Wilson on Erie

The sea of grasses stretched out to the real sea, invisible beyond the line of curving trees, but sensed with sound, and smell, and taste.  The grasses mimicked the sea waves without the finishing roar on rocks, crushing them into sand.  A gull cried above the hissing rushes and circled away.  Lena watched him disappear.  She watched the grasses undulate.  She stood as still as one of the grave statues behind her.

Weird Kid

When I was a kid, I wanted to have some sort of debilitating disease, like polio, so I could wear leg braces and have those arm-cuff crutches.  I drew pictures of myself in a little memo book, the kind small enough for a pocket and with a plastic spiral on top.  I drew myself wearing a numbered jersey, a thing I never owned, legs strapped into braces, arms locked into crutches, and smiling hugely.  What did my therapist think of that when I confessed to it?  She thought it was because I wanted to be pitied and coddled.  I stopped seeing that therapist because that analysis was so very wrong.  I didn't have any psychological training, I was the one who cracked up at work, I was the one who drew myself as a cripple when in reality I was physically normal, and even I could psychoanalyze my childhood daydreams.  I wanted to have a debilitating disease not so I could be pitied, but so I could overcome that disease.  I wanted to be heroic.

Common Ground 2

It was like a rope went from Amanda's heart to a boulder beneath her feet.  It was tight and strong and she felt like she couldn't move.  Every thought that would have taken her in a direction was tugged back before a step could be completed, her imaginary foot hovered, struggled for a moment, then came back to keep her still, over the boulder.

She thought to move away, but the boulder filled with dollar signs, and she came back.

She thought to clean up, but the boulder filled with question marks about where to start, and she came back.

She thought to read, to nap, to surf the internet, but the boulder filled with guilt, and she came back.

Amanda's mind bounced back and forth, and she raised her foot every time, even when the thought had already proved fruitless, and the short, thick rope bound to the immovable boulder made her come back.

She felt her thoughts panicking, which she knew by experience was followed by a panting, grey hopelessness and, as predicted, tears already pricked her eyes, but a new thought came.

She thought of freedom.  Of sky.  Of lightness.  This time, the boulder did not fill with memories to drag her back.  It did not fill with a to-do list.  It did not fill with guilt.  Amanda thought of freedom without any specific "how" of getting it.  She thought, and she gasped when the rope snapped.

Common Ground 1

The phone ringer was on too loudly, but Claire didn't want to miss the phone call she didn't want to have.  Claire and James both startled out of their nap, but she was on her feet and answering even as James groaned and rolled over.

It wasn't the call.

Claire felt sick anyway and pushed memories and sadness and worry down deep again as she hung up on a telemarketing robocall, cursing them for scaring her.  Irrationally, she wanted to write to whatever company it was to tell them it was cruel to call her uselessly and make her think her father may be dead.  She pushed the thoughts away again and concentrated on blissful ignorance.