eyedreamism_v eyedream I must confess: since That Night, I have been worried that Sidney will think I am childish for crying in front of her. Have you ever noticed that it’s only adults who cover their eyes with their hands as they cry? Little children feel no shame or self-consciousness and can indeed be dragged around a busy supermarket by their humiliated parent while crying openly. Not unlike how I did That Night. When is it that we learn that crying is related to immaturity? Isn’t the path to adulthood just one long lecture from society on how to hide your feelings? Is this consistent effort to restrain myself something I impart to others? Have I taught this to my students? I don’t like what she saw. I don’t like the Ethan that she saw. The Ethan that she saw was not the intelligent, witty, collected, calm, cool, James-Bond-meets-intellectual-Adonis I was hoping to portray myself as. Instead I was helpless, bedraggled, and weeping inconsolably. Perhaps inconsolably is too strong a word. Her naked, soft, unfolded body was some consolation, if I do say so myself. I hate the word weeping. I think I will try to use the word resplendent more often. Resplendent. Resplendent. Resplendent. So I was awkward enough around Sidney after baring my soul, which is supposed to be the experience in a couple that draws them closer together and gives them a new understanding and appreciation for eachother’s emotional depth and complexities, but if anything, I was scared shitless, pardon my slang. And I don’t know why, and I still don’t know why, and I may never know why, but I was scared of her, and scared of the house, and scared of everything. The house. The house is what ties everything together. I was looking for it for a long time because I knew I’d have to move to the city. Finally I drove into the city, through the fuel and the metallic-hooded cars and the smell of tinsel and hot dogs and melting black tar. I bought the first newspaper with classifieds I saw and went into the first café I saw and sat in the first couch I saw and then became immediately and pleasantly distracted by Sidney, who was sitting across from me looking resplendent in something light and soft and probably fashionable. Of course, I didn’t know she was Sidney then, but long after I did and I found the newspaper in my satchel, (good word, satchel) I saw the ring from the bottom of a coffee mug, the wrinkled print smelling faintly of cappuccino, and in the ring was the advertisement for the house, perfectly centred. And of course, there was the disaster of That Night which occurred a long while after that initial discovery of the advertisement, and then the House Incident in which Sidney terrified me with her almost-incomprehensible indulgence, and then this awful abyss of doom I’ve been swinging back and forth in, imagining Sidney, wanting Sidney, maybe even needing Sidney, but without anything substantial to cling to except my love for her, which is questionable and yet burns through me with a ferocious intensity, steadily and deeply and sweetly. It was a student who actually pulled me from whatever it was that enabled my paralyzed fright and lifted me in a beautiful arc of escape. She came into the office. I was substituting for the principal while he was having a smoke outside and probably doing something indecent. She was wearing a long, plain trenchcoat that covered her entire body. Her hair was a magnetic fuschia, so neon it looked that it had to have been dyed by something radioactive from the Periodic Table. It was alternately spiky and curly, and she had complimented this look with various sterling silver accessories all over her head. She looked shaken, tremulous. “I was sent here—I was sent here…for violating the school dress code.” I decided to be gruff (awful-sounding word, gruff) and declined her hand. “What is it that is violating the code?” I enquired. “It’s what I have on underneath,” she said. She bit her rouge-stained lip. “Are you wearing anything underneath?” I said cautiously. “Yes.” She looked away. “Well, it seems to be covered up now, so what is the problem?” “I can’t wear my this coat in gym class. We’re practising long jumping. But I don’t want to—” “You should have dressed appropriately for gym class, then.” “I—I thought I did.” “What are you wearing?” She hesitated momentarily, and then pulled off her trenchcoat. Over standard checked gym shorts, she was wearing a homemade shirt. It had two words. NIGGERS SUCK I struggled with the flash of red in my eyes. “Our school does not, and never will, support racism and ignorance.” She flinched. “I’m not racist. I mean it. I’m really not racist. I just wanted to see what would happen.” I sighed. “And what happened?” She looked up at me through eyelashes clumped together with mascara. “Nothing,” she said in a low voice. “What do you mean, nothing?” “Nothing happened.” “Nobody was offended?” “Nothing happened. Nobody said anything to me. They just looked away.” “If nothing happened, who sent you here?” She lowered her voice even more. “No one.” “No one?” “I sent myself.” “You sent yourself?” My voice went up a few decibels on the word “yourself”. She whimpered. “Nobody would do it for me. I was right. Nobody in this school cares. They don’t care if I believe it or not…Ian said that nobody gave a shit about what I thought. And he said I could test it by doing this if I didn’t believe him. And he was right. Ian was right…nobody cares. About anyone. And I only came here because I have to make someone care, I have to make someone—” “Stop.” I said. She stopped. “First, I understand you. Secondly, you can’t just wear a shirt that says…that…and walk into school just to make yourself understood. I can’t just let you go without punishment.” “What about the students who didn’t say anything? Don’t they—” “The world isn’t just!” I cried out loudly, desperately. I heard the murmur of the secretaries in their offices, ears pressed against their doors. She recoiled from me, her eyes brilliant and irate. “How about I threaten to alert our friendly local media to the big hole of mould in the French room that has been discreetly covered by a poster of Rodin?” I sighed, feeling deflated by her futility. “I’m amazed I haven’t seen you in here before.” “You think I don’t understand injustice?” she said, accusingly. Her pink curls shook, her finger, adorned with henna, stabbed at me and trembled. “You think I don’t understand life. And maybe I don’t. But you don’t—” her face darkened. “You don’t either. You’re living alone, and you hate it, because there’s somebody you’d rather be with—and you’re not with her, you aren’t with her. You are the saddest thing I ever saw because you’d rather stick stubbornly to your stupid, sick reasons rather than spend your life with the one person in this world you would probably die for. You think about her all day and never at night, because you’re afraid to dream of her because then when you wake up she’ll be gone and you’ll know it and that—that is when you’ll know that you are truly and really sinking. You pig. You PIG. You have it all and you’re tossing it away like it’s nothing. Why don’t you do something? Why don’t you fight for something? Why don’t you act?” I did something, probably cliché. I don’t know if I paled, or if my jaw dropped, or if my eyes bulged or what, but I know I did something because I could feel it happening, sense it happening. “How did you know that?” I said, only half-aware that I was acknowledging the fatal certainty in what she had said. “I’m gifted.” she said stolidly. “Therefore I am misunderstood.” I stared at her as she left the office, bundling her trenchcoat around herself as she went outside, walking away, one ugly adolescent whirlwind of truth. Then I dashed across the office, almost knocking over the secretary who leaped out of my away, alarmed. I snatched the cordless phone from it’s stand and dialed, waiting, listening, my hands tapping the counter involuntarily. “Hello?” “If I can’t look at you, right in front of me, and touch your resplendent hands and your resplendent hair and your resplendent face, and listen to your stupid ranting and your babbling and your awful puns, Sidney, I will dry up and die right now.” Pause. “I’ll be right over, Ethan.” is frightened frightened frightened... 030911 ... neesh i'll be the first to praise you this time :) there's a part i really relate to. but ... i'm still throwing it away, no clichéd act for me, i'm just going to wallow, or more specifically go eat dinner right now. doesn't know what to do. 030911 ... bandersnatch i like the 1st person alot, not neccisarily because it is first person, but because it is the only (first?) one in first person. but other than that remark, i cant muster any more words to describe how much i liked it, and how touching it was in that subtle way, not unlike the others. 030911 ... User24 you never disappoint, I don't think you ever will. also loved the first person. 030912 ... eyedream Are you all teasing me? They were all written in the first person...weren't they? 030912 ... oldephebe ed you continue to entertain us with your effortlessly spun stories 030912 ... eyedream Effortlessly may not quite be the word? 030912 ... oldephebe well that's the true mark of a writer who has begun to hone his/her craft - you make it sound as though you didn't drop one bead of sweat, your writing has a breezy and yet accomplished, polished (don't say patina resist the urge to be alliterative darn it!)flow. ... 030912 ... eyedream not a writer not a writer knot a writer too undisciplined it may be a long wait for eyedreamism_vi I am not what you think. These stories are for blatherskites and not for the common antiblatherer. I will only receive applause here because no one else would dare to clap. 030912 ... neesh that's rubbish. you write (and frequently) therefore you're a writer, and a very good one at that. please don't knot the writer, it would kill her. discipline is something dreamers lack by definition, perhaps by necessity. and people on blather love eyedreamisms because we're the kind who are receptive and open to be touched by beauty. except when we're at each other's throats. i'd say the majority of normal people don't appreciate literature (and fewer still poetry). what we think you are is a writer we can relate to and who can touch our souls. well those are my thoughts anyway. 030912 ... neesh i wonder why a few people thought this was the first in the first person. i must admit when i read those comments, i thought "so it is", until i got to your comment and checked it out. it's more obviously in the first person here, there's a typically masculine dominant "I". it's also more like his stream of consciousness, he's much less telling us what's happening and instead we get to hear his internal dialogue. i really admire your variation of style, which somehow maintains something cohering and quintessentially you about it. 030912 ... User24 yes. neesh is correct, perhaps, this is more 0th person than 1st person. 030913 ... endless desire resplendent. that's my favourite part. and i don't even know what resplendent means. eyedreamism's will always be my blathe_of_the_week. 030913 ... Death of a Rose once again....applause 031101 what's it to you? who go blather from