Angry Gods

The night it started to rain, the sky was indigo with purple ringed around it in a sort of fringe, bruise-like, with fingers of black creeping slowly through the center. Grimly, and steadily, the thick ricocheting slaps of this atmospheric hemorrhage reached the concrete balcony, turned the beach below into mud, and inscribed the footsteps of those out walking, oh so poetically, like a love letter along the edge of the island.
The darkness had arrived in the usual way, descending like a theatre curtain, and stamping out the remains of the sunset, which smeared lazily out above the horizon; a washed-out watercolor. The crash of the waves against the beach, coupled with the wind howling overhead made for a violent marriage of forces, and caused a disturbance, the likes of which, Em had never quite experienced.
In her room, as she lays, half on/half off her hotel bed, unshakeable sand still coating her feet, Em's body is stretched and taut. Her hand holds limply onto a pen that has yielded nothing in weeks; her imagined monologues remain unborn, like unrealized acts of creation. Her hip bones jut out, and the skin covering them has dried and cracked, like fossils in the sand, dehydrated. Her thoughts are of the artist, Pygmalion, and of the writer Virginia Woolfe. The first, who had disregarded the consequences of sacrilege and had become a more-than artist—sculpting his wife from the dirt, and basing her appearance on the goddess at the temple—had become a Creator; had made his own happiness where previously there'd been none. The second, however, the writer, had committed suicide by walking into the river Ouse, distressed from her inability to write, plagued by the isolation of maddening voices and poor health; had known happiness, but had decided thatit had become unattainable. Em stretches her legs and rubs at her eyes.

She feels empty and sick and her heart shivers within her frighteningly painful tight chest, matching the crash of the ocean against its shore, like some sort of calling. She imagines that if it could speak, her heart's voice would ripple, like sound through an oscillating fan, its mouths gurgling oxygenated blood. Her eyelids, still coated with the the sea spray that had whipped around her earlier, like an assail of kisses, begin to flutter, weighed down with the sedative effects of sun and gin. The walls of the hotel are thin and she can hear the seashell windchimes hanging from the open balcony at the end of the hall, singing out a spell, tinkling a lullaby in the wind.
Em had spent the evening with her traveling companions, several married couples from work, perched on the edge of a canopy-covered table watching the storm gather energy, drinking island drinks, as palm fronds flapped wildly above them. In time, as the waves seemed to strain foward against the blackness of the night, spewing salt water and making Em's head spin, she had stretched out, propping a pillow behind her back, and listened, as the conversation turned philosophical, religious even, as it sometimes does when workmates, separated from the norm of anti-social office environments, attempt to guage eachother's personal beliefs. Tuning in, she had watched Shaun, his eyes serious, shake his head at Tim and continue what he was saying:
“Hey, I'm the least religious guy around, right? But, I'm just saying, everyone's got some sort of energy, right, that keeps us alive. Life is just accumulated energy. So, when you die, where does that energy go?”
“Don't know. Ever seen that movie 21 grams? It had the idea that when you die, you lose 21 grams, everyone does. Like you get rid of everything you don't need anymore. Guilt; resentment; love, even. Like it's meant to be the weight of your soul.”
Tim's wife shifted uncomfortably for a moment and adjusted her earring. She had bought them on the beach, little champagne colored pearls from the men who walked up and down the edge of the water all day long, waving their souvenirs and haggling prices with sun-seeking tourists. “Damn! I lost the back to one of them.” Kim's hands moved over the table top in search. Everyone turned their heads from left to right, then down to their feet, half-heartedly, but helpful.
“Hmmm,” she sighed, after a moment, pocketing the pearl and settling her hands primly in her lap.
“Oh well. How much is 21 grams?”
Em, her eyes half closed, but listening, managed to think, Love, Resentment, Guilt? And muttered, “Not very much. Hardly anything at all.”
Julie considered and poked Shaun, whose arm hung lazily around her. “Yeah, remember when we'd get like, 100 grams of that really thin sliced meat at the deli. That wasn't really much.”
“It's not really meant to be much, I guess. The idea that the soul could weigh anything at all is crazy. And that it escapes, is, I don't know...” he shook his head and stared out at nothing really.

By the bar, the resort attendants shuffled, watching, unsure why the tone of the young tourists had so changed, had become tired and weighted, as though the shift in weather meant that something was about to happen; that something was about to change; things could get carried away in storms like this.
The five people at the table were silent for a moment, lost in their own thoughts, anchors away and drifting off from eachother in an awkward pause filled in only by the hollow wail of the wind through the heaving waves.
Sirens, thought Em, her head all vapor. The storm had begun to scare her. She had not grown up by the ocean, nor had she ever been on a tropical island. Images of being swallowed up in the night by the encroaching water, lapping hungrily against the beach, began to fill her mind. Shaun, not willing to drop the conversation, had pressed on.
“I mean, if you know that you're going to die someday, and your soul's just going to go somewhere, you think you'd like, really try to do something while you're here. Leave a mark. Be useful.”
Em had opened her eyes, drunkenly, one at a time. Laughter. “Still alive, then?” Tim had smiled. She'd nodded slowly, making an effort not to slur her words as she spoke. “I think that humans should create things while we're here. Draw. Write. Invent. It's important. Like, become the creator. Divine.”
Her voice had trailed off, lost in the gale. Julie's head shook. “Geez. It's so loud. I didn't catch that last bit. I hope this isn't a hurricane.”
“Yeah,” agreed Kim. “The islands haven't had much luck around this time of year. Like the tsumani in Thailand happened around Christmas time too, right?”
4 heads had nodded in agreement.
“It's so fucked up though, if you think about what we've just been saying, like about being useful and stuff.” Tim's eyes had cleared. “I mean, it just seems like such a systematic purging of people.”
“Yeah, man,” Shaun nodded, eyes wide, “It's not right. It's not like they could have all been that bad, that useless to the world. Shit.”
“Angry Gods.”
“What?” They'd all turned to look at Em, surprised she was speaking at all.
“In most ancient mythologies, natural disasters and stuff happened because the gods were angry. Like, in the Odyssey, Odysseus kills the cyclops and ends up wandering around for 10 years, away from his wife, aimlessly fighting demons, trapped on some island with a witch, all because the Sea God was pissed off. He couldn't control his own fate. Couldn't even die if he tried.”
Em had looked down at her hands as she spoke, not really certain why she'd bothered speaking at all. In truth, she had begun to feel misplaced, a fifth wheel, and a rickety one at that; she had convinced herself as she'd packed her bags to leave a week before, that traveling here, to this tropical paradise, by herself, was acceptable behavior, that being single was fine, that she wasn't going to be carted around like extra baggage.
All week, however, the resort staff had joked with her about finding a man on the island. Only that morning, Roy, the bartender had sashayed up to her, given her a big gummy smile, and had begun, with hands in constant motion, to tell her about his own boyfriend, insisting that if he, Roy, could have a boyfriend, then, Em, with her pretty eyes and trim figure should have no problem. Em had nodded, smiled politely, and did her best to explain to Roy that not having a boyfriend wasn't something he should consider a a deficiency on her part.
“I just like to have my own life,” she'd said. “I don't like to lose myself in others.” Be eaten up, she'd thought.
She had believed herself as she'd spoken the words, but her mind had turned back to the night before at the bar, when she'd been abandonned by her friends for a supposedly “quick 5 minutes” that had bled slowly into 2 hours. Deciding to drink more, and talk with the people seated around her, Em had held her ground, determined not to be desperate. But, at the end of the night, when the man with dreadlocks and skin the color of bronze had leaned over and kissed her softly, she had felt his pulse beat through her cracked lips. When it was over, she'd looked at him, and wordlessly, pulled away, parched, to watch the bar's fire dancer spin a scorching path for her, like a phoenix' tail, against the black of the sky.

“It's really getting bad out here.” Julie said, wrapping her shawl around her sunburnt shoulders. The wind had picked up.4 heads had nodded in agreement.
“Let's leave the angry gods to it, then, shall we?”Shaun joked. “'Night guys.”
They made their way up their respective staircases, and closed their doors behind them.

As Em had unlocked her own door, her long, fine hair whisked around her like a shield in the wind. The waves worked themselves along the shore like fingers, tickling, beckoning. She'd pocketed the key and cast a slow, final look, bidding goodnight to the ocean. She'd gone to lay on her bed, Pygmalion and Woolfe, streaking the walls of her mind as she'd drifted off on the waters of dream, where the waves, stirred like a frenzied lover, opened wide its many mouths, hungry for anything expendable.

There’s a quote from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible that goes: “Until an hour before the devil fell, God found him beautiful in heaven.” I’ve been letting the weight of these words plummet through my increasingly distracted, seemingly gravity-deprived brain these past few days, hoping for a thought strong enough to puncture; a mental ricochet. I’m not sure why this line resonated with me, but I think it’s easily applicable to most humans, surreptitious and self-serving as we often tend to be. We know from classic literature that Lucifer was said to have fallen because of his dissatisfaction with God’s absolute control . To read the quote, we might come to understand that the devil had the ability, as it were, to manipulate the figurative wool over God’s apparently omniscient eyes. However, we might also read the line differently; perhaps God’s vision, as all-encompassing as it is thought to be, was selective. Perhaps God refused to see his shining angel as anything but good and filled with redeeming qualities. Every action, however inelegant, might be perceived as graceful by one whose mind is set in admiration, which makes the rebel’s longing for power, for individualism, all the more urgent; Lucifer had to prove his oppressor wrong, even if it meant his own ultimate destruction. Regardless of the verity of the story, it is unfortunate that Man (as literary inspiration for Lucifer or vice versa) has been following suit ever since.

Humans, in my opinion, are contrary by nature. Whether out of antagonism, hostility, or mere circumstance, the need to argue one’s point; to forge out on one’s own, seems inherent--perhaps because we are intrinsically riddled with imperfection, and feel the need to point it out. That said, imperfection, of course, is subject to criticism, which, if ill-received and un-acted upon by those in power, may lead to the stronger, grimmer consequence of opposition, a route often traveled alone.

Individualism, I’ve learned, however, sometimes comes at a price: isolation, self-delusion, and a general animosity towards the greater, more intact whole. The issue of interest, however, is just what constitutes the “whole.”

I’ve often said that I subscribe to the metaphysical poets’ belief of Man as part of a greater macro/microcosmic system. This means that everything in the universe-- man’s concept of the ‘whole’-- can serve as a metaphor for something greater or lesser than it. For instance, one might consider their version of God to be the universal absolute; the sovereign force for the universe. However, as far removed, physically and emotionally, as most are from their ultimate creators, for me, a certain inward movement of the fundamental has proven necessary for basic daily function and sanity.

Like a telescope, worth collapses upon itself; our solar system replaces the vast unknown, and Earth replaces it in turn. We find the lowest common denominator in fractions, and likewise, the value of our planet is delegated to our respective countries, and the hold becomes tighter as it moves into our cities and towns. Moving ever closer, a seemingly simple family unit can serve as one’s concept of the universe; the creators and sustainers and the wards all living together in a sort of disjunctive bubble. And, ultimately, though one might sharpen the lens’ focus a thousand-fold more, a solitary being can serve as a microcosm for the whole; Creator, Sustainer, and Destroyer; Id, Ego, Superego; housed together in one’s body, each struggling to make itself heard; to see who can scream the loudest. We are our own Gods, subject to our own criticisms.

Opposing forces work within me, treading a very fine, often shaky balance; the struggle for power flickers from hand to hand with the bat of an eyelash. In this way, it is possible to become my own oppressor as well as my own defender. I will not rail to imaginary heavens, nor will I scream at untouchable figureheads in a desire for deliverance from unarticulated mysteries. I can neither scream to those who will not hear. Thus, having nothing more tangible than myself to oppose and admonish, my body begins to wage war with my mind, belligerent totality that I am.

My mind is both strong and weak. It knows what is right, but is compelled through force of habit to fall into trenches. My unarmored body has held out against my mind for a very long time and has been surprisingly regenerative. But at the same time, my body has at times proven itself uncooperative. Guilt, desire, regret, repetition, hatred, and disgust have been the artillery of choice for my mind; Smart weapons, these arrows, which never miss their target. My body, aching, grumbling, cracking, rotting thing that it is, may not hold out forever. Sleep is the best respite, although silencing my mind’s crueler aspects through this method, is (and has always been) difficult; More opposition.

Sometimes, my body rebels and rejects me, and mentally, I can do nothing. I may inhale, and somewhere, beneath the surface of my collarbone, cutlery drawers may slam, clattering silverware about my lungs. On one of the warmest nights this summer, I was unable to stop shivering into my comforter for a full two hours. The fever, a result of what I was later, with the help of a doctor (who offered me a pen as a consolation/consultation prize) and a translator, able to pinpoint as an upper respiratory infection, had left me frantic and morbid. I assumed, naturally, that my death was imminent. I was afraid to sleep. Exhausted, my head would reel directly into my pillow and rest there only about 3 seconds before I’d pry myself upward. I recall repeating what I supposed was an act of mutual self-destruction/preservation at least 4 times more until finally, the cough wracking my rib cage caused a physical revolt in me, ill-conducive to sleep, should I accept it or not. I wondered if this illness, like everything else that affects me, was my fault. I felt guilt for something that was probably airborne. I fell asleep that awful night, in terror, wondering, and trying to keep the nausea at bay.

I survived, obviously, but this bout of illness has been very affecting. I obviously think of death too often in the first place, and once more, I’ve been stricken with thoughts that life is dashing by too quickly, like the hours have abandoned me to habit and routine. I know that my professional life and my personal life should be kept away from one another, and right now, I am satisfied with work. I tell myself, though, that I will make time to write; to draw; to create. The days have, however, found a way to speed themselves up, it would seem, coursing through the atmosphere, as surreptitious, but as affecting as the oxygen we have no choice but to consume; the viruses we are unable to keep from catching. The idea that time is being wasted in all that I do, is like a disease. My mind becomes flushed, overwhelmed to the point where I can do very little at all. Indeed, the hours in my life have been wasted quite edaciously, and my regret grumbles away, like a bad case of indigestion.

Perhaps my desire to create of late is a reflection of my yen to be a shaper, a sustainer, rather than the alternative, buoyed ironically along by that negative force which has so pervaded my life, and which I can sometimes feel taking hold of me, as it siphons away what remains of former versions of me. I’ve criticized myself to the point where this is the only solution I can conceive of; to divest myself of as much of myself as I might, and start again, to recreate myself, and lose myself in a world of pictures and words that twist perfectly together; a double helix connecting two streams—blood and thought.

I sometimes think for long stretches at a time, about how words mesh together, and how they would sound together issued from a mouth that manages to be familiar, yet strangely foreign. And yet, all my imagined monologues remain unborn, another act of creation gone unrealized. Someone once asked me what the difference was between being creative, and being a creator, and of course, I had to answer that the latter suggested an originator, a God, whereas the former merely described the qualities possessed by one. So, if we are all symbolically microcosmic versions of something unknowable, something divine, then, however blasphemous or oppositional it may seem, we are all capable of embodying either condition, or both at once.

I am reminded of Greek Mythology’s Pygmalion, the hermit artist who felt nothing but disgust and resentment for human women in all their imperfection. He rejected them by remaining cloistered in his house, and concentrating on his work. This denial of women, generally accepted as one of Gods’ gifts to Man, creatures conceived by the seminal mind of the ultimate artist, may be perceived as arrogant, or critical, perhaps; Pygmalion’s being too proud to accept something he felt could be improved upon. One day, at a temple, he came across an image of Aphrodite and immediately fell in love with the divinity. Though he realized he could never possess the being after whom the image was modeled, the artist in him became obsessed with this vision of feminine beauty, so undetectable among mortal women.

Infatuated, he disregarded thoughts of sacrilege, and thought not of those boundaries over which man is assumed unable to tread. He became a Creator, and from some clay—dug from the earth—he sculpted the only wife he would ever deign to take, perfecting her to his whims, basing her on the Goddess at the temple. When she was finished, she was perfect, and he called her ‘wife,’ as though she were a sentient being, and not a cold, inanimate piece of clay. Essentially, the artist’s inability to cede to a pedestrian human life of ugliness and imperfection symbolizes man’s drive to become better, and not accept what is offered to him blindly, and without question. The story suggests we must make use of our own faculties and take risks for happiness.

The story has a surprisingly happy ending. Pygmalion loves his creation so much, that his prayers to Aphrodite are answered, and his chosen wife is transformed into a living creature. I think the point of the story is that given what we know of vengeful, easily insulted Gods who don’t accept opposition well, Pygmalion was prepared, essentially, to surrender his own life for something he desired; to become as lifeless as his mate. In effect, the artist was willing to sacrifice himself for something he already knew was unattainable; if he couldn’t achieve perfection is his world, he’d rather not exist.

The artist assumes the role of creator, then, in some sort of microcosmic twist to the story. The two governing forces in his life—his oppositional, creative mind, and the feminine body that engrossed him—were able to form a union of sorts, double-helix like, which completed him. The problem is that going through life with a significant part missing, tortured Pygmalion beyond measure. The fact that he created his wife and he had to watch her, unmoving and un-breathing, day after day, made it worse. Thus, the creation of his wife was merely a beautiful solution to his initial problem (not loving any of the human women), and it seems that it was the ‘solution’ that nearly destroyed him in the end, hungry passion and all. Self-appointed Creators create their own problems too, I suppose. From the Gods’ perspective, perhaps that is punishment enough.

My own aversion and acceptance lies dull and thickly; like spackle sparkling with glinting pieces of stone, the ratio is uneven. It makes me sad that human nature is very difficult to change. I am not feeling very God-like today.

Fit

Fit
The little plastic cylinders jut up from the Lego blocks splayed on the green foam mat in all their primary- colored glory and my eyes begin to glaze over. It is fourth period, the final I have with the pre-pre K children, and I am grateful that Lego blocks and a Raffi CD are all it takes to incite them to a joy I can no longer understand. All their protests and tears over the two pages of phonics (letter N) they were required to do before lunch are vanquished from their thoughts as they splay their arms and twirl to an up-tempo “Down by the Bay.” By tomorrow, they’ll have forgotten how one boy kicked another for not sharing (thereby causing a torrent of tears severe enough for me, in my exhaustion, to amuse myself with thoughts of reciting something ‘dry,’ like a list of irregular past tense verbs. In the end, my rather amusing, if completely abstract technique of stunning 3-4 year olds into silence, were extinguished only by my sense of responsibility as I cradled the child until his wails died down to a tolerable pout).By tomorrow, after they’ve gone through the near ritualistic stuffing of their faces with the bread and milk offered up by Monica (the Korean teacher), yesterday will have never happened. It’s weird how before a certain point, we all can’t seem to remember anything about our lives. It's almost frustrating, like there's a marked division between learning things for the first time and remembering more esoteric things, like voices and the feel of a hand clutched thousands of times. It’s like information bounces off the insular tunnels of the mind, leaving indentations of awareness in our subconscious too imperceptible to fathom; fossils for psychoanalysts to uncover decades down the road. Later, the little we can recall comes in spurts, disjointed like dreams that heat up around the edges, blurring vision. Everything else we have comes from whatever we can piece together from photographs that convince and reassure us of our happy childhoods (Say Cheeeeese!). Perhaps I’m watching children live lives that they’ll have no memory of in 6 years, when days are replaced, Doppelganger-style with a frantic, empty routine. The arts and crafts we do in class, if saved by zealous parents, will serve as the relics of people who have essentially passed out of reach; their old clothing, chrysalises to be wondered at, but tossed aside for something better fitting, their skin notwithstanding.
Our hold on things can't last forever. One day, I'll look back at the person I am now and marvel at my youth and wish I had done certain things differently. One day, maybe I'll no longer care about the issues that upset me today, the memories that jolt me out of bed at night. It's the same for everyone, I think. And I imagine that somewhere, right now and always, elastics, stretched too tightly are snapping, resonating arrogantly as they fall to the ground.Still in my “four-hours-down-six-left-to-go” stupor, I watch a little girl struggle to fit the blocks together. She has built a room on a platform and is sealing it off like a box with a lid. I stare at her condensed little creation and wonder why she has chosen to hide the contents arranged carefully inside. We’re all little microcosms of something larger in the Metaphysical sense, I guess. Imagine some giant, cosmic Babushka doll whittled down (by its own mental volition--what else?) to a cellular level wherein the soul, or our ideas about it, may or may not flicker silently in the dark. In an effort not to overlap; to not spill over the edges, we begin to box ourselves into our identities pretty quickly I guess. She searches around for flat pieces in her attempt at symmetry; leveling the parts off evenly, capturing everything within. She asks me for help, and I crawl around the mat, searching for her. Though I rummage through the plastic bins and overturn their contents, we are one piece short and a square shaped hole remains, like a blemish. Her eyes fall to it, and she attempts to stick a non-Lego shaped flower there in its stead. It falls through into the box and I recognize her disappointment as though it were my own. I pick the cube up and hold it to my eye, hoping she'll catch on and do the same, peering inside her own creation, as self contained as she herself; little corralled mysteries both, fugacious as the current date and time.
When I was a child, I loved Legos, though I found it maddening that there never seemed to be an end in sight. As much as I strove for completion, little plastic connectors always remained reaching upward, tauntingly reminding me that there was room for more, eternally. A perfectionist by nature, I would continue to build the walls of my fortresses and add to the steps of my imaginary cities until, my resources spent, I would stare in disgust at the holes that would inevitably remain, at the un-eveness of that final wall, dilapidated from my own lack of planning. Hours of effort and pride would somehow morph into a cumbrous sort of lassitude as I'd cede to the threat of 'bedtime' and let fall, plastic clacking onto plastic, that which had once been my endless construction.As we put our shoes on and leave to go, in the best English she can manage, the girl asks if she can put her building on the table instead of tearing it apart in typical Lego block fashion. I know it won't be there tomorrow and will no doubt have become raw material—resplendent in flat pieces and intrigue as it is--for some other child, but placing it carefully on the corner of the table, I gladly oblige. I close the door behind us and when the metal meets metal, the click attests to our relevance.
My pertinence in the world has been a long-standing issue, though in recent months, prior to returning to Korea, I’d come to question my significance. Trapped in a state of personal remiss and identifying myself through past accomplishments, I imagined myself like a piece of writing (ironic, as nothing of worth flowed from my pen), slowly losing credibility. Attacked by criticism and censure, I am rendered prone as the words drip slowly from my pages, collecting themselves by my splintered spine in puddles of melted alphabet by-products. Dialogue shrieks its last coherent oath and collapses in raw contempt at the image before it: the destruction of its requisite verbal substratum. I sit and stare quietly at other words, not my own, bound strongly within covers made shiny in the lamplight. I try to make the connection between them and me. I blink and my edges begin to crumble delicately and stick in the carpet, like ash from a bonfire.
About a month ago, I began to have dreams again. The first one disconcerted me and I am surprised that, despite having not written it down, it remains in my head, unable to escape secretly into those memory-hoarding side pockets of the mind. Since then, I’ve been deconstructing it; sequencing events as though my sleeping brain may have left something out. Rearranging my nightmares and dreams like puzzles; cramming them into frames to make them fit better; to see the whole picture in the right order, has become my new past-time in the moments between my insomniac’s struggle to sleep, and finally drifting off to further maelstroms of the mind. The dream took place in what I can only imagine is an airplane hangar.
I step into a very large, somewhat cold, sterile looking room. Everything is clean and appears bathed in white light. The first thing I notice is a wheel with numbers—the sort you might see at a bank or a deli, or anywhere you might have to wait your turn. Without considering where I may be, I take my number. 6. Okay. I look around and realize that I appear to be in the waiting area of an airport. There are many seats and a large window looking out onto grey pavement. I am a little alarmed that the airport seems empty and I wonder whether I am too late, though I don’t know where I am going.
I walk over to a counter; stainless steel, and of the sort you might see people packing their boxes at in large Korean grocery stores. Suddenly, obscure people; friends I never see; are handing me presents that have absolutely no use to me--like candles and piñatas with colorful streamers, heavy and unwieldy. I think of how my bags probably already weigh too much. I wonder where I am going. Are they going too? I accept their gifts with turbid smiles, thick with confusion, though I am struck with the utter uselessness of the offerings. There is nothing I want and essentially, I am accepting paperweights (or blunt objects that will eventually be used for this purpose). Number 4 is called out in a tinny voice over a loud speaker and someone gets up excitedly. I can’t see who it is or where she came from. I hadn’t seen anyone else earlier and at this point, the gift givers are gone too and I am left with awkward trash bags that I cannot lift. I leave them under the counter and find a seat.
I wait and wonder what is happening. I look at my number and remember that four had already been called. I assume I am going somewhere, like everyone else clutching paper numbers, but if it’s on a plane, why am I going alone? And why is it taking so long for my turn to come up? There are several other faceless people around the room at this point, all looking very bored and tired of waiting. Some are reading magazines. I stare at the wall and my eyes catch a crack snaking its way up the wall. The longer I stare at it, the larger it becomes. Suddenly, to my alarm, thousands of ants stream out of it. The surface of the floor is instantly enveloped in shiny black moving bodies and I pull my legs up in disgust. To my relief, they are heading toward the automatic doors which I had not noticed before, having thought they were windows. The ants assume an orderly line and when the glass parts, they gain their freedom and file out of it in one swift motion, like a waving flag rippling through the wind. I approach the door myself and it appears locked. I am unable to leave. I stare out of it and I see that we are high off the ground and the ants have vanished. I return to my chair and wait.
Number 5 is called and someone heaves an irritated groan. I turn to see a familiar face: sitting beside me is a girl I went to high school with. During school, I found her popularity intimidating and her constant bursts of emotionality to be too much to handle. This was the sort of girl who would tell me all her problems, but have an excuse to leave before I could ever open my mouth and engage in my own cathartic outpourings. If this girl got a bad mark, the sight of her crying would be enough for a teacher to reconsider. I hated her. I am, then, a little surprised to see her now, in what I would assume is my dream-adult life.
She shows me her number. 7. I show her mine. She insists that she has to be somewhere; that we have to trade; that her appointment is much more important than mine could ever be. I refuse. I am impatient and wish to leave myself. My destination is still unknown. She begins to get frantic, and starts to raise her voice. I am tired and just shake my head. No. Sorry. She begins screaming that if I don’t trade with her, she’ll stick her head in the oven which has suddenly appeared in the kitchen-like environment we are now in. I tell her I don’t care; that if I am not the next person to leave, I’ll lose my mind; that I need to be on the next flight. I no longer see my luggage.
Like someone gone completely mad, my ex-classmate hurls herself towards the stove. There’s a drawer beneath it and she pulls it out violently. Upon laying down on it, her body flattens, dough-like and melted, and the door slams, initiating an explosion that I assume kills us all and prevents my flight. Then, for an instant, everything is blackness.
I wake up exactly 3 minutes before my alarm clock to the sound of my mirror falling off the wall. It’s been so humid here that hooks tend to be sweated off, yellow glue dripping down the wall. I prop it carefully against the side of the cupboard now. I’m surprised it didn’t smash, actually. Little shards of glass on my floor and the potential of seven unlucky years does note strike me as appealing.
Some people find the heat oppressive. I have only turned my air conditioning on several times, though it’s occurred to me that using it would probably keep things hanging on the walls; intact. I’ve bought several different brands of hooks, but they’ve all popped off randomly: the warm air makes the glue expand; the corners of square-shaped adhesive melt tragic-like as they weep pus-like down the wallpaper voicing their inability to stay put, like obstinate children, or escape artists like me.
I smoke a cigarette in bed and watch the smoke churn upwards, like a swing untangling in a park, slow then gradually quicker until it twists back on itself, fusing into its respective terrain; the smoke becomes a part of the air I breathe, nicotine-vitiated or otherwise; the twisting swing slows down, its chains no longer clinking together, until it’s easy sway patterns that of the breeze through the grass, palliative and without impetus. Everything seems to cohere and merge, I think, as my eyelids couple in exhaustion with their baser counterparts.
I breathe in deeply and I let the air fill my stomach, hesitating before release. Though it is necessary for life, I begin to think of it in abstract terms, because despite the fact that it fits inside my body; my lungs, this is a sustenance I cannot distinguish from contagion. I let it have its freedom in a thin stream pointed towards the ceiling and I pull my stomach, airless, in, like it was vacuum-packed, its sides pressed up against my ribs. We are all receptacles of a sort, I guess. I, at least, would like for things to fit, but everything that does seems so transient. Air, the elan vital itself escapes eventually, in death and in life, unable to connect in permanence; fearing the concept of forever, like some uncertain lover.
A friend of mine told me once that she was in love and that she thought she had, at 21, found her soul mate, so fused together were all aspects of she and her partner's personalities. He completed her, she (the otherwise defective, fragmentary being) said. This same friend's boyfriend told me, though, that the reason he'd stayed with her for as long as he had (possibly over six months!), was because he enjoyed/needed the sex. Both remarks, heard at different times, of course, made me think that people are constantly attempting some form of cohesiveness, though the human condition to me, has always been a very solitary one.
In life, we are expected to be individuals, able to do more and more for ourselves as we age. It has always struck me as very unsettling, almost, that so many people go through their lives obsessed with the idea that not only must they couple, but that they must find one solitary human being in whom to synchronize their lives completely. It's like how electronics won't work unless they're plugged into the wall and how outlets are only there, useless until penetrated. The idea that we are inherently incomplete; rent up the middle; makes me a little bit sad. However, I don't think that joining forces with another incomplete searcher will ever make anything whole, but rather, produce just two tentative bodies acting as temporary stuffing for one another
A long time ago, I read about how female sexuality was perceived in the middle ages and the figurative language with which it was referred in literature. In one play I read during my study, the author, in speaking of a rather unfaithful married woman often alluded to the cracked vase in the corner of her kitchen. This was meant to suggest that women are like vessels needing to be filled. The cracks, obviously were meant to suggest the imperfectness of her character. However, they also seem to me to suggest that, try as she might to retain what she holds, in the end, everything escapes eventually; she ends up as empty as she started; insatiable.
Another medieval writer, in comparing men and woman's internal organs, decided that the only true difference between men and women was that women had a womb, a great big empty space inside them, whereas men did not. The only way for women to be truly healthy, happy and complete was by being pregnant, thereby completing themselves and filling their bodies. Later, Freud, in diagnosing nervous disorders in women, had a somewhat similar approach. Many of his patients were older women past childbearing age and suffering from bouts of apparent hysteria. He believed that removing the uterus by way of hysterectomy, would be the cure for the irrational behavior of his patients; fear and panic over being no longer able to be properly filled, I suppose. It's a bit ironic, I think, that anyone could think that getting rid of the womb could help solve a person's feelings of being incomplete--it a removal of a major organ, after all. Some people clearly don't understand that being empty is such an abstract thing that to go pinpointing it physically is foolishness. And, all that's left at the end is hollowness and a queer feeling in the pit of one's stomach; a low grumble, like the desire to be full again.
The stomach is a muscle that can stretch over time to suit one’s habits of consumption. Supple and extensile, it can expand to degrees far beyond that of the average—a human fist. I imagine a sort of mad rush to squeeze everything in, like it was a matter of necessity; suitcases that need to be shut, stomped on, zipped closed after a struggle. I saw a man on television once, whose girth was incredible. Like many people who overeat to excess, there was the suggestion that something was lacking in his life; some switch not turned on; some failed connection. I watched him speak on television and thought about how some people say food is comfort, like the introduction of food into one’s body has a steadying effect that keeps one’s feet rooted firmly to the ground, dome-shaped, like the earth. But, in our rather gratuitous culture, it seems that there is the constant desire to be filled. Nothing is ever enough.
The act of over-consumption itself; the input of food into one's body when it is unneeded, fascinates me. If overeating is meant to be percieved as a replacement for something that is lacking, one has to wonder at those who purposely choose to deny themselves essential nourishment at all, thereby allowing themselves to sicken; to become weak. It calls to question wherein the human difference lies between those who try to fill the space that cries out so plaintively for tenancy, and those who actively seek it, void themselves of everything. Perhaps the pain and the echoing rumble is a reminder that they are indeed human and alive; they aren't empty after all. Pain is some sort of palpable monster after all.
Somewhere, the figurative rubber band strains under the tension of keeping it all together.
The rubber band stretches taught to the point where the brownish beige begings to whiten, scar-like along the edges. Like a pregnant woman's stomach, or a watermelon, the lines slither upwards, their hisses gradually fading into a nothingness whose starkness against stretched skin is very palapable. The fingers looped around the edges doubt their ability to match its elastic resistance. They quiver and shake as the rubber is adjusted around its charge, snapping tightly into place like an uncomfortable second skin, crawling gradually upwards until...unable to contain its object any longer; unable to fit, the rubber breaks and drops limply to the ground, And the fingers, taking a brief moment to recover from the shock of separation, drum listlessly for a moment before grasping myopically for something

Schism

The murky 5am sunlight force its way into our bedroom, shattering my attempts to sleep. Like the glass splinters that I imagine have coerced themselves into my brain, I am momentarily unsure of its origin. I am equally inconclusive about the intense nausea that has nestled itself against the wall of my stomach, kneading hatefully and stretching its tail upwards into my esophagus.
My cheekbones feel tight, like the skin has been stretched and anchored behind my earlobes, like some sort of skull-faced, aging celebrity face-lift. Inhaling deeply, I feel my ribs distend through my skin. I don't even have to put my hand against my side to check. Turning over painfully, I see that he has overslept and needs to get ready for work. Genuflecting horizontal, worshiper of sleep, he looks comfortable and at peace, and I regret calling out his name and shaking him awake. Before he thanks me, I ask him to get me my pain killer. It feels selfish for a moment, my request, but I manage to overcome my guilt when a sensation not unlike having several eyelashes simultaneously plucked, spasms through my forehead.
I settle my head back against the pillow, gingerly, as though it were a detonator (which I suppose it is, though I have yet to determine the nature of its discharge), and frown at the drool marks on the gray pillow case. I wonder if the crusty white spit-shell has covered my face too and stringently pull my fingers against the sides of my mouth and the corners of my eyes. My face protests malevolently as it twists into an expression somewhere between sorrow and disgust. Do you need the antibiotics too, he wonders, standing at the door, drowsy. Yeah I murmur, low and tired. I close my eyes.
Remaining conscious becomes a force of will as pangs of agony and waves of prescription pain killer surge through my bloodstream, battling it out to determine which will successfully put me to sleep first. I am glad that the pain killer is strong, though it is unable to successfully vanquish the tenderness in the back of my head, which, in my exhaustion, is beginning to feel more like without-a-doubt brain damage every minute.
The problem is my tooth, or rather, my teeth in general. Years of throw up and vitamin deficiency don't really keep smiles on one's face, let alone one that is unblemished. I've been having nightmares about my teeth for years, and have swum helplessly inside mouthfuls of gastric acid on several occasions. In my dreams, I am trapped and watch, detached, as my enamel dissolves, disintegrating into dust. I am showered by venomous little particles that bite and sting and melt me down. Awake, he tells me not to worry about a little blood on my gums when I floss.
We go to the first dental office we can find that is open on Saturday and wait. The secretaries and dental assistants behind the counter are being handed thick, whipped cream Starbucks drinks from another worker and make sure to thank her before handing me over the clipboard. As I write, head pounding, I try to ignore the television mounted to the wall; the children whining on the other side of the counter; the abrupt, disinterested conversation among the overweight latte drinking secretaries. He leans over me, encroaching, watching to make sure my information is accurate.
I am despondent. I think of how much this is going to cost and how little he's spoken to me today. He walks ahead and mumbles about how dentists just want to scam people into unnecessary root canals, that it would be cheaper to send me home to have it done in Canada, that he's going to cancel the appointment and get a second opinion. I begin to feel disposable and decide not to speak to him until the angry tension in the air dissipates, affixing itself with all the world's other evils, inside my mouth.
Inside, I am finally seen and given an X-ray and he leaves to return to work. A small television turned to MTV is mounted to the wall to minimize patient-doctor interaction as much as possible. My tooth, they tell me, is decayed and requires a root canal. However, because the tooth has calcified, there is no longer a canal and the dentist, who I immediately dislike for his rude, dictatorial way of speaking, barely comprehensible Chinese accent and all, is not skilled enough to help me. I am given a prescription for antibiotics and painkiller and told to see an endodontist.
I return to the waiting room and wonder how long it will be before he returns to pick me up. An hour and a half at least. I call the cell phone, but am unable to reach him and resign myself to avoiding the glances from the fat coffee drinkers behind the front desk. I wonder if they have cavities.
When he comes, I watch his military issue camouflaged legs approach the glass door that reads 'Absolute Dental,' backwards from where I'm sitting. I look away as he approaches, like I've been absorbed in the nuances of the stucco wall. I repeat to him the vague information I've been given about the state of my mouth and he says he wants to see the X-ray. In the operating room, the dentist explains to him, in infinitely more depth than he had with me, the nature of my problem and why he can't help me. Silenced and shifting onto his other foot, he appears satisfied that my pain is real and not the product of melodrama, so we leave.
I feel faint as we walk to the car and want to close my eyes. Driving, he asks me if I understand about why my tooth has calcified. "You know the reason, right," he asks, accusingly. "Yeah, I know, but it's been a long time coming," I say. I haven't been able to see a dentist in a while. He shifts gears; the wheels spin; silence.
"There's something else I want to ask you about", he says, after a while; we're at a red light. "What happened to the cappuccino biscotti? I want you to tell me the truth". I swallow; the light turns green; we move; I want to throw up.
His mother had sent him boxes of candy and cookies at Christmas and he'd piled them against the wall, like a monument to self-restraint. A week prior, I'd somehow felt forced to pay my respects and pull the lid off the tin, silently. It had been sitting there a week and when it came, I went to lie down to read in the bedroom, never acknowledging it with more than a simple "Hmm, that's nice of her."
I can't look at him beside me in the car and for a moment I feel as though he's waited until now to trap me. There's an unspoken sort of protocol about food between us that implies I will only eat fruit and vegetables and that if I consume anything with fat or significant calories, it must mean I intend to vomit it up. Eater's remorse.
I look at the highway through the window and notice that the car in front of us has a license plate reading "GETU1". How about that. He sits beside me and tells me he wants an answer, so I say, "I ate it and threw it up," in the same tone one would say, "yeah, the view is clear on my side, you can go."
I think he is surprised that I admitted it. Some people, especially those who read all about bulimics on the internet, think we're all in denial about our habits and follow the carefully bulleted guidelines to try to fix the problem. Because we're all the same person with the same reasons for needing such a dangerous emotional crutch in the first place, right?
I am tired and my face feels bruised. I put my hand behind my ear, lean my elbow against the window, which I stare out of trying to will an explosion because I am passive aggressive and do not have a tendency to scream even when I feel at my angriest.
Nothing happens and nothing is said and I still feel like opening the car door and falling on to the highway, so I ask, in a really quick, unsure way, "does that make you happy, having me admit to something that we're already both aware I am responsible for?"
"Well, I had opened up the tin and noticed a whole wedge was gone, is all. And, it's not like there's a lot of people in the house. Just us. And, it wasn't me." He is victimized, deprived of his cookie.
"Well, if you're going to check..."
"Oh, aww, come on..." he insists, but I know that he'll deny his distrust of me until the end. He feels compelled to open my drawers and search for contraband, I've recently learned.
We sit silent and he drives. I am aware of how little I am in control of anything. I can't go anywhere or do anything without his consent and awareness. I have no income. I can't eat cookies without being made to feel like a piece of shit a week after the fact. If anything, being put on the spot and being inadvertently informed of how little say I have in the things I do makes me want to vomit more. I can't help but marvel in my mind, which is gradually losing it's ability to contain the tears I've been suppressing until now, how ineffective and damaging his 'help' is.
"I just want you to tell me things. I feel like when I find these things like I'm living with a sneak," he informs me after what feels like an eternity of silence. I'd hoped his voice had dried up.
There is no time to think of what I am going to say, though at the very least, I hope to contain my calm, angry tone and not dip into that revolting, blubbery zone where one can barely make out the words, let alone take one seriously.
"There are just some things I don't feel comfortable talking about. I'm not a sneak. I'm not lying," I manage to sputter.
"Well, you're not telling me things."
"What, should I wake you up to inform you, like, 'hey, guess what, I just ate some stuff and threw it up because I was hungry and feeling emotionally empty and useless." Like, that's going to make me feel alright and at peace with myself for my actions? I really don't think saying these things out loud to you is going to do anything for me besides make me feel even worse. A piece of shit."
I don't need the mirror to realize my face has gone red and that mascara is probably streaking my face in a very un-heroin-chic way. I'd purchase a new wand of mascara a week before and it seemed a little troublesome, because the first time using it, it had clumped up a lot and left black specks on my eyelids if I blinked too soon, before it could dry.
"You're not a piece of shit," he says, slowly, embarrassingly, wondering if these are the right words to say. "Not at all," he says, like elaborating will make me feel better and realize the truth in his words.
But, in my mind, I am sure I am.
The next day, the tins of cookies and boxes of candy are gone and never mentioned again. When he returns home from work, he comes up behind me in the office where I am writing an email to a friend in Korea, and gives me a kiss on the back of the neck. I am supposed to consider this an apology, or perhaps in his mind, it is a prompt for me to apologize to him for being a fucked up, little secret keeper who he cannot control as successfully as he'd like.

Later, we're on the couch and he's reading his horoscope. I am surprised that he is acknowledging it at all, but am amused at that same time that he is taking the vague assertion that he will acquire a pay rise because Jupiter is rising, with any degree of seriousness. Poor little Sagittarius.
"You believe that crap," I ask, teasingly.
"Not really, but it's actually pretty spot on, this time."
"Uh-huh. Read me mine," I tell him, and he scans the page of the weekly culture magazine to find Aquarius.
"It says, 'Keep your thoughts to yourself to avoid conflict. Some things are better left unsaid.'"
I smile, vaguely, not wanting him to be aware of how amusing I find this sort of irony.
He closes the magazine, clearly thinking the same thing I am."It's all bullshit, I don't like that horoscope," he smiles, shaking his head, like he is suddenly an authority on the subject. Word-eater.
We go back to watching whatever inane programming we are watching and I can't help but thinking, with some small level of hostility, how maybe the newspaper's horoscope writer fucked up and gave Sagittarius the wrong advice.

Implosion

My nerves are taut, inflamed. He touches me and I do not resist. I resent him in that way I do when I know I've lost autonomy. His rough skin against mine has an opiate effect and I become prone. The desire to protest, to kick out at all my invisible offenders dissolves, trickling absent-minded onto the carpet.
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.

On Reverse Culture Shock; For the Korea Herald

For any person who has ever stared at their reflection beaming on the surface of a globe, and watched with wonder at the spinning orb set into motion by one's own hands, the prospect of travel is probably an attractive one. Whether one leaves home for school, work or pleasure, the basic idea of departure from family and friends, and living within language and cultural restrictions--especially if it is to be for an extended period of time and if one has never done so before--can be very frightening. This fear, however, is an obvious one; rather inevitable, really. Dubiousness and anxiety seem like pretty normal reactions on preparing for a trip into unfamiliar territory. And that's fine. However, what many people don't realize is that the traveler's eventual return home can be just as stressful and emotionally wrenching, if not more so in some cases. Basically, while the fears associated with arriving in a new country can be rather linear, sometimes a return home can be much more troubling and complex. The symptoms (the issue is acute enough to warrant them) have become known as Reverse Culture Shock.

For those unfamiliar with the term, Reverse Culture Shock basically has to do with the problems associated with readjustment to the culture of one's own country after having been abroad for a length of time. Basically, after having gone to another country; consumed the local food and drink; inhaled the air; listened to the strains of music and words voiced in exotic tongues (which may not sound quite so foreign by the time one has to return home), the traveler has, in a small way, allowed a part of his former self to become lost, temporarily forgotten. So, Reverse Culture Shock has to do with examining the changes one has made while abroad and the struggle to make them a relevant part of life at home among family and friends who may not quite understand.

Humans, it seem, have a tendency to forgo one way when they adopt another. As with technology, when we discover something better, we're usually very willing to do away with something else that has grown old and superfluous. The same goes for ideas; points of view; perception. Seasoned travelers (or those with like tendencies) understand that change is often necessary. They understand that living a life wherein each day passes indistinguishable from the next is the stuff of forgetfulness and nervous breakdowns. To escape what might feel like an increasingly shrinking environment, one might go abroad, see the world, and in so doing, completely forget that regular life in one's own country, in the environment in which one was raised and for which little is surprising, can be mind-numbingly dull. Perhaps living in an environment that is wholly different from what one is familiar with, aids in the ability a traveler often has to view an old subject with new eyes, which makes change not only inevitable, but also a factor that could prove detrimental in his re-adjustment to 'home.'

Essentially, once one has modified one's old behaviors overseas, sometimes it's difficult to go back. The process of re-adapting can be alarmingly similar to devolving. While changes can become apparent in a variety of extents —morally, philosophically, politically—in an effort to remain neutral, let's imagine this problem in terms of food: Basically, It's like eating authentic Korean food every day for a year and returning home to a place where you could potentially get some kimchi—maybe—if you're willing to endure two hours in a car and don't mind the taste of over-salted, not at all spicy, limp cabbage. Chewing, one's friends remark how excellent and unique it all is. Meanwhile, one suppresses an urge to spit.

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Some might think it crazy to imagine ever feeling ill at ease among their family and friends, but, without a large network of people speaking one's language, eating the food to which one is accustomed or engaging in familiar religious or social practices, the traveler will surely feel out of place upon his/her immediate return home. Abroad and lost in the blurry alien mass of people, street signs, places of worship, and visceral cognizance, there are many factors that can inadvertently (and with a sense of some necessity) alter a person. The problem is in making these changes--which may be beneficial to one's life overseas—apply to a life at home.

We sometimes hear of the process of cultural disintegration—some call it “the melting pot--” that happens among immigrant groups who decide to settle permanently in a different country with a well-established way of living (like North America ). While 'the melting pot' is a process in which one isn't exactly given a choice but to accept the culture (in order to get a job, go to school, etc.), it is also one that tends to happen gradually, as immigrant groups have a tendency to establish their own cultural communities within their new countries and are therefore not cut off entirely from their culture. Eventually, they are accepted as citizens and are not looked upon as curiosities. For a traveler, however, the situation is very different.

In general, people who leave their own country with the intention of coming back to it (sometime in the not too incredibly distant future), do so with purpose and are generally aware that they have a chance to reinvent or enrich themselves (whether in a cultural sense or spiritually). However, unlike an immigrant to an ethnically diverse land (where language abilities are the principle requisite), throughout his/her life abroad, a traveler of a different ethnicity will most likely never be mistaken for a local, no matter how well s/he has adjusted or how long s/he's lived in one particular area. Generally, the constant perception of oneself as an outsider is acceptable to a person while overseas. However, returning to one's own country to discover that having changed a great deal, one remains foreign; out of place, can be very depressing and lonely, like it's impossible to belong anywhere.

Also, unlike immigrants, those who go abroad temporarily are also often alone. This means that, at the end of the day, unlike most immigrants, the traveler will not be surrounded by much of his/her own culture's influence. And, because of the traveler's aloneness, it will become very necessary for him/her to assert himself, to seek out what s/he needs and to make sure s/he can understand whatever might be going on around him/her in basic, every-day situations. Basically, the traveler has to become a stronger, more self-reliant person.

Depending on the traveler's disposition prior to his/her trip, upon his return home, s/he may seem different in the eyes of his/her friends or family. While becoming less wishy-washy may seem like an improvement, changes in an established personality can be a bit strange or uncomfortable for those who know him/her, especially after recalling the old version of the traveler while s/he was away. Likewise, aware of the changes s/he has undergone, the traveler may struggle with whether or not to suppress them when among those who expect him/her to behave in a certain way. While this scenario may seem a bit too seeped in neurotic self-examination, regardless, this sort of awkwardness and inner conflict can be very upsetting to a newly returned traveler, especially one who has become accustomed to being his/her own person; a stranger in the world (and therefore immune to an outside search for precedents).


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Having established that living abroad can change a person, notwithstanding, the approach of one's return is still an attractive thing for many living abroad. Anthony Trollope wrote in 'Returning Home'(1864): “It is, I think, to those who live farthest away from home, to those who find the greatest difficulty in visiting home, that the word [home] conveys the sweetest idea.” Basically, having been away from home for an extended period of time, the concept of home has a nasty tendency of being elevated in one's mind, often to much undeserved height.

Regarding one's home and country as the paragon of all that is comfortable and good in the world might come naturally to one who has grown jaded, not only at the comments made about the strangeness of one's alien appearance, but at the unintentional jabs directed at one's cultural quirks (or lack thereof). A similar surge of patriotism may result in one who has wearied of frantically trying to recall certain essential phrases in moments of duress, or who has grown tired of feeling illiterate, left in the dark.

Yes, in moments of vulnerability (which happen to conveniently coincide with extreme exhaustion, and sometimes, the drawing to a close of one's time overseas), even the most escapist among us seem to forget that there must have been a very good reason in the first place to venture forth, as it were, into the unknown. Because we remember what we need to get us through the day, sometimes even cynics crawl into bed at night, dreaming of home. The fact is, too many of us lose sight of the actuality of things, especially after having grown accustomed to an environment that may at first have seemed particularly surreal.

Many of us are raised with the idea that home and family are important, and that no matter where one journeys in life, there will aways be somewhere to come back to. Notwithstanding, if this seemingly quaint, greeting-card-esque notion of 'home' doesn't quite apply, as it often seems not to (some gag-reflexes just aren't strong enough), sometimes, somewhere in one's world-weary mind, a tiny fleck of pure nostalgia will erupt. The particularly stubborn side-effects of an affliction of this nature tend to consist of the idealized notion that not only is home truly “where the heart is,” but also where, at the end of the day, one should “hang his hat.” Over-usage of corny, archaic adages may also result, apparently...

The problem is that the longer one dwells on (rather than 'at') home, or his perception of it (or how it ought to be), the more resolute one's expectation of total familiarity becomes. However, as previously mentioned, traveling does have a tendency to change a person and more likely than not, family and friends will be slow to understand where one is coming from, as some things can only be learned by life experience. For those returned from abroad and still caught in the mindset of the departed country, getting someone to muster enthusiasm for one's travel stories or to understand one's references, can be highly frustrating and disillusioning.


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Though the comforts of home might be nice for a brief amount of time, for a newly returned traveler, unfortunately, the sensation tends to wear down sooner than might be expected. Travel, in all its possibilities, is undeniably exciting. When one takes a trip or lives abroad, however, one often becomes so consumed in one's own life and adventures, that very little consideration is directed at those still at home. While this is a generality, of course, and probably won't apply to everyone, the point is that when we're stimulated by the things around us, time doesn't seem to drag so heavily.

Sometimes, caught up in one's own sense of things, one can forget that at home, things are probably proceeding with a thudding regularity. This also means that even with the absence of a friend or family member abroad, life can carry on like clockwork and that one's much lauded return will probably only cause a minor and very temporary ripple.

Basically, it seems that traveling or working abroad can be a somewhat selfish endeavor, as in one's mind, an enormous amount of attention and discussion (not to mention the inevitable viewing of photographs) ought to be directed towards the adventurous, absent party. The notion that life resumes immediately after you are dropped off at the airport, and most likely, without even a rupture in the figurative stitch, is sometimes a little too depressing for the average traveler to take into consideration.

Likewise, the realization that the bright, cheerful reaction to one's return home (anything occurring on solid ground does tend to seem mildly halcyon after twenty-odd hours on airplanes, however) is not to be permanent, can be the happiness-shattering effect one needs to comprehend that one's family did in fact, carry on; that time did not actually cease to be in one's absence.

While it's true that at first, there will likely be a general sense of excitement and lots of questions to answer (which can be exhausting and repetitive), eventually, after all the stories have been recalled (and embellished/censored depending on the audience) and everyone has tired of references they can't understand, life will suddenly even out once more to that dreaded, ego-deflating, reason-for-having-left-in-the-first-place flat-line. And, instantly, one's previously buoyant sense of time can hit a grinding halt.

'Time' is one of those concepts that is generally difficult to wrap one's mind around; not so much for an inability to understand its absolute necessity in modern life, but rather, because of the various ways it might be perceived. The fact of the matter is, that, though it may seem perfectly reasonable to measure time by space, watching with the usual apathy as one's second hand ticks steadfastly on (this only works if you wear an archaic analogue watch), completing its anticipated circuit, time is very rarely actual.

Basically, while a year can be remembered by one person as intoxicating, visceral and blindingly (and disappointingly) quick to end, for someone else, that same year might have very well been long, exhausting, and essentially, the worst ever. For a person whose time abroad ticked itself out in the former case, returning home to a family and group of friends for whom life probably plodded along in a very redundant manner (one which rarely allows for the recall of small moments of happiness, it would seem), the slow-down (of both life and time) upon one's return and after the initial excitement of one's return has faded, might be somewhat demoralizing. One might regret having ever returned at all, or find one's self up at night, conceiving of ways to escape to the airport in the early pre-dawn hours.



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Although it is not the intention to provide an exaggerated examination of the effects of Reverse Culture Shock, eventually, like any other problem (death, addiction, or separation, for instance), the 'victim' will have to suck it up and become re-adjusted to the reality of his life, no matter how bland or predictable.

In popular culture, the steps toward attaining acceptance are sometimes poked at (often with comic effect) with reference to the Kübler-Ross model, which suggests that before a person can acquiesce to life, he'll go through stages of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. While the writer is unaware of any fellow traveler's experience of Reverse Culture Shock reaching such dramatic levels, perhaps, in some mildly neurotic, psychosomatic way, it's possible.

For instance, when one is in that transient sort of state between the return home and, in some cases, starting all over with life (getting a new job, a new apartment, etc.), a person can spend a lot of time accomplishing very little other than making social calls, and basically telling the same stories and explaining the same things over and over again. It is at this point that one can ignore the fact that life has suddenly become uninteresting and that one's friends are becoming bored (one might defend oneself, muttering aversely about jet-lag and transition). Hence, the first stage: denial.

When the interest one's family takes in the traveler's return suddenly drops to a disappointing, low, or (for instance) when it becomes clear that, despite one's frequent and devoted use of on-line albums, they haven't actually taken a look yet; stage two is palpable. A person newly reunited with family and friends can become rather offended when people seem uninterested in the significant, missed events of one's life overseas; Anger, then.

Having overcome most of one's frustration and realizing that 'jet-lag' (see denial) is no longer a good excuse for one's general unhappiness, perhaps a person might begin to console himself by making unrealistic plans to return abroad as soon as possible, or to plot out in one's mind all the things that could be done to make life reflect one's time overseas. Working oneself up in this way, bargaining, can of course, only lead to the next step.

Depression can hit hard when the reality of one's situation becomes clear. Generally, the prospect of having a lot of work to do (should one have to, in effect, start over) is a bit demoralizing for most people; it's even worse for a person who may have fallen out of touch with all his old contacts and whose current friends are several continents and many time zones away. Furthermore, the reality of yielding to a life at home that seems a lot less invigorating than the one known abroad can seem like a step backwards; a step backwards, blindfolded, on the precipice of a cliff, of course.

Acceptance, finally, is what happens when one finally moves on (perhaps because the absurdity of having gone through four psychologically recognized stages is enough to snap anyone into action). Basically, there's only so much time a normal person can sulk about the dissatisfying aspects of his or her life before trying to ameliorate them.

It's at this point, that hearing one's own language is no longer such a shock (commenting about how 'weird it is' will no longer be among one's most over-used expressions, either). Also, one's personality has a tendency to re-adjust itself, elastic-like, according to one's immediate needs (yelling with urgency at one's overseas boss to help jog his memory about an overdue pay check might be substituted with more passive aggressive means at home, for instance).

Essentially, Reverse Culture Shock can be unpleasant and apparently, given the Kübler-Ross treatment, somewhat emotional, though it tends to last no more than a month or so. However, some people are barely affected (until of course, they read otherwise).

Whatever the case, have a great trip home.

Exodus

"You can do it. Your skin is thick," he pulls at her arm, catching a hair between his fingers in the process. "Pinch" he says. It comes out long, like a drawl, like he's making love to the words, his tongue twisting around it, sloppy wet. It reminds her vaguely of a dishtowel she once had: red and entirely unable to absorb liquid. She thinks of the sound it would make when she would drop it on the floor--an unappealing dead thing: Sploch.

Sitting there, on her stool, watching them all play pool, the people she'd gone to high school with, who never acknowledged her then, but couldn't seem to get enough of her now, she wondered, "Am I really brave enough to do this?"No money had yet exchanged hands. She could cancel the flight, go home, start looking up universities that would accept late M.A. applications…It would be easy. Real simple.

She sips her drink, a Bloody Mary. She'd always preferred her alcohol to be red. It was nicer that way, a childish little quirk that she'd decided never to justify. Just because. She sips again and her lips burn fire, the sides of her mouth stain crimson. She wonders if a kiss would leave a mark and grins widely, that trademark Chesire cat/Joker grin that shows off her gums, oh-so maniacally.

"You've got a pretty smile," he says, pinching her again, irritating to no end. "You should smile more often. Nice teeth." She looks up from her drink, knows that she could say something coy, something clever like, "They bite real well," and smile, but instead, she mutters, "Thanks. I'll try."

She pats him on the head, like a puppy, and goes up to the bar to order another: a double, lots of Tabasco, please. She wonders if she will, in fact, try—to smile that is. Will there be things to smile at in Korea--Mildly amusing anecdotes; university stories; reminiscing on times gone by; drooly boys with sloppy red tongues to humor? She assumes there will be, but she worries. Why go to the other side of the world for the same old thing if I already have it? Is that all there is? She waits for the bartender to put the celery stalk in her drink before she makes her way up to the pool table.

The boy has fallen asleep—passed out, actually—his beer mug drained. She sits down anyway and decides she might as well relish the silence, the thoughtful, intelligent conversation (though it be only in her own mind) for once, just for a change. She knows it will be difficult; that she'll be isolated, alone. Nothing new there. But, she imagines that it will be a chance to reinvent herself, to throw away the bits she despises: the odious thoughts that drive her to insomnia and depression that make her want to die. I can whittle myself down, she thinks, smooth out the lumps, until I'm a perfect little clothes-pin person.

She knows that in Korea, it will be different, new, exciting. No more walking into a bar, knowing exactly who will be there, what music will be playing on the jukebox, the questions people will ask her, the answers she knows she'll say. No more knowing how they'll laugh; no more watching as they move on to some other victim of pedestrian-deja-vu land. No. No more of that. No more of even understanding the words people say, though. No more knowing, really; no more mental and verbal regurgitation.

The girl knows that for her, Korea is an escape; that some realize it and others don't. There is always something to run from and for the girl, the unknown has a certain charm, a mystique, sort of like watching an eyelid close slowly, as it sweeps away vision with soft, long eyelashes that graze skin softly.

The girl sighs. She finishes her drink and stands up. A sharp pain runs through her stomach. Fuck, that hurts, she thinks. She's consumed a lot today (even if they were just Bloody Maries), and that's unusual. Her stomach can't handle very much. This depresses her and she lights a cigarette. She is worried. There are always 'What ifs' to consider. What will happen to me if I die in Korea, she wonders, pulling the smoke into her lungs, deep, like one holding on tight, 'for dear life,' they say. Will anyone know or care? Maybe not. She tells herself to make an effort to be okay. A mental note: 'OK.'

Last night, her mother had told the girl that she was worried, really worried, that she needed to start taking better care of herself, that she should keep taking the pills, "'cause they'll kick in soon enough and you'll feel great," Great. Only another month or so of dizziness and nausea, heart burn and headaches not to mention an overall mental stickiness, like there's gum stuck on my frontal lobe, she thinks. Fucking fantastic.

She stands up and puts out her cigarette, a crooked, shriveled Du Maurier King Size. The boy wakes up and confusedly looks at her, his face all creased from the sleeves of his corduroy jacket. "What? You're leaving?" "Well," she says, "My flight's the morning after next. Going to Montreal tomorrow. Getting up early." She lets him hug her goodbye, and leaving, she waves to people she doesn't really like very much.

Outside, she breathes the air, clear from cigarette smoke and the stench of beer. Inside, the sounds are the same: raucous laughter; cue-balls clacking together; shrieking girls. Fun times. Same old shit.

And she thinks, so this is it. Walking slowly, she can't help herself from smiling, a quiet, happy little twitch of her mouth, not very jester-like at all.

Yeah, she realizes, this is it.