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Sunday, September 19, 2010

Anniversary

This week marks the one year anniversary of my death. It was a painful death, sudden and unexpected and now here I am, a ghost marking a full year since my deathday. In that year I've spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure out what it means to be dead, what it means to be alive. Strangely enough I haven't actually come up with any real answers, just lots and lots of thoughts. In that spirit I'd like to present to you a story I wrote shortly after my death. I reread it the other night and found I didn't like it anymore. So I rewrote everything except the first few paragraphs. You can probably tell where the voice changes. I like this new story better. I think it better reflects everything that I've learned in the last year, which is to say nothing definite. So without further ado,




“I remember when I used to be happy.”
“Do you?”
“I think so.” Actually now that she mentioned it, I’m not sure I actually could. In retrospect I was certainly happy. Does that count? Okay, at least comparatively I was happy. That definitely counts. I wasn’t on medication for depression that made my teeth feel like they were vibrating in my skull so that’s definitely a plus. And I wasn’t yet hurting myself physically or emotionally so there’s that too.  Wow, is that how I’m characterizing being happy now? Happiness is not being a danger to yourself or others. Yeah, that sounds right. “Yeah, I was definitely happy back then.”
She looked down at the coffee cup in her hands. “What happened?”
“Are you serious?” There’s something about that phrase, it’s overuse maybe, or its lack of sincerity perhaps, that I really hate but honestly, was she serious? “You broke my heart, disrupted my life, and thoroughly destroyed my emotional stability.”
She didn’t look up. “Yeah.” Now I looked down at my own coffee. I stared deep into that dark pool, hoping to find in it all the solutions to all the awkward silences that now lived amongst us. I knew at the very least there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to drink this thing. I had long been ignoring it and it had grown cold. Great. Now my coffee was cold. What else could go wrong?
Who am I kidding? Grow up, boy. Disrupted my life and thoroughly destroyed my emotional stability. First of all, who says something like that in casual conversation? And secondly, did she really do that? She’s a 19 year old girl and she decided that rather than try and deal with the stress of a long-distance, long-term relationship, she wanted to move on with her life. Who can blame her for that? Obviously, I can. But at any rate, no. 
                “Sorry,” I breathed. She looked up at me with those blue eyes I loved so much. I had a picture in my wallet of her eyes, I swear. It was a close up picture of her and you can tell she’s smiling this sly, clever, sexy grin just by looking into those eyes. But this time I didn’t meet her gaze. I just stared down into the dark pool of my cold coffee. “You don’t deserve that.” You don’t deserve any of this dramatic bullshit I put you through. I wasn’t quite strong enough to say that part yet. I said, “I have to go,” and stood up.
                I really wanted it to be a dramatic exit. I’d stand up quickly, sling my bag over my shoulder, and march out of the coffee shop. Maybe I’d pause in the door way, look back at her one last time and say something Bogartesque like, “See you round sometime, kid.” And then walk out, never to see her again. Instead I stood up too fast, backed my chair into the guy sitting behind me, turned around to apologize, knocked over my coffee, yelled “Shit!” loud enough for everyone in the cafĂ© to look up at me and then just stood there awkwardly looking at the mess I’d made. “Shit,” I said again, although quieter this time.
                Without a word she grabbed some napkins and bent down to help me clean up the spilled coffee from the table and the floor. For the first time since I tried to kill myself I looked her in the eyes. She smiled at me, a bit sheepishly. “It’s okay,” she said.
                Yeah. At this point I didn’t know what to say. I took the soiled napkins from her hand and tried to leave again without quite as much of a scene. I turned to walk away but without taking a step turned back towards her. “You don’t deserve any of this dramatic bullshit I put you through,” I said. “So…” I stalled. I shrugged. She leaned forward and pulled me close in a tight embrace. It was nice. After a second we stepped apart. “Thanks,” I said. She just smiled up at me. I smiled back down at her.
               
                After that we both sat back down in our seats and talked. Like, really talked. About all sorts of things, but about things nonetheless. Real, tangible things. Not fears or imaginings or emotions. Just stuff. Things. Shooting the shit. For four hours we sat there talking. I ordered more coffee and actually drank it. We both laughed at times when it was appropriate to laugh. Long after it had turned dark outside she told me she needed to be getting home. “Okay,” I said and meant it. We both stood up, me without swearing or spilling anything this time. We hugged. “We should do this again sometime. Just, you know, talk,” She said. I smiled, “Yeah. We should.”
I walked her to the door. We hugged one last time. She said, “Goodbye.” I said, “Bye.” I watched her get back into her car and drive off. I stood there in the doorway until her she turned at an intersection and her tail lights faded into the distance.
                Afterwards I went back to the counter, bought one more coffee and sat back in my seat across from where she had just been sitting. For another hour I sat there, not touching my coffee. I knew I would never see her again and it didn’t kill me. I sighed, stood up, threw away my cold coffee and walked outside. It had gotten cold. In  my car I light up a cigarette and stared absently at the smoke floating calmly out my window and disappearing into the night. I turned the key in the ignition, shifted out of park, and drove home.

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