We Don't Ever Fully End Up Becoming Ourselves - A Short

   There is a place beyond the maples, tucked away in a clearing of lilac and raspberry bushes.  The place I speak of is a large home built on stilts due to the property’s marshy soil.  The home is painted a drab sort of blue with pockets of bubbles where the contractor never went back and fixed it.  The only thing remarkable about the place beyond the maples is its size.  There are six bedrooms, a den, a family room, a kitchen that could house a family of ten, a parlor, and a deck that looks out on the clearing.  A hundred yards from the home is a pond filled with sunfish and crappies, many of which have already been eaten by two bears living amongst the maples.  These bears would stand on the edge of the shoreline, staring at the pond like pages of a good book, waiting for something only they knew.  Then, when the time was right, they would wade out into the water and scoop up a handful of crappies.  They would wade back to the shore and eat their catch with large, wet chomps.  On foggy mornings the bears would look almost majestic, regal, cutting through the haze with an unspoken elegance.

   There were three full-time occupants of the home: a gay couple who had been together eleven years and Her.  Or She.  Or The Girl.  I do not speak Her name not for lack of memory, but because I feel my tongue would catch fire.  The memory of Her is haunting enough, I’d hate to make Her more horrifying by uttering Her name.

   I remember the driveway well, a winding dirt road that always seemed to have puddles no matter what the climate.  Had anyone seen the road from its opening, it might have been assumed the drive led nowhere.  And, oh, how right they would have been.

   I made my way up the driveway with ease.  I needed to rent a car since She was unable to pick me up from the airport; something about a meeting that ran late or an appointment She forgot.  It was yet another excuse I chose to blindly ignore.  The car rocked and rattled and clanked, but eventually it made its way around the last cluster of maples and up the long finishing neck of the driveway.

   I parked in the spot farthest from the house and carried my bags the rest of the way. Even before I made it to the door I could hear a loud display of music coming from the front parlor.  It was the old-timey stuff.  The kind of music Sinatra or Sammy would drink to.  I liked it.  I liked it very much.

   I opened the front door and stepped into my destiny of nothingness.

   The first thing I saw were the boxes.  There were three of them as best I can recall.  They were those banker boxes made of cheap cardboard, painted white, and aptly labeled: Banker’s Boxes.  I tried to convince myself that the boxes were meant for somebody else, but I knew, deep down, that those were my boxes.  With my things.  And with our memories.

   I set down my bags and waited to be greeted.  For even in the darkest of days and direst of situations, one must be greeted.  After all, it’s only common courtesy.

   But there came no greeting.  Apart from that droning parlor music, the home was perfectly still.

   I waited for some time before the gay couple finally appeared.  They walked toward me with identical apprehensions.  Ryan was the taller of the two.  Gary was the shorter.  That’s pretty much all I remember of the gay couple that lived with Her.  They were perfectly genial, but horribly forgettable.

   “How are you?” Gary asked with a weak heart.  They spoke to me as if they just found out I had cancer.  It was depressing.

   “Fine.”

   “Are you sure?”

   “…Yeah…”

   Ryan hesitated and motioned toward the floor.  “I see you found your boxes.”

   “Found?” I asked.

   “I mean…you know…”

   But I didn’t know.  I had no idea what they meant.  I meant things all the time.  But what did this mean? 

   But before anyone had a chance to speak, She came around the corner with the last of the banker boxes.  This one was overfilled, as if She knew She couldn’t stand the thought of packing another and just wanted to get the whole thing over with.  There were no tears in Her eyes.  That fascinated me.

   “Oh…” She said upon seeing me.

   “I rented a car,” I said for some ungodly reason.

   “Do you want us to let you two talk?” Gary or Ryan asked.  I wasn’t sure who and couldn’t have cared less.

   “Talk about what?” I asked.  All I could do was look at those banker boxes.  Those ludicrous constructs of flimsy cardboard and interconnecting cutoffs.  So many memories can be tucked away in the most unassuming of objects.  When things are over there is no poetry, no poignance.  When things are over they fit into a cardboard box.

   “We’ll let you two talk,” one of them said.  They disappeared, though I didn’t watch them go.

   “I just wanted to make sure everything was ready,” She said.

   “Ready?”

   “I’ve got to tell you something; something that’s going to be very hard for me to say.  It’s something I’ve felt for a very long time, and I haven’t had the courage to say it.  You have meant so much to me…so much over these past months.”  She suddenly stopped and sighed.  “Hell, I guess it’s been years.  And I know I’ve always told you about marriage—“

The word crippled me.  The boxes on the floor no longer existed.  There was only the possibility of marriage.  The improbable prospect of spending the rest of my days with Her.  I pictured Her walking down the aisle.  I thought of the toasts.  The booze.  The dancing.  The food.  The honeymoon.  It was all a true impossibility that somehow seemed real.

   But she continued talking and I would have given anything for a roll of duct tape.  She had a way of wasting words, letting bad news linger like some festering disease.  “I just don’t see marriage as a possibility anymore, you know?  At least…Oh, hell…I think it might be best if you just left.”  And then I realized She was no longer wasting Her words.  She was abrupt and simple and I felt sick.  I thought She might kiss me, one last kiss we both could remember even when we walked down the aisle with somebody else.  Surely a hug was in order.  One doesn’t walk away from twenty-nine months of unconditional love without a measly hug.  Do they?

   But she turned down the hall and disappeared. 

   Perhaps She was getting one last box, a care package to take with me on my journey into dark.  Perhaps She was retrieving a memento we had shared during one of our “happy times.”  

   But She never came back.

   I stood in the entryway fiddling with my hands and stealing glances at the sobering, sympathetic gay couple watching from their parlor.  Occasionally they would whisper senseless secrets to one another and look back at me with sad eyes that offered little comfort.

   “I think it best if you go,” one of them called.

   “Huh?”
   “You’d better go.  We can help you with your boxes if you’d like.”

   “No.”  I picked up one of the boxes.  “She’s not coming back then?”

   “Doesn’t look like it.”  I still didn’t know who was talking.

   I carried the box outside, down the steps, and to the trunk of my rental car.  It had begun to rain, a fine mist that turned into vengeful, indiscriminate sheets.  I was soaked in a matter of minutes.  I set the box inside the trunk, but didn’t close it.  The cardboard became wet and wrinkled and flaccid.  Whatever the contents may have been surely would be ruined.  Pages of my poetry, perhaps.  It didn’t matter.  Words were meaningless.  

   The box withered under the weight of the rain and crumpled in on itself.  It seemed like a mirage.

   I looked up at the home, convinced the rain would crumble the structure away just as it had done to the box.  But no such luck came my way.

I threw the keys in the trunk and closed it.  Maybe I’d walk the thousand miles back home, that seemed pretty hunky-dory to me.

   I stared off at the pond.  Fine ripples of water splashed against each other as the rain pounded the surface.  My feet sunk into the ground and I felt mud seep into my shoes. 

   All at once, the rain stopped.

   I felt the urge to get in my car and drive away, but the pond was calling somehow.  I trudged across the clearing toward the black water.  A fish leapt into the air, curled its body, and fell back into the pond with a magnificent splash.  Another fish jumped, grabbing a mouthful of bugs that foolishly came to fly once the rain had stopped.  A third fish jumped and swallowed down a cloud of gnats.

   I came to the edge of the pond and stepped in until the water came to my ankles.  It felt strangely warm.  I waded out farther until the water came to my thighs.  I turned back to the house and saw Her staring out Her bedroom window.  Even from the distance, I could see She was chewing Her fingernails.  I’d hoped it was because She was wondering if She had made the right decision—letting me go and all—but I figured it was because She had no clue why I hadn’t gotten the hell out of there.

   Deep into the clearing I saw a shadow cutting through the misty clouds.  It was monstrous, approaching me from the wood with slow and plodding affect.  Then I saw a second shadow, not quite as large, but just as plodding, just as deliberate.  The fog suddenly broke and I saw the two bears; massive, evil beasts that lumbered toward me.  They were ready to go fishing, ready to gather up those flopping bastards that had swallowed those flies and gnats.

   I stood frozen in the water, watching the bears move across the clearing, their paws smacking the muddy pasture like great drums of bass.

   The bears came to the shore and looked at me with this profound sadness—especially the small one. 

   I looked back at Her window and saw She was still there, but had stopped chewing Her fingernails.  She was watching me as if watching the closing credits of a movie.  There was no emotion, no regret, She was simply waiting for it to be over.

   The flies continued to fly and the fish continued to feed.  The bears stepped into the water, surrounded me, and mauled me to death.