The Concept of Home and Other Fallacies

When I was a child, my parents tried desperately to raise me as a good, wholesome Christian boy.  They toted me along to church with them each Sunday without so much as asking my opinion on the matter, and I was made to sit through services lasting upwards of an hour and a half so that I might comprehend the immensity of Jesus’ sacrifice for my soul and his gift of eternal life.  It was a reoccurring challenge for me, and, at the time, it felt as if I was the one being forced to carry the cross upon my back while the masses looked on with expectant eyes.

My father was raised in the Methodist tradition, while my mother was a Catholic.  Although my father was perfectly content and involved with his facet of faith, my mother always felt that the Catholic lifestyle was too strict and unforgiving; she felt pressed and crushed, painfully trapped in her relationship with God.  When she married my father, they began attending Methodist services together, as she was anxious to leave her forced upbringing behind.  She soon grew discontent once again, however, complaining that these services were too consistent and congruous, without much variation.

And so they both left and began a new life, with me on the way, in the Lutheran sect.  I suppose they were both appeased with this practice, as Resurrection Point Lutheran Community Church is the only house of worship I have ever known.

Our habitual routine of attending Sunday services soon became a burden for me, and I dreaded the so-called “day of rest” each week, which somehow forced more energy and exhaustive struggle out of me than any other day.  To make matters worse, each worship session felt exactly the same to me.  Each week we would file into the sanctuary, walk down the middle aisle and sit in the second pew from the front on the left.  The preacher, garbed in pure white linens that had to have been bleached to be that spectacularly clean, would file in with the acolytes and distant chiming bells to announce the beginning.  This procession always marked the point at which I totally lost interest, and so I spent the entire service fidgeting clumsily between wakeful sleeping fits and doodling in the hymnal.  I had to do this with hesitant caution so that my mother wouldn’t see and give me a stern talking to during the car ride home.

Despite my initially unruly behavior, I did, eventually, develop an appreciation for the church.  Please recognize that I use the word “appreciation” here in its loosest sense; although I learned to respect the traditions and the teachings of the pastor, I still found no particular joy in attending service.  I like to imagine that at some point in my adolescence I matured into a religious minimalist, which I think is rather impressive given my detached beginnings. At least I outgrew apathy, and for this my parents weren’t exactly satisfied, but they were no longer saddened by my heathenism.

At one point in my early teenage years, my interest had developed to a point at which I even began to formulate questions about my faith.  Most of these inquiries were fleeting and insubstantial, so typically they never stayed with me for more than a few hours.  There is one, however, that still haunts me today.  I’ve never found an adequate response to soothe my soul.

This question originated on a particular Sunday when my family arrived at Resurrection Point forty minutes prior to service, because my parents had volunteered to make preparations for the post-worship luncheon.  (These luncheons were always my least favorite part of the church-going experience, because, although there were free sandwiches and punch with ambiguous fruity flavors, I somehow always ended up crammed up against the wall at the corner table with the elderly women of the church, who wasted no time in pressuring me into answering the same exhaustive questions each week " how is school? What are you studying? Have a girlfriend yet? Do you pray each night?  But I digress.)  Finding myself in a state of infinite boredom, I decided to wander the sprawling halls of the church aimlessly, exploring the various vacant rooms and closets.

After hearing an ominous creaking sound coming from the black depths of a cavernous classroom in the west wing, I decided to open the door and search inside.  I remember the door being particularly bulky; perhaps the hinges were worn and the intricate pieces somehow didn’t fit together correctly.  I was surprised when I found myself breathing heavily in exhaustion after pushing it aside, and the cool stream of stagnant air that rushed from the room was a welcome sensation against my flushed face.  It felt as if no one had used this room for any purpose for quite some time.

I fumbled against the dank walls for the light switch and eventually found it a few feet to the right of the threshold.  A sudden burst of illumination sparked the room to life, and I felt a wave of surprise consume me when I realized how unexceptional this room was.  Perhaps it was just the startled feeling still flowing through my veins caused by the unprecedented noise, but I was expecting something unusual here.  To my disappointment, it looked just like the other classrooms I had already snooped through.  There was a long wooden table in the center, about waist high, and small chairs lining the walls.  There was no trace of homely decoration on the white walls save for a cross positioned carefully at the far end of the room.

Concluding with no substantial evidence that the unusual disturbance had been nothing more than a scurrying mouse, I approached the cross with an inexplicable interest.  The design was ornate and enriched with an intricate pattern of golden metals sprawled about the wood of the cross, which was painted bright teal.  Printed in an elaborate cursive script across the horizontal piece of the cross in silver were the words “It is Hell with my Soul.”

And thus my unanswered inquiry was indirectly born.  The more I pondered the meaning of the words, the more confused and muddled my thoughts became.  To me, the cross was a symbol of Jesus, and thus the words written on it were somehow a part of Jesus himself.  I had always perceived him as a strong and courageous individual, but this phrase weakened him in my heart.  It made him vulnerable to me, damaged even.  I thought perhaps Jesus truly did feel as if it was Hell in his soul, and that he wasn’t quite as valiant as I had always believed.  It was humbling, in a way, as this occurrence humanized him.  I felt more connected to the man who sacrificed himself for my sins.  I found myself analyzing the words further, searching for the reason why Jesus’ soul was potentially troubled.  Was he not content?  Perhaps he was lonely.  But how could he be lonely with his disciples and followers?  This triggered another thought in my mind: maybe he was lonely because he was lacking something essential, something stable and concrete.  Something like a home.

I always imagined Jesus traversing the land to teach and inspire the creations of his father, to lead them to a better life.  And this troubled me, because if Jesus was always travelling, did he really have a place to call home?  I feared that perhaps he was a lonesome traveler.  Did he have a place of refuge from the difficulties and weariness of life that even he must have faced from time to time?

I have never found an answer.  I just remember thinking that I didn’t want Jesus to be lonely.  I felt that if he was lonely, then surely I must be lonely too, because he spent his life surrounded by people whom he loved unconditionally.  So why was it Hell with his soul?

*          *          *

I spent my teenage years turning the concept of home over in my head, the theory tumbling through my brain like socks in a rinse cycle.  I preoccupied myself with searching out a niche of my own in each situation I was thrust into, hoping that I might understand what it meant to belong.  This began in my own house, which I suppose is the most obvious “home” one can have.  I generally felt comfortable there surrounded by my parents and the unparalleled intimacy I shared with my bedroom, the familiarity of household objects and miscellaneous collections.  I felt at home while sitting in the second pew on the left in the sanctuary of Resurrection Point, my eyes glossing over the superheroes and intricate spirals I had left as the residue of my younger and more innocent years.  And finally I found a new home in the arms of Melanie.

I met her one day in junior English when I insulted one of her favorite bands.  We were sitting in small groups discussing the latest album releases instead of the significance of Scout’s youth in To Kill a Mockingbird.  (To be fair, that discussion topic was frustratingly broad, so I didn’t feel overly guilty about ignoring it.)  After the regrettable words had escaped from the chamber behind my teeth, she instantly perked up and spat out a defensive retort.  By the end of the class period she had asked me to grab a cup of coffee with her later.

After several months of coffee dates and movie dates and other cliché dates, Melanie started coming to church with me on occasion.  It wasn’t a habitual attendance, but it was enough to satisfy the old sandwich ladies, who received her with open arms and slyly sincere smiles.  On Sundays that she did attend worship with me, she would focus attentively on the sermons while slipping her warm, slender fingers into the spaces between mine, one at a time.  This action always stained my face a subtle hue of cherry because it made me feel like a part of something, a part of her that was relevant and important.  It felt like we had been sitting together in this pew every Sunday our whole lives.

Melanie fell asleep on my shoulder when we cuddled in bed, watching old TV reruns from our childhoods.  She laughed with a borderline joyous scream when I pushed her on the swing at the neighborhood park on sweltering summer afternoons.  She shook her head with a soft giggle when she took me to yoga classes and I couldn’t hold the tree pose.  She kissed my neck tenderly when we embraced under twilight skies, and in those infinite seconds I felt a lightness in my soul that permeated a sense of boundless security into the folds of our intertwined bodies.

Even in chilled, white walled hospital waiting rooms Melanie exuded a sentiment of familiar intimacy.  I enclosed her in my sweeping arms as frequently anxious tears rolled down her pale cheeks, and she leaned in against my chest, whispering between shallow breaths a delicately flimsy and somewhat tattered “thank you.”

I had no sense of why her mother had been admitted to the emergency room earlier that evening nor why her father had been absent from the house and thus unable to drive them to the hospital.  I held Melanie close and didn’t even ask, because what mattered was that we were creating a new hope together in this troubled time; she needed me and I was eagerly prepared to give her every part of my being.

We stayed up until well past three in the morning, two islands in a sea of cheap synthetic leather padded chairs.  Between waves of hysteric sobbing gasps, she spread my fingers wide and drew triangles in the fleshy spaces between them.  The tiny inky tip of the pen pressed against my skin was smooth and cool.  From the valley of triangles more elaborate designs were permeated: she traced the tributaries of my bulging blood vessels, formed spirals atop my knuckles, and made constellations with my freckles.

I took the pen and circled the points of conjunction of the creases in her palms.  I created a cloud on the outside of her right index finger, and surrounded it with asymmetrical flowers.  Her remaining fingers became the canvas for cubes, birds, and squiggly lines because I wasn’t artistically gifted enough to form anything elaborate.  Melanie rested against my shoulder as I illustrated diligently, her tears starting to subside with each ticklish stroke of the ballpoint pen.

That night she told me she loved me, batted her long, dewy eyelashes against mine, and kissed my lips deeply and lasciviously.  Her mother was released from the emergency room at around four, and we parted ways for the night, her gratitude for my existence tattooed on our hands and sealed safely in our hearts.

On a cool Friday night in early June we ran through a vacant field towards an explosive dark pink twilight.  Melanie lived on the outskirts of town, in a neighborhood that could be categorized as neither city nor country.  The backyard of her house opened out into a thick cluster of trees, a miniature sort of forest, beyond which was an expansive field that seemed to stretch forever.  Beautiful horizons constantly lingered in the distance.

With soft sun rays warming our faces, we danced like two graceless angels yearning for ecstatic joy.  Smiles sliding between our figures, we pressed onward, sprinting towards that majestic energy on the skyline that seemed so tangible.

In the distance, the sturdy silhouette of a trampoline etched a shaded contrast upon the colorful drapery.  We ran towards this mass.  My eyes were locked on Melanie’s luscious brown hair flowing in the breeze.  Her gentle laugh soared atop the wind waves, radiating an elegance similar to that of a lonely light bulb dangling in a dimmed and isolated room.  She was my home.

The trampoline was hers. This field was rarely frequented by anyone and thus had no owner.  More than anything, this forgotten landscape was a playground for the mind, a haven for happiness and pensive dreams.

We removed our shoes and climbed atop the trampoline, finding footing on the flimsy material.  We bounced lightly for a few brief moments, wordlessly exchanging sentences between glances.  I found myself mirrored in Melanie’s deep blue eyes, a parallelism I had never experienced before.  She was my love.

I hopped slowly to her side and placed a kiss on her warm forehead.  She smiled and kissed me back, a peck on the cheek.  I felt the pink illuminations intensify and split into infinite hues of color " pale yellows and deep reds swimming through fragile purples and blues under a cover of faded oranges.  The twilight expanded as our bodies slipped closer together.  We floated on the edge of sinking color, two lovers stranded on a nebulous cloud at the brink of the unknown.  Our kisses were red.

“I love you,” she whispered in my ear, tugging me down and towards her.

I reciprocated, caressing the space between her shoulder blades.

We moved closer, our breaths quickening.  Her body was an unclassified flower, blooming into vibrant energy.  A symphony played in her heart.

“Hold me here forever,” she sighed into my chest.

I tightened my embrace and kissed her lips.  The trampoline below us vibrated lightly with the motion of our bodies.  I felt her around me, not as a human, but as an ethereal aura, her entire spirit enclosing my body in an eternal unity.  The pinks and reds burst upon us and sent a shower of twilight pieces into our world.

*          *          *

I shared pieces of myself with Melanie that I wasn't even sure existed.  She taught me more about myself than I had been able to discern independently, and because of this our combined energy established a new and profound dynamic in which our connection ran deeper than comprehension.  I wish I could more satisfactorily convey the sentiments associated with this concept, but sometimes the immensity of a love permeates beyond that which can be captured on a page.  Some emotions are silent, refusing to be confined to the space inside sentences.

We spent many more summer days together, absorbing the intangible elements of life that I had neglected to perceive prior to our relationship.  The little moments we shared nestled their way into my heart and found a refuge there, snuggled up against my flowing veins and pumping muscles.  And the sun would set and the sun would rise again, and in this way I would find a new home with Melanie each day.

As the summer months progressed, I found myself neglecting regular attendance at Resurrection Point.  I was, by this point, eighteen years of age, and so my parents could not enforce my going.  Or rather, they probably still could have enforced my going, but they were presumably frustrated and unwilling to argue against my obstinate teenage attitude.  So while they maintained routine, I slept in, woke up disheveled and unshaven, and unabashedly watched reruns of my favorite TV series that were now off the air.  Although I did, at times, feel slight waves of guilt from my neglect of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I felt that this new convention was a much more relaxing and pertinent way of spending my remaining Sundays before heading off to university.  I was simply fulfilling the stereotype of a lazy teenager.

Initially this shift in behavior felt like a liberation, given that for the first time in life I had the freedom to make my own decisions regarding the activity of my Sundays.  I was responsible for my own actions and something in me was captivated by the thrill of this little victory.

My sporadic worship patterns eventually began to pull at something deeper, however, and before I had fully grasped this new concept of independence I felt a sort of internal remorse at the vacancy I had willingly created.  For it is not easy to sacrifice something that has been an intrinsic part of your being for such an extended period, even if it is through voluntary action.  The sensation that sweeps over you then is nothing short of unsettling.

I tried to resolve this hollowness through a therapeutic prayer session one Sunday when I had once again decided to skip church and was feeling especially guilty about it.  I was watching an old episode of some long forgotten show at the time, but had failed to become invested in it, as lingering contrition had consumed each fold of my mind.  Pausing the TV and tucking a plush couch pillow between my legs, I interlocked my fingers and closed my eyes, assuming a position that I had all but lost familiarity with.  I coerced the untainted thoughts staining my soul to rise into the aura of divine energy that I imagined somehow appeared during prayer.  Focus danced elusively in the darkness behind my closed eyelids; I attempted to become consumed by it, to release all other distraction and outside commotion.

Yet I could not come to conciliation with myself.  I found no reassurance or distinct sense of belonging in this intimate connection that was once so simple.  The thoughts and feelings that were swimming somewhere inside my inner being began to drown; my heart could not find the words to express their respective essences.  Everything that rose to comprehension was still somehow mangled and scattered.  My inability to meaningfully piece together scraps of my soul in confession and reconciliation left me feeling fettered and hollow.  A wave of sorrowful exasperation washed over me, and I cursed myself for having destroyed a bond that was once a source of paramount peace.

I found some degree of solace in Melanie despite these recent happenings.  I felt as if I had been severing connections simply and uncontrollably.  I felt myself drifting farther from my parents as the days ticked on, and now my religion didn’t seem to extend a welcoming hand the way that it used to, even if the blame for this was to be placed on me.  I was beginning to feel a bit disheartened and lost in my life; Melanie remained my one constant, and for this I was humbly grateful.

Of course, there was no avoiding the fact that it was now mid-July and our future college endeavors loomed ever closer on the horizon of our minds.  In August she would be going to the state university and I would be moving one state to the east for my education.  We had talked about retaining the spark in our relationship on several occasions, despite the daunting distance.  It would be roughly a three hour drive between our colleges, so we would still be able to spend some quantity of time together, although it would obviously be much less than what we were used to.  We discussed such matters on dull summer afternoons, in which we would come to some sort of hopeful agreement that “this can work” before kissing and falling into a light slumber.  We would wake later with the subject nothing more than a hazy cloud barely visible in the distance.  It seemed easiest to hold the matter at bay for as long as possible.

It’s not that we were stupidly naïve about it, though.  Realism ultimately trumps all, and so we chose not to live in a world blinded by whimsical optimism.  When August rolled around, we would focus on the issues as they arose.  For the time being, however, it made the most sense to cherish each day we had together.

I had a dream one night in late July.  The night was particularly humid and muggy, so sleep was evasive and somewhat penetrable; my body was unable to make peace with the salty air sticking to my skin.  Yet somewhere in that semi-conscious, jumbled state, a fleeting ethereal encounter consumed me, and its vivid presence in my slight slumber is not something I’ve been able to shake.

In my dream I was soaring.  Cocooned in a big blue balloon, I drifted above air currents, rising to the heavens.  Below me, an expanse of invisible cities buzzed with seemingly stagnant life, a flurry of immobile commotion.  I reclined in this bubble and sighed.

Flocks of migratory birds swam through the sea-like sky above me, leading the wake of tumultuous white waves collapsing upon one another, fluffed in agitated brilliance.  The purity of these clouds was immensely deep; they stretched like taffy, boundlessly, across the billowing cosmos.  The sun, reflected against their creamy tufts, blazed a golden gloss upon the elastic blue backdrop.

The approaching flock cried out in a sonorous unison, squawking encoded and incomprehensible messages.  All at once they plummeted, diving down at me without any sort of warning.  Panic hastened my heartbeat.  It looked like black daggers raining down, vicious and unconquerable.  It was a swarm.

The first bird made contact with my balloon, piercing a sizable hole in the pliable surface with its razor-sharp beak.  After it had gashed my haven, it disappeared, fading into nothingness as if it had never existed.

The deluge persisted after this initial encounter.  One by one the savage beasts shredded my balloon, each vanishing spontaneously after its purpose had been served.  With each new gash I felt the balloon plunge lower.  After all of the birds had dissolved into air, the balloon itself (or rather, its pitifully scrappy remains) followed suit, and I found myself falling, jilted from my refuge.

I suppose I didn’t really have time to process my impending demise, because next thing I knew I was seated comfortably in the first cart of a roller coaster slowly creeping to the peak.  Most importantly, I was securely fastened down by numerous harnesses.  Although this was extremely comforting given my previous experience, the fact that I was the only passenger on the entire chain of carts was not.

At the peak I felt buoyant.  A great expanse of uniform houses and cars were drawn out below me as if from an artist’s sketchbook.  The cohesion of the scene felt somehow familiar, and I resided above it all like a god.

I took a deep breath and the chain of carts tumbled over the peak.  I laughed and screamed joyously at the thrill before I realized that the drop was somehow vertical.  I screamed then, and the harnesses around me disintegrated, as did the carts and the track itself " once again, I was falling.

I cascaded through a kaleidoscopic realm: at once, the space was totally black, then it erupted into waves of flaming red and orange, and suddenly I was engulfed by refracted lines of purple, blue, and pink against a pale white background.  Nothing made sense and everything was color.

After the rapidly shifting hues were gone, a gentle shade of blue commanded the area.  It was soft and simple, and I daresay I would have even called it beautiful had I not been falling.  But I was, descending deeper into an abyss that could not possibly exist.  Suddenly I felt very damp and it became evident to me that the blue was water, and I was drowning.  In fact, this was indisputably true!  The further I fell, the deeper the blue became, until it eventually found its way back to blackness and the weight of the nameless space crushed me until I was lost.

 

*          *          *

 

The morning of my departure to university was particularly chilly and quite uncharacteristic for mid-August.  While my parents loaded various boxes and bags that held the contents of my life into the family van, I roamed through the rooms and halls of our house like a ghost.  My room was freshly barren and my efforts to find points of attachment and belonging were fruitless.  It wasn’t that all of my belongings had been packaged up and stored away; on the contrary, most of my items would be left behind to collect dust and acquire hollowness.  But there was enough missing for things to feel shuffled, and that’s the best way I can describe it.  My room was not mine anymore, because pieces of myself had been scattered and torn away.

Melanie was there, standing steadily by my side as I glided through the spaces I used to occupy.  Everything felt distant to me except for her; each step she took created noise, each breath she exhaled created motion, each blink of her deep blue eyes created waves of sanguine energy that brushed against my hardened shores.

After I had passed through each room in the house, I came back to the space that once was mine.  My bed was stripped, the sheets and pillows packed tightly in the van.  Regardless, I sat down on this naked shell, with Melanie by my side.  I looked out the window and saw the van backed out into the street, my parents waiting patiently in the front.  Steam rose from the exhaust pipe in a mysterious white cloud.  It was time to go.

Turning to Melanie, I felt a single tear rush down my cheek, warm and unsettling.  She gave me one of those farewell smiles that seem to say everything but what you actually need to hear.  Tears tumbled from her pristine pools too, and we embraced.  It wasn’t particularly comforting, it just was.  It was a moment in which the two of us existed without bounds and that’s what made it so trapping.  There were no utterances of resolution or solace and somehow I was okay with that because I knew that was the way it had to be.

A whirlwind of frenzied motion captured my last few moments with her.  The next thing I could recall was sitting in the backseat of the van among my heaps of stuff. I didn’t feel human; I was just another box being passively transported to a distant destination.

At intervals I would catch my father’s eyes reflected in the rearview mirror.  These brief moments of contact were uncomfortable and strange.  He somehow didn’t seem existent to me.

My mother sat in the seat next to him, her eyes focused on the red yarn she was knitting into a scarf.  She would break from her endeavor at random moments to glance out the window and take in the world around her.

Seeing them like this from my vantage point in the backseat reminded me of Sunday morning drives to Resurrection Point.  I remembered how close I used to be to these two strangers who loved me with their entireties.  I remembered how close I used to be to God and the forced relationship I had with him that blossomed into something very real and independent " that relationship that had now decayed into dust.  I remembered how close I was still to Melanie, although she was growing farther from me with each passing mile.  And it was at that moment I realized what it truly meant to be a lonesome traveler.

 

*          *          *

 

My arrival at university and the departure of my parents was unceremonious at best.  The weeks leading up to this transition were filled with a melancholy energy; the house bustled with last minute preparations and offhand remarks from my mother about how much she would miss me and how she couldn’t believe she had to send her only child off towards a life of his own.  Hesitation lingered in every piece of that place.

But when my parents left me in the dorm room, my new place of residence, there were no tears or gasps of anguish.  My mom remained utterly calm and sophisticated, and I assumed the only possible explanation for this was the numbness that had surely crept into her over the course of the entire process.  She left me with a hug that brought tears to my eyes, yet her face remained unblemished and distant.  My father shook my hand firmly, a single pump, a gesture that exuded finality and closing.  And with that, they were gone, leaving me alone in an unfamiliar country.

My roommate’s name was John and he liked cars and percussion.  Each weekday at four he drove his ’76 Camaro to band practice at the football stadium.  When he came back to our room (usually around eight), I would typically be working on homework and we would exchange a few hollow sentences about our respective days.  These casualties were more of a formality than a facet of friendship and always left me feeling a little wounded and damaged on the inside.  There are few things I hate in this world more than meaningless words, and it frustrated me that I was perpetuating their existence.

John liked to wear cool hats and retro sweaters that were so out of style they formed a new fashion of their own.  On Wednesdays and Fridays when I walked past our dorm building, I would see him sitting on the sidewalk out front in a community of other indie individuals, smoking hookah and prattling about the environment.  He was a nice enough person and he didn’t intrude on my lifestyle, but I really missed occupying a space of my own.

My classes were going relatively well.  My professors were all agreeable and I maintained straight A’s throughout the first several weeks.  My studies were interesting and I suppose I felt intellectually stimulated, but I still failed to feel fully engaged and invested in the material.  It was difficult to focus in class; my mind liked to wander and I got caught up in pursuing its endeavors, which often took me away to some location I was totally unfamiliar with.

I did like the spirit though.  College life was refreshing and intriguing; the people felt very alive and busy, and that constant force of vitality was somehow quite soothing.  Typically, however, I encountered this sensation from a distance.  At the risk of sounding pitiful, I must confess that I was having difficulty forming new friendships.  Naturally, I made a few impersonal and casual connections, which was a sort of relief as it provided me with people to see and events to attend on weekends.  But I was constantly longing for something deeper and more profound, a sort of friend that I could confess my worries and heartache to in times of need.  That sort of presence had been evasive in my new life.

The more I dwelled on these concerns the more I developed a longing for Melanie’s companionship.  I missed hearing her voice and feeling her embrace when life was confusing and lonesome; she always brought me back to salvation from the demons of my inner mind.  Now that I didn’t have her with me in person, my life felt disconnected and unusually helpless.  On a Thursday night when these sentiments of isolation were digging down into my soul deeper than usual, I collapsed on the bed in my room and sent a text to her.  I just needed some sort of solace.

Melanie didn’t respond until late Friday afternoon, which was unsettling and ineffective as my despair had already found a sort of resolution that I could live with for the time being.  It seemed useless to continue a conversation that had no objective meaning, yet I didn’t want to lose connection with her.  It was difficult enough not spending time with her on a semi-daily basis.  I responded to her message and waited for a reply that did not arrive until Saturday morning.

Sunday rolled around and I found myself sleeping until almost noon.  When I woke it occurred to me that my parents would be partaking in the post-service luncheon at that point, and my chair among the elderly women would be vacant.  I truly longed to reestablish substantial contact with God, but I felt that now, especially since I was away at college, the prospect of such a feat was all but futile.  I didn’t want to completely concede defeat either, but instead of exploring my options I fell back into sleep.

The sporadic messages between Melanie and I persisted.  I had been feeling disheartened and empty all week because of this, mostly because she was the one constant I had in life.  I couldn’t explain why it was so difficult for me to adjust to college completely.  Perhaps not enough of myself was there; I felt as if I’d left portions of my heart in various places, and not enough of it remained whole for me to feel a homely intimacy with the new town.

I didn’t want to confront Melanie about her seemingly lack of interest in me, because it just seemed easier to disregard the difficulty and hold onto hope that positivity and happiness will eventually trump all else.  Realizing this was foolish, however, I sat down on the bed in my room on a Friday night, alone, and called her.

After several rings had vanished into static air I was confident that she wouldn’t answer.  As the fifth ring faded, however, her voice emerged on the other end of the line.  It sounded different somehow, perhaps heavier than what I remembered.

“Hello?”

I was taken aback at first by the fact that she had actually picked up, and thus stumbled in finding the words to express what I wanted to say.  I asked if we could talk, and after she conceded I wasted no time in asking why there seemed to be a disconnect between us recently.

After initial hesitation, her response surfaced in the sea of invented noise.  “I don’t know what to say.  I miss you, I do.  I miss you a lot.  But I need something more immediate and tangible than this.”

I could include the rest of the conversation here if it would truly add anything to my account, but I don’t believe it would do much good.  At this point, such a numbing wave of sorrowful surprise had swept over me that I found myself unable to fully focus on all she had to say.  The essence of the conversation was that she had found someone at her university who had captured her attention and peaked her interest.  She was adamant in explaining that she still truly loved me and her feelings for this second party were not even part of the spectrum that encompassed our emotional connection, but in the long term she couldn’t see our relationship maintaining viability.  Blame, it seemed, was not to be placed on me; our circumstances were simply too disparate for our relationship to grow.

I tried reasoning with her, and by the end of the conversation I was sure the steady sobs flowing from my inner self were audible on her end.  She was sympathetic but not understanding, and ultimately the phone call was ended without sophisticated resolution taking root in my mind.  I felt lost and empty, and so I fell to the floor and sobbed a great deal, all the while wondering how I had become so invested in something that could be so easily snapped into nonexistence.

By now I was feeling very dizzy and inharmoniously inhuman.  I had loved Melanie with every fiber of my being and I continue to do so.  The futility of this truth stings painfully and I was at a complete loss as to what to do.  The air in this prison was becoming thick and the walls began to collapse around me, and so I fled.

With nothing in my arms or pockets, I ran out of the building and through the mid-October chill, the glowing moon eminent and radiant on the dusky horizon.  I had no destination in mind but my heart pounded a rhythm into my feet that was ceaseless and omnipotent, and so I charged through the looming shadows.

As I fled from myself and my vacancies the tears refused to break, and so I felt wet and hopeless and forgotten.  I darted in front of countless crushing headlights, evading disaster by the sheer will of something inside of me pressing forward.  Horn blares and tire screeches resounded across the sky but made no hindrance to my flight.  I was determined, unknown, and hellish. 

It felt as if invisible eyes peered out at me from empty spaces while an immense burden upon my back pushed me toward the pavement.  I felt stupidly childish about my fleeing, yet nothing could stop the relentless energy of misery coursing through my veins.  The weightless pressure eventually crumpled me in body and spirit and I fell headfirst to the pavement.  Wasted, spent, and lost, I curled into a formless mass, the cold sting of the concrete piercing at my skin.  I sobbed and screamed, but did not move because I could not fight any longer against my condition.  I hated this place because there was no warmth.  There was no familiarity and I couldn’t make sense of what I was doing in such a cruel and vacant vessel.

Before long two impending headlights were bearing down on me, and yet I could not find the strength to move.  The behemoth behind the beacons came to a slow murmuring halt, leaving me sprawled pathetically in the pool of illumination on the pavement.  I heard a door slam shut and the driver of the vehicle came out and stood on the shore, gazing down at me in confusion.

“Son, are you alright?” came a husky, male voice that seemed to echo in a deeply profound manner.  I glanced up at the man but could not see his face; the lights of the vehicle had blinded me.  I thought perhaps it was a hallucination, and that this man was not really a human but perhaps some sort of presence standing watch over me.

I tried looking around to attempt to understand where I might possibly be, but nothing felt familiar.  It came to my attention that the large, humming vehicle was a bus.  Perhaps it was just the light that disoriented my eyes, but it appeared as if the wheels were floating, hovering above the ground as if suspended by some invisible string.  I whimpered under my breath because words seemed to evade me.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” came the powerful reply.

With all the courage and strength I could muster I forced the following from my mouth: “Take me home.”

After a pause the driver’s voice consumed the darkness again.  “Climb aboard,” he said in a tone that felt uplifting and forgiving.

It took my body multiple attempts and an intense focus of the mind, but eventually I propelled myself into an upright position and found the footing I needed to board the bus.  I still felt dazed and broken in certain parts, but something about me felt lighter and more tangible.  I was relieved to discover that I was the only passenger on the bus, and that no one else had witnessed my embarrassing spectacle.

I selected a seat toward the back and sat down, feeling crushed yet slightly buoyant in this new position.  It was at this point that I realized that, although I had presented the driver with a specific request, there was no way he could know where it was he was to take me.  “Home” is a word with a vast array of connotations and infinitely many interpretations, and how would he know which one I had implied?

Furthermore, how was I to know which interpretation I had implied?  I was unsure of what I meant by home.  To me, home had meant many things: my bedroom, my parents, my church, Melanie " and yet none of these homes existed to me anymore.  I was no more than a tourist, a weary traveler seeking refuge in a vast world filled with the homes of others but none to call my own.

When I heard the driver’s door close and when I sensed his presence at the head of the vessel, I proceeded to tell him this.  I explained to him that I was lost and did not have a home at all.  My view of him was obstructed by other seats and rails lining the aisles, but for some reason I felt him nodding his head.

“That’s quite alright, son,” he replied calmly.  “You don’t need to have that figured out just yet.”

With that, the bus whirred to life again and we pressed onwards into the night.  I felt the vibrations of the wheels below me, and the bus began to ascend upwards as if on a hill.  I gazed out the window into the starry night, and I experienced an overwhelming absence of reality.  I did not know where we were going nor where I belonged, but in that moment every part of my soul felt right and important.

We are beings that live in transitory phases; continuity evades us and we must craft our own paths with only our souls to guide us.  And most importantly, we have to believe that that guidance is enough, because there isn’t anything else to hold on to.

           

           

 

Reviews

[lost girl]

I don't normally read stories...but this one stroked my soul...calmly, gently, guiding me to somewhere I had been before.....I remember because I am still holding on....forty years of day and night and I'm still here listening...still here believing. You write about so many things....are knowledgeable about them all. You listened and have been called.

[Tennessee]

Wow, finally someone that can write more than 2 paragraphs. I liked it. I loved the beginning. My parents did the same thing to me but somehow I was able to keep my faith and I hope I have a good relationship with God. Sadly the town I live in is full of people that believe they will go to hell if they don't have at least 6 kids. I'm an outcast but I love it. I loved the emotion you put into it. It seems like you found a really cool girl and its great about what she taught you. I liked it and keep on writing .