u s e y o u r h a n d s

I can’t do one thing today. I’m trying to do next year’s landscape plan, talk via IM, do a cohesive webbity entry, and “work” all at once. Any my brain will not let me focus.

He had been following the story for the past few days. After the girl’s initial disappearance, the paper was filled with full-color school portraits that he studied carefully, blinded by her even, white smile. Over her parents’ tearful pleas, the news stations played videotape of her soccer games. The missing girl played with so much vigor, he had to look away, so obscene was her vitality. The way her blond ponytail shone against her maroon uniform made his eyes leak. And as the days stretched into a week, then two, he continued to watch, even as ribbons on trees shredded and faded.

The day she disappeared, he walked down to the park near his house and watched kids play. None of these children were his; he didn’t have children at all. But he stayed until the last one left. He came back every day to watch over them. To make sure nothing happened to them. With quiet dedication he swept his eyes over their heads, counting and recounting. Every child safe. Every child accounted for.

Their parents watched from other benches, but their eyes followed only their own children. As the flock thinned, he sometimes watched the parents as well. He marvelled at how they had children and managed to still live, not completely suffocating in anxiety. Children could be stolen, they could fall ill. And this paralyzed him. Maybe parents didn’t stop to allow these thoughts. Maybe they didn’t have them at all.

One day, he turned on the news. They found a body. She wasn’t coming home. He stayed home from work; the pink bow on his door went in the trash. There were no children in the park that day. He imagined them all gone, taken, dead, or hidden away. He sat, with the creak of the swings, alone.

– there’s so much beauty.
– tum is empty.
– that song fucking sucks.
– i’m drunk.
– i’m hungover.
– i’m not drunk.
– that guy won’t shut up.
– i was assaulted by perfume in the morning meeting.
– my shoes pinch.
– the braces no longer work.
– he is somewhere else.
– the ache won’t stop.
– i know the world is doomed.
– i am not enough.
– i am way too much.
– he is no longer next to me.
– the time is growing short.
– darkness is already falling.
– the paint fumes! The paint fumes!
– i’m dehydrated.
– Hello, Kitty! assaulted me in the bathroom.
– my bookie won’t stop phoning.
– of that photo!
– i hit my head.
– it just does.

He had a bad day. I’m in weekend withdrawl. We’re making soup and taking the mother of all walks.