When you look at one up close, you see unimaginable details in the iris. It’s a raw, living terrain of light and color through which another soul looks out from behind a veil of nerves and blood, brewing beneath like magma under the mantle. But these eyes, her eyes, burned as a tumultuous blue depth, filled with all of the fury of Neptunian worlds; the rippling surface of the sea painted into a quiet peace from afar. With careful attention my mind wanders over this wondrous ring of infinitesimal brushstrokes caught in contrast between brilliant white and an abyssal core from which she lurks, down in the deep. I feel myself circling, swaying; drifting through the rise and fall of endless crests and whitecaps, wordless, and impossibly lost. I have to turn away and focus my eyes on something far away just to redraw myself back into the chair across from her and not tumble out. Maybe one day I’ll know her eyes well enough not to flounder. Maybe I’ll have charted the ebb and flow of hues so well that I can navigate them without feeling uneasy. But for now every glimpse is an odyssey. That’s why I look at her the way I do, locking myself away in incomprehension, staring out a window; a portrait facing a painting.
Author: Nicholai
I am a lowly public servant who enjoys writing mostly true accounts of the magical mundane world.
Canadians Abroad
I left the country for my honeymoon only a few days after the 2016 presidential election. My friend Matt sent in a congrats and fairwell:
Matt: Hey, congrats again and have a safe flight!
Nick: Thanks man! Feels good to get out of this fucking country.
Matt: Stay safe over there, the less said the better.
Nick: We’re Canadias. Not sure what you mean, eh?
Matt: …are you really?
Nick: Sure, eh?
Matt:
Nick: He looks like he had one too many maple syrup donut-holes at Tim Hortons, eh? Hockey canadian bacon Labatts Molson mounties super polite socialism, eh?
Matt: Keep repeating that. Memorize it. Don’t stray from it.
Nick: Will do, you yankee hoser.
My tenure as a Sex-Ed Teacher
So one night while I was working as a Summer RA for a youth camp comprised of about 300 middle-school aged girls and boys, I get this knock on my door. I open it to find my friend Ben with an exasperated look on his face. “Some kids are having sex. All the campers are talking about it. We gotta find them!” My mouth is about to drop when he sprints away, hellbent on catching the offenders in the act.
I throw on some shoes and rush after him. We spend a good 30 minutes wandering outside and in, ears to every suspect dorm room door. Nothing. I wander into one of the corner lounges and overhear a couple of the campers talking about the incident: “Man, it was beautiful. I mean they were really going at it. I think I know who she is too.” I surprised them and proceeded to put the kibosh on their hormone-addled revelry by sending them to their rooms.
By then Ben had gone off on his own investigation, and I wandered the hallways for a bit longer with my imaginary sherlock hat and pipe in tow, trying to pick up on the slightest perceived sounds of pre-pubescent snogging. Finding nothing, I returned to the main desk of the dorm, where the other RAs had gathered to make sense of the rumor. Or so I thought. As I approached they all looked up at me, including my friend Ben who took a few steps forward. I stopped dead in my tracks as he looked at me with a profound gravity. “Nick. You couldn’t have shut the curtains?”
The words just hung in the air for a minute somewhere between the two of us, until my eyes caught the sight of my then girlfriend through the window, walking back to her dorm after a short visit with me, moments before Ben knocked on my door. It was then I realized my room’s over-sized window looks out onto a sweeping vista of beautiful Bellingham Bay and more importantly, the entire basketball court only 20 feet below where at least a third of the youth campers had gathered to be witness to the splendor of adult intimacy.
To this day I have no idea how many kids saw us. I was incredibly lucky in that apparently none of the kids connected the dots that it was one of their counselors. In fact several of the silverback male-grubs claimed the act as their own doing (which I did not discourage) and I made it the rest of the summer with only myself and the other RAs knowing the real identities of the phantom fornicators.
I’m only telling the story now as a cautionary tale to you young RAs out there. So be safe. Be smart. Close your curtains if you live on the 2nd floor of Nash Hall. You could be disrupting the otherwise natural process of kids discovering their sexuality at their own pace and accelerating them into feelings they do not have the capacities to deal with as a developing juvenile. Still. I bet a lot of kids had good dreams that night.
Too Few
If the multiverse theory is true I wonder in how many universes I might be flying around on a jetpack, solving crimes.
Gun control
The thing I don’t like about guns is that for them to be useful, you have to use bullets. You have to put in the extra effort to load the gun, which uses up valuable seconds and broadcasts your intentions in a crisis situation. This is why when confronted by danger, I just immediately hurl myself head-first through the air towards my assailant, thereby becoming both the gun and the bullet in one deadly package.
When The World Fell Apart
A lot of people think the worst day of your life is the day when you have to see a loved one or someone close to you die. But it’s not. It’s the next day. It’s when you realize that the sun has risen with the nightmare still playing out and you have to live in a world that’s been broken. Think back for a minute to the dream we’ve all had of forgetting to study for a test, or the dream where your teeth fall out. Remember the relief you felt when you woke up from those dreams. Now imagine never getting that relief. Imagine never waking up. Not completely. Not ever. That is what it felt like for me on March 30th, 1993.
Like a lot of boys, I was closer to my mother than anyone in the world. And so the scene of her demise in a shitty two-bedroom apartment in Sacramento was as gruesome and gut-wrenching as anything I had or have ever faced. It was confusing and terrifying and surreal. But what came after was far, far worse.
Most of the time in the days and weeks after she died, I felt like I was walking on a razor’s edge between not wanting to think about my mother and having to deal with it out in the open. One of the worst moments for me was coming back to school, knowing that others already had heard the bad news. I didn’t want to look at the curious, quiet faces of the other students. I didn’t want to hear the tone of condolence and care from teachers and staff. Every well-meaning attempt was another lump in my throat. Every kindness another reminder of what I had lost. And I did lose it, almost every other hour; behind trees on school grounds, in the bathroom alone, or quietly straining in front of classmates to keep my glassy eyes from welling up any more.
Being forced to confront death in front of your peers as a child was humbling to say the least. But I got through it with the help of people that tried to help me feel normal. My best friend called me up to come over and play, never asking, but always knowing what I was going through. My science and home room teacher minimized the spotlight on me during class by simply welcoming me back and then going about the regularly scheduled program. My dad and brother and I were all lost, and rallied to each other at different times, the three of us trying together to map out this world with less light. All this is to say I wouldn’t have gotten very far without any of the people around me.
Over the years I’ve seen some terrible shit drop down unto the lives of those around me. Occasionally I’ll get hit with something myself. And almost every time whether or not the calamity in question impacts me or someone else, the last thing I really want to do is talk about it, like everyone says you should. Words can be as cutting and painful spoken as they are heard, and having to bear your wounds can feel like a disrobing of your soul. It’s embarrassing, awkward and a little scary. But what I’ve come to realize is that it’s a necessary leap. Stepping off the edge of the knife is the only way you can let go of real pain.
My hope in writing this is that whenever you, the reader, are forced to live through a loss, you remember a little of what I’ve written. More importantly: the most useful book about how you should grieve is the one your friends and family will help you write. I hope by sharing my story maybe a few people will feel a little less alone and can possibly relate to my experience. If you ever need someone to talk to, please reach out.
The Natural Laws
One time while I was out camping with my dad, I had gone to sleep early and my dad stayed up by the fire, drinking beer and staying warm. He soon noticed a raccoon nearby in the bushes, and being the resourceful man he was, decided to use his nearly empty beer can as a projectile to deter the raccoon from coming any closer. It worked, but in his retreat, the raccoon grabbed the beer can. The next night it happened again, except there were two raccoons this time. The third night, three… and so on until on the fifth night there were about a half dozen raccoons shoulder to shoulder, waiting in the bushes for their cans of beer. I laughed about it when my dad told me, but now as an adult looking back I can see clearly that we were turning those raccoons socialist.
Comforting my loved ones.
Before I die, I’ve decided I’m putting a secret provision in my will to pay a look-alike of me to dress up in my clothes and stand off in the distance during the funeral. That way people will be reminded and comforted to know that I will always be watching over them.
Journey to the Infinite Part 3
The look on Frank’s face told a rather complete and tragic tale. Up until that point I had never known a feline to have the capacity to emote more than three expressions: “I like this.” “I dislike this or am otherwise not interested.” And lastly “I WILL REMOVE YOUR EYES IF MY PRESENT SITUATION IS NOT RESOLVED TO MY SATISFACTION.” But as I looked through the bars of his crate, Frank surprised me with a face of remorse, self-loathing and defeat. I suppose I would feel the same If I was entirely drenched in my own piss.
I know what you’re thinking. Poor Frank. But let me offer another perspective. Poor Nick and Nicole. There we were, standing outside of the car at 1 am in the middle of a poorly lit gas station in Godknowswhere, Mississippi. Population 347. A cat swimming in its own urine and meowing with increasing urgency at us from within the confines a carrier. At the time, I felt like we were a couple of bomb disposal techs working out how to approach the defusal of a 20-kiloton warhead. Each meow felt like a tick of the clock. Steady hands and cool heads were needed. Unfortunately we had neither, and at that hour, grace and propriety were in short supply.
That’s how I found myself holding on to a thrashing, piss soaked cat while a few slack-jawed local onlookers guffawed and snorted to each other with glee. Apparently in Mississippi a gas station also serves as a community gathering place and social nexus for the surrounding area. I quietly scorned their levity while considering the tactical applications of a piss-soaked cat as a disruptive projectile. Imagine a SWAT team just tossing a couple of piss-soaked cats into a room they were attempting to breach. The cats would do half the work, assaulting the senses in a fashion several orders of magnitude greater than a conventional flash-bang.
While doing my best to mentally check-out of the situation, Nicole cleaned out Frank’s carrier as best as she could until finally we were able to in turn get Frank calmed down and at least a bit drier. Frank had at that point dropped all of the sophisticated expressions of a cat navigating a complex emotional mire and instead reverted in full to feline emote #3. Mind you, we were doing this all without gloves. After realizing the scent of cat urine had permeated not only my skin but the fabric of my soul and essence, I excused myself to the station washroom to clean up and get some relief.
As I approached the doors of the food mart, I took some comfort in what appeared to be readily accessible public restrooms offered just beyond the racks of slimjims and adjacent to the coolers full of Bud Light (aka America’s Beer). Before I even touched the handles of the door I made eye contact with two underage males just inside, standing near what I’m assuming was the adult magazine section, given that their eye contact was a mere flash of embarrassment. They scuttled out of the section and out the door past me as I walked in.
To my right was the meth-iest meth-head that ever meth-ed, moonlighting as a cashier. Or at least the person he killed for meth-money and then later assumed the identity of was at one point a cashier. His name badge read Jarret, but I was never introduced, in fact he only spoke once the entire time I was within earshot. But I’ll get to that later.
After scaring away the pre-pubescents and taking in some sidelong glances of the outcome of America’s War on Drugs, the sting of urine filled my nostrils once again. I realized I was still walking around with urine on my hands. Funny how no one in the food mart seemed to notice. I brushed past a rack of pork rinds on my way towards the fading, hand written sign for RESTROOMS.
As I closed the distance, I saw what looked like a janitor, possibly Jarret’s only co-worker, leaving the men’s room. He looked up at me for what I assumed would be the man-nod. You know. The sacred man-nod of unspoken fraternity and universal understanding that beer is refreshing, Bill Clinton has reached the summit of manhood (Nick Offerman is on the ascent) and fashioning a gun out of legos is a rite of passage.
But alas no man-nod would be offered to me. Instead I was met with the look of a surgeon exiting a tense operating room, his eyes pregnant with the delivery of bad news. In his hands he was pushing along the handle of a mop and bucket, filled to the brim with some kind of dense, vile bog-water. He was straining to push the bucket along, and quickly broke eye contact with me, re-affixing his mournful gaze to the ground as I passed him. To this day I can’t say if I imagined it or not, but I thought heard an “I’m sorry.” I turned to ask “Sorry?” To my surprise he just kept pushing the bucket in a straight line out the door, never lifting his head as he struggled past a vacant Jarrett. I don’t think Jarrett even acknowledged his co-workers presence with a blink. They were both fluorescent apparitions operating independently and only half-present in the waking world. I pressed on to the men’s room.
My memory of the first few moments inside that dark place have only recently begun to crystallize, as I was almost immediately overcome with a primal surge of adrenaline and fight or flight signals from my brain. One pale bluish light flickered in the corner, revealing the visceral visual detritus in rave-like pulses of horror. I stood very still for about 10 seconds just inside the room, unsure whether or not to take another step. I then noticed for the first time I did not smell the cat urine. That aroma had been replaced by something much, much more disturbing. I would call it death, but that wouldn’t do it justice. It was a cocktail of mildew, fecal material, tobacco and the broken dreams of flowering youth. On the hastily “mopped” floor, years of stains had created a sort of Jackson Pollock floor mural made from dribs and drabs of bodily fluids. It also appeared as though the floor had been covered over and over again with succeeding tile and linoleum treatments, several layers thick now and only visible in a few spots where the strata had been torn asunder, presumably by some primeval wolverine-shitdemon hybrid creature who had set up court here.
I took a quick survey of the rest of the facility without moving and then settled on the fact that I would not be touching any surface. I was even nervous about touching the air. On the plus side, I felt very comfortable relieving my bladder pretty much anywhere, as others before me had already apparently blazed that trail. But before going too far down that road I needed to take care of my hands. Luckily one faucet was permanently running. I ran my hands underneath and dried them on the back of my jeans – the only swath of fabric I was willing to trust within a 50ft radius. I then turned and moved slowly towards the urinals.
It was a bit of guesswork walking in between light strobes – but I felt comfortable about 3 feet from the urinal, unzipped and let her him rip. It was one of the few times I felt like maybe I should wash off the soles of my shoes. A feeling I usually reserve for walks through dog-friendly public parks. Upon answering the urgent call of inner pressure on the wall of my bladder, I rinsed again and headed for the door. I then noticed the words scrawled in what looked like a dark finger-paint right above the door. “GOD LEFT THIS PLACE A LONG TIME AGO.” I took that as a cue for me to follow god’s example and get the hell out of there.
As I exited, I passed Jarret one last time, during which to my surprise I heard him expel a tired “I don’t know what I’m doing with my life,” under his breath. I don’t know whether it was directed at me to respond, but I looked in his direction anyways. He continued staring straight ahead out beyond the wall of the food-mart and into the abyss of profound questions only the super-high dare to venture. I issued a single man-nod and returned to the car, tearing off my shirt on the way back and leaving the remaining smell of urine in Mississippi. As I drove away I saw a couple of the slack-jawed yokels salvaging the shirt out of the garbage.
Vexing
I must have had a sour look on my face, because a friend asked me if something was wrong. There was, but I didn’t have the heart to tell them what was really on my mind. I’d spent the last 10 minutes trying to figure out if Ducktales and Darkwing Duck exist in the same universe.
natch 