Losing Passion

I do not expect anyone to read all of this. But maybe a little. It’s the beginning of a story I’ve thought of, the premise is she gets a chance to go back and relive her life

She rode through the subterranean world, rocking from side to side by the gentle curve of ancient tracks. Her mind a caving abyss. Each thought separated further from the other; detaching like adjacent pieces of a craft rocketing through the atmosphere the moment it propels and pushing through the layers of space. Her eyes withdrew, the subdued faces before her unable to settle, a constant waver of noise and light refraction.
Like the spacecraft adjusting to gravity, she lurched forward in her seat, shoulders slumped, damp brown hair flung forward onto her shoulders as the subway halted quite abruptly to a stop .
Closing her eyes she willed the detachment to move forward into disassociation.
Would it be easier to believe that nothing existed. Would it be easier for her mind to clear of any questions of self. Of self-awareness. Of life and it's surroundings. A quiet hush of merging doors. She jerked forward again as the train grinded along the tracks.

If you had a choice, to move back in time to fix all that you could in life. To return back in time, adjust motions, tweak conversations, mend hearts and refocus yourself as a petulant teenager would you? What if life had riddled you with cancer, filled you with ailments both mental and physical. Riddled you with death, pocketed you like swiss cheese. Would you choose it then? Opening her eyes, she fixed it on a small child. The little girl swayed with the rhythm of the train, her Mother frantic for her to hold the bar, a feeling of familiarity groped her. And suddenly she felt frantic, hurtling underground in darkness, unattached. Yet she had no one to hold her hand, to tell her to hold that yellow rail. Her days of scraped knees, bruises, hickies and curfews....were over.

But what if you could go back?

She supposed she would.


It was a life that seemed without purpose. Void of even contempt. Simply bland. Rachel was once spirited, prefaced with a flaming passion that was sure to only last through adolescence and fade into the freckled grey and black suit she wore now. Melding into a sea of blue collared workers, rushing like the current. Swift and purposefully.

Where once there had been the untainted love and admiration that only the young and naïve could retain; there now stood a bleak and endless array of knowledge. Scan face-up in tray, face down in glass. Two fingers to a glass for good measure. Take the 24 train, but come 15 minutes late and take the 17. All these swirled liked minnows, sunk at the bottom of a brown tinged lake. Rachel had once held a passion for animals so strong, the mere mention of anything hinting at abuse or neglect of an animal would send her into a rage so strong, so catatonic that her counterpart would fall into a small and bleak shadow. A mixture of awe, fear and what occasionally was slight admiration tinting their pale faces. Now Rachel could only mute the tv as the news prattled on about the man who stomped the kitten to death at the station, the football player who pegged dogs one another in a gambling scrub, the lady who left her two birds to die in a cage as small as her desk printer.
We never recall the exact moments in our life, where we trade in our passion for our paychecks. Nor did Rachel recall when her tongue no longer snaked and twisted along fiery topics. She merely acknowledged, as most do, that eventually we must acquiesce into obedience; even the hippies have to pay their taxes. These are the motives we find woven to our cores. The motives that cause us to picket in front of college, deny ourselves opportunity we have resolved to be below us. Instead we resolve to change the world. Or at least the world in front of us. And when we find we cannot do even that, we become the world. We become the sea. Our bones picked and gnawed by the transcendence of life and it’s lessons. The grim face we see in the mirror we come to realize, is ourselves. And for those who still hold to glory their sense of hopeful prayers, who maintain to boycott the sexist professor in Psychology 101 or maintain reluctance in serving that rude customer who b*****s about their food. The world finds them too. We fight until we die, or we live in accordance and die a little later, following suit with the society we have found ourselves chained to.

Rachel had been in the mind that she was the “fight until we die” type. Perhaps she was. Perhaps she was not. She found in herself a courage that she deemed eternal. Never will she succumb to abuse. Never will she work for a money grubbing b***h of a boss. Never will she turn her back on those she loved. Life has a funny way of sorting us out. We never recall that moment. That moment of transformation from fight the world to conform to live. Perhaps because it is gradual. Like dew on grass. Like the process of aging. We never realize our growth, our change; not until we press our noses in it. Not until we are there.



CHAPTER

Rachel lurched back into the stream of life. Her glossed eyes now quickly drinking in the movement around her. Bags lifted from the ground, woman smoothed their pressed skirts. Half of the crowd stood, shuffling briefcases, checking watches and squeezing themselves through the open doors of the subway car. Rachel stood amongst them, shuffling uncomfortably and half expecting fresh air as she stepped out onto the platform. The air somehow seemed even heavier in the tunnel. Its grey and bleak corridors flooded with voices, movement and half drunk coffees. For a moment dizziness began to overtake her. A balding man, with a grey suit and an expression to harden stone pushed past her as he hurtled into the crowd; his leather heels clicked into the chorus of commuters. She snapped back, taking a quick look around and making a mental note to get her own coffee before her 9am shift as she pushed along with the crowd. She turned and headed towards the escalators leading to concourse hall. Leading to fresh air. She couldn’t help but to think of a manufacturer’s conveyor belt, as the escalator carried her up into high ground. We are the products. The defects get shipped back. Discarded or reassembled.

She pushed her hair from her face and felt the dampness of the summer heat. It had been a stifling month; the type of heat that brought the cicadas up out of their burrows to sing and buzz in unison. Creating their buzz of electricity that vamped the humid air. She stepped off the rising platforms and turned to exit the hall. She longed for the summer vacations, the two month break from what once had seemed a challenging year. She scoffed at herself. What she would do now to return to those simple school walls, surrounded by life and knowledge. Rachel waited briefly before pushing against the glass of the revolving doors; her heart leapt momentarily as another man entered and pushed against the glass, quickening the pace she had found. Suddenly she was thrust into fresh air. As fresh as downtown air could be. Clicking down the steps, she passed the small patches of grass that had stood against the sea of metal, glass and chrome. They had been singed and burnt to brass coloured crisps, lifeless and crunchy, usually sporting a single tree as lifeless as the grass it stood on.

Fumbling through her pockets she withdrew her cellphone, a small pink iphone. Tapping the top button the screen flashed to life, a still frame of her boyfriend grinning in a way that said take the damn picture. The clock read 8:42. Would there be time for coffee? Quickening her pace she walked by the rows of cars lining the street. Flashy Mercedes, Royce and BMWs glinted proudly in the summer light. If you could afford to have a car in the financial district, you better be able to afford a nice one. She passed a Chrysler, weary and tired it sat in front of the TD bank that loomed to her left. Inside a dog panted, his tongue lolled and his body heaving.

For a moment Rachel imagined herself again as the everyday hero. Slowing her pace she imagined breaking into the red s**t-box of a car and taking the black lab as her own. His big eyes drooped, then do it, they pleaded. Before decisions could be made, a young girl jogged down the cemented steps of the bank and swung herself into the car, tossing a purse into the passenger seat before cranking on the air. Get him some f*****g water. Was all Rachel thought as the car etched itself into the line of honking stop-and-go traffic.
She glanced at her watch again, 8:45. She wondered when mankind had decided that the sun’s rise and fall was no longer enough. That the face of a clock would determine the exact moment you were late for the office, or pilates, or that birthday party you somehow had been unfortunate enough to be expected to attend. At what point had we decided to be ruled by the clock. There is no fighting time, no arguing about passing months or turning pages of the calendar. You could argue it wasn’t late, that you could stay out longer. And perhaps you would. But the streetlights would crack off just the same. How did a world that could find no peace, no agreements, agree to all conform to the ticking hands of time.
Rachel approached a glass faced building, exactly 27 stories tall. Pondering how everyone had agreed to the adjustment to move an hour forward or back for daylights savings time as she jogged up neat rows of steps and into the revolving doors, shooting a quick good morning to the security man. Turning left Rachel headed to the rows of elevators. Again her mind wandered as she stood waiting. She never had pictured her life to pivot to this. To the tight knee length skirts, the files that awaited her on the 21st floor. Hair that had once wandered down past her hips and been the envy of girls and the seduction for boys now was cropped neatly to her shoulders and tucked high into a bun. Her hippie style, her drinking binges, her nicely rolled joints at the end of a long day were far behind. Only memories. She was only 22, but she felt as if she might as well had been mid-thirties. Those who think of age relevant to a number; in Rachel’s mind at least. Knew nothing about life. Her experiences had aged her. Of course she could drink, she was capable of smoking pot. But with her addictions, with her constant rise and fall of success she have finally grown to understand that while it was physical possible…she could no more drink a beer than the average person could do crack on the weekends. She should be in school, she thought. This thought an almost daily disturbance, like a rat gnawing away; hungry and vivacious. Instead she plodded along as a desk-jockey, worrying about the bills, her decaying relationship and her inability to find time off work to see a proper psychiatrist.

The elevator doors opened and men in suit and ties, women in skirts and sports coats stepped off. Every step precise, every minute costing them time. And time is money in the business world. In any world Rachel supposed. But especially for the lawyers, brokers and accountants that dominated the floors; lips pursed and eyes long since dulled. Had she become dull? She wondered, stepping into the elevator as she looked into the mirrors tucked behind golden accents that lined the small ascending room. Her large doe eyes looked back at her. Yes you have. They said. She surveyed herself. It’s hard to admit when you become what you’d always avoided. Some find this denial in marriage, sexless and trivial. Or in the depths of the shadow of a bar, slurping back their 7th beer, eyes glued to the races on the tv hoping to have the lucky chance they are owed. Hoping that horse #8 pulls ahead. They don’t have a problem, they just have bad luck. The lie they tell themselves. Maybe the denial lies in the arms of a mistress, as the wife patiently sits at home with the kids wiping dirty little faces and switching the laundry. I hope he comes home soon from Chicago. But she also finds herself denying the truth, she knows she had pulled his passport out of the right pocket of his jeans just this morning, only to shove it back in and toss it to the corner. Rachel found this in the work of the mundane.
She had always dreamed big. I will be a writer an actor, and then when neither option seemed viable or able to pay the bills that soon piled at her doorstep. She settled. I will go to school, I will save the lives of animals. And when the cancer riddled her and everyone told her she was too young as if there was an appropriate age to get cancer she settled again. I will stay alive. Don’t worry about school they had said, don’t worry about a career her parents and doctors had comforted her with. You will have time when you are better. But when she settled into remission and they had all but gone, she found so had the time. Where once she’d thought of nothing else but the promise of a good education. Which was really the only way to survive in the current world, she found herself merely scraping by. When she left her house, when she found herself on the brink of homelessness for a third time before the age of 21, with the debt of her surgery weighing her down she realized she in fact, did NOT have time. It was always “maybe later.” A series of settlements, until she found herself now awoken to light by the ding of the elevator and the glisten of marble floors.
Fumbling around in her purse for her keys she turned the three brass keys in her hand until she had the one for the office. Letting herself in, the door chimed the alarm. She’d forgotten all about the coffee, she hadn’t forgotten about the dog.
Three other people worked in the office with Rachel, the boss Gregory or Greg as he preferred. His partner Margaret, and Greg’s daughter Heather. Heather rarely showed since Rachel had arrived as a temp to permanent. The work had slowed and they had no need for two secretaries. If the two spoke they were chastised as “kids, prattling like schoolgirls.” Some days Rachel felt like a kid playing Grown Ups, she felt like an imposter in the professional attire. Other days when referred to as “kid” she felt aged; aged by experience that had come without warning or instructions.
Arriving several minutes early Rachel settled in behind her desk, tucking a lose strand of hair behind her ear as she turned on her monitor. She waved a good morning as Margaret entered from the kitchen and gave her a tight smile. The monitor flared to life, as her own heart vanished.

The day passed in a blur. Idle conversations intermittent between work that was neither interesting nor important to anything in her own life. She sat alone at lunch; climbing down the same escalators and feeling a cold detachment that riddled her bones and mind. An alien. A ghost. Gliding through the crowds to an empty corner. She sat in the underground cafeteria and feelings escaped her. Her surroundings no more real than a picture in a book. She watched with a sense of abandonment. Groups of girls her own age flipped back pin straight hair and gestured wildly. She admired their animations, she wondered if they too felt alone…surrounded by people. Her lifelessness morphed into jealously as she continued to watch the traffic of people. Each with their own story and motivation. She wondered what they went home to…she wondered what they aspired to be. Had they accomplished it? She figured they had not. And in that brief moment Rachel felt a guilty sense of comfort in it. After all, who really stood up in grade school to present their reasoning as to why they wanted to be a businessman when they grew up.
Hi My name is Abby Beckham and I want to work in stock’s when I get older.
“Very good Abby.” The teacher would say. A tad more obtainable than the rest of the astronauts, the teacher would think.

Rachel thumbed the stem of her grapes, though she did not remember even opening her lunch bag. Picking one off she rolled it between her thumb and index. And in that moment Rachel felt lost, like there was nothing left to hold on to. She resonated with the single plum coloured grape, plucked off the roots it had lived and flourished. Now meant to sustain others.
Giving herself a mental shake, Rachel popped the grape into her mouth. Am I really relating myself to a grape now? She thought to herself. She also added her existential attitude was going to make her miss her lunch and began to wolf back the rest of her meal. She couldn’t help but to think of life being on the clock again, as she glanced down at the single leather band holding the face of those tiny ticking hands.
S**t, I’m going to be late. Packing away her things, she found herself drowned once more in a crowd of normalcy. Brought together by the powerful hands of that ticking clock. Small snatches of conversation
“He thinks because he is the bosses son he doesn’t have to do jack s**t---“
“I’m telling you Carol, Richard would never cheat on you---“
“F*****g b***h won’t even walk the damn dog now.”
“Should’ve got a cat,”�"
A chuckle left behind before Rachel once again rose above the masses into the office she now found herself.

The rest of the day past with little excitement. Clocking off her shift, Rachel waved a cheery goodbye to Margaret and wished Greg a good night. Disappearing again into the elevator, she saw her eyes now look tired. Her shift ruffled and her hair a little disheveled. She admired the scar that ran along her left cheek and down to her mouth. Quickly glancing up as two men got on the floor below. Rachel stood a little straighter, pushing her chest out with little knowledge of doing so. She tried to feign disinterest; they weren’t particularly good looking, but they certainly weren’t bad either. Neither one even so much as glanced in her direction as they continued their conversation on what they were doing this upcoming long weekend. Rachel felt a stab of vanity, like a mirror cracking slightly. A slight alteration of the image it projected. Before she was used to flipping off men who wolf whistled, blushing when passing strangers called her beautiful or pretending to ignore when a man’s gaze lasted a lengthy period of time. She was no longer an object to be drooled after, or to be obtained. Rachel scorned herself for this desperate need of approval in her self-worth. Though she knew she was not the only one.
It was nice to be wanted. It was nice to be someone’s object of affection. She had that…she supposed. In the loving arms of Seth, her on and off boyfriend of 4 years. But he more so admired his latest achievement on xbox, or a good show on Netflix than he did his own girlfriend.

The elevator shifted down to the main lobby, stepping out behind the two ‘gentlemen’ that sauntered off to what Rachel figured were going to be either leather seated porsches or souped up mercedez benz. She wondered what it would be like to have the kind of money where you could afford to pour the cost of a house into the luxury of a car without the worry of where your next meal might be after all that spending. Then again, Rachel considered even having a house was a luxury. A truth she hid quite effectively and with purpose from her critical and privileged colleagues. She doubted Gregory or Margaret ever had to worry about a roof over their heads. Not at least in the midst of their discussions of their latest dream vacation or the pair of simple black lulu comfy pants that had cost only 120 dollars.
Taking the escalators down Rachel wove through the subterraneous tunnels. An underground path dug up for convenience of traffic, but used more so for when the upper class wanted to avoid rain on their leather boots or a chill in their bones. It led straight to the subway, blocked only by the spinning turnstiles that activated only with a token or pay-as-you-go card. Tapping her card against the activator the metal bars unlocked letting her push her way through and down into the awaiting tunnel.
As usual the waiting platforms were packed in rush hour traffic. Everyone rushing to get home, only to hurry up their lives and rush to get back. Rachel felt suffocated in her spot near the stairs, more and more people shoving in behind her. Aiming to escape the growing commuters and the pressing claustrophobia Rachel walked across the edge of the platform. The only place mostly void of people. She walked, staring down at the grated yellow line. Looking up, one foot precariously placed over the other as she passed the crowds gathered in front of the subway tracks. She hurried her pace towards the quieter end of the platform, watching some of the fellow travelers eyes slightly widen in hollowed fear. Others looked at her with annoyance, some with boredom. If she fell they would be late for whatever lay in store that day. She pictured herself falling; hearing the train like thunder as it grinded along the tracks, sending sparks. She pictured blood splattering. The inconvenience it would cause for all those commuters who needed to get home. How she would traumatize the driver, and perhaps a few watching that still had human decency intact. Not yet accustomed to death and decay.
Now she heard the train coming. This time not a figment of her distorted and disturbed imagination.
She stepped back only seconds before the train hurtled passed, tossing strands of hair across her face, if she reached out an inch or two it would reduce her hand to a fleshy pulp. She walked as far as she could towards the end of the platform before being stopped by a swarm of other people.
"We walk by death everyday" she thought. She had resolved long ago never to actually COMMIT to suicide. But she neglected her safety in the same way one did when they had a few too many and got behind the wheel, or when one innocently pops a few too many pain pills. I can drive, they would say before they found themselves snaked around a tree. Or they would tell themselves that the pills were PRESCRIBED. That they belonged to them, before they collapsed into that blue foaming mess. She was negligent and that Rachel believed was very different. She neglected on occasion her seatbelt, or to look for cars before crossing the street. She dove down to the bottom of lakes until her lungs felt they would pop. Tossed herself in front of danger for the protection of others. She told herself this made her STRONG. This made her brave instead of weak. The lack of fear she held towards death because of the belief that one day we all would die, instead of the want to do just that. She believed that if she were to die by accident or in some heroic feat, then all blame would be negated. She wouldn't be selfish or accused of weakness or self-loathing. The same way a soldier treks into the war, knowing they may never return. But with the reassurance that not much awaited them at home, and to die a hero’s death was better than living as a sad and perturbed nobody. If Rachel saved a life or was merely pecked off by the unfortunate events that scattered across the world like locusts feeding on the last bit of decent crop, they wouldn't think "how could she have done this." It was bravery or it was an accident. Life was full of them, more so accidents than bravery. And just as she had stood inches from the subway train, it really WOULD have been an accident if she had teetered off and cracked her hip or shocked herself on the mess of wires and metal tracks that lay in the crevice beneath unable to move away from that giant metallic beast. Maybe some maniac would've PUSHED her, maybe she would not have heard the train, or her foot would slip. And poof. Like that, there would be no more Rachel. The world had enough melancholy; now what would it need with her other than for her to run on a wheel for a buck more than minimum. And she was sure as hell a replacement would be found within a week, maybe no more than a day or two.

Waiting momentarily as blurred faces streamed out into the already suffocating tunnel, Rachel was pushed and jostled into the small cart before the doors locked her in with a quiet hush. Rachel squirmed to the back of the cart and realized it was the caboose. Looking out into the blackness, the tracks and walls were lit up by tiny specks of lights that lined the tunnel, making it appear foggy and ominous as the train chalked up dirt and grime. Looking down she watched as the tracks curved out from underneath her before jetting into the black. The emptiness swallowed her up. The sound of a couple dozen voices suddenly muffled beyond audible comprehension. She felt as if she was listening underwater, the pressure felt the same, as did the isolation. A different world and yet just the same. She wondered if she always had been so solemn and then she thought of herself at 17. Wild at heart, a constant s**t-eating grinning on her face, the look that said “I’m young, I’m beautiful and the world is MINE to take.” Curved hips that had swayed, eyes that could shoot you dead and a vivacious laugh to make you fall in love. She could hear her Mother now “Rachel you are still YOUNG. Stop thinking your life is over, and get over yourself” and perhaps she should, if she knew how. But her knee ached from a torn ACL, one that had led her to the end of her riding stunts. No more flying through courses on the back of a proud, occasionally bucking thoroughbred. No more training beasts with soft muzzles that would nibble at the ends of your hair or into your pockets in search of mints. It had cost her a pretty penny, but a pretty penny was worth a beautiful thing. Her mouth and left side of her face was numb. Results of a biopsy leading to full on major surgery, another skin graph meant to salvage her pretty face but leaving her with a jagged scar that made her look as if the joker hadn’t quite finished cutting to “put a smile on that face.” Everything piled onto a brand new rewards credit card. Though Rachel failed to ever see the reward in it, struggling to pay off little by little with the constant mocking that told her “you’ll pay this off in 15 years. That’s right. You’ll be old as f**k and probably broke too.” With all that and her damaged mind Rachel could not see beyond her hatred, the half full glass had smashed years ago. Rachel struggled with exactly 5 diagnosed mental illnesses as a result of trauma as well as predetermination. With all this in mind and heart, Rachel in fact DID NOT feel young. Rocking side to side, her knee slightly crooked, her face no longer consisting of the porcelain of youth. Rachel had once felt that she would take this world by storm and instead had been taken for a ride instead. She remembered her times of glory. Standing amidst her friends; always daring and mischievous, a mickey of vodka usually tucked away in her purse. If she showed up with a black eye, or was caught running past the group with a pulpy security guard on her trail; her friends would simply shrug and say “that’s Rachel,” before laughing and puffing away at the revolving joint.

She fell further into her glory days, the subway completing falling away behind her like the darkening tracks. In her minds eyes she saw herself at 18, thought notorious and hardened by life, or so she had believed at that time. People had become afraid of the dynamic that was Rachel by then. She was as unpredictable as she was stunning. She could’ve been a model then, maybe even an actress or a writer. But by then she had left ambition behind and fire was in her wake. The f**k the world attitude that had left three of her friends dead, two with bullet wounds one with a blade wedged so far into his ribs it was a wonder he hadn’t been buried with it. Rachel had wanted to die back then to, she just didn’t know how. She was still under the impression that no matter what she did in life she would live fast and die young, because that was the way to go. That was the way to be remembered. She didn’t realize then that there was no way to be remembered. No concrete steps to take other than perhaps being a genius to discover gravity, or someone to be written about in history books and she of course was neither. And that pouring a drink on your grave did nothing but feed the worms that would feed on you.

Despite all this Rachel lived in a euphoric state of excitement. Her days shimmering with drugs, alcohol and enough excitement to a pump a reality tv show full. People flocked to her, they felt bored and were drawn into the chasm that was Rachel Summers. Even the name flashed like a movie-stars. And that’s what she was. She was the star of her own show. She stayed in people’s lives momentarily; she stayed in their stories forever. Prone to violent outbursts as she was to being the world class hero. Notorious for stunts like pulling fire alarms on the day of her exams, or filling water bottles with vodka and tossing them to her thirsty friends, laughing as they spewed and struggled to get their mouth to stop burning. Her temper was well beneath the surface, hidden and well placed. “Don’t f**k with Rachel” they had once warned a perverted Jacob Garbler. He had watched the beauty queen with a lopsided grin, and she had watched him with her own. Rachel’s eyes alive with fire and the look that said “give me a reason…just one”. He had tried to force her into a bathroom at a party; taking her drunkenness for vulnerability. He watched in shock as her face grew dark, her blood pumped full of rum to void herself of feeling. She had kicked him so hard that the bathroom door had flung half off his hinges; breaking her beautiful silky heel she placed the other on his throat. Threatening to pop his jugular if he ever touched her again, threatening to castrate him if she heard he ever tried the same on someone else. It was then and on the few occasions that anyone had been unfortunate enough to catch Rachel’s dark side that they realized she was truly insane, and beneath that someone who was truly damaged. Rachel was often seen carrying a baseball bat in her hand and a ball in the other for the sake of her alibi as she paraded through dark streets selling petty drugs to petty people.

In those moments Rachel had lived, and in the moments that followed, that tough hard-shelled, take on the world girl became reduced to nothing but a smoldering pile of ash. Her friends had faded, her looks vanquished and her spirit stomped and stretched to fit the everyday mold.
Rachel was pushed to the side, no longer was she 18 but 22 and standing in the way of a rather heavyset old lady who was trying to rush for the seat behind where Rachel stood now. Her days of self-righteous angst had melted away to reveal a soft, shivering core and Rachel no longer scowled and told the lady to watch herself. Instead her heart palpitated at the thought of doing so, at the thought of any confrontation really and she resided to sitting back into the adjacent seat. Her eyes searched out into the nothingness, at what point exactly had life bested her? But her daydreams were cut short as the automated voice called out the last stop and once again bags were shuffled, stray hairs flattened and the crowd rose, she followed and exited the train station. As she ascended into the brightly lit train station and into phone service Rachel glanced down at her cell and saw two missed messages. Both were from Seth, she walked towards the kiss-n-ride as she clicked his contact and pressed the tiny phone to her ear.

“Rach?” Seth sounded tired, 12 hour days did not fend well for him. Nor did they even begin to amount to something that could result in the two of them living comfortably as opposed to paycheck to paycheck. Price checking kraft dinner, and dates never consisting of more than a couple loonies lodged into a pool table.

“Hey baby” she responded, feeling tired herself as she continued along the hall and towards the daylight that streamed into the glass doors at the end of the corridor.

“I’m here, where are you?”

“Just about there babe, you’ll see me in a sec.” She clicked the red button and hurried her pace. Seth was her boyfriend and her only friend. He was slightly bigger yet defined, a man with soft features and piercing green eyes. His booming and contagious laugh had been what had sealed the deal, she had sought after him after a night of good music and soft kisses. He was what glued her to the world and believed in the good in it. Reserved but resourceful, he had helped her off her feet on the many times she had looked for a hand. She could’ve had anyone, but after four years she knew that the patience and depth of love that Seth held for her would one day lead to a family. She found comfort in that. He was not extreme. He did not drink or smoke or do drugs. He maybe bordered on boring, but he was safe. And she drew safety above all. He would be a good Father, a good husband. Her face lit up as she spotted his slightly beaten up chevy, one that had attempted to fight back against the previous harsh Canadian winter and failed, or perhaps also to a few hastily opening doors in a stuffy parking lot.
Hi baby she thought, her heart swelled as she saw him behind the wheel, oblivious as always he was looking around, tapping his thick index finger on the wheel to the music she knew would be playing once she opened the door to that little car.

He spotted her just as her hand touched the door, he grinned and leaned across to push open the door; letting out a cool blast of air that sent goose bumps along her naked calves.

“Brr Seth, turn it down” she competed against the hard metal that screamed over the speakers. She despised the death metal crap and never understood how someone as softhearted as her Seth could ever enjoy the noise that now reverberated into her core. And she wasn’t sure if she was telling him to turn down the blaring AC or the crappy music; both would suffice she thought to herself.
“I missed you.” She murmured. Though she had only left him this morning she knew it was true. She missed his musty scent and the way he kissed her head if she rested on him. He didn’t have the hard chiseled abs that most women drooled and pawed after. He had much more than that. A thick chest with broad shoulders and a tender belly she could use to burrow her face in like a soft pillow. He didn’t hold to the bravado and cockiness that many a man usually hid behind. She loved him because she knew he never hid behind his insecurities. He wore them, not like armor like she herself was prone to, but like silk; something to love. Insecurities that Rachel could tuck herself into and know that what she saw was what she got. A man who was not afraid to cry had never prompted feelings in her in her younger years; but these days when all she yearned for was compassion and a soft-heart his glistening eyes almost melted the led in hers. Other times he was far away; she knew he was deep in the turmoil of his own mind. Seth had spent the first few years of both their patchy relationship and young adulthood in the army. A stubborn; perhaps even cruel man had enlisted; but after his trip overseas, the barking of commands and the treacheries that many civilians can only catch mere glimpses of in documentaries, a much different man returned home. Suffering from PTSD after two of his friends were blown to pieces in the armored vehicle ahead of him, he had watched in the driver’s seat as shrapnel pierced the window shield and split it into spider-webbed cracks, splattering it with blood and dirt. Seth had been lucky; or so he was told. He always held luck by his side. Unlike many other soldiers, Seth did not return toughened by his experience or confounded to hate the world. He neither closed his open faced book nor hated the author. He was the ying to Rachel’s yang and that was perhaps what had caused them to perpetually gravitate towards each other. Perhaps what had sanctified that which Rachel had thought would be lost in his return. They were extremes, and they found each other’s middle.

After Seth had left the war he softened, both in stature and mentality. He spent no time recovering and immediately launched himself into school; comforted by the solidity of its foundation, something safe. He yearned structure like a man in the desert yearned for water. Despite his integrity, after only a couple months Seth found himself breaking down and crumbling to sobs and cries as the sounds of explosions and screaming ricocheted in his head like bullets. He used to sit in the back of the classroom, palms clamped to his temples, eyes wide in terror as he recalled that he saw his classmates dying. Rachel evoked these stories with the clarity as if it had been only yesterday. She used to get calls from work and rush onto the subway to drive him home in his car, leaving him to hide behind his hands. Her hand rubbing his back, her words that were attempting to soothe neither listened to or ignored; in those moments it was as if Rachel didn’t exist. After a while Rachel wondered if it was true; if she didn’t exist anymore than the apparitions Seth found in their apartment. The paranoia had struck him like the shrapnel had hit his windshield; but she could not believe he was shattered. Perhaps it was the stubbornness in her, or perhaps just the simple selfishness to be the only tortured soul in the relationship. Where had the strength gone in Seth? She had wondered and occasionally resented this lack of strength on the days she could not find strength in herself. There was no one to hold her up anymore.

A few months following, Seth and Rachel drove home on a rainy night while on their way home from her family cottage, winding down dark country roads, encompassed by the looming shadows of trees and the tall grass of the farmer’s field’s. Seth had seemed to have been doing better. His fear had seemed to have settled, he no longer triple checked the locks on their apartment door, or dove in front of Rachel to protect her from invisible attackers. A sight that was both heartwarming but saddening, like a watery eyed dog at a local pound. She loved him, laying awake beside him as he whimpered and flailed in his sleep. Now he whimpered but he no longer struck out, or woke up in a sudden panic waiting for her to comfort him and hold him in her arms, before his loud snore assured her he was asleep and before she rested her own head. They had gotten in an argument before they had settled into the car on the long drive home. Seth had been adamant that he was to drive, upon Rachel’s refusal he accused her of a lack of trust and faith, and that it was his own car…that he had driven armored vehicles in the military and could handle a damn Chevy. She had relented and handed him the keys, it was late and she was tired. As they cruised down the dirt lanes, the occasional stream of headlights pooling into the car, Rachel grew tired. Something she not often found in herself, considering her state of persistent insomnia since early childhood. As they rode over hills and past dark pools of shadow that hid bodies of fresh water, Rachel’s eyes began to droop.

They opened abruptly in what only felt like seconds after closing to the screech of tires, the blaring horn of the other car. The fingers of silence had closed her airway tight with fear, a scream stuck in her throat, her stomach lurched and before she could process the situation the two cars collided and the world went white. The airbag hit her like a pro-linebacker, sending fumes of powder into the air; a ghostly site. She remembered the scream erupting, crying Seth’s name, she remembered hearing her own, though never sure if he had called her or something divine, or perhaps her own hallucination. She figured the latter. The car spun uncontrollably, spewing forth into the darkness and stopping short of a fuse pole. Luck again, had saved them. She remembered the pain, and looking over at Seth; who looked wild and perturbed. Seemingly possessed, he neither turned his head nor twitched a muscle,
“God told me to Rach…”
The ambulance arrived, but Seth was barely given a once over before being wheeled away once more. He spent 6 months in the psych ward before his release, carrying rather large baggage. He arrived at the doors to go home, a suitcase in one hand, the diagnosis of psychosis that had led to his permanent schizophrenia in the other. Rachel cried behind closed doors those days. His parents phoned relentlessly, berating her, criticizing his need to be with them at home. Rachel eventually disconnected the phone, her cellphone she let ring relentlessly before changing numbers. She knew it wasn’t them she wanted to avoid, it was the shame she had when a small part of her wanted to ship Seth back to his parents. To pack his things, call his parents and relent, as if to say “not my problem,” before finding someone else to fill the void. She knew that Seth was part of her, that she could no more send him back to his parents than she could her own arm. In the months that passed, Seth began to regain whatever normality was left for him. Constantly disturbed by voices, Rachel attacked his skewed logic with vivacious and persistent attempts. But they were frivolous and never yielded anything but further defense and quietness from Seth. She protected him like a mother bear to a cub, but the mother had given life and the cub would continue the lineage. Rachel wasn’t sure what Seth would have left to give as he remained in a state of silence. She tried to imagine the conversations that they could have, she tried to bring him to talk but eventually she too fell silent. It was in those months that Rachel grew darker. Further hollowed, anger and resentment at her life and circumstances grew. By the time Seth finally landed a job, they couldn’t afford to keep her quaint and beloved apartment, she put it on the market and they moved to a small carpeted basement with a permanent feel of dampness and a single window. As Rachel darkened she watched him grow, in these times she wondered if she even loved him.

“Rachel! Are you OK?” Rachel shook her head as she looked up at Seth, his green eyes glowing with concern. She had once again found herself lost in the past.

“What’s wrong�"“, He began to ask before Rachel interrupted once her surroundings cleared, “I’m ok, just lost in thought.”

Seth gave her a strange look before kissing her again on the head, whilst trying to remain alert to the road ahead. He did not ask her what she was thinking but instead drove on, before signaling and peeling off the highway onto a narrow road lit with construction.


They arrived at a small red brick house, single story with a long sloppily paved driveway, sloping brown roof and a small bed of neglected flowers. It was not exactly the dream home Rachel had thought she’d be in after working 3 years in one of the most expensive areas of the city. Then again she didn’t expect her flawless grades to be watered down into a secretarial position either. Her heart sunk in her chest and cold laced itself through her bones. Seth felt her stiffen on his side, looking down at her he flashed her a cute little grin, one she rarely could resist.
“I love you baby.”
She managed to force a tight smile back, wondering all the while if there was anything more to life than the crippling depression she currently felt. In these moments it felt like the world was crushing her. Immobilized by the lethargy of sadness she closed her eyes as Seth got out and shut his door. She willed herself to cry, to scream or get angry but her eyes remained dry, her body numb and she closed her eyes.

There she was, beautiful and forever young, her finger on the trigger.

Some daydreamed of winning the lottery, or a vacation, or the perfect future…Rachel only dreamed of death. Her body ached for it, pursuing reckless events, whispers in her ear of the simplicity of running a red light, or plummeting off a ledge…or stepping in front of a train. Her youthful dreams of a perfect husband, a bouncing cheeky baby and dog at her feet had been replaced with a black void. A merciless prayer that one day her pain would end. She didn’t yearn for money, or fame, love or family. Those dreams had long since died, early in her life. They had died in the nights of screaming into the black, writhing in agony as the suffocation of overlapping panic attacks coiled around her throat. Rage and desolation so strong that she clawed her hair, gouged her own skin until she lost her breath laying in blank terror. No one could save her. There was no cure, she had seen over 8 doctors, taken enough pills to understand the basics of pharmaceutics and all it had done was attack her further. Her medical file was large and daunting, and one of her nurses had even admitted with a snarl that no one wanted to tackle the monstrous file labeled “Rachel.” She had spent three separate birthdays in psychiatric facilities, spent months in rehabs and extensive treatment. She had attempted to drown herself in liquor, smoke pot till her eyes were sure to bleed, popped narcotics until she swore she saw the afterlife but eventually she had given up. Even addiction was more effort than what it was worth. Her family had pleaded in desperation for her to stop, and for the same reason she was alive in the little Chevy in front of the red brick house she had succumbed. Her life had been in constant turmoil; her diagnosis had carved her into a husk of her former self. Bipolar, Borderline Personality Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, Major Anxiety Disorder, PTSD, were stamped onto her life as if to define a meaning. As if meant to clarify, when all it did was muddle Rachel’s once seemingly possible future into a bleak existence.

Reviews

[barleygirl]

I really enjoy your writing & your unique way of conveying the complex & varied tapestry of what's going on inside a character's life, inside his/her mind or heart. This background material is plentiful & brightly crafted, but it overpowers your story. Most readers want a story to deliver action, drama, & suspense . . . this is what keeps a person coming back in a longer story. It felt like this was mostly background material, albeit strong interesting stuff, but it went on for more than the first half of the piece. Finally there's some interaction between characters & some action to carry the story along, but even this is too little AND too late. It seems like this storytelling is too cerebral . . . too much in the head . . . it doesn't seem to take in the whole gamut of life. Here's this long piece & you hardly take the reader anywhere, just the office & the elevator mainly . . . plus, your characters hardly actually DO anything . . . most of this is going on inside someone's head. Stories happen out in the world, with action & movement & smells & facial expressions & sounds & so on. I'm sorry I could not get into this. I skimmed about half of it, becuz it seemed to go on & on without having a plot or anything to keep me interested (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[The Ink Chapters]

While I can appreciate you calling this “cerebral” I will say this is one of my favourite writing pieces. And I’m not looking to appeal to an audience who wants quick action, or a story to just get somewhere. I want someone who enjoys the process of building characters before the real plot begins. This is only the first part to a very longer idea, and it builds very gradually at the beginning so I can show their personality and circumstance.

Yes it is based on a lot of thought rather than event, but it is well done and has kept myself and many who have read this entertained.

Also all though we may only go from subway to office to home. This also misses all the stories told in between in those thoughts, Rachel’s experience in high school and youth, seths car explosion in the army, the car crash and eventual explanation of why Seth will be as he is. It’s called backstory and it’s important before getting to the real meaty parts of this book.

Anyone looking for action will absolutely be disappointed in this piece, but anyone looking for description and thought provoking ideas about getting older, maintaining relationships, how time controls us...that’s who my readers are

[Coyote Poetry]

You are a amazing writer. I need to improve how I write conversation and personal thoughts. You do it very well. I liked the girl and you gave her life and reasons to be alive. You allowed the reader to feel her thoughts and her journey. A well written and interesting story. Thank you for sharing the excellent story. I will re-read again.
Coyote