COME TO ME SLOWLY
A roughish draft of new fiction I'm working on
FOUNTAIN OF BLOOD IN THE SHAPE OF A MAN
I just started a new 4-day-a-week workout routine that includes both lifting and reading. Over the next 9 weeks, I'll be sharing my progress and notes along the way. Here's to getting lean just in time for winter.
Here are some things I found in my notes app —
It’s now July, and I have hope in who I am becoming.
I HAVE DONE NOTHING ALL SUMMER BUT WAIT FOR MYSELF TO BE MYSELF AGAIN
Am I becoming something new, or am I returning to myself? Because the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are, and I am.
SOMEWHERE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS WIDE NIGHT AND THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US, I AM THINKING OF YOU
It sometimes feels cruel to be in love — I never resist the urge to bask in idiotic fantasies, verging on prayer. It always feels almost instinctual. Desire is to be consumed in love.
IT LOOKS OBVIOUS
PARACHUTE IDEATION
This place is a shithole. That was the first thing I’d heard in quite some time.
I’m seated in a bar—dimly lit, just off the I-10, south of Roosevelt, or north, depending on who you ask. Frank sits across from me, muttering something under his breath like he’s talking to the table. “This place is a shithole,” he says.
I try to reply, but the words don’t feel like mine.“W-well—” I start, my voice catching in my throat. I never stutter. Not usually. Not unless the air’s thick like it is now.
“—Well, I think we should still go.”
The words tumble out, clumsily, like they’ve been translated from another language. I feel the relief rise in my chest anyway. Nerves are strange. When I’m nervous, it’s like my body unspools. Thread by thread, I come undone, and something about it feels familiar, like it’s happened before. Like it’s always happening.
I try not to think like that—don’t want to manifest anything sinister. Magical thinking. The brain's worst invention. I tell myself I’m fine. I tell myself a lot of things. Frank looks annoyed, though his face is hard to read. It shifts sometimes—older, younger, someone else entirely.
“Are you embarrassed by your stutter?” he asks, his tone flat and endless. “You should try being more confident. That’s probably why we’re here.”
“Where’s here?” I ask, though I don’t say it out loud.
He keeps talking. He always talks in complete sentences that never really end. I think it’s because he’s afraid of the silence. Or he enjoys hearing himself talk. It’s neither here nor there.
“This place is a shithole, by the way.” He says it again, and I almost laugh this time.
There’s something charming about repetition.
My life wasn’t always like this. Simple, quiet, no women except the ones who leave glitter on the car seats. I’m forty-ish. Retired, or about to be. I’ve never been married. On paper, I’m successful. My bank account confirms it. I’m five-foot-nine. Average build. A forgettable face. I was once told that it was a gift to be unrememorable. Unremarkable.
“Two Yellow Jackets,” I say to no one. The bartender is a shadow behind the bar, and the bottles pour themselves.
“You have a very forgettable face,” Frank says when I return. His voice echoes twice.
“It’s why this works so well—me and you.”
The sound of rain hits the roof, and I turn to the window. It’s raining. Rain in June? In Phoenix? Doesn’t happen. But it is happening. I walk to the door to be sure. It’s raining, like the sky is trying to remember something. It’s June 1st, and it’s raining. It feels like the city is mourning the end of something. Maybe my life. Maybe just the afternoon. Rain in June, and it rained all day.
Maybe it’s always raining. And maybe it’s always June 1st.
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