The Stories We Tell

Fire smoke rain. Roll across the city on steel skates, underground between land and water, rock sheets deeper below. Catch the eruption in a stranger’s eye, a filthy aisle split between us.

The silence is our story, the peace within, or is it peace at all? The thing that fuels our silence is diametric, or plurality, or beyond traditional boundary. Friendly tension, calculated seduction, universal curiosity, etcetera etcetera.

“What you writing down?”

The idea of owing a response is as repulsive as producing one.

I form the story that was always meant to be written. Blackness is where it begins, origin of the original narrative. Blackness is where it shall end, when the universe finally consumes its light. A tale of crossed stars that lived, and lived after.

There was a girl who believed with the fullness of her heart that she was a woman. But she was mistaken, and still a girl. She fired sage into my openings and ran out whatever held residency.

Makes it sound easy to reawaken a hollow coffin. She trudged close enough to trigger a dagger through the brick I enclosed myself in. The surface took time to crack, but with each jab, mortar loosened and fractured portions of my body became visible.

Only when she realized I was satisfied with her labor, unready to collaborate to free myself, she buried her dagger in the softest of soil and walked away.

I felt the blackness of being alone. This time it was colored by breaching the precipice of freedom, if only for a moment, a squint of twilight and eternity. The taste wrinkles your tongue like burnt saccharine. You know what could be, but cannot escape what already is.

“Is that a poem?”

This stranger has smooth skin and unblinking gray eyes. Their immobility demands answers I’m unwilling to satisfy.

Doors open. Travelers rotate. Doors close.

The stranger remains where she was found. The writer pens the next turn of phrase, circumventing the temptation of pointless dialogue. In the belly of the train’s clatter, its jerk, its heat, externalities fail to interrupt the writer’s momentum.

The thing that makes the woman a girl and not a woman is how she reacts when life presents an unforeseen obstacle. The same applies to boys and men, but that’s beyond our scope. Men aren’t that different from women but they unequivocally come from separate planets, or separate stars.

I pushed those cracked bricks and pounded the wall until blood covered my knuckles. Nothing moved. I dug my feet into shaky crevasses and climbed. I fell and restarted. Dried blood identified heights I already reached. The heights that remained were dizzying. I fell again, and waited, evaluating the labor, strategizing a best approach. None of my previous cachet mattered against the gruel of ascending this self-made obstruction. I restarted my climb, touching the same bricks with renewed control, angling laterally when need be, vertically when appropriate. Bypassing blood sweat fatigue the fear of falling, the fear of mustering enough strength to ever climb again. At last, I reached the top where a breeze cooled. And across the greenest prairie I see her spec. I scream her name. The sound must fill her ears. Her head turns to black feathers working their way up the sky. She doesn’t bother to look back as they guide her further, further, further.

I weigh the presented choices, watch time slip past. Do I leap for the heavens, crashing hard into earth — risk shattering precious extremities to shrink our growing distance? Or should I gently scale back down the wall, altogether blaze a separate path? Who am I ready to become?

When my feet touch the grass they sink into creamy mud. I laugh, at many things, I laugh. The sky looks like eternity. It reminds me of a time before I can remember.

“What’s making you smile?”

“This train has some character.”

Natural light defines our above ground transition. Scrapers condos projects speed through windows streaked by rain. Shower pellets dominate all other noise, but fail to muzzle this northbound express.

“What’s your name?”

“I don’t like talking to strangers. Not because they scare me. I’m just afraid of what I might do to them.”

Transfer to a seat beside him, enticed by possible transparency. Closer to decrypting this mahogany scribe assaulting his notepad. She seeks the knowledge of his narrative.

“What if I told you my name? Unless you treat friends the same way you treat strangers.”

Regard her for what appears to be the first time. Is that a question to enjoy or detest? There’s a cold ambiguity in my smug grin.

“You got a light on you?”

In the lining of her overstuffed backpack, she produces a black lighter. Study its shape and surface as if a gemstone. Test its power, summon a casual flame. From the breast pocket, fish a smoke rolled to military perfection.

“You can’t do that on here.”

“I’m not doing anything I’m not supposed to.”

The wheels skid into a stop, rocking the aisle of straphangers. I gather myself, and my possessions. I zipper my jacket to the collar, step outside to taste the warm tears of the sky.

“You took my light. Give it back.”

I turn fire into smoke and my lungs swell. This stranger with a name I do not know and do not wish to know obstructs the closing doors, refusing the automated warning. It’s mesmerizing to witness her struggle, not because there’s any grace or beauty to be appreciated, but because she cares about something so small and meaningless. Because she’s still able to care at all.

Doors finally close, separating the inside heat from the wet outside. Doors separating her from me. She studies my brief interaction with the ground and sudden departure from the edge of the platform. I leave the light to face the unpredictable elements alone. If she really wants it, she knows where it can be found.