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1.

Fallen leaves are a quiet palette of cut glass; they are a funeral in the church of nature. They make you think of pastry, damp strata from an earlier rainfall, or spirit-shadows looping into the distance. You want to feel them scratching you or creeping onto your bare arm. Soft and wet. Peeling away, like a deep kiss.

2.

Some of the leaves beneath your feet are bleeding on the sidewalk. Little spots form in their centers, the polka dots of beginning rot, surrounded by vague boundaries, staining the concrete like crime scene outlines. You bend and strip one from its resting place. Underneath is a colorless center, glowing in contrast to its perimeter. You fear you will never see such a striking vacancy again. You take a picture.

The leaf itself is the color of deep caramel. You place it on your tongue but don’t chew. It tastes of mold and rust and stale water and illness. It feels like veined satin. 

When you get home, you upload the picture and study it for a long time, hoping for movement from it, a flicker or a twitch that never comes. You feel thirsty but the kitchen seems too far away and dark, with too many confusing choices.

3.

You decide to post your leaf picture on a social network before you go to sleep. You have friends there you do not know, and you work on your made-up profile. The profile says you are married, and you work as a labor and delivery nurse. You sometimes search images for “new infants” and pick one to post, inventing captions such as “Born today!” or “Beautiful little one. So blessed.” It is a way to pass the time, to think you have friends somewhere who believe in the person you want to be, who believe in the person they think you are—one who does things beautiful and noble. Later you put on your favorite set of pajamas, and as you pull up the covers, the fire extinguisher in the corner squeaks, “Sweet dreams,” like a little robot.

You rest your head on the pillow, and you listen to mood-promising music to keep yourself better anchored to the passing of time. Without this musical clock, the brush strokes of time move in long, uneven ticks and tocks. As you rub the edge of your pajama lapel between your thumb and finger the singing of time flows into your mind. You picture a couple with dark hair and black clothing. They sit at a bar in the basement of a house.

4.

This basement room has dark red carpeting and dark red and black leather stools, stitched in a diamond pattern, making you think of an oversized deck of cards. The man stands behind the heavy bar, pouring drinks. The woman slides from her perch and walks to the sitting area where there is a wide leather sofa. The man follows, veering toward an old hi-fi cabinet. He places a vinyl recording on the turntable. It emits a delightful, scratching, rhythmic noise. The man sits on the sofa, reclining with his arm along its back, his legs crossed with an ankle resting on his knee. The woman stands before him, removing her shoes. The insoles are warm and damp, and one of them tries to stick to the bottom of the woman’s foot as she takes it off. She leaves them on the floor, one on its sole, the other dozing on its side. Then she begins to slowly dance, taking care not to bump her calf against the sharp corner of the coffee table. 

The tune in your earbuds changes and the couple dissipates like photons on the rods and cones of your retinas.

5.

The following night, your drifting conjures a man and a woman in a small boat, sitting and facing one another. The woman’s dress has tiny blue dots and is too lightweight for the weather, so she puts on a sweater. The man pulls the oars through the water as the sun rises and turns everything to gold. The early light smudges the shadows along the bank, and insects form harmless clouds. As the sky warms, the woman sees sweat on the man’s brow. She leans, wanting to slide her hand into the water which makes a sharp mirror of her fingers. She thinks that it might be brittle and is afraid to touch the surface. The woman tells herself this is a foolish thought and holds her breath as she reaches to scoop a handful of water. Then she lifts her hand, and a drop of water rolls up the sleeve of her sweater, tickling her arm. All that remains on her palm is a cool film, and she reaches forward to rest her hand on the man’s cheek, refreshing him.

You fall hard into this dream, but when you wake, you startle. For the rest of the day, you believe you’ve abandoned the couple out on the lake. You are dogged by this worry until nightfall with a feeling of them being adrift and hungry. Why are you never included in your own nighttime musical hypnosis? You always watch, a voyeur.

6.

You begin spending late nights on your laptop to get away from the dream-like visions. You study the computer screen with the brightness at the lowest setting. Your plan to investigate images of couples—ones more real than dreams—feels sneaky. Lowering the screen brightness seems appropriate. Dark. Secret. No one will see you. You would not be able to explain to anyone why you are doing this. Not a policeman or a pastor or anyone of authority, even your doctors. The idea of a child wandering outside and looking in your window occurs to you. You get up, check the blinds, and close the bedroom door almost completely.

With the door cracked you can see if any of the regular shadows in the hallway try to intrude. When the door is fully shut, the shadows can move without you knowing, which makes you uneasy.

7.

Once settled, you craft in your mind an imaginary snow globe, but within it is the basement where the man watched the woman dance to a song you could not clearly hear. This time he leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, inclining his face toward the woman’s belly, studying her shape. He moves his hands toward her, smoothing the air surrounding her body like a sculptor. The woman stops dancing because she knows it is time for her to stop, and you notice for the first time that the woman’s hair color is the same as your own. You recompose the woman so that she is standing in her underwear. The man makes as if to touch the plump area at the top edge of her bra. Then he points his fingers as an orchestra conductor would, tracing the area above this boundary.

At the imagined tremble of his fingers, you slip your hands under the layers of your clothes. But you feel the woman in your pretend snow globe grow afraid, and you stop what you are about to do to yourself. You retreat to your computer, hoping that a search for the perfect video of a man and woman who are physically touching will relieve you of your own imagination. To make it exterior. Quiet. To observe rather than worry. All you get for your effort is a handcuffed-feeling, a two-dimensional imitation of proximity.

8.

Your explorations gradually turn toward various sites used for hook-ups. People say exactly what they want in a personal ad, and you think about these new ideas as you read about the activities they describe. You feel fluttery, but then begin to breathe more slowly and with greater purpose. None of the solicitations appeal much to you; they are interesting, but you don’t want to perform most of the acts as written. The specificity is titillating, and it makes the sheets feel softer.

9.

The next morning, you must go to the grocery store. You ate the last can of chicken noodle soup for breakfast, and the day before you pinched mold off the heels of a loaf of bread to make a jelly sandwich. Your pre-shopping ritual includes a shower. You take a Klonopin half an hour before you leave the house. Your little dog whines when you jangle your keys. 

While at the store, you avoid the condiment aisle. The ketchup bottles are always poised like a hostile phalanx on the shelf. You are continually distressed that, if you walk in front of them, they will leap onto the polished tiles and crowd your ankles, churning in a whirlpool around your body. A sea of red legless rats. 

After returning home, the Social Services lady visits and she checks your cabinets and refrigerator. The bedroom. The bath. All acceptable. She asks questions, and you know how to answer them because they are always the same. There are answers to avoid, and you are adept at that, too. You have had a long time to practice.

10.

You wander at night for weeks, in your tick-tock mind, in a filmy zone of non-sleep, resting in a deception of slumber, where you observe various couples in your head. Your doctor stresses that sleeplessness and vivid dreaming are signs that something is wrong, but the people at night are too lovely to tell him about. You know the shadows in the hall are a falsehood, but that does not change their more concrete appearance. The absence of reality in the shadows (where others are concerned) does not affect their reality to you. This is a thing you accept: lies and truths of the brain—distinguishable, but out of your control. It is seeing both sides of a quarter at the same time. Something you think you could possibly do, but never explain.

The nighttime fantasy-humans of your internal dreamworld allow you to share intimate glimpses of them. The couple in the basement or the man and woman on the lake. Telling anyone, however, like your doctor or the social worker, would require them to force you to give it up. There would be medications or procedures or stays at the hospital, and treatments that make you feel like the right way of thinking is wrong or even the other way around. You look forward to these conjured-up evening visitations better than being forcefully dunked into a void of sleep the way the doctor insists is best for you. Being alone in the dark is so pleasing, so vibrant, it is like being somewhere else, somewhere better. You want to share that atmosphere with another person who will not judge or try to change you. 

But you do not want another person in your room. An authentic guest would see you clearly—a person who can do nothing beautiful or noble at all. However, it is possible to talk to someone on the phone about all the things you feel in the dark; the sheets, the near-life images that come to you, the dog’s warmth beside you, the way the shadows in the hall move as if they are familiar family members.

One night, the computer gives off something like a vibration or whisper, as if a person from another world is trying to beckon you. You can’t hear what they are saying if the computer is off. You turn it on and find nothing there. You go to Craigslist and craft an ad of your own. You entitle it “talk to me.”

11.

The best email response you get to your ad is from a man who writes in complete sentences using proper grammar. He says he wants to talk to a woman whose mind works like yours. Most of the other replies say things like “I’m 4 u baby.” They do not seem like words from men it would be comforting to chat with late at night. After exchanging a few emails, the man (who says his name is John) calls you on the phone, in satin darkness, and asks you to describe yourself, your room, what you are wearing—all in detail. His voice slips into your ear like living smoke; the darkness over your bed turns a bit garnet. It is as if his voice has its own pulse, and he chuckles at some of your responses. It makes you feel lighter. It makes you feel like you are exactly the right size, not too fat, or too tall—just perfect. When he says goodnight, he calls you baby in the kindest sounding way. You roll onto your side and sleep without moving, cradling the phone in your right hand, like a small toy.

In subsequent phone calls, John asks you what it is you need, and you can never answer his question. “Tell John what it is, baby,” he says. “Tell John what you want.” He asks you gently about parts of your body. He gives you calm instructions, and you follow them without worry of being lessened. It is the most natural-feeling thing you can imagine. His manner is gently encouraging, and he praises you, making you laugh with a sort of growling sound. You feel his lips smile on his side of the phone, and they brush your ear through the plastic. You tell him this. “That’s because I’m kissing you,” he says, and you begin to cry. It is as if you suddenly have no skin and your nerves can sense the motion of all air existing timelessly and John tells you, “It’s okay, it’s okay, baby, it’s okay.” 

12.

He asks you for a picture, and you say you will if he will, too. You snap and delete pictures of your face for the greater part of an afternoon. Then you realize your hair is dirty and you cannot remember the last time you washed it. So, you wash it by leaning over the edge of the tub and laughing at yourself for not having noticed earlier. Vomiting feels like a possibility as the edge of the porcelain presses your diaphragm. You recall the last time you threw up. It was the afternoon you stuck your finger down your throat when the cream of celery soup you were trying to eat turned into vomit in the bowl you were using as you helplessly watched. No one wants to eat vomit, you’d thought that day, as you rushed to the bathroom, ashamed for not having anticipated such an obvious correlation.

After your hair dries, you put on some lipstick and a nice shirt and try again. John’s picture comes. He does not look like his voice, but you think you can get used to that. It wasn’t as if you were going to look at him much, anyway. That night on the phone, he tells you that you are pretty, and in the dark, you think you may eventually believe him.

You arrange to meet one another for lunch at a small diner in a town that John claims is near his work. Although it is a lengthy drive for you, the extra effort seems reasonable. John must rush back to work after your meal, and he says this is the only way the two of you can have as much time together as possible. As he opens the door to the restaurant for you, John uses a stern tone of voice you have never heard before. He tells you to go ahead, to walk straight to the back and sit at a booth. He walks to a table with several men. You hear them laughing together the way men do when there are no women present. They are busy making rings of sweat with their glasses of tea on the orange Formica; you can hear the wet clinking close to your ears even though they are far away. 

While you wait, you think about why John did not introduce you to his friends at the big table. When he comes to the table, he says those men sitting at the big booth by the cash register are from his Monday night Bible study. He needed to greet them and be friendly with them for a few moments, just until they got up to leave, he explains. You listen to him. Then you listen to him talk about the food and what selections are his favorites. When the waitress comes, you order something you know he likes.

13.

Lunch is less stressful than you imagined it would be. You use your mother’s recipe for conversing with men. Just ask questions and listen to the answers. By the end of the meal, you know a lot about John’s work and hobbies, but you have no opportunities to discuss your families. He gives you written directions for obtaining lingerie from an online retail site specializing in very traditional fifties-era white undergarments. John says he will reimburse you for the items, but he doesn’t want to order them with his credit card as he is unsure of your size. He is firm about shopping for some special shoes for you on his own. As you exit the building, John says he enjoyed himself but is running late, so he cannot walk you to your car.

14.

It is easy to order the special underwear, and you are happy to tell John you have done as he asked. When the clothing is delivered, you open the packages and put the items in a special box you have covered with handmade paper, cutouts from magazines, and glitter glue—something you had already covered while you waited for their arrival. Then you put it on your bedside table and look inside it every morning to make sure everything is still there. Maybe you are confusing excitement and dread. You are afraid they will leave as easily as they came, and if this happens, you will never be able to explain it. The checking and rechecking is an involuntary game of peek-a-boo, without the laughter.

15.

It is like having a birthday, but not knowing when it will come. Sometimes John tells you to go to the computer and he sends you a link. Lovely images appear on the screen, like a photo of a remarkable landscape, and he talks to you about mellow grass and shade. He describes the feeling of the breeze probing your skin with its tongue. He says he is the wind, and he can taste the salt of your sweat. You speak back because you want him to understand how you are collapsing into the pictures he shares. That the light in the room grows more intense when he shows you a sunrise. That the ocean waves sing. But afterward, you struggle for hours to remember what you said. Your head aches softly, and the tremor that always annoys you worsens. The shaking is so bad you grip your speckled coffee mug with both hands. Then one night, you dream of a chest full of mysterious and unrecognizable objects. In the dream, you take each precious thing out of the box, and then another, and then another on and on more and more, and when you break away from your feverish sleep, you do not recognize your own room. You are confused and look everywhere for the valuable things you have been given. It is the dog tugging on the hem of your pajama leg and licking your feet that finally brings you back to yourself.

16.

He asks you to put all the things you ordered on your bed and send a picture. You arrange them as if they are worn by an invisible woman. It reminds you too much of a victim of something, so you stand at the foot of the bed and toss them onto the quilt repeatedly until you achieve what you think of as a casual yet artistic composition. When John receives the picture, he texts, “My good girl.” It is a phrase you worship; it is a small icon you wish to pin to your heart so that fat, wet bits of blood would stay suspended there for years. One drop for each little rewarding word he writes. He later texts that it is exciting to see your bed, and that when you have an evening chat, he will be able to imagine you more than naked because of the new lingerie. You cannot tell him of your shame of exposure, and that what you let him believe is a lie. You have kept your pajamas on all this time, touching yourself underneath them, like he tells you to.

A few days later, you both go to a streaming video site at the same time and John counts down, “Three, two, one, go!” and you simultaneously click your play buttons to watch Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon. You talk about the balloon and the setting and the little boy, all without disturbing people at a theater and without missing anything, since there is virtually no dialogue. You say the balloon represents hope, innocence, and the value of being “different,” while John thinks it means the freedom to do as you please. Then you agree that you are both right, and when you giggle, John inserts, “I love you.” You immediately start to sob, as if a coin is flipping or a switch is turning on and all you can say to his repeated questions are positive little grunts and hiccups. He talks you through the process of getting into bed and tells you to pretend he is tucking you in, though he is staying on the phone far longer than he usually does. He speaks so quietly you ask him, in between sobs, to repeat himself several times. After you hang up, you put the phone inside the waist of your pajamas, with the earpiece right over your navel. You want to be kissed there, like a mother kisses a child who has just finished a bath.

17.

John tells you to open a live chat account, so you can see each other when you talk. On your first session, you look at John’s face on the screen. Then you look at the lens. Your eyes dart about and you grow afraid that John will see you start to shake. It is all overwhelming; you cannot figure out how to make lasting eye contact. You cannot hear what John is saying as the blood sprints toward your eardrums. A glance reveals him taking his shirt off. You start to cry, and he says, “It’s okay, it’s okay, baby, it’s okay.” He tells you to close your eyes and breathe. He says he just wants to look at you and that you don’t need to do anything. He puts a piece of tape over his lens so that he no longer appears on your screen. He tells you to open your eyes. You tell him when he was on the screen you didn’t know where to look. He says to look at the lens and talk to him the same way you always talk at night, just leave the light on. Unsure of how much he can see of you, you fold your fingers in between each other prayerfully, like a little girl in a lacy pink dress, like 

here’s the church
here’s the steeple
open the door
see all the people.

And you ask him what he sees. John replies that he can only see your face. If you adjust the screen downward a bit, he says, you can relax and follow his lead. “It’s the same as always,” he adds, “except now I can watch your expressions and see how beautiful you are.”

You learn to see John on screen without panic, and he slowly coaxes you to reveal yourself as completely as you can. He teaches you the blessings and limitations of technology. John is very patient. He is proud of your progress. You do not tell him when you develop an intense distrust of the hall shadows and begin locking your bedroom door while stuffing a towel under the crack. You often hear the phone ringing when it is not. Certain it is John each time, you get up to discover no one is there. You do not want to accuse him of playing pranks. Even if he is toying with you, you do not want him to know that you know. At the same time, you also think he would not do something like that to you. Then you feel guilty for wondering about John because you can hear a ringing sound that is probably not even there. You keep smelling cake, and you look all over the house for it, but cannot find it. You are afraid to brush your teeth because the head and shaft of your toothbrush remind you of Charlton Heston in his role as Moses in The Ten Commandments. Each time you put the brush under the tap, you think of Moses confronting Pharaoh with his staff beside the Nile. If God can turn a stick into a snake, the way He did for Moses, there is no way to predict His power over a toothbrush. You pull the front of your hair forward and cut crooked bangs. A group of angels stops talking to you one day, and you blush when you realize they had been mumbling for a very long time without you listening. You are disturbed at having missed a possible epiphany. You put on the lingerie from John and find that you hate it but think you should not say anything since John does so much for you.

18.

John speaks to you about meeting him at a hotel. Every night.

“You know you want to,” he says.

“You know I want you,” he says.

“Are you afraid?” he says. 

“Don’t you trust me?”

19.

You go to the Hampton Inn. John talks to you on the phone and leads you through all the turns. He guides your car to a specific parking space. His voice operates like the spidery rays of a unique GPS. 

“I can see you,” he says, and you respond, “I know.”

“How do you know?” he asks, and you confess the spider-secrets you’ve figured out about him.

“You can always see me,” you say. “Everywhere. Silly boy. You put your eyes into my phone. I can feel your eyes on me all the time. They keep me safe. We have our own private network.”

“Stay in the car,” he says. “I will come down and get you. Look up at the third floor, second window from the left. See me?”

“Oh, that’s what you mean,” you say, and giggle.

20.

The door makes the indistinct muffled clunk common to all motel rooms. Inside, the carpet is a very dark brown, perfect for hiding stains. John removes your eyeglasses, takes your things, and puts them all on the dresser. He pulls you toward him with heavy hands, and as he bends to kiss you, you feel yourself begin to quake inside as if your skin is a husk for thousands of selfish, fluttering moths, demanding to be set free. You realize it is too late to take anti-anxiety medication. When his lips touch yours, you twitch. He straightens and watches you look at the floor with drippy eyes. 

“The only people who touch me are doctors,” you say.

“We’ll fix that,” he replies. “You brought the dress up things like I told you, right?”

You nod. He tells you to go to the bathroom and put them on. He hands you a shiny red shoebox. “I want you to put these on, too,” he says, “and don’t take them off.”

You do as you are told, taking your bag. The special box you made for the underwear is inside. While in the bathroom you put all the little sink toiletries in your purse.

Once you make it to the bed, you feel disenfranchised from yourself, as if you are standing in front of a dark television screen watching yourself being held tightly by a man named John. You are in a motel room with someone you met by taking out a personal ad, and you are about to have sex with him while wearing uncomfortable support garments your grandmother might have worn, plus a pair of dressy black shoes. He is enthusiastic, running his fingers through your hair and whispering, but he never kisses you again after the kiss at the door that made you cringe. You encourage yourself to be responsive. Don’t think so much, you project toward yourself, using a sort of magic wince you have not exercised in a long time. Once you wince, you become your own responder. This allows you to see yourself from the direction of a chair by the table. There are long moments when this you-in-the-chair turns away from what is happening to examine the mass-produced minimalist décor. At one point, you decide to slip back into your body, so you will have something to remember of the physical experience. But when you approach the movement coming from the bed, you instead stand at its edge, peeking over John’s shoulder and marveling at yourself.

You transmute into the bathroom to examine your face in the golden light of the afternoon mirror, wondering what it might be like to live on the other side of the glass. You want to turn the blow dryer on low and point the soft warm air at your face, but you know this is not possible.

You hear John say, “Turn over,” and your alternate self leaves the bathroom and again sits at the table. He grabs you by the ankles and drags you to the edge of the bed, bending your knees and you-in-the-chair rationalize this. This must be part of a game, like all the dressing up and the shoes. He might need to do it this way to make it work.

21.

John slaps your bottom and then puts his hand on the back of your neck, pressing your face into the mattress. “You really are my little slut, aren’t you?” he says, in a tender manner that makes you think of smooth creatures that twist and wind. You wish for a way to advise yourself, but your only thought is that you didn’t see this coming. He grabs you by your waist, rolls you onto your back and begins to rub himself. 

“Look at it, you bitch.” He smiles.

The chair-self speaks:

This is something like the computer, the video. Don’t get nervous; it’s like that basement. Don’t you remember it always had to be the same song? You always had to dance first? You don’t. Not completely, anyway. But this is going to be quick, I think. I hoped it would be more like the cabin at the lake. But even then, he shoved you into the water and laughed when you couldn’t swim.

John remains standing over you, and he orders you to touch yourself the way he is doing. Stop thinking, the other-self voice whispers, it won’t be much longer. What you forget is that a sticky fluid is going to be sprayed on your special new outfit. Then it is too late, and you are mixed up and afraid you will get in trouble, like a misbehaving and foolish child. You leap up and run into the bathroom, shaking your hands as if they are soaked with something that stings and itches. Your underwear cannot remove itself from your body, and you yank at it all, with spiritually disembodied hands. You peel off layers of boned latex and drape the items on the shower rod or drop them on the floor. Don’t keep those shoes, either, the voice says, just set them by the wastebasket while he’s looking through the hotel services guide. And then the voice of yourself evaporates.

21.

You go home.

22.

Taking a spoon in your fist, you thrust it to the bottom of a jar of peanut butter. Like a knife, over and over until your hand gets tired. Scraping out a large lump, you put it and the spoon in your mouth. You suck on it to make the peanut butter dissolve. You go to the toilet. The dog sits in the doorway, waiting. Then you take him to bed, where you sleep without moving until dark. When you get up, there is an empty box on the kitchen table. Strange, but not unusual. Things are forever hard to explain to yourself. You find some toiletry samples in your bag, but you don’t remember having been anywhere recently.

23.

You are making a new playlist on your tablet. The ragged tick-tocks of music urge the shadows to dance a comforting waltz in the hall. Last night, you half-dreamed a tableau. An old-fashioned high-waisted girdle and a cotton long-line bra with a five-hook closure. Heavy, seamed stockings wadded on a tile floor. Plush dark brown carpeting under a pair of black silk pumps—one dozing on its side. A messy bed. 

You always dream of people, not things. People must have been there, in that bathroom, at least once. They left old-fashioned stuff behind as if they fled in a great hurry, but a long time ago.

You have not heard the phone ring for a while, but you enjoy the silence very much, and although you feel like someone is dead, you do not know who.

 

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ANGELA KUBINEC works as the Senior Editor for Does It Have Pockets, an online literary journal. Her work has appeared in Carve. She was named a finalist for a contest in Back Warrior Review and an honorable mention in Glimmer Train. This is her first published short story. She has worked to manage her bi-polar disorder for more than three decades.

Featured Image by ewuusie, courtesy of Unsplash.