BFG

I am your neighbor, and a liar.

By the way, do you have Zoe's number? (If you don't know what this line is from, you deserve to be...dunno...something)

This is the type of asinine comments that escaped my lips today at work. I had been awake for thirty hours, and began to say the most absurd things to my co-workers and children I work with.

I was talking to this worker having trouble with immigration. He was trying to get his wife across the border, but refused to show me the documentation so I could help. He was also trying to rest, and take his mind off of the worries. I looked at him and said, "Javon, get on your cot, and give me those papers so I can get your wife back!"

Javon's grinned like any four-year-old would, after being told something so absurd. "I don't have a wife."

His friend lying in the near vicinity, fired, "Papers?!?"

Yes, I wasn't speaking to a distraught co-worker, but a child. I looked around sheepishly at met the gaze of my co-teacher, who was clearly contemplating what kind of drugs I was taking.

The next incident happened when I was sitting in library with a boy named Andy. He asked me politely if he could read the new library books we had brought in today.

Donning my best Latin American accent, I replied, "Be very careful, they belong to Ernesto 'Che' Guevara." I shook my head realizing this phrase was a remnant of "The Motorcycle Diaries" I had watched the night before. "No they don't, Andy. That's fine."

I've had insomnia before. But never hallucinations accompanied with it. At my lowest point of the day, a person standing right behind me, made me jump. It was the hood of my pine-green sweatshirt.

It's odd what a deprived brain can do to you. It's the most complex thing in the universe and it's right behind the nose. Fascinating!

Camping Revisited

More from the story that is my life. Boring, yeah? No, actually, this is about the camping trips my family went on every summer. This is the last bit of nostalgia before this segment turns in to darker territories.

The fires. Ash-colored logs. Fluorescent flames, flickering to shades of blue and red. Ants foolish enough to crawl upon our firewood, before it was pitched in to the dwindling inferno. Its innards hissed and popped on charred sticks brandished wildly in the air, leaving behind smoke, and it's trail momentarily burned on my retina. Flashlight-sabers creating small pillars of light. "Luke, I am your father." The smell of burning rubber. Smoldering tennis shoes pressed against the white-hot fire grate.

"Daniel James, get your feet down! You're going to wreck another pair of perfectly good shoes!"

A green acorn bursting from the shoot like a phoenix propelled from the ashes. Golden-brown marshmallows. Hot dogs on wire sticks. Metal lawn chairs. Embers flying through the air like a thousand fireflies bid to the heavens by an unheard voice.

These seemingly mundane elements combined in to something simple, yet transcendent in its beauty. Each moment was magnified by the company around me. My mom's squinty laugh. My dad's hot chocolate in the morning. My brother and I playing catch. Habitually, punching our baseball gloves to loosen the leather before the ball met its target. Each person magnified these moments, until each crystallized as a memory. A fleeting glimpse of youth. The warmth of love. This was camping.

INSOMNIA

It's 5 am and I have to be to work in two and a half hours. I tried to fall asleep at 1. I'm going to take a shower here shortly, eat breakfast, clean off my car...and waste time. Man! Today is going to suck. Maybe I can go home early.

More Camping

After a day of activities worshipping the soil around us, we’d return to our sanctuary to sleep to for the evenings. Even this simple task became an event as we marched to the bathroom. Complete with showers, bathrooms, sinks, and toilets, it served host to the most enormous bugs I’d seen before in my life. Their wings seemed as large as the orioles and warblers singing in the trees. Their legs the size of the herons splashing in the lake. It was as if prolonged exposure to O’Brien’s mystic properties had distorted their bodies to the proportion of birds.

Standing by my father and brother’s side at the sink, we would brush our teeth in unison. With mint foam oozing from my mouth, I caught my dad’s eye and smile. My dad. My brother. Me. Like bandits, we’d steal back to our camp site, led by the familiar glow of our fluorescent lamp as our guide.

My parents whispered their goodnights, and soon, the tent would be filled with slow, rhythmic breathing and crackle-pop of neighboring fires. Kneeling at the point where God’s feet grazed the earth, heaven approached and dwelled around my slumbering family.


Sidenote:
Completely unrelated, but you'll all appreciate this if you know my inherent clumsiness...
It's been pretty cold here with January settling in. So, I ran out to get my mail from our box across the parking lot. As I was running back, I approached my front steps. I'm not sure what happened, but as I was running, I could feel my legs shutting down. I tried to operate them, but they just got heavier, and more stubborn. I could not lift them when I hit the base of the stairs...so I hit the base of the stairs. I fell in slow motion, with mail in my hands; my response time wasn't quick enough to put them in front of me to shield the oncoming steps. I SMASHED in to them with my chest, one arm, and my right leg.

I got up quickly, first moaning, "OWWWW." I realized that was the only thing I could do, because the blast to my chest had knocked the air out of me. I tried wincing in pain; nothing. Then I tried laughing, because I pictured how ridiculous the whole scene must have looked, but I couldn't do that either. After a while I caught my breath. I have considerable bruises on my body, and my sternum hurts pretty bad too.

Rough Camping

A VERY rough draft of the introduction for the camping piece.

Camping with my family was a perennial tradition. Once the clamoring hallways of \school emptied, and the dog days of summer settled in, my family would pile in to the station wagon and head to the woods. Packing the snail cargo holder, and attaching it to the roof filled with me with a sense of exhilaration. It meant soon, the miles would be snaking beneath the blue station wagon’s rolling tires, and I would pester my parents from the back seat with the annoying, yet age-appropriate question, “Are we there yet?”

“We’ll get there when we get there,” was usually my parent’s response. It was an answer I knew by heart, as well as our family’s usual destination: William O’Brien State Park. When the park’s familiar sign rolled in to view, I knew summer had officially arrived.

While in the confines, sounds became more than a vibration on the eardrum. The place imbued each twig snap with the texture of dry wood, the rustle of leaves with the smell of autumn tucked around the corner, and the hushed whisper of my mom and dad with a soul-jarring simplicity. For these reasons, William O’Brien was hallowed ground for me.

When my sneakers crunched under the grassy trails, it felt like I belonged there. My sanctuary was an olive and green colored tent; my family’s prayer candles were propane lamps and Coleman flashlights. Communion consisted of bottomless cups of hot cocoa and turkey sandwiches. And at night, the sky would be filled with chirping crickets, and the rustle of leaves from undisclosed animals.

Camping (A Mere Matter of Days)

I'm polishing an extremely rough draft detailing camping trips with my family...fun stuff. I know you can't wait. The excitement is probably killing you.

Camping (Worst. Update. Ever.)

I'm working on a piece about camping with my family. It's a happy segement filled with a lot of good memories; I"m looking forward to it.

OTHER NEWS: Santa is almost over, and then I'll be freed of one of my full-time jobs, and I'm excited.

Also, someone I work with saw one of the pics of my mom, and it inspired her to ask me if she could draw the photograph in charcoal. I'm uber-pumped. You have no idea. People with artistic ability rarely (if ever) draw pictures for me. She had another idea that sounds equally great, and I can't wait.

P.S. People who aren't Blogspot members can comment now. That's you Christy, Amber, Kenzie, Kristina. I want to hear from you now...

P.P. (tehe) S.--AND WHO COULD FORGET AMY LEE? I LOVE THAT GIRL. SCOTT! YOU HAVE A KEEPER!!!

The Real Deal

Gone


Okay, no fooling this time...here it is. The recording isn't 100% fantastic, but you'll get the idea. Let me know what you all think...and really, on this one I need some feedback.

What Dreams May Come

Another Nightmare

After doing my nightly devotions, I set aside my bible, turned off the lights and let my pillow cushion of head. My eyelids lolled and I was asleep in a minute. Shortly after, they fluttered open again and sunlight streamed through my window. I was in Minnesota, in my old bedroom.

I wiped the crust from the corners of my eyes as I sat up.

“What time is it?” I stifled a yawn, looking for the cheap digital alarm clock that normally sat atop my nightstand.

“Daniel!” a voice shouted from the living room.

“Mom?” I stuttered leaping from my bed. Poking my head into the hallway in utter bewilderment. “Mom, is that you?”

“Hurry up Daniel, I have to go!” she said, hurriedly looking through the closet by the front door.
“Mom?”

“What?” she said, glaring at me through her rectangular frames.

“You’re dead,” I said pointedly

“What are you talking about?”

“You died a year ago. Pancreatic cancer? Don’t you remember—”

“I don’t have time for this. Either get dressed and get down here, or I’m leaving without you.”

“Leaving? Where are you—”

“Get dressed!” She said.

“Okay,” I stuttered, darting back in to my room, throwing on a pair of dirty jeans and a white t-shirt I found in a dusty corner. From below, I heard the front door jarred open and then slam with a muffled “thunk,” followed by the soft “whoosh” of the screen door.

“Mom?” I said rushing down the stairs, zipping up my pants. The living room was empty. I checked the kitchen. “Mom,” I said, the panic rising in my voice, “are you still here?” No answer.

I ran to the front door and burst through it, running into the yard. My mom was sitting in the driver’s seat of a car that was peeling out of the driveway.

“Wait,” I bounded down the long cement stairs. “Mom, I’m ready to go! Don’t leave without me!”

The screeching wheels and the revving engine drowned out my cries. She hit the acceleration pedal and gravel flew from the back tires in to my face as she sped down the hill. My sneakers pounded after her, my breath billowing like a smokestack in the chill, autumn air.

Please, wait! Take me with you!” I cried, chasing after her until she was a mere speck at the end of the street, until that too winked out of view down a steep hill.

I was left alone in the middle of the street doubled over; wheezing and gasping for air as a sharp pain stabbed my side.

My heart thudded in my chest as my eyes sprang open. Reaching from my top bunk to the shelf of my closet where my alarm clock was perched, I grabbed it with trembling hands: 3:15 a.m.

To Bide Your Time: The Factory

This is a dream I had in college; it's very Freudian so be warned. It will go in the second part of the book after my mom has died. I had a couple of nightmares like this while I was writing a "Life History" paper for one of my college courses. We had to write a page on each year of our life. When I got to the age when everything hit the fan, it got extremely difficult. Especially when I found out that my parents had been having trouble since the late eighties, rather than the 1992 date I initially thought. Discovering that secret undid a lot of the growth I had accomplished up to that point. Until then, I had thought that my childhood years were something I could cling to. It was a point in time that my parents were happy in their marriage. When I found out they were putting on a show, and secretely having trouble behind closed doors, I fell apart. It was like reliving it all over again, and it was too much. It was too painful.

The Factory

I awoke standing next to my brother in the public bathroom of an abandoned building. The tiles covering the walls were black; caked with ages of grime and feces. I avoided touching them as I tiptoed around dusty puddles of urine gathering in the corners of the floor. I gagged as the acidic tang of vomit burned the back of my throat. I motioned silently for my brother to follow as we pushed through the bathroom door, and stood at the top of a spiral staircase.

“You first,” said my brother.

The rubber soul of my shoe tapped the first step cautiously and when nothing wavered, wobbled, or groaned in protest, I hopped on the stairs and turned to my brother.

“It’s safe. C’mon.”
We neared the bottom level of the building as the distant murmur of voices clattered somewhere below us. With it came the unmistakable scent of fresh baked cookies and the smell of home.

“IT’S MOM!” I said, as we both galloped down the remaining steps. We stood in an empty hallway filled with open office doors covered in mold and peeling paint. I hurried in and out of several rooms looking for my long dead mother.
Finally, I saw light pouring from a room at the end of the hallway. She was sitting in a chair in the middle of floor. The room was split in two, separated by a thick piece of thick glass.

“Mom!” I said with a smile. Before she could look at me the room started to pull away. With every step I took forward, the barren room slid further out of reach as a thick steel door slid shut, leaving me in the hallway, beating the metal slab with my fists.

“Mom!” I shouted. “Mom, can you hear me?” She didn’t answer. “Timothy help me with the—” I looked over my shoulder. He was gone.

“He can take care of himself,” I thought, thinking only of my mother trapped inside the room. My hand searched the steel door for a knob, a button, a lever; something that might open it, but there was nothing.

I ran through the hallway with my blood rushing through my ears and my chest burning. “I can’t let her go now. I’ve got to hold on to this moment.”

I ran through an intricate maze of hallways and dead ends until I burst into the room separated by the window. There she was, sitting on the other side of the glass.

Navigating through the garbage to the window, I cocked my head and noticed for the first time that my mother was naked, except for her bra and underwear.

“Mom?”

She looked at me momentarily through the glass. Her brown eyes flooded with tears as she dropped her head, and looked at her feet.

Scales fell from my eyes, and I noticed she was not alone. Naked and huddled in the corner stood Willie. He glared at me with his clothes clutched between his hands.

Backing towards the exit in horror, my shoulder blades slammed against the back wall as my hand wildly groped for the rusty doorknob behind me. I spun around quickly to find the doorway had vanished, replaced by a cement wall. I was locked in the room.

“I’m going to be in so much trouble,” I thought as Willie hopped on one foot, thrusting the other into a pair of blue jeans. “What if Mom tells Dad what I saw? He’ll be furious. He’d—hang on.”

Suddenly, the crashing realization struck. “They were having–” I couldn’t say it. The idea alone filled me with revulsion.
Rage overtook my body as I grabbed a splintered desk leg and smashed it as hard as I could against the glass, but nothing happened. I dropped my shoulder, and slammed into the divider repeatedly. My chest heaved as rivulets of sweat poured from my forehead.

Transfixed with morbid curiosity, I watched as Willie bolted through a door that had materialized out of nothingness. He left my mother naked and alone, staring at the empty doorway. Somewhere outside, a car door slammed, an engine turned, tires squealed, and the night was silent once more.

My mother pried her gaze from the doorway. Her piercing hollow eyes met mine. She looked beyond my body and saw the dark recesses of my mind. She could hear the questions I wanted to ask her. “ Did you love me? Did you ever really want me?” I looked expectantly, hoping to hear answers in her soft voice. She issued a silent verdict by turning her head and staring back through the doorway. Her answer was simple. Her answer was “No.”

“Mom, why!” I screamed, bolting upright in my bed, covered in a cold sweat with hot tears streaming down my face. My hand was outstretched, blindly groping for the dissolved glass barrier. I was greeted with the suffocating emptiness of my bedroom. I cradled my face in my hands and wept as the harsh December winds howled outside.

I tried to console myself by whispering, "It was a dream. It was just a dream." But, the haunting thought planted in my mind kept me awake for the rest of the night. What if it wasn't a dream? What is she didn't love me?

New Song

I'm going to be posting the song I mentioned in John Lennon Saved My Life in a couple of days. It will be recorded on my friend's computer, so it's not going to sound studio quality, but I thought everyone should hear it. It was really important in my journey to forgiveness. Here are the lyrics:

Gone
Verse 1
Mommy, you're gone; it's so hard to explain.
All my life you've caused me such pain
Cuz you didn't want a family man, You didn't want me too.
Broke my heart, cuz all I ever wanted was you.

Chorus
Well now since you've been gone,
Thoughts run through my head.
Since you've left me the very last time,
Since you've been dead.
Well, I hate you. I love you. I just want to see.
Free of doubt and free of fear: what's a family?

Verse 2
Now you are dead; buried in the ground
Now I wonder, if there's hope to be found
And I wonder, if you've loved me at all
And if you did, then why weren't you in it for the long haul?

Bridge
Six feet in the ground, now there's no hope to be found
Six feet in the ground, now there's no hope to be found

Chorus
Well now since you've been gone,
Thoughts run through my head.
Since you've left me the very last time,
Since you've been dead.
Well, I hate you. I love you. I just want to see.
Free of doubt and free of fear: what's a family?
Free of doubt and free of fear: what's a family?
Mommy, I'm still here, will you please hold me?

John Lennon Saved My Life

Okay, so this is a flash-forward. This segement is going to be when I was in college...This is the defining moment when I sort of embraced the negative feelings I had been denying myself. If anything is confusing, let me know.

When the grief group had finished for the evening I trudged up the stairs to my dorm room on the second floor of Snowbarger. It was Tuesday night, which also meant that it was open dorms for the guys. I did my best to sidle past each room as inconspicuously as possible. I wasn’t popular by any stretch of the imagination so the chances of someone talking to me seemed a little far-fetched, but I did it anyway. Just in case.

Reaching my doorway, I wondered how much the group was really helping. Each meeting left me emotionally drained and angrier with my mother. Tonight, we discussed what it must have felt like for me to come down the stairs each morning, unsure if my mother would be there sleeping on the couch.

Sighing, I dug a hand into the dark recesses of my jean pockets and pulled out my key ring. The key jiggled in my hand and the lock slid open. A peculiar feeling gripped my mind during the meeting and I couldn’t shake it. I felt like the corners of my brain were peeling back and something wanted to burst out. “Calm down,” I told myself. I’d grown accustomed to bottling my anger over the years, but my inner demons were growing restless. Tired of being suppressed and denied. My rage bubbled and boiled higher, rising into my chest. My knuckles clenched until I finally felt the long, sticky fingers of bitterness clutch my mind.

“What good will it do to get mad at her?” My rational side said. “She’s dead. Move on with your life.”

I shuffled through a stack of lecture notes piled on my desk and pulled a John Lennon CD from underneath. I slammed the disk in to my stereo. I jabbed the random button and jumped on to my bed.

Listening to Lennon’s music was like participating in his therapy sessions. There was an unexplainable bond that I felt to his lyrics. He understood what I was going through. When Lennon was 17, a drunken policeman who was off-duty hit John’s mother with his car and killed her. After he was informed of the accident, Lennon had to go the morgue to identity her body.
The first song that belted through the speakers in Lennon’s raw voice was a piece he wrote in memory of his mother.

Mother, You had me I never had you
I wanted you but you didn't want me
So I got to tell you
Goodbye, Goodbye

Images raced through my mind as I thought of my mother. I clutched her tightly around the waist the night she left—The day we helped her move across town into her dingy apartment; it was my birthday—The afternoon we found all the bills hidden throughout the house—Watching her leave, zipped up tightly in her body bag—The casket sinking into the ground. Tears fell from my face as the song continued.

Father, You left me but I never left you
I needed you but you didn't need me
So I just got to tell you
Goodbye, Goodbye

The night he screamed at me in the kitchen—His tears rippling the still waters of Lake Como as he tried to figure out what he did wrong—The question he probably asked himself all the time: “Why didn’t she love me?”

Lennon’s voice broke into a frenzied pitch.

Momma don’t go! Daddy come home.
Momma don’t go! Daddy come home.
Momma don’t gooooOOOO!
Momma don’t gooooOOOO!

Memories flooded me…
“Karen talk to me!” my dad shouted.
“Why do you have to go?” I asked her the night she left.
“She’s been diagnosed with cancer. She has two weeks to live.”
“Your dad found bills hidden around the house,” Kristina whispered nervously. “It looks like she was having another affair.”
“Sometimes I wish this was all a bad dream,” I whispered to my father in his darkened room. “I’m just waiting to wake up.”

“Aahhh!” I shouted, jumping from my bed. My feet ran to my desk, my hands jerked a desk drawer open and pulled out my journal.

My anger burst through the surface. The pen scribbled furiously on the notebook. My hand moved automatically, writing the words as if copying them from the dark recesses of my mind.

Mommy you’re dead. It’s so hard to explain.
All my life you’ve caused me such pain
‘Cuz you didn’t want a family man,
You didn’t want me too.
Broke my heart, ‘cuz all I ever wanted was you.

A giant tear splashed onto the paper, smearing the black ink. I cried in angst to her memory, holding my head in my hands. “Why mom? Why did you have to do this to us? Why did you have to leave me?” I sniffed, wiping my nose with the back of my hand, and continued writing.

Well now since you’ve been gone
Thoughts run through my head
Since you’ve left me the very last time
Since you’ve been dead.

Laughter echoed in the hallway as I looked at my locked door. I wished I could have had a life like theirs. “But, no!” I thought. “You had to muck it up with your stupid mistakes!

Well I hate you. I love you;
I just want to see,
Free of doubt and free of fear
What’s a family?

We weren’t good enough for you!” my pen paused. “You said you loved me,” I sobbed. “You’re a liar.”

Now you are dead and buried in the ground
And I wonder if there’s hope to be found
And I wonder if you’ve love me at all
And if you did then why weren’t you in it for the long haul

Six feet in the ground, now there’s no hope to be found
Six feet in the ground, now there’s no hope to be found

Well now since you’ve been gone
Thoughts run through my head
Since you’ve left me the very last time
Since you’ve been dead.

Well I hate you and I love you
I just want to see,
Free of doubt and free of fear
What’s a family?

“Momma don’t go! Daddy come home.” Lennon’s song ended and the room was quiet. My trembling hands dropped the pen as I looked at my words. The temptation seized me to rip up the piece of paper and deny those feelings, but I didn’t.

I walked to the stereo and shut the music off, threw myself on my bed, and cried myself to sleep.

Chapter Three: Atlas Struggled

At the dawn of time a bloody war raged between the mythic Titans and Zeus for the right to rule the heavens. When their battle ended with Zeus victorious, those who opposed him were imprisoned forever. One titan was punished more severely than the rest; his name was Atlas. He was given the task of holding the world on his shoulders. He managed to hand over the task to Hercules for a while, but was soon tricked in to taking back his burden, and to this day the weight remains fixed on his shoulders.

My dad was the same way. Though he lacked the size or strength of the infamous Titan, he more than made up for it with his spirit of commitment and dedication. He never asked for the responsibility of raising us alone, but he never complained. He didn’t guilt us in to thinking it was our fault either. He often reminded us, “It’s nothing you did. She loves you.”

And yet, at times he cut us off. Occasionally, he would get home from work, and go directly to his room. He would go to sleep without saying goodnight. When we watched TV in his room, we’d sprawl out on his queen-sized bed with little conversation. I realize now how difficult it must have been for him during my mother’s absence. Every time he looked at us he saw the traces of the woman who abandoned him subtly marked in our features.

Unlike my mother though, he didn’t flinch. His world revolved around two things. His children and his daily routine. He’d wake up at 5:30 in the morning. Shower. Shave. Brush his teeth. Blow-dry his hair. Get dressed. Shoes. Breakfast. Work. Home. We all switched to autopilot to help us cope with our loss.

A routine was easy to maintain. Routines didn’t cause fights. Hands that were brushing teeth couldn’t make mysterious phone calls. No one could pack their suitcases and leave if they were naked in the shower. As childish as it may seem, sometimes if my dad didn’t get home from work at his usual time, a sense of dread filled my stomach.

That same panic filled me when I was maybe six or seven. My parents went out on an errand and left me at home with my brother. After what felt like hours, I started to worry. My hands pulled back the living room curtains every thirty seconds. I would hear the distant thunder of an engine pass the house and frantically search for our blue station wagon, but it didn’t come. I started crying. “They’ve left me,” I thought. “They’re not coming back, and I’m all alone.” When they finally walked through the door, I was curled in a ball behind the recliner, sobbing uncontrollably.

My family’s circumstances had changed. My mom was already gone. Who’s to say the strain of raising three frightened children wouldn’t impel my dad to plan his escape as well? Losing a parent rattled my trust in the world. I witnessed first hand that people were capable of horrifying acts of selfishness and it terrified me. That’s why my father’s morning routine acted as a safeguard, and established a bastion of hope for the day.

I knew beyond the shadow of my mother that he would be there to wake me up so that I could get ready for school. The light from the hallway would cut in to our room, framing his silhouette in the doorway. The fresh smell of his newly applied after-shave would wash over my senses before he had a chance to say, “C’mon Daniel. Time to get up.”

Occasionally I awoke with the niggling urge to use the bathroom. I’d lie still as long as possible and listen to him prepare for the day. The blow dryer would hiss. The shower would gurgle. These simple sensory cues calmed my nerves more than words could. Atlas was preparing to shoulder the weight. He’d step out of the bathroom only after our world rested firmly between his shoulder blades. Then he would wake me up, fully in charge of the situation.

I would step in to the bathroom moments after he left it. The water in the bathtub would trickle down its porcelain sides, accompanied to the customary drip-drop beat of the faucet thudding against the drain. Bathed by this reassuring chorus of sound, the warm steam would envelope my shivering body, and I’d feel safe. That’s what my father’s presence felt like during the intervening months while she was away: warm and safe.

Chapter Two--Preview

I was in Heaven. The Heaven. The one I’d been learning about for years in Sunday school and Bible camp. It was beyond my wildest imagination. I was standing barefoot, on an endless landscape of dazzlingly clouds.

Excitement pulsed through my blood! There was only one reason for me to be in Heaven. God was granting me the chance to answer all of my questions about my parent's marriage problems personally.

The clouds cushioned my feet as I jogged towards the Pearly Gates towering in the distance. I stopped twenty yards from the entrance as the gate swung open. In the distance, an infinitesimal black speck tarnished the horizon.

I stood frozen in place, squinting at the mysterious figure approaching. “Could it be?” I thought. “Was it actually Him?” My palms started to sweat. I stood paralyzed with joyful expectation. It was God; I knew it.

As the figure drew closer, I noticed the Lord’s peculiar gate. He toddled towards me, swaying from the left and right. I watched in curiosity and thought, “He certainly isn’t as tall as I thought He’d be.”

At a hundred feet away my mouth dropped and eyes goggled as the creature continued to waddle towards me. It stood in front of me with a vacant expression in its beady eyes.

I stared at it.
It stared at me.
It was not God. It happened to be a penguin.

“What is a bird doing in Heaven?” I thought. “I need to talk to God.”

The penguin craned his neck and met my bewildered gaze.

“What the—”

“Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!” The penguin squawked, flapping its wings rhythmically to match its piercing cry.

I covered my ears, attempting to block out the sound. It was useless. “Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!” it continued impassive to my growing irritation.

Searching the empty expanse of Heaven for help, I screamed, “Will someone get that penguin!?”

“Shudioff,” my brother slurred through a tangle of blankets and sheets.

“Whuh?” I replied hazily, blinking my eyes.

“Shut the alarm off!”

Emerging in my darkened bedroom and fumbling with my chirping alarm clock I realized I was no longer, knock-knock-knockin’ on Heaven’s door. I was groping for the snooze button on the blasted alarm clock.

The memories of the previous night came rushing back. My stomach sank. I sighed and begrudgingly got out of bed. I stumbled towards the bathroom, bumping into the doorframe before stepping into the hallway. My parents’ bedroom door was open, and the room was empty. My dad had already left for work, without waking me up and saying, “good morning.”

My pajamas hit the linoleum floor of the bathroom as I stepped under the nozzle of the shower. The water gurgled and unleashed an icy torrent of water.

“What am I going to do?” I asked, letting steam swirl around me in undulating clouds, before stepping under the water. The envelope of mist allowed me to see my thoughts in perfect clarity. I resumed my prayer from the night before. “God, please help my parents. I don’t want them to fight anymore. Please.” My prayers amounted to nothing, as they usually did during that time.

Things to Come

I should have a portion of chapter two up very soon. I just need to fiddle with it...and maybe saxophone and violin it too. Buh-Zing! Anyway, this chapter will probably go under the chopping block some; it's a bit too detailed, and detracts from the main flow of the story. Just wanted to let you all know to keep your eyes pealed...or so help me.

Mixtapes and Writing

When I write, I generally like to have some music in the background. It helps me think and keeps me grounded. Lately, I've been scouring the Internet for songs about (as depressing as it sounds) dysfunctional families, sometimes-flaky mothers, and on the flip side of that, redemption, forgiveness, and love, for some inspiration. The list I have for one such mixtape is good so far; but it could be better. Let me know any of your ideas so I can add them (I'm counting on you Scott).

C'mon, Mom (The Elected)
The Funeral (Band of Horses)
Don't Die in Me (Mirah)
Mother (John Lennon)
In the Sun Joseph Arthur
Romulus (Sufjan Stevens)
Upward Over The Mountain (Iron And Wine)
Pittsfield (Sufjan Stevens)
That was the Worst Christmas Ever (Sufjan Stevens)
Love Is Real (John Lennon)
Shes Leaving Home (The Beatles)
In My Life (The Beatles)
Stand by Me (Ben E. King)
Stand By Me (John Lennon)
Transatlanticism (Death Cab for Cutie)
What Sarah Said (Death Cab For Cutie)

Pandora's Box--Preview of Chapter One

Greek Mythology tells the tale of a beautiful young maiden named Pandora. When formed by the Olympian gods, they each took a part in her creation. When they were through, she was gorgeous. She had grace, charm, and an unparalleled curiosity. Ultimately, it would be her curiosity that doomed mankind.

For the last gift Pandora received from the gods was a small box. The gods filled it with destructive contents—like malice, heartache, rage, and anger— and forbid Pandora from opening it. But her curiosity dwelled on the box. What did it contain? Why didn’t the Gods want her to open it? What would happen if she did? She had to know. So one day, Pandora hesitantly lifted the lid. In doing so, she unleashed death, disease, and every other misfortune mankind still experiences to this day.

The world suffers for one woman's mistakes.

This ancient myth takes on added relevance in our current society because everyone deals with pain on a daily basis. Frequently, we feel this pain is a result of someone else’s actions. In other words, everyone has a Pandora. In my life, Pandora was my mother.

♦ ♦ ♦
My lanky, six-foot body sprawled out in the basement in front of the blaring television set with a Playstation controller in my hands. A vampire burst into flames, lighting the room with a flash of emerald light. I wiggled the joystick to avoid an enemy as my family sat upstairs, red-faced and crying, crowded around my dying mother's bed.

She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer four months earlier on Valentine’s Day. The doctors had given her only two weeks to live. Within the last couple of days—in the middle of June—her body started shutting down bit-by-bit, organ-by-organ. Her dying wish was that she live in the house for the duration of her life so she would be comfortable

I jumped a little when the basement door opened with a sickening jolt and a pair of socks crept down the steps. They belonged to my brother's girlfriend Kristina. She glared at me reproachfully through fierce green eyes. "How can you be playing video games at a time like this?" I imagined her screaming, pointing an accusing finger. "You're being so selfish. Quit avoiding your mom and spend some time with her before she dies!"

None of these comments escaped in her Minnesotan accent when she opened her mouth. She simply said, "Your mom’s fading fast. You might want to come up and say goodbye."

"Alright," I whispered, as I set down the controller with my sweaty hands.

She turned and walked upstairs.

I went to the bottom of the steps and clutched the railing to steady myself.

"So this is it," I thought.

I had climbed these steps at least a thousand times before, but one specific journey came to mind; it happened ten years before on a sweltering summer night.

♦ ♦ ♦
I sat on the couch watching a movie. During a commercial break a slippery chill crept down my spine and the hair on the back of my neck prickled. It was like creeping up the stairs in the darkness and expect one more step, but upon taking it, are only greeted with nothing.

"One day," I thought in terror, "my parents are going to die." The idea had never occurred to me before, but now that it did, it clutched my quickening heart. Though I had long abandoned the foolish idea of monsters lurking in the shadows, the phantom of death presented itself as a horrifying new fiend.

"What if I'm not here when it happens? Which one of my parents will be left alone in this house?" Leaping from the couch, I recklessly tripped and tumbled up the basement stairs as I ran to my parents' bedroom. "I'll just live here forever," I thought, rushing through the living room. "I won't let them die," I said, jumping three steps at a time up the carpeted stairs.

My parents' bedroom door was open. I looked inside as I caught my breath. They were lying in bed, reading books. My dad was thumbing through the pages of a novel about the Civil War, my mother absorbed in a Danielle Steele romance.

I knocked once and walked in. Reading my panicked face, my mother asked, "What's wrong Daniel?"

Hesitating a moment, I looked at my knees, embarrassed. "You're going to die someday. Both of you."

They exchanged knowing glances with one as my dad marked his page, and set down his book. "What brought this up?"

“I dunno. It just sort of hit me all of a sudden.” I plopped on their bed.

“We're not going to die for a long time,” my mom said, flashing a reassuring smile.

"But what if I'm not around when it happens?”

"You don't really have to worry about that right now, Daniel," my dad chimed in, with a firm pat on my shoulder.

"All the same," I said, trying to sound nonchalant, but failing miserably. "I'll just live with you guys forever. Or at least close by, so when," I paused, "you know. When you—die, I can be here real quick."

“If that’s what you want—”

“It is.”

“Okay. But, like we said—”

“I know, I know. I get it. You’re not going to die for a while,” I said with a smile. I jumped off their bed and was halfway through their doorway when I turned back. "G'night guys. I love you mom. I love you dad."

"We love you too," they said in unison.

They always had a way of making me feel safe and secure. After they had quieted my childish notions of death, I resumed my movie and pushed the thought from my mind. "How could I have been so stupid?" I thought. "They won't die for a long time.”

♦ ♦ ♦

I clutched the dull brass door handle, and shuffled through the kitchen, into the living room, where my mother lay dying. I couldn't help feeling that I'd been lied to.

My mom was in her hospital bed, frail and broken. Her gray skin was dry and papery, stretched across her bones, exposing the veins in her arms, and the spidery blood vessels along the sides of her forehead. She stared blankly at the ceiling through a shock of once brown hair—now white— with her clouded eyes. Ragged breaths burst sporadically through her thin, chapped lips, heaving her chest in convulsive movements. Yet, the blankets that lay on top of her hardly moved. For all that remained of my mother was her skeletal body. A mere suggestion of the person she once was.

As I walked in, Timothy, my older brother by two years, was saying goodbye to her.
He disappeared shortly after my mother had been diagnosed with cancer. He was around for the first two weeks, but when she didn’t die as quickly as planned, he started to withdraw. First, he didn’t come home one night for bed. That quickly turned to two, then three, until finally, he was sleeping at Kristina’s house every day of the week. In the mornings, he would creep into the house, get dressed, and leave for work. Secretly, I think my mother’s monstrous white hospital bed looming in the darkened living room scared him. Who really wanted to come home to the stench of sickness and death every night?

“I love you, mom,” he said as he stepped back, rubbing a hand in his disheveled, jet-black goatee. He squeezed his elephantine body by my fourteen-year-old sister Jennifer, and walked to the coach. He didn’t look at her body again. Instead he stared at the closed window shades.

My eyes shifted to Jennifer, who now loomed over the body as she pushed a lock of shoulder-length brown hair behind her ear. With one arm pressed against her stomach, she rested her elbow in the palm of her hand. Giant tears streamed down her cheeks. I expected her to say something, but she didn’t. She just hugged my mom’s body.
Was it my imagination or did my sister linger a moment as she embraced her? Maybe she was hoping for a hug in return. When my mother’s arms continued to hang limply at her side—the veins bulging from her skin, like mounds of dirt from freshly tilled molehills—she stood abruptly.

My dad motioned to me as my sister walked away. It was my turn. I crept up to her bedside. My eyes were red. "I love you, mom," I said brushing away a salty tear that had slid down my face. "I'll miss you." I bent down and hugged her gently; afraid she would break. My words sounded clichéd, but what was there left to say, that hadn’t been said? What was there left to do? I let her go and stepped back.

I watched as my dad moved to her side. When she was diagnosed with cancer in February, he took advantage of the sick leave he’d accumulated from his workplace for over thirty years—so he could support my mom. If she needed anything, he was never far away.

He took of his glasses and pinched the red marks at the bridge of his nose. After wiping his salt and pepper mustache with his bottom lip, he walked away and let my Grandma say her final words to her daughter. He didn’t say a word, and I couldn’t blame him. Our family had discovered my mother’s darkest secret months beforehand, making it extremely difficult to say goodbye.

As my dad sat down, my Grandma stood quietly, grasping the metal guardrails around my mother’s bed for support. She looked at my mom’s face, frozen in horror with her mouth half-open, eyes bulging. My Grandma moved her hand over my mother’s eyelids to close them, but they popped back open like a children’s doll.

“They won’t close,” she said with a trace of panic in her voice. “Why won’t they close—What are you doing?”

The question was directed at Kristina’s mom, Carol who had just walked into the living room with two pieces of scotch tape stuck to her fingers. She looked at my Grandma sympathetically. “This is so that her eyes will be closed when she goes. It can be kinda scary for the family, if her eyes stay open.”

My Grandma nodded and stepped aside. Carol then delicately placed the tape over my mother’s eyelids, blocking her haunting, deadened gaze.

I looked away from her corpse-like face in revulsion and saw my grandma now kneeling at the foot of the hospital bed. She was whispering something under her breath, but I couldn't make out what she was saying. Finally, when her elderly voice rose I distinctly heard the phrases, "Oh, Jesus" and “Lord, hear us now.” She was praying. I stalked to a chair at the foot of my mom's bedside and listened numbly to her fervent prayers.

"Give up!" I bellowed maliciously in my mind. "You can stop praying because God's not listening to you!" I glared at her, narrowing my bloodshot eyes. "Don't you remember? Everyone prayed a few months ago that God would heal her. Remember that? What happened to God's glorious intervention then? Are we going to pretend that this is all a part of God's master plan?” My mind was ready to burst. “I knew that God wouldn't answer your prayers. He'd given up on this family years ago!” I folded my arms with tears leaking from my crinkled eyes. Tilting my head, I looked up at the spot that my mom had watched with her blank stare before her eyelids were taped shut. “How many times do we have to change our prayer to cover your ass, God? Why don’t you do something! PLEASE!”

The room fell silent. "Did I say that out loud," I whispered to myself, nervously glancing at the faces of my family around me. After a tense moment, I realized the goodbyes were just over. Now, we waited for death. I began to count the seconds between each ragged breath.

She inhaled. "One, two, three, four—” She exhaled.

“Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen." She sighed once more and lay beneath her blanket looking more shrunken than ever.

I sat up from my chair, and looked at her face. "Was she dead?" I thought. "Would I know—”

"We should pray," Kristina said quietly.

"No more prayer," I fumed. "This family has wasted enough time on prayer."

Despite my silent objections, my grandma prayed aloud for several minutes. She talked about how my mother's pain would be over soon, and how she would be ushered into heaven, free of sickness and tears.

“Sickness you didn't heal," I said to God. “Tears that you caused.”

The prayer ended and an eerie silence crept across the room, punctuated only by my mother’s sickening gasps.

“Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three...”

Her chest lifted again, and then she paused, gulping for air. Her back arched, and her hands clenched a fistful of blankets; with a tremulous shiver, she let out a rattling breath and her body went limp and still. I waited a moment in vain. "Breathe!" I thought. "Why won't you breathe?"

The crashing realization hit me. She was dead.

“WHY?" I turned my rage at God. "Why won’t you let me have her, God? Why did you have to take her away from me!”

I looked at a small clock on the wall. It was eight-thirty. As the second hand continued to tick around the numbered face, I wondered why time hadn’t stood still.

"No!" I cried to myself. Why was my dad in the kitchen making telephone calls? My brother was in Kristina's arms; Carol was hugging my Grandma, and my sister stood by herself.

"This can't be happening," I thought.

When my brother broke away from Kristina, I looked at her and muttered, "Are—are we done here? Is she gone?”

She nodded.

A burst of chaotic colors swirled around me like a kaleidoscope. The room started to contract, and I felt that if I stayed inside any longer, I would suffocate.

I shuffled to the front door and muttered over my shoulder, “I'm going for a walk.” Bursting into the night, I stumbled down the front steps. Cicadas buzzed throughout the neighborhood as I walked down the hill my house was on until it leveled off. Reaching the bottom, I hopped the curb and passed through the damp grass until my shoes reached the sidewalk. A couple of children were playing at the end of the block. “Don’t you know what just happened up the street?” I wanted to shake them violently and slap their faces. Instead, I shuffled past them and moved in and out of the orange light cast from the street lamps and the dark, cloudy night.

Nothing registered as I took step after step. Not the passing headlights of the cars in the streets, or the whispering leaves on the branches. The only thing I noticed was the wind whipping against my tear-stained face.