WIPCH1

A Chapter by Cameron Berry

Start on an introduction, includes unedited ideas.

I laid there for what might have been an infinite duration. Rays of light peeked in from ruffled blinds, issuing annoying glints towards dull retinas. I stumbled out of dreams, and shot into definite consciousness, though hazy. It was an early Saturday or Monday morning. Time has been enjoying peculiar tricks on my behalf. I’ve learned to let my dreams pay penance for my time awake, and waking life pay recompense for sleep. Dreams were always a funny thing, you can rarely split your time lying in bed, or on couch, or in box from the dream itself. This can be said likewise for waking life.

Her eyes caught mine. If I wasn’t one to take care, I’d fall straight into her pupils, swirling brilliantly, beckoning for me to enter. Her hands were pale, soft, shy. I was a kid of only 18 years, naïve and stupefied by the world. I imagined I could map the intricacies of the globe on the palm of my hand. I could spell out the glory of my life, and be sure of glory’s universality in all of humanity. Yet, there was something in the glint of her eyes that struck me as unusual, as foreboding of certain unknown cruelties of life. What cruelty is there to know? Of course, I could not have known then. I was God, in complete control of my will, of everything I encountered: a perfect solipsist. How could it have been otherwise? Her name was Sarah. Her face was pale, soft, shy. I loved her, as I was wont to do, and she would love me. I was sure of this. This was a dream, to be sure.

Her hands were wretched and torn, or so she’d like to think. My mother was sick, but who could blame her after caring for 6 kids. I sat beside her across from my father at Fleetwood, the neighborhood diner. She shook.

“What’s wrong?”, I asked.

“I’m just tired”, she yelped in a whisper.

She had a way of concealing some secret pain, that nobody but her could fathom. I was caught between pity and annoyance; at only 22 I couldn’t reasonably make up my mind, and, in fact, I never did. My father it seemed had made up his. Cold, steady, his eyes narrowed towards hers as if to take in as little of her as he could. My mother trembled incessantly, stopped only by the clanking alarm of the fork colliding with the plate. 2 eggs over medium, bacon, hash browns well done, rye toast, without fail for the last twelve years, every Saturday morning. [callback] She was a pitiful creature, cowering before the minutiae of life, swallowed by a great big universe she couldn’t understand. This was also a dream.

My mother and father are gone now, but they loved each other more than most would ever know.

My Thursday night finds me at Joe’s Coffee, a quaint place that houses all varieties"businesspeople, hippies, and lunatics. The walls are hung from floor to ceiling with 60’s paraphernalia, artifacts from a hipper time. Mickey Mouse plates, ornate teapots with funny spouts, paintings of Monk and Lennon adorn the walls, bohemian giants slinking down to the floor like a Dalian dream. The room swelled and sank and rose all with the grace of some graceful thing; regulars seemed not too interested in federal smoking regulations, and Joe played blind to this.

Life had treated me plainly, and so I treated it plainly in turn.

I looked at the walls of the home that protected him in his youth. His eyes spun around the room in a full circle. Is the room the mandala, or is it me?

Everything was constant, except my mind. My mind flailed and stretched for something beyond perception, but nothing changed. I sought a novelty that wasn’t there. The walls were hung with ornate silk tapestries that captured all of life and all of death. Each individual thread spoke for an existence that wasn’t mine; each cross-stitch for every war and conflict and entanglement I’ve never fought. The entirety of existence was laid before me in its full artistic manifestation, but it had nothing to do with me. These tapestries

Every ambition was in a private, secret world flailing to get out. Every motivation and desire was locked up from conversation and I had to condense the whole of my existence into time enough for a brief conversation.

“Hi”, he said.

“Hello, I have to get going now”, she said.

And he was back in union with the universe.

I fell in love at every moment at the sight of every beautiful woman and man, and consequentially fell out of love at every moment. This realization disheartened me,

and I put my eyes toward the table that lay before me. The table was mahogany with a flamed maple top. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. He would have conceived such a table?

He had teeth that chew like mine, that tore through flesh and blood and cartilage and sinew, searching for life. His eyes scoured his surrounding tearing through space and time.

People slouched around, like half-brained troops shipped to Vietnam, or Normandy, or some other equivalent hell. They saluted and laughed to the shipping container that held them. Yet, their mind couldn’t contain their freedom so their body did as it pleased. They stumbled around like a Michigander, ope, ope, ope she goes. Skewered with peculiar idiosyncrasies fumbling to get out, the dumb soldier tells you of his day: “I went about, oping around, oping here, oping there, and that’s about all.” I knew this very well, as this was my daily routine. Professional fumbler, Mark Sanchez feels wax burn down to his hands, as I replace him as clumsiest athlete.

There is a certain sting to freedom. I have long been afraid of bees and stings, and, coincidentally, I am not too fond of the caws of birds. An amateur comedian is heckled off stage, with a piercing, venomous sting. Ze, who? It is I, Ze, I and not I, but Ze cringing alone, bearing the world as Sisyphus, and indulging in laughter towards myself, and my notself.

The great poet

Ze is the actor playing the doubter, the great doubter, the Descartes of theatrics and thespians. Can one be the doubter who has read the script? Who will ze convince of this? Least of all himself, for he is a liar to all and he knows it, a lyre for likewise amateur musicians to butcher.

“Hey man, how are you doing these days?”

“Good sir, simply going around under auspices of some divine good, hoping to develop an individual voice.”

“Great to hear! Yeah, I’ve just been really busy busy at the shop, you wouldn’t believe how many people can’t change a tire.”

I am a dumb forklift carrying a crate of forks. Dine away.

I sipped and tasted from its sweet nectar, dripping from my dumb gorge like juice from a ripe watermelon

I laid there, for what might have been an infinite duration. The sun pressed against the window relentlessly, issuing annoying glints towards dull retinas. I was just tired and craved an early morning cigarette. I awoke, in spite of my best efforts to return to my dreams. What force is it that wakes me daily? Perhaps if I just lay in bed all day, I could upset some ethereal balance and change everything. On the other hand, I might just be some lazy f**k risking a paycheck.

My toes sank down, displacing sand, or ashes, I was unsure. I looked down and up and landed upon a smooth, rounded chin. I worked up past freckly specked spots crawling up towards her nose, past soft honey lips.

I fashion myself to be anti-ism-ist,

“How long have you been here?”, she decried.

I tripped over my tongue for an answer: “I’ve been here for the last month. I was hoping to see you again, and I know ...

I couldn’t tell if I was Moriarty or Sal, a hoodwinked detective in an ugly cap, chasing after his Mary Lou or his Irene. I was

The saddest thing about the man was that he couldn’t read. He had the vocabulary of twice anyone I ever knew, and he couldn’t understand a damn thing. I pitied him and I took him to Rick’s bar for a night out. David was a portly man, high cheeks, low chin. He had a bum-knee and an awkward slog for it. He wore large

© 2017 Cameron Berry

Author's Note

Notes mostly, hope to get some feedback.

My Review

Would you like to review this Chapter?
Login | Register

Reviews

Rosie Brooklin

I love your writing style! It's very poetic and thought-provoking. I feel like I'm looking sheet-by-sheet into a layered work of art. I'll eagerly anticipate the coming-together of this great idea!