Casserole

A short story.

Casserole

09/28/05

 

     "It was just a dream", she tried to assure me as my blood ran cold. With debris tumbling through it like the timeless tattered pieces of the Titanic, I paced and paused to watch an empty popcorn bag skid across the abandoned theatre lot.
     A storm really was coming. For a moment I laughed maniacally at the thought of having called the storm and it coming to me, or having summoned it or awakened it, or having somehow given it life. I swung around a flickering street lamp, kicked an also lost soda can, sat on the curb and cried.
     I cried and cried, wanting a cigarette, and wished I could gather those very tears that were my life and put them in a casserole.
     "It wasn't just a dream." I managed as I sat motionless, my spirit swaying beneath the comfort of her pale, pale arm. The dream brought me to shake hands with a memory I'd have just as soon never had the perverse pleasure of meeting again. It left the taste of rust and acid in my mouth, and my ears rang with the wanton denial of it. She played with my hair, gingerly tucking it behind my ear and administering loving, languid strokes to my ever sensitive lobe while at it. As if she knew, and as if to soothe that ringing, which it did.
     I decided to withhold the debate. My mind obliterated itself and my senses with objections to keeping quiet for the sake of peace, while my insides were at war. But that's just it. It's my war. She's just an innocent by-stander, a raven-haired beauty with red highlights not unlike cherry pie who, bless her heart, thinks she loves me.
     "What if you don't know who I am?" I asked aloud as I rose and wrapped my jacket tighter to myself, sunk down in it, lowered my ball-cap, and placed a chivalrous gentlewomanly arm around her, wishing her no harm.
     "I know who you are." She retorted in a calm fashion, and like magic my mind melded to those words as if holding on to them for dear life might make them true.
     It's not that I don't love her, but it's a love lessened by the trappings of this skin and this world. I get the feeling we once had something complete that was broken by having been born. As illogical as it sounds, she seemed to understand that. So I guess maybe she knows me better than I thought.
     Her shoulder fit beneath my hand in such a way I had to squeeze it. I smiled, admiring her Goddess-ness while we strolled hurriedly home. "I love you..." fell from my lips like coins into a tip jar, and I winced. I was hoping they'd fall more like notes from a song or reflections from a star. I could see them seeping into her, but unlike me, she didn't weigh them much. She just accepted them.
     "I love you too, Mel." Her words were candy.
     It was becoming clear to me I would forever have a lot to learn.

 

 

Author's Note

I recently came across this short piece in a journal of mine. Reading it now moves me so that I'd like to share it. Please review as you see fit, if you'd like.

Reviews

[cilla]

I had a professor in college explain that the real Oedipus Complex is the obsession to learn the truth regardless of the cost and that is what we do. We discover at some point that learning is the exercise of discovering how much we really don't know. And that is a hard thing to come to terms with.

The story provides a wonderful contrast between one who always thinks before acting and the raven haired princess who is all too willing to accept things as they are. The thinker ponders, "I love you" and she responds without thought but with genuine sincerity, "I love you, too." It is easy to envy her because that is all she sees. There are no philosophical debates or layering metaphors to capture the moment, it is just a pure and simple, "I love you."

As our minds continuously write the story of our lives, we are the real tragic heroes ... forever doomed to unhappiness, dragging our chains to Act Three where some sort of final resolution will be committed.

When I read this short piece above it simply resonated in my very soul ... it is me ... over-thinking every situation because that's what I tend to do. Imprisoning myself in an intellectual mire of my own creation ... unable to act but ironically able to go on over-thinking our crazy fates.

I don't know what you intended here but what you have captured is real life ... perhaps unknowingly, my life. This is a pure gem and it speaks to me profoundly.

[Melobldnfr]

I wrote Casserole as a journal entry. It had to have been based on some sort of reality, or I would've written and stored it some other way. I know it was mostly to get it out of me, out of my head and senses, a release by way of pen and paper. Perhaps my subconcious was pushing to the surface the fact there are roots and reasons based in spirituality I'd yet to delve into in a way that gave me definitive words.

I thank you so much for your time in reading and reviewing it.

Funny you should mention Oedipus. I wrote and performed a song regarding him for an assignment in college.

[Androglossia]

Life is never easy for us. We passed through a lot of stages, a lot more than the usual. Others too difficult it left an imprint into our very being. Into our very soul. We have a lot of fears more than the usual or what they're supposed to be called. It's never easy, it's always been a struggle until we were able to fully accept what we are made of, what we are made to do. Who we are.

I love your story. I've been there too:)

[Melobldnfr]

Thank you so much for reading and for your thoughts here. It means a great deal to me. Xo.

[Pebbles]

Mel i really love this so much and must come back and read it again to give the feedback as i think it has made me want to read so much more that you have written but i just havnt the time tonight ... So many brilliant lines here and it made me smile thankyou xx