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A Thousand Minor Keys By Jared Duran Slowly I shuffle over to the casket in which your body sweetly lies. In death you are even more beautiful than in life. Perhaps it’s that you no longer have anything to worry about, or perhaps it’s that you know something that I don’t. I love you more than my own life, and so what am I supposed to do now that you’re gone? Do I continue to wake up for the sake of breathing? I know with every fiber of being that I will never love another as much as I love you, and so as long as I remain among the living I will always refer to my feelings for you in the present tense, and on it goes… This filthy place is so full of pity I feel as though I can’t breath. Faces jump at me from the unnerving abundance of shadows blanketing the room in memories of trendy dinner parties, claustrophobic birthdays, and other regrettable social gatherings. I don’t know any of these people—they are not my friends. They know me only as a fleeting, familiar visage, my name added to the bottom of Christmas cards past. Still, they are all certain they will find me sleeping in the gutter before the year is out. Slowly they will pass by in their cars and toss a half eaten hamburger through a partially opened window in my direction, though they know that I do not eat meat. There are more flowers here than I’ve ever seen in my life, and I think I’m allergic—a special bonus torture. Then, there’s the air of religion about. I know you never believed in that sort of thing, and it has always made me sick, but it makes your mother happy. Not so much because she believes in god, but because she loves seeing me as miserable as possible. In her wheelchair she looks so harmless, but I can hear her voice floating around the room like an anvil with wings searching me out to drop like an anvil without wings upon my head. She never looked at me once in the fifteen years that we were married. She doesn’t care what happens to me now. Where do I lay my head, but on the cold pillows of our half empty bed? Where do I turn, but the cold confines of my head? I have only questions to comfort me now, because there are no answers to them, and I can spend my time thinking myself silly, and maybe then, when my mind is so exhausted that I can’t even remember my name, I will drift off into a fitful sleep only to dream of a life I did not lead. Then morning will come, and I will stay in bed with my eyes closed, tears streaming down my cheeks, slowly losing my mind in a way that is not entirely unexpected. I’m sure you know that I hate you nearly as much as I love you. How could I not with all the many, many times you broke my heart and then taped it back together so that none of the pieces fit quite like they should. Going behind my back with that immoral asshole. What could you possibly have seen in him that would make you want to hurt me so? Or did you think that I didn’t know? Was your opinion of me actually lower than you let on to all of your friends? He wears sunglasses indoors, and leans against a doorframe with his right leg crossed over his left, his right hand running through his hair, his self-confidence never waning in his pants. In his hand a glass rests in a trendy fashion. He himself is in a trendy fashion. I’m sure he listens to classic rock radio stations and smokes pot on Sunday nights. His car out front is, of course, red and expensive and makes all sorts of growling noises when he pulls out of the driveway just as I’m turning down our street to enter our home and sleep in our bed and feel nothing but betrayed. He takes a drink, and you know I hate him, too. I hate his smug little smile as he straightens his frame out into a standing position and saunters round the room charming the knickers off all the women and some of the men. I know I hate him, you know I hate him, I’m sure he knows I hate him, so why on earth does he walk up to me, pat me on the arm, and say, “You okay? She was a very wonderful woman (WINK). The world is in far worse shape for her passing.” Yeah, fuck him. I’m sure he’s loving the fact that I’m going through extreme emotional pain and what is more than likely to become crippling financial hardship. He just keeps on smiling and exciting the many faithful minions who fall at his feet to lick his toes. Look at them, if only they knew. They wouldn’t believe it if I told them all the horrible things he’s done to me—I don’t believe half of them myself. Drinks continue to be served, food is stuffed into fat, ugly, pitying faces, phrases of sentiment are flung like confetti from loosened tongues to fall upon a lackluster carpet. I look around the dimly lit parlor of someone I once knew, and I find myself wondering what the hell happened to him, where did he go, and what happened to his desire to drink himself insensible? I won’t have to worry about that much longer, though, I feel that my resistance is low. These people will have their fill, give a little hug and a sob, pile into their cars, and leave me to myself. It doesn’t bother me that I’ll never again hear from a single one of them. I’ll hurriedly clean up behind them, before I lose the will to rise in the morning, and some faceless fellow from the real estate agents’ office will drive a “For Sale” sign into the grass beneath my window. You loved me once, though, didn’t you? I mean, I can barely recall, but there were nights on the beach, under the stars, you lying in my arms; long discussions late at night after making love when we’d plan our future together; we loved the same music, read the same books, hated the same people, and sat on park benches making comments and laughing at them, occasionally finishing each other’s sentence, or saying exactly what the other was thinking. Then we got married, and things were fine for a while, but then you stopped coming home for dinner, and then you were hardly ever there for breakfast, and your weekends were booked. Some nights I slept by myself, and maybe I should’ve said something. I don’t even need all ten of my fingers to count the number of times we had sex in the last five years, and those very few times it felt so much like charity that I almost couldn’t come. It’s not as though I gained fifty pounds and several chins, or stopped washing and started listening to right-wing talk radio stations. Not for one second of our life together did I stop worshiping the ground that you walked on, and yet it was never enough, or maybe it was too much. Why did you marry me then? It’s not as though I got you pregnant. Why didn’t you ever ask me for a divorce? Again, there were never any children to think about, and why is that? You never had the time. You didn’t care that I always wanted to be a father, you had the career, and that’s what counted. We had dinner parties and social drinking binges and crawls through a washed out memory lane—perhaps that’s all you needed or wanted, and of course there were all the men who liked the tight pants you wore; the provocative blouses. I might as well not have been there at all, but who would’ve been there to bear the brunt of your humorous jabs. Without me your wit would have been severely hampered. I was there to be boring, so you could complain. I feel so old. When did that happen? Wasn’t it just yesterday that we were sitting in your bedroom listening to your records? You would show me your poetry, and I’d show you my stories, and we’d tell each other what we liked and what we thought could use a little work. I played my guitar for you, and felt romantic… How many drinks have I had now? I don’t recall when it was that I started drinking exactly. One, two, or three, and my tongue flies free from my head…. Four, five, six, and nothing I say sticks to the fridge…. Seven, eight, nine, and mine eyes have seen far too much. Standing here—or am I sitting, or am I lying flat on my back—I feel as though I’m one of those unfortunate fellows in a Raymond Carver story. My life just seems that mundane, yet poetic in detail, and I wait for the end. I make my way through the room: a knocked over table, a broken vase, water bleeding, flowers crushed, a broken chair. I taste blood in my mouth, and I feel like singing while weeping. I see you walking towards me and shaking your head, as I’ve ruined things again. I’m sorry, honey… And so there’s your mother: punching and screaming at me furiously… And so there’s the piano: crashing to the ground, splintering into a thousand minor keys that shoot through my head… Copyright 2003 Jared A. Duran |