C21
Public Record
Excerpt from novel: Best Cellar

Carrie hasn't been home for ten days now
—I'm not sure if she will be again.

I said some terrible stuff.
Stuff that flowers and jewelry just make worse;
More insult than apology.
I mean I guess that's why I'm writing to you now.

I just remember that those nights meant so much to me.
They weren't stored as memory — they burrowed deep into my brain.
Little earthworms searching for the core,
and all my thoughts shifted and built up around them like dirt.
They shaped me, Rose.
Maybe you didn't feel the same.
My fifty-ninth is next week and I can really feel this one.
Most of those days just sneak past you like traffic signs but this one is really there.
It's the crack in the ceiling that you wake up looking at —
the one you stare at when sleep is still ten blocks away
and you're just left with bed sheets and a crack in the ceiling
and a life's worth of reflecting.

Life was supposed to be different, Rose.
Like the way we talked about it.
We were ready for it to come and
slap us across the face like some great monster.
Braced all our muscles and clinched our eyes and fists and waited.
But life didn't care enough about us.
For a long time I just stood there bracing myself,
like twelve years I think.
It was because of you that I felt that way.
I don’t fault you for it but it’s true.
You and I would just stare at the Dippers under blankets
and we talked like we were up there looking down at us.
There was one talk in particular that I still think about when the sky's clear enough.
You said life is a waste of resources.
You said people exert themselves just for the sake of it,
because a day without a goal is called a waste.
You said that it was like setting fire to all the fuels of the world,
because any fuel not burned is a waste of fuel.
You said that was the human condition.
You had a solution, you said, but you never told me.
I held you tighter under the blanket and a year later you were married.
Rose, I loved you and you knew that.

I was Adam and you were the snake, the fruit, and God himself.
You offered me knowledge, fed me ‘till full,
and forced me from the garden naked.

Thresher Charles