them something else. History is written by the winners, and he thought, in some small way, this was along those lines. How many, he could hear the question in his head. And if he started at the top and worked his way down—five, four, three, two, one—then maybe, just maybe, zero would be the figure that stood out in their minds. Well, he could hear them say, that's not so bad at all now is it?

 

Liftoff, blastoff, something about space and the stratosphere. It was a positive spin, it was a lie, but he liked it and he didn't care. It's probably the only reason he liked it in the first place. That sense that it was only winding down so it could go back up. It could break out of this petty air we breathe and get to somewhere greater. That this was the beginning of something, and not the end.

Gurgle

When his stomach started gurgling, and when it wouldn't stop, that's when he realized something had to be done. Not just about his pizza intake, which was substantial today, but of his intake in general. Of fats and sugars and salts and alcohols and the idea of women. Some pointed thought toward a peer, spoke generally against a class of people, sent halfway around the world, without understanding or even the barest attempt thereof. He was digging his own grave, surely, and slowly sitting down.

He could sit for a while in it, he supposed, but the second he started lying down that would be the end of it. He had to stand, he had to climb out, he had to throw down the shovel at least. He gurgles at himself, felt the grease on his fingers, ten awful mirrors.

Tomorrow was going to be a good day, he had nothing to do. But he could fill it with things, choices, new ones. Things fresh and crisp, well-researched and well-reasoned. Tomorrow would be the day he would begin at least to brush the dirt off, even if only from his hands.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, licking his fingers, spouting nonsense, going to bed.

The Popcorn

Yeah, I'll watch your popcorn. You take your smoke break, I'll aid and abed. I'll watch your precious red cup and I won't even take a piece, not a kernel.

But the second you're gone too long, the first second past the ending time, I'll start painting a coat of buttered sodium, I'll give my floss something to talk about. I'll help. To a point.

It's not you. It's the popcorn. That's what I'll say.