A Rain of Frogs

I have a number of friends and family in the service. I worry about Canada’s increasing role in international conflict – Afghanistan, mostly. Canada is fighting a dirty, horrific war there, and more Canadians are dying all the time.

This is sad. We were peacekeepers once. Now we make peace with guns. With war. Like screwing for virginity, as the old hippie saying goes.

I think often of my one friend in the Navy, who’s done a couple tours in the Gulf. He came back a changed and deeply moved man, slightly hollowed out inside. He told me about some of the things he saw there. I couldn’t have done what he did.

There’s a cousin, my closest cousin, and his wife. I grew up with this cousin like a brother. They’re both Air Force, but who knows where they’ll be, given the scramble to fill Canadian uniforms over there. It’s frightening to think of either of them being shot at, or shot.

There’s another friend in the Army, once my best friend. I don’t know where he is right now. After a bad breakup with a long-term girlfriend, he finally dropped out of the shadow of a life he was living and joined the Army.

I haven’t heard from him very much since then, though he sends the occasional email. He lets me know he’s alive, but implicit between the lines is the statement that he’s not ready to resume any part of his old life yet. Hopefully he comes home and gets the chance.

I miss all of them, these friends in the service. It bothers me, when I see the furor between those who want them to come home and those who support them. It bothers me because the two are not exclusive. I support them, one and all, with every ounce of my being. And with every ounce of my being I want them to come home and be safe.

You waited in line. You waited and waited and waited. Sometimes it hurt, and sometimes you found people to spend the time with, but mostly you spent it alone, wondering if this was all there was. And eventually you saw there was more.

Just as the sweaty foam of the safety bar is lowered over your head and pressed against the shoulders, screams from far away percolate through the hush of the crowd to your ears and you wonder to yourself: what am I doing here?

As the thought surfaces from the turbulent pool of your mind, the whole train lurches forward. The back of your head gently taps the headrest behind, and your heart rate increases. Anticipation wraps its fingers around your stomach.

You look forward, and see the track rise so steeply up and out of sight. The clack-clack-clack of the elevation chain under the train rattles up through your spine, and again, you ask yourself what you’re doing here.

You knew everyone else thought it was a bad idea, but you knew, in your heart and your mind that it was right, you couldn’t help yourself, and now you’re strapped in, locked down as the thumping of the chain and the thumping of your heart accompany your rise.

The cars in front of you disappear over the edge, and suddenly, silently, your insides rise and your breath is pressed out of you. The exhilaration stuns you – it is so deep and so powerful. This was why you couldn’t say no, why you couldn’t help yourself. Who could?

Because there’s nothing else in the world quite like it. And as you look down, breathless and alive and finally fully completely yourself, you finally see that this ride will never end, that the ups and downs are finally over and all that’s left is the joy.

He is sitting, just over there at the edge of the fountain. Beside him is one of six bronze frogs, spitting water into the round pool behind his back. Who is he? Why does he catch the eye when any of the dozens of other people around the splashing fountain fade into the scenery?

He has a look about him, a slightly worn look. Fuzzy edges. He is handsome – maybe mid-thirties. He appears to be in good shape. The long-sleeved brown t-shirt is plain, as are the faded, threadbare jeans he’s wearing. The square is too wide, he is too far away, to ascertain the color of his eyes.

But his sunglasses, tucked up on top of his head are obviously expensive and easy to spot even from this distance, as are his shoes. Boots in fact, that are black and leather and very stylish without subscribing to any modern trend.

His whole look is timeless and classic. He is very intriguing.

But who is he? How did his jeans get so worn? Why expensive sunglasses, so incongruous with the rest of his outfit, but also so right? The questions are valid, but not the real question. These skirt around the real question, leaving it conspicuous in its loneliness. The real question is not who, or how, or even why. The real question is what.

What is he thinking, as he pulls a battered notebook from his battered bag and begins to write in it? What is he writing about, in his odd little book, with his back curved lazily and one foot dangling above the gum-stained pavement?

What is he thinking? He is too profoundly in thought to be thinking anything superficial. Every part of his presence in the square denies the superficial. He is almost out of touch with the rest of reality around him – a wheel spinning on the same axle as all the rest, but somehow not attached. Loose wheel, comes the thought, unbidden. The wheel of his life perhaps spins at the same speed as all the rest, but it spins because he wills it, not because he is attached to the universe the way everyone else is.

Does this man, who stands out so clearly in the square, have a name? Of course he must. It’s probably something unusual and interesting, with many levels and layers of meaning, just like him. A moment’s glance brings thoughts of mazes, of hidden passageways and complicated machinery. He is deep, and complex, possessed of a weight and inertia, this loose wheel.

Does he love? Does he cry? Most assuredly he does. How could someone so exquisitely vibrant not? How powerful, how deep and rich and harmonious would his love be? How wet his tears?

And now he tucks the notebook into into his faded green bag, and slings it up onto his shoulder as he stands. He moves with an easy grace, every movement as inevitable as water flowing downhill. He does not walk from the square so much as flow from it. Heads turn to follow him, people who hadn’t seen him before take notice.

He is compelling, and as he walks by the vibrance of the the square is somehow pulled along behind him, an invisible wake. And as he passes by, so closely, it becomes possible to answer just one question about him.

Grey. His eyes are grey.

She collapsed slowly onto the white hexagonal tiles of the bathroom floor, weeping uncontrollably. The last few years had been hard, and she’d finally succumbed to the blind grief that she’d been pushing away for what seemed forever. Convulsing with sobs, she curled up on the white floor, her head in her arms to muffle the sounds of her despair.

It hadn’t always been like this. The first few years had been magical – everything a girl could ever have hoped for. Despite the obstacles, they’d found a way to make a life together, and it was the life she’d always imagined but never believed she’d have. They had explored the world, explored each other, and found themselves more in love every day. A match made in heaven.

He’d forgone education in his life before her – indeed, he was a dropout – but she’d encouraged him to pursue his interests, pursue education. She’d recognized the value he placed on it, and though she didn’t agree (easy to disagree when one was sitting on three degrees, one a PhD), she knew it was important to him. He’d graduated with a double minor in English and Psychology.

Everyone told them how good she’d been for him, how she’d brought him out of whatever half sleep he’d been in for a decade and a half. He’d grown into a fine, creative man, and she had been – and still was – proud of him.

And even after the trouble had started it had been wonderful. At first they hadn’t even noticed how he’d changed, or had ignored it because of the benefits. His art – something he’d only started again in earnest since they’d been married – had blossomed, from average but interesting to compelling and thoughtful. He’d sold several pieces, and even been featured in a chic New York gallery. His writing too, always good, had become gripping, a thing almost alive. He’d always been a musician, but now he wrote music, instead of just playing it.

But doubt had stolen into her mind, dark shadows obscuring the corners of her thoughts. She felt sometimes she had seen this before, seen something like this. Sometimes she’d wake up in the middle of the night, still wrapped in his arms like they were newlyweds, and grasp at the tendrils of truth. Though she missed and they floated away into the ether, they left impressions, left footprints on her mind. She began to fear. Not for herself, not for the kids, but for him. For them.

She even talked to him about it. He was – as she was – remarkably self-aware, and often worried about the very things that were troubling her. They were so comfortable with each other, trusted one another so much, that difficult conversations like this were possible. They discussed her concerns, and his concerns, and he expressed as he always had that she was touching upon his greatest fears. One cold October evening they had finally decided they would seek psychological advice.

And so both their worst fears were confirmed. At first she refused to believe it, and sought a second opinion, but there was nothing for it. He was bipolar, and there was no way to change that. He reluctantly agreed to medication, but the chemicals blotted out whatever spark hid behind his eyes, and he became a shell of the man he was. It was a cruel reversion, back to the man he’d been before she’d met him.

His art suffered, his writing suffered. He stopped playing music. Not because he had no interest, but because he was incapable of the emotions required to create stirring pieces. None of these things bothered him, because the pills made it impossible for him to care. But she noticed, and it killed her to see him so diminished.

There were times when she begged him to go off his meds, to come back to her, and times when he’d go off them himself. But fluctuating moods and startling changes in emotion were erratic to the point of danger. The chemicals shackled his mind, but kept the kids safe. Each time she’d convinced him to go back on the pills, and he’d done so.

But now she’d seen the signs that he was skipping again. His paintings, which she’d look at when he was out, were dark and complex riots of muted, mottled colors and motion reminiscent of the Pollock that had first made clear to her the mind of her bipolar cousin years ago. It was this that had sent her to the washroom floor in a sobbing crumpled heap.

She couldn’t do it any more. She didn’t have the strength to help him any more. He was beyond her reach, lost in the darkness without a light, and she’d never get the love of her life back. It killed her, that he’d spent so much of his life in the darkness before they’d met, and that now his body had betrayed him and cast him back. It hurt so much that she couldn’t help him.

A sudden bang startled her out of her despair. It was a sound so unusual in their quiet house that she momentarily forgot where she was. The sound had come from his study, uptairs in the attic. A deep panic gripped her chest like an icy hand. Leaping from the bed, she ran down the hall and climbed the stairs. Her heart beat faster and faster as she pushed the door open and looked inside.

In the center of the room was a huge canvas, 6 feet on a side. The work itself was breathtaking, and could have easily been the most brilliant of all Pollock’s with its fans and splatters of dark reds and greys. It was the most compelling painting he’d ever created.

Sudden understanding dawned on her and she sank to her knees at the top of the stairs. It wasn’t paint, it was blood. He’d killed himself. The pain that slammed into her chest was staggering, a weight that pressed her breath from her. The image of his head tipping back as the bullet exited the back of his skull played over and over again in her head, as did the words killed himself. Again and again she saw the cream colored canvas splattered with blood. She was so overwrought by her grief she didn’t hear the creak of the stairs behind her.

“What’s wrong baby?”

Stunned, she turned around, to see him covered in red. Her confusion was complete.

“But-but…” she stammered, “you killed yourself!”

He laughed and helped her up.

“Killed myself? Why on earth would I do that? I have the best life a man could ever want. I dropped the paint can.” he laughed.

She looked at him, stunned to see the spark of the man she once knew in those eyes, not the eyes of the madman he was when off his medication, not the dull lifeless glass they were when he was taking his pills. He hugged her gently, careful not to get the red paint on her and led her back down the stairs.

“Shh baby. You just had a nightmare. Lay back down. You need to rest. We have that Hallowe’en party tonight. I know you hate them, but we promised. Besides, you know you turn into a pumpkin at midnight if you don’t get a nap. “

She laid back down in their bed and he tucked the blankets around her. Kissed her nose. Just a nightmare. She began to calm.

“And don’t forget, we have that appointment with the head doctor tomorrow that we talked about.” he called just as the door clicked shut.

I’ve never written from a prompt before, but this one was sent to me, and it was so random that I decided to see what I could come up with. The prompt looked like this:

Write about: a cardboard box, three oranges, and an old book.

Admittedly not as random as, say, a lawnmower, the tooth fairy and three dollars, but still.

Petit mal

Karen wrestled with the front door of her flat. She hadn’t locked it when she left, but It was finicky at the best of times, and now, with a heavy box in her arms, it was of course locked. She could put the box down, but it was falling apart and she was worried it would collapse under its own bulk if she set it down. That was something she didn’t want to deal with.

Balancing the box precariously against her cheek and the frame of the door, she reached carefully behind her and into her purse. A few moments rummaging produced her keys. By feel, she tried to locate the key for the door. It’s the round one, she told herself. Her fingers ran over the edges of keys she didn’t even remember, until she felt the familiar smooth edge of the one that would open her door. Sighing with relief, she slid it into the knob and turned it.

She shouldered her way through the door and was greeted with the yelp of her cat Harvey as she stepped on his tail. Stupid cat, she grumbled as she slid the box onto the kitchen counter. Sure enough, by the time she had picked Harvey up to comfort him, the box had split down one edge and spilled its contents across the counter and floor. As if in a Hollywood film, all three of the oranges paused gracefully at the edge of the table before committing wet, juicy suicide on the floor below.

“No oranges tonight, Harvey,” she said to the purring cat.

She sighed and picked the undamaged foods up from the floor. A gentle wash later, and most of it was packed away into the refrigerator. The apple’s went in the fruit bowl on the coffee table, the pears in a paper bag on the counter. The oranges were picked up and thrown in the compost bucket.

She poured herself a glass of wine and settled down on the sofa with a book. It was an old book, by a Canadian author. She recalled it from her younger days, that it has been a bit of a cult hit among girls her age. She’d not read it, mostly out of spite, but now such feelings were silly, so she’d picked the book up when she had seen it in the cart outside the used book shop.

Boxes and oranges forgotten, she lost herself in its pages.