(FREE STUFF – FICTION)
She stares at the fish tank without speaking.
Isn’t there always a fish tank?
She doesn’t say anything, and so I wait. Her eyes begin to dart around the room, and her fingers tap a frantic silent tune against the surfaces of her palms. Her knees start to bounce to the imaginary music, but then she notices me watching her, and she stiffens into still. She sighs heavily, avoiding my eyes as she feigns sudden great renewed interest in the fish for a few moments, and then she folds herself in half at the waist. Her chin rests between her knees, and her blond hair falls almost to the floor. Flattened shimmer-tipped hands press to the carpet beside her feet, and she turns to look up at me through willow-tree branches of gold. Lips part as though words are pressing for escape, but she purses them over silver-lined teeth before a word is uttered.
I take a few notes and wait for her words.
She offers none, instead sitting up and raking back her hair, staring into the space just above my head before slumping dramatically in slow-motion sideways fashion. She rights herself and stares over my shoulder and then once again does a weirdly unfluid slow-motion fall to the side. I watch as she repeats this performance, realizing as I stare that she is pantomiming the impact of blows against the side of her head and body. I would much prefer if she opened the conversation, but I am curious, “What are you doing?”
Instead of explaining, she asks me a question of her own as her face distorts with the impact of another imagined blow, “Do you believe emotion travels in waves?”
“Yes, I suppose so. Emotion leaves a person and travels outward to impact those against whom the energy is directed.”
She sighs, “Why are you talking as though you are being tape-recorded? Why would you say,” and here she pitches her voice high in a cruel nasal mockery of my own, “Emotion travels outward to impact those against whom the energy is directed?”
I take a breath before responding, “Fine. My mistake. Ask the question again.”
“Do you believe emotion travels in waves?”
“Yes. Why?”
A particularly hard blow lands against her cheek; her mouth lolls open and her eyes register shock and pain as she crumples slowly to the side. As she struggles to right herself, she says, “Because I can feel her hatred. Through the walls it travels, striking blows of force and rage.”
“Hate is a very strong word.”
“Did you see how angry she was? Did you see her? Did you hear her?”
“She was upset.”
“She is always upset.”
“Still, hate is a very strong word.”
She lifts her chin in defiance, “It’s the one she uses.”
“Do you think she means it?”
“Does it matter? She knows it’s a powerful word, and she chooses it.”
“How does that make you feel?”
She points to the wall, “Like she’s on the other side of that wall, complaining about me. Everything that is wrong with her life is my fault, according to her. And I’m here, doing nothing but being me, and her punches land against me, again and again and again . . . waves of violent emotion against my skin.”
“That must be hard for you.”
“I feel sometimes,” she muses, “Like a punching bag. Like she doesn’t even realize there is a real person on the other side of her aggression. Does that make sense? I mean, she’s angry at me all the time. Like seriously . . . all the time. She’s angry all the time, but it doesn’t even make any sense. I’m just me, and I’m not so bad. I know I can be a pain, but she’s all out of proportion, and so yeah . . . sometimes I feel like a punching bag.” She swings her head in sudden startled unsuccessful last-minute avoidance of a blow that then lands squarely in the middle of her face, crumpling her features into slow-motion sorrow and betrayal.
I wait for her to recover, “You are very well-spoken for someone who objects to the proper use of prepositions.”
She considers me, “I just don’t like when people talk to me as though they are only speaking to impress themselves with their own words.”
“Ouch.”
She giggles, “See? I landed a blow. It hurts, right?”
I rub my cheek as if to soothe a bruise, “I’m sure she is not spending her time complaining about you.”
Her eyes widen in disbelief, “You have met her, correct? Of course she is complaining about me. She complains about everything I do.”
“Perhaps she is just feeling a little out of control. She’s been going through a lot lately.”
“Not sure how you can think she’s feeling out of control. That’s all she does, all day long, is try to control me. She wants to control what I wear and what I eat and who my friends are and the music I like and the books I read and who I talk to on the phone and when I do my homework and what time I go to bed. She is all about control.”
“That must be difficult.”
She stares at me, “It is difficult. It is very difficult.”
“Have you considered that she might be having just as hard a time?”
“All I see is that she wants to squash me into submission.”
“How’s that going for her, you think?”
She eyes me slyly, “I am rather resilient and stubborn. I am so far unsquashed.”
“OK, but put yourself in her shoes for a minute.”
Her face recoils as though she has been struck, but this time in real-time, “Ugh, I hate when people say that. It makes my feet feel all sweaty and horrified at the thought of slipping on someone else’s shoes. Just use the word empathy. I know what empathy is. Just ask me to be empathetic. Leave the shoes out of it.”
I laugh, “OK, use your empathetic skills and try to imagine how she feels. What if all of her efforts to control you are really a statement about how she feels within herself?”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, think about it. Does she seem happy when she tries to exert control over you?”
“No, not really. It’s like when she controls one thing, it only makes her notice all of the billion other things that are happening without her involvement.”
“Doesn’t that sound exhausting?”
“I know, right? She can’t control the whole world.”
“So why doesn’t she stop?”
She shrugs, “You tell me. Why doesn’t she stop?”
“Maybe she can’t. Maybe there is something loose within her that is only soothed if everything else is tied down.”
“Maybe there is something loose within her that is only soothed if everything else is tied down?” She looks at me suspiciously, “Are you supposed to be talking to me like this about her?”
“Maybe there have been enough secrets.”
She nods her head approvingly, “Maybe so.” I take advantage of the silence that follows her words to take a few more notes, and she leans toward me, “What are you writing?”
“Just a few notes to help me remember our conversation.”
“It’s weird. It makes me feel like you are stealing my words. It makes me feel like you are only talking to me so that you can take my words and do things with them.” Her face grows suspicious, “What are you going to do with my words?”
“Nothing I won’t clear with you first. I promise.”
“OK.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
She tucks her hands beneath her thighs and kicks her feet in the air, “Sure.”
“The blows that strike you, the waves of her emotion . . . why do they strike you in slow-motion? Why do you react in slow-motion?”
She startles, “What? That’s not slow-motion.”
“What is it, then?”
“That’s the speed and power of the waves.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“I’m in water. The waves arrive in water. I react to the impact in water. Everything is slower in water.” She looks at me, “Resistance, I think it’s called.”
“I’m confused. Why are you in water?”
She pulls her hands from beneath her thighs and gestures to indicate the entirety of the space around us, “We are in a fish-tank.”
“Oh!”
“Yes, a giant fish-tank . . . On display for everyone to see. She is over there pulsing with anger and hatred, and I am over here, trapped behind watery glass, waiting to ride out the waves of her intended harm. Both of us putting on a show for the curious pressed noses of well-meaning onlookers.”
We sit together in silence and watch as the small colorful fish are buffeted by unseen waves.
Isn’t there always a fish tank?