Hours before, he joined me on the bed where I lay, door closed, staring into a book as a means of diversion. To allow my eyes freedom to roam and to be caught up in his is dangerous. He knows my blindness is intentional. Settling in beside me, head turned, upside-down-like, toward the head-board, he asks me to look at him, to tell him what the matter is, if I feel alright.
My temples palpitate in sync with his pulse. My foot rests on his knee and I can feel it, how his blood flows. My face grows warm and I am reminded of how he checked my forehead for a fever this morning and brought me some Excedrin, a morning offering to appease the latest flare-up of insomnia. My all-night tossing and turning: an apt metaphor for the usual state of my mind.
I am the depression left by the weight of my body on the comforter. This I know without even looking. I am sinking and my distaste for loud noises suffocates the potentially loud struggle I might voice otherwise, had I energy to exert.
I tell him via the wall I am turned towards that I'm thinking of going back to Korea; that I'm not happy; that Vegas isn't my sort of town. The gaudy, tacky neons and the arid, treeless ground are masters of an unfamiliar stench. It lingers in my nostrils, paralyzing, making me afraid.
Day after day, alone in the apartment while he goes to work, I try to be productive, but my brain is met with the dull lull of paranoia. Like a refrigerator's hum, my eyes dart steadily, my heart jumps at each slam of a car door from outside.
The food I eat is consumed with unbearable guilt and furtive glances at the window. I get frequent stomach aches and my teeth buzz with sensitivity.
He asks me to look at him and I, the lodestone, exert an effort to turn towards him. I fear my shift will crush him. In lieu of scanning his beautiful face, his compassionate eyes, the mouth that sometimes stretches itself out thinly, chin pressed up against the neck when irritated, I turn towards his chest, convenient-like, as I have yet to perfectly master implosion. I let him hold me and tell him of my need to escape, but that it's really hard because I know he's committed to Vegas for another year.
I have no wish to abandon him in this place, this side-show of routine and diversion and repetition and distraction. But, everyday, my mind loses buoyancy and my heart grows a little less or a little overly soft--I can't quite decide which would be worse. I fear becoming harsh and dry and immobile, like the Nevada mountains surrounding the infinite strip malls that occur in similar arrangements on the concrete every few miles. They span territorially, stretching like glass beads patterned within a kaleidoscope.
Worse, I fear becoming malleable, to allow my heart to yield from fear or exhaustion or doubt. I am afraid of becoming lost in this place, in this undefinable role I currently occupy, where my days run themselves out only because they know no other goal. I fear dependency on another for my life, and am sickened with myself for this force that, halo-like, shimmers somewhere above my head, blinking golden and flickering rotten, pushing my mind down endless circuitous hallways.
I am tired of needing approval, of having to explain simple things when others don't. I am sickened with accepting things I don't believe in order to avoid arguments that seem to occur silently, but play out with terrible aggression in my mind. I wonder sometimes if others feel the ache of emotional pain quite so terribly, and feel guilty for blaming another for the phantom gashes, the mental constriction of a hand raised affectionately and squeezed too close to the throat.
I tell him I want to start looking for a job in Korea and that I want to stay a few years this time around. He asks me to wait a bit longer, to volunteer at the military base or to look further into finding a decent job here which is very difficult, since I am not a citizen of this country. My nose crinkles and my fingers numb at the thought of bagging groceries for military personnel's pity change. He instantly reads this as a sense of superiority on my part. They're people, like you and me, he informs, illuminatingly.
I am sad that he thinks it is necessary to remind me that I am as indistinguishable as the next person. I realize this. I know far too well that my education and beautiful dreams amount to nothing here, especially each time I need or desire something and am forced to stand patiently as he pulls his wallet out. I hate myself and am disgusted with this situation that feels helpless as long as I am stationary. And when his mouth tightens like it does, in my mind I wonder if he's trying to figure out whether I, this person like any other as he says, is worth it, really.
He wants me to stay. I want to believe this as much as he does, I think. He often falls asleep in front of the television at night and rests his head in my lap until my legs grow unbearably phlegmatic. Immobilized under him as I often find myself, the strength of the metaphor is not, and runs around mockingly on more bitterly tinged evenings.
He sleeps oblivious and sweet. His eyes closed, I feel I can look at him, to him, without that rising feeling of degradation that's grown more common of late. I examine his face thoroughly. I imagine it on graph paper, under lines. I stroke his hair and am sad again, especially because it is my default emotion. When I do find myself smiling and people wonder why, it is hard to explain and I resent being asked; I feel as though I ought to stop, like I've been reprimanded. He tells me he likes to see me smile, that it makes him happy.
He snores softly and wheezes into the couch cushion over my lap. Unable to tolerate the insensateness of my legs a moment longer, I stroke his bristly face with just enough force to wake him. Flickering his eyes, he mutters that I am beautiful and that I'm his girl before drifting back into the unconscious. Sighing, legs still paralyzed, I wonder about his default and slip farther into mine.
I watch his eyelashes flutter. He looks so young sometimes it doesn't seem fair that he should have to seem so suspicious towards life. I think of how he takes the garbage out to the bin as I sit reading in the living room. The trek is a solid thirty second walk and the door remains in constant sight. Regardless, the lock never fails to turn and I am forced to consider this a habitual quirk, as I am in no mood to be told yet another time that I ought to trust no one; that I need to remember the combination to the bicycle's lock, that this isn't Canada (whether the tiny cultural divide is supposed to justify his paranoia is beyond me, but whatever). I am confused, as I have never been known for possessing sunny optimism towards humankind before now, and Canadian or not, I have always locked my doors and bicycles. He thinks I am naive. He doesn't trust anyone but himself.
He sleeps oblivious and sweet and I can't help but recalling how he often searches my face for signs of life. When people stare at me, I feel exposed, raw, like something is expected of me. It is at these moments that I let myself implode to get away from eyes that try to scratch their way inside. And, his face will inevitably flatten, twisting uncomfortably into a mixture of concern and irritation, and begins to shake his head, like he's suddenly got too much shit to put up with; like he's trapped in a boring nightmare.
Though he'll never admit it, he believes I am incapable of taking care of myself. When we're both upset, we walk apart from one another, but when we are happy and I am within reach, he sometimes grips my arm tightly before I cross the street; like I am a child who'd otherwise get run over or abducted if he turned his back.
I weary of conversation sometimes and like the obstinate child I was, remain silent, though I can't help but worry about how he shakes his head at me, like I'm clueless. I strain the muscles in my face into appearing unconcerned, though I never could quite get a grip on any expression close to happy or carefree. I excel far better at appearing like a blank slate; robotic. I've never been a very convincing actress, you see.
It gets predictable. My mouth will tighten as he grabs my arm, just above the elbow and I'll glaze my eyes and try hard to convince him of my sad lack of peripheral vision; Might as well validate his victory, I'll think. Defending my ability to see with clarity the people, my surroundings, the reality of our situation, is simply too exhausting.
I wonder if he is aware that in the short time I've been here, that I've ceded an obscene amount of my will over to him. I wonder if he's begun to realize that any little extra he helps to scrape away from me now and then will make me want to violently wrench my arm away (it belongs to me) and sit down on the pavement and cry.
He sleeps and I think of Korea. In the eyes of my mind, it's looking better all the time. He seemed a lot happier and more relaxed there too, and I can only chalk it up to not having to live with or support me. Earlier, on the bed, though he told told me he wanted me to stay, he also told me to narrow down the choices I came across, job-wise. He always has advice, of course.
He sees that I am unhappy and that my decision is firm and I think for a moment that his eyes look really sad. Perhaps it is my vanity that causes this thought. After I leave, I wonder if he'll still try to join me a few months later. I think he must already know his decision, but I'll let him tell me when the time comes.
We watch T.V. and changing positions, I rest my head on his lap and feel absolutely terrible. My temples drum out an irregular sort of marching tune and my gums respond competitively.
Later, before joining him in bed, I check my email to discover that the director of the Korean school I'd applied for only several hours previously, has responded, interested.
I panic. I panic at the superior professionalism of this institution and feel unworthy of it. I panic over the lofty, moralistic nature of the question I'll have to answer in TOEFL's standard essay format. I'll have to submit it later for assessment of my value to them as a teacher and a writer. But mostly, I panic because I'd half-expected to be utterly unacknowledged, or at most, responded to eventually by a much lesser, more pedestrian school with crappy hours and predictable pay.
I close the computer's window in terror and stare at the screen in astonishment before entering the bedroom.
He is sprawled out in the center of the bed, the sheets and quilt wrapped shroud-like around his body. He looks much thinner than he did in Korea and I feel guilty about it, like it's my fault, like his life would be pretty hassle-free minus me.
His elbow protrudes from against his torso and for a moment I can think of nothing else but how beautiful and nice this elbow is and that I couldn't possibly go overseas without being in close proximity to it and its owner at the end of the day.
Still panic-stricken, I feel the air becoming denser, despite the loud drone of the humidifier I require to breathe at night. I am surprised to find my eyes accumulating with water, the way they so rarely do. I wedge myself in beside him and gently steal a corner of blanket for myself. I look at the time and know that his alarm, programmed to revert every five minutes to one of the most irritating songs I've ever heard, is set to sound in under an hour.
I wrap my hands around the beautiful elbow and look at his face, asleep. I try to commit the moment to memory and close my eyes. I wonder how many more bittersweet, sleepless nights I'll spend here in this bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment