So I failed this week. I failed to finish my writing this week, failed to have the self-control to keep to my deadline, and failed to spend even a quarter of the amount of time I should have this week actually writing. By all accounts, I should be wondering why I'm pursuing creative writing if I'm not actually going to do the work. Failure of judgment, I'd say.
Why I Woke Up Sweating and Cold
Walking through the school halls one morning,
Past hungry faces and gaudy clothes,
Dull derisions and panicked whines,
And, over it all, the flash of compact mirrors,
I see you.
You notice me, lift your head and try to smile,
But it’s all theater. I match you thin curl for thin curl.
We exchange formalities,
Ask each other how we’ve been, and the like.
“Failing all my classes,” you tell me. “Even Language Arts.”
My eyes go wide. I wait for you to say something back,
Anything, maybe “I know, it sucks!” or “But I’m catching up!” or even “Oh my god, I can’t believe you fell for that!”
I wouldn’t be mad. I wouldn’t mind a joke right about now.
No answer, though, but the stare of empty eyes.
No jokes, no subject change or reminiscences. You’ve cut the fat from our conversation.
You’ve stopped to catch your breath, and I hear it come sharp and painful.
You ache to sit down, to lie down and rest, I can tell,
But you won’t. You won’t ask. Not in front of me.
We keep walking past the buzz of vending machines and gossip.
You sweater hangs loose over wrists, arms, neck,
And I shiver for you.
Could you stop and look at yourself? Would it even change anything?
The bell tolls: one, two, three, four times,
And we’re herded off to our next lessons.
I want to stop you, show you, just for a moment,
But you’re too far gone in the madness of crowds.
I walk on. I have to keep telling myself, or it’ll hurt too much,
That was not her. That was not my friend.
She’s left somewhere, on holiday,
Somewhere they don’t have scales or fat content labels
Or mirrors.
---
And the unfinished piece:
The Amazing Jonathan Shink
The boy first appears in police records from the outskirts of Chicago, back when every paving stone, every drainage ditch, every plank of wood was paid for with rail car after rail car after rail car of cattle. They found him not far from the northbound rails, clothed in a careworn corduroy jacket, and by all accounts he had neither mother nor father nor anything to claim him within twenty miles of the area but an unyielding stoicism. He was sent to the inner-city orphanage, and there, he spent his evenings enchanting the children with card tricks and sleight-of-hand and all other manners of play. “That boy never wanted for attention from anyone,” said Ms. Margaret Trilby, head of the orphanage, and indeed, three months after his arrival, several prospective parents had taken an interest in the child, who through his own education had learned more Greek, philosophy, and the sciences than boys twice his age were expected to know.
Such prospects, however, were cut short after a series of bizarre events that cost him ten years of his life. He appeared several times deep into the night on the rooftop, quite unwilling, or unable, to explain how he had gotten there. He would dismantle the other children’s toys, assembling the broken bits into chimerical nightmares. And he had returned from his play one evening carrying by their ears the heads of three kittens, each head having been severed cleanly, as if by a heated knife, faces fixed in wide-eyed anticipation. [] Unable to tolerate the boy’s behavior further, Ms. Trilby
[] He began to make significant amounts of money, not enough to afford more comfortable housing or less meager meals, but enough to ingratiate him among the more liberal parties of the wealthy. []
The trick delighted audience and critics alike, until the audience became local bank owners and his critics the Federal Reserve. [] At last he gazed out over the infested streets of Chicago, the great and terrible marvel that had never failed to astound him, and calmly lay down along the railroad tracks.
The 11:15 freighter cleaved him into two neat halves. Not half an hour later, the police arrived to clear away the remains, and not an hour after that, the city resumed its normal scuttle of activity. Already it was starting to forget. []
