John and Beth

“John”

         QUIET, she said. QUIET, QUIET, QUIET.
         I wasn’t saying anythi—
         Tell me what you see.
         Your hand.
         What about my fucking hand. Tell me about my hand.
         I told her to stop swearing and to take her hand out of my face and she giggled.
         We got up from the bench and walked along a path in the park and it then occurred to me that maybe I should try to be more assertive more often. It’s my right to take my lunch hour, and who is Bill to ask if I can help organize the storage room during my lunch hour. But it’s not his fault though; it’s my fault – for saying yes, that is—
         You stepped on a crack, she said. You just broke your mother’s back. Are you happy, John? Did you notice that you stepped on a crack?
         My mother is fine, I replied.
         Well, I hope so anyway. I neglected to call her yesterday when I said I would call her. It’s a chore to talk to her on the phone, but – yes, I know – I should put myself in her shoes. She just wants to hear from me once in a while – that’s not too much to ask – and I suppose I’ll be able to empathize one day when I have children, but as for now it’s a chore. Not that I don’t care about my mother. I love my mother. Would an email be too cold?
         She put something in my hand and it moved and I yelled and I dropped it.
What the hell was that? She bent down and picked it up and hoisted it between my eyes.
         If you look really close they really do look like dragons, she said. You have to look really close though.
         Glorious, I replied.
         Hm, glorious. –Ous being the affix meaning “full of” or “like”. Glorious: full of glor—
         She punched me in the stomach. Now was that really necessar—?
         SHH, she said and thrust her face two inches from mine. She searched my eyes.
         You’re doing it again, she said. I want you here. I want you to shut up and to be quiet and to look. She put the creature in my hand and pushed my hand to my face. Look, she said.
         I looked.
         It only had one wing so it crawled around my thumb instead of flying away. The wing enclosed an intricate pattern – kind of like lizard scales. I brought it closer. It had little hairs on its body, and it gleamed a metallic green. It really did look like a dragon up close. Its face at least. Like a komodo dragon. It was beautiful.
         Behind the tiny creature on my thumb, her eyes pierced mine. I lowered my hand.
         When was the last time you looked at something up close, she asked.
I thought about it. I wasn’t su—
         She drew her eyes closer. Be quiet and tell me how much you fuckin love m—
         A whole fuckin lot, I replied. I didn’t have to think about it.

“Beth”

         A whole fuckin lot, he says. He loves me a whole fuckin lot. I grab his cheeks before he can tell me not to grab his cheeks and I kiss his nose because I want to and because he hates it, but he loves me, and that’s all that matters. Will you be quiet now, I ask him, and he tries to blabber some bullshit about how he wasn’t talking in the first place – again – so I punch him in the stomach – again. You know that’s not what I mean, I tell him. So we start walking and the sun shows through the trees in that way where you can see all the individual beams and I shake him and point to them and he looks – finally he looks. I listen to the flip-flop of my flip-flops and feel them flop against my heel and against the ground and the humidity is gross. It’s a muggy, sweaty day, I say to him, and then I ask him what little thing that happened to him today was his favorite and tell him that he has five seconds to tell me. Five. Four. Three. Two. Wait, he says. One. ERRRRNT. I didn’t have enough time to think, he says, what’s yours, he asks. You and your thinking I say, and I tell him about how I love the way sweaty skin sticks to a leather chair on a hot, sweaty day and how that happened to me today, during my lunch break I think. He asks me if I finished the illustration for the magazine yet and I tell him that it doesn’t matter, because I’m here right now with him and magazine illustrations have nothing to do with anything. He says something about deadlines and says “Beth” in his serious voice and blah blah blah and I ask him where he wants to put the picnic blanket even though I already decided where the perfect place for it is because some places just have picnic blanket magnetism. We eat ham and cheese sandwiches with that bread that has all the tiny grains in it and I imagine what it would be like to be a little man navigating through all those little grains while he tries to get me to put on sunscreen. I eat the last chip while he’s not looking because it’s one of those ones that soaked in too much oil and that’s both of our favorite kind of chip so I had to snatch it while he made sure that he had exactly three slices of ham on his sandwich. You’re thinking again, I say. What could there possibly be to think about, I ask, and he says his mother, and I tell him to stop thinking and to enjoy the breeze because it’s blowing right now. He asks me when the last time I thought of my mother was and I tell him that it’s not important because what’s important is that the breeze is blowing right now. He goes on to say something about how she must worry about me being in the city and all – or something like that – and I tell him that there’s no reason for people to worry – ever – and that the world would be a much happier place if everyone stopped worrying all the time. He asks about my day and I tell him that there’s no reason to go through what happened before right now because then I’ll miss out on the precious seconds of what is right now because every second is precious, doesn’t he get it? You want to talk about missing things, he asks. Listen, Beth, he says. Please, don’t zone me out, he says. You can’t look at everything up close all the time. Why, I ask. Because you can’t look at everything up close. By only looking at the grains on your sandwich you miss the grass and the trees and the birds. By only looking at this second you miss all the things that happened and will happen in all the other seconds. Sometimes you need to take a few steps back. Now, when’s that deadline for the magazine? I think about it. Tomorrow...or is it Wednesday?...Wednesday!...at...four?...no...three! OK, he says, now wouldn’t you rather finish some of it tonight instead of going out? That way you won’t have to work nonstop all day tomorrow, and we’ll have time for another picnic. Plus, you won’t get all exhausted like last time. What do you think about that? Hm, that might be nice, he might be right. I think that you’re right and that I don’t know what would I would do if I didn’t have you, I say. Sometimes he probably needs to hear that. And I meant it too.