Status: back in action
Town Limits
Knife
I’d been up there before, too many times to count. Halfway up, there’s a small cavern. A hole in the wall of the cliff and its walls are marred with the words of broken people. Words of fear and misery. And words of hope.
When I’d started climbing two years ago, my original intentions were never to find shelter. With jagged rocks and angry waves just fifty feet below the top, my original intentions were to fall.
He hadn’t beaten me that day. There was no time to. I’d walked to the beach directly after school, my backpack stuffed with textbooks and notebooks and binders even though I’d had no homework. When I’d arrived, I’d left it perched on the stiff, packed sand, close enough to the water’s edge that the tide would eventually carry it away. Then, without bothering to guess how long it’d take, I’d begun to climb.
The hole in the wall took me by surprise. It can’t be seen because it’s nearly thirty feet from the ground, tucked behind a narrow edge. I’d slid into it on my stomach, barely able to pull myself up . My lungs were burning and my fingers were numb and pressed flat.
I do not know how long I’d laid there. Long enough for the spring sun to be covered by a gauche cloud that turned everything cold. Long enough for the hollow inside to be barely light enough for me to see the small words etched into the rock.
It’s a nice place. You should stay awhile.
***
We sit across the room from each other. Him on a wooden rocking chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his finger tips pressed together. Me curled up like an armadillo on a plaid sofa with the rim of a hot mug of coffee pressed to my chin. He had one too, but has since set it down, empty, on the floor. I’m sure it was spiked with rum.
He asks me what I was doing. I want to ask him the same thing. Instead, I tell him about the cave.
“No sane person would climb thirty feet up, even in the clear daylight of a windless day, just to sit in a cave,” He says.
“I’m not crazy.”
He responds by looking down sadly into the empty mug between his socked feet.
The basement of his house is quaint and well-lit, with a standard beige carpet and two walls painted burgundy and two built of brick. There is a fireplace that would be cozy if it were lit and a desk that is piled with science-based textbooks.
I want to go back in time. To when we were standing outside instead of sitting below ground and to when we were drunk instead of sober and to when we were both grinning at each other instead of staring while trying to avoid eye contact. “You’re different when you’re sober,” I say.
“I’m glad,” He nods and purses his lips together.
“You didn’t care as much then.”
Suddenly, he is mad. He stands and marches toward me. I flinch against his breath as it brushes over my face. His life force is just there and it is like a car crashing against my skin. “I remember everything you told me, Nora,” He says. “Your father beat your family. You ran away. He killed your mother after you left.” There is a pause. Three breaths on my face. He isn’t touching me but he may as well be. “Do you remember what I told you?”
I don’t.
“Your father committed murder. And mine committed suicide.”
And then I understand. The intensity that surrounds him is a dangerous value of life.
But I am not a vase. I am not a broken glass thing that he can fix and then place on his dining room table to make himself feel better about his father’s death. I tell him so.
He grins. It is a sad and wicked thing, contorting his golden face. “A man can try.”
We are toxic to each other, pressing unlabelled buttons to test which ones will cause explosions. But maybe we keep coming back because one of us is desperate to be fixed while the other is desperate to be a fixer. I do not want to hurt him. I won’t. So I will stay. Instead of looking for the buttons that will destroy, I will look for the ones that don’t.
When I’d started climbing two years ago, my original intentions were never to find shelter. With jagged rocks and angry waves just fifty feet below the top, my original intentions were to fall.
He hadn’t beaten me that day. There was no time to. I’d walked to the beach directly after school, my backpack stuffed with textbooks and notebooks and binders even though I’d had no homework. When I’d arrived, I’d left it perched on the stiff, packed sand, close enough to the water’s edge that the tide would eventually carry it away. Then, without bothering to guess how long it’d take, I’d begun to climb.
The hole in the wall took me by surprise. It can’t be seen because it’s nearly thirty feet from the ground, tucked behind a narrow edge. I’d slid into it on my stomach, barely able to pull myself up . My lungs were burning and my fingers were numb and pressed flat.
I do not know how long I’d laid there. Long enough for the spring sun to be covered by a gauche cloud that turned everything cold. Long enough for the hollow inside to be barely light enough for me to see the small words etched into the rock.
It’s a nice place. You should stay awhile.
***
We sit across the room from each other. Him on a wooden rocking chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his finger tips pressed together. Me curled up like an armadillo on a plaid sofa with the rim of a hot mug of coffee pressed to my chin. He had one too, but has since set it down, empty, on the floor. I’m sure it was spiked with rum.
He asks me what I was doing. I want to ask him the same thing. Instead, I tell him about the cave.
“No sane person would climb thirty feet up, even in the clear daylight of a windless day, just to sit in a cave,” He says.
“I’m not crazy.”
He responds by looking down sadly into the empty mug between his socked feet.
The basement of his house is quaint and well-lit, with a standard beige carpet and two walls painted burgundy and two built of brick. There is a fireplace that would be cozy if it were lit and a desk that is piled with science-based textbooks.
I want to go back in time. To when we were standing outside instead of sitting below ground and to when we were drunk instead of sober and to when we were both grinning at each other instead of staring while trying to avoid eye contact. “You’re different when you’re sober,” I say.
“I’m glad,” He nods and purses his lips together.
“You didn’t care as much then.”
Suddenly, he is mad. He stands and marches toward me. I flinch against his breath as it brushes over my face. His life force is just there and it is like a car crashing against my skin. “I remember everything you told me, Nora,” He says. “Your father beat your family. You ran away. He killed your mother after you left.” There is a pause. Three breaths on my face. He isn’t touching me but he may as well be. “Do you remember what I told you?”
I don’t.
“Your father committed murder. And mine committed suicide.”
And then I understand. The intensity that surrounds him is a dangerous value of life.
But I am not a vase. I am not a broken glass thing that he can fix and then place on his dining room table to make himself feel better about his father’s death. I tell him so.
He grins. It is a sad and wicked thing, contorting his golden face. “A man can try.”
We are toxic to each other, pressing unlabelled buttons to test which ones will cause explosions. But maybe we keep coming back because one of us is desperate to be fixed while the other is desperate to be a fixer. I do not want to hurt him. I won’t. So I will stay. Instead of looking for the buttons that will destroy, I will look for the ones that don’t.