The sun looked
high, I figured it must be late morning. My eyes burned with the fire of
exhaustion. I covered them with cold fingers to put them out.
I’d been so
tired lately. A weariness that sleep had nothing on. Even my bones felt vapid
and disloyal. And over the last several months, I felt like I was beginning to
lose myself. But I wasn’t exactly falling apart; it was more like floating.
Apathetic dismemberment. I cared that this was happening, but something very
strong in me just let it happen; just stood back and observed my undoing.
I stood up and
felt all my clothes twisted and riding several inches too high. I tugged at
them until they were straight and sized up the room. There were two long
printing presses running parallel to one another. Beside the tarpaulins where I
had slept was a metal cart stacked tall with tabloids wrapped in bundles with
plastic orange string. Coils of paper cuttings were swept into piles on the
floor, and a little metal folding table and some chairs stood in the corner.
Old tiny windows of warped squares of glass were still in place the length of
the walls, and each one of them reflected a different color. The walls were
planked with wood and in some places there were holes and through them you
could see the darkness of the lathe.
The late
morning sun began shooting through the windows and turning everything inside
into its most brilliant shade. I ran my eyes over the room again and then
remembered the papers beside me and I turned to look at them.
G’morning.
The voice was
behind me and I startled and spun to meet it. I turned to face a woman, dark
hair and dark eyes and coveralls, standing by the door. I should explain
something, I thought. I opened my mouth to speak and wished voraciously for
things I couldn’t put into words. I shut my mouth again when I found nothing to
say.
You’re a
bloody wreck, aren’t you?
I swallowed.
You look a bit
rough. How’d you sleep?
Uh, okay.
She held her
cup of coffee like a baby bird and sipped it.
I pulled in my
bottom lip and furrowed my brow. Why wasn’t she surprised that I was here?
You like coffee?
…yeah.
Cream?
No.
Sugar?
I nodded and
she turned on her ball and took a few steps and turned back.
Walk with me
out to the pier, she said.
I followed her
out a door and into a front office and she kept walking past the coffee pot and
little paper cups.
I paused and
she noticed and stopped.
No, no.
There’s a stand down the way.
I nodded a tiny, imperceptible nod and
she stuck out her bottom jaw as though I was indiscernible and turned back
around and went out another door. When I stepped out into the sun I was
drenched with the light pouring over the roof. I followed her silhouette in a
stupor. A toothy wind came off the water and for a moment I felt perfect.
I had no idea
where I was. I didn’t know her, or the warehouse, or anything around me. The
feeling of relief was nothing short of tremendous.
She veered off
to the side of the alley. I stretched my eyes and rubbed at them to break my
trance, and when I looked at her she was handing me a cup of coffee in a
cracked white mug. Her arm was completely outstretched, and the muscle in her
forearm arched upward and her skin was the color of tea. She looked at the cup
and looked at me and nudged the cup my way.
We cut across
a few more alleys till we met the main road that led out to the pier. We didn’t
talk at all and she didn’t look at me.
A lush white
fog hung on the far shore. We sat down at the end of the dock and she hung her
legs off the side, so I did too.
I found you
out here last night.
Her accent is
thick and sharp.
Here?
Yeah here, on
the pier… you were unconscious.
Out here?
Yeah. And you
weren't drunk. She’s looking at me questioningly now, her eyebrows raised, her
head tilted forward.
I know.
You wouldn't
wake up, though. I thought you were dead. So I put my hand on your chest, and I
could feel you breathe.
When she said
that, I felt a meteor crash through my ribs.
You carried me
all the way over there, to that warehouse?
Yeah.
And then you
left me on a tarp?
I only have a
single bunk. And you’re a stranger. She’s looking at me for an answer.
It hasn’t
happened for a very long time… but when I was little, I used to sleepwalk all
the time. I would just walk and walk, sometimes just in circles, sometimes very
far away.
So you walk in
your sleep, that’s what your telling me? Her words were playful with sarcasm.
Yeah.
She studies my
face and sees its plainness.
Oh, she
replies in a sober voice.
She sipped her
coffee and looked out at the water.
We sat, silent
and suspended, as the sun moved higher in the sky and the air turned warm. I
could feel the weight of my heart. It was leaden and I wondered what was
holding it up inside of me. Why it didn’t fall.
I want to’go
home, she said, breaking the spell.
Oh… okay. I
started to get up.
That's not
what I mean. She touched her hand to my arm, and I sat again.
She finished
her coffee and sighed, and squinted into the sun and the sides of her mouth
pulled up.
I asked her
what she was doing here.
I dunno,
really. I followed someone here and now they’re gone. She swirled the leftovers
of her mug around and stared into the dredge and the grounds, like she was
looking for the future.
But I miss the
feeling of home: certain people in a certain place in a certain time. I can’t
return to it now, it’s vanished. And I don’t know how to find it again, how to
make it out of nothing. It’s alchemy, I think, almost magic. She heaved a
weighty sigh for her memories, and stared deep into the water, like she could
see them there.
The sun caught
the drift of every wave, and the all of it sparkled as though the stars had
fallen into the water and didn’t sink. It was beautiful and blinding and it
made me a little nauseous.
2004
2004
