Journal Entry of a Turtle

September 28^th, 2008

I am going to die.  I was standing alone in my kitchen when it hit.  I am going die.  My knees felt weak.  My heartbeat increased.  I am going to die.  I am going to die.  It took hold of my stomach.  It felt like nothing I’ve ever felt before.  I am going to die.  I put my glass of water down on the counter.  I bent over and put my hands on my knees.  I am going to die.  Deep, quick breaths.  It was emptiness spreading inside of me, I am going to die, a hole opening up into a nothing, widening from the dead-center of my stomach, expanding into my chest, into my legs.  It paralyzed my thoughts.  Until that was it: I am going to die.  It just sat there in front of me.  I am going to die.  Nothing behind it.  I am going to die.  Nothing in front of it.  I am going to die. Nothing else.  All I felt was nothing. 

I am going to die. Nothing.  I am going to die.  Nothing.  I am going to die.  Nothing.  I am going to die.  Nothing.  I am going to die.  Nothing.  I am going to die.  Nothing.  I am going to die. Nothing.

And then I was afraid.  Fear swept in like a saving force.  The nothing was still there, inside of me, but I was afraid of it now, which meant that it wasn’t me anymore.  I wanted to curl up in the corner.  I wanted to hide from it.  I wanted to hide from something that wasn’t me.  But still, it stared at me, stared at my thoughts.  But my thoughts were there now.  Distinct from it.  I wanted to run.  I wanted to cringe.  I wanted to react.  It was desire.  It rejected what had just come in.  Desire and fear were fighting it down.  They pinned it.  And I was regaining control.  My breathing became more regular.  I had tamed it.  It was something at the bottom of my thoughts now, just a small patch of a phrase: I am going to die, spread flat like a thin layer of soil.

The kitchen hadn’t changed, but it had.  I stood still for a little while before I picked up the glass of water and took a sip.  It tasted the same.  And it tasted different.  I looked at the microwave.  Four numbers stared back at me.  11:32.  Glowing red.  It seems dumb, but there was someone behind those numbers.  Someone, motionless, patient, who had just watched me suffer something of a panic attack.  And I knew it was only me and that someone behind those four numbers.  Our eyes locked, turning the moment into a contest, a staring match between me and that thing behind the numbers.  And then its left eye blinked:  11:33.  

The Stood I Found Rocking

The stood I found rocking I held out like a fist full of glory, a magnificent display I ran now for the pleasant sensation of post-life glow.  How hard we should all try!  Not to put it in the wrong light, it’s simply beyond my ability to capture it any other way.  And the ways, the ways move away like rays from the sun.  It being so preposterous that we were cluttered around a small table in this dingy, overcrowded bar, the seven of us huddled like football players before taking the line of scrimmage, our beers in hand, yelling at cross channels and abusing the acoustics that our wall of faces had created. 

“Goiters! French!” yelled Stephen, his face beaming red from drunkenness.  Alex slapped him across the cheek, screaming “Off with thee!” and everyone laughed because no one had a clue what was going on.  I leaned back, breaking the circle and laughing so hard that my rib cage felt like it had incarcerated a monkey on PCP and I realized I needed to piss. 

The line to use the urinals stretched five persons long and I moved onto its tail to make it six.  There was a flush and a moment later our line became one person shorter.  The walls were breathing, palpitating in and out of focus.  Two new people arrived behind me and our line became seven-people long.  I was jittery and having a conversation with the guy standing in front me.  “I don’t agree with the one man rule,” I explained, slurring the syllables, “Should be the four men and five women rule, but no children.  Over-breeding, arghhh, passé!”  I was swaying, holding my groin.  The man replied in French and the words passed over me without me understanding any of their content.  I nodded politely.  Another flush and the line momentarily shrunk.

Walking out of the bathroom, I was accosted by a pair of disembodied hands that literally dragged me over to the bar, where I was met by Jacqueline’s eyes, lusterless and dumb drunk, her pleading for me to take a shot of tequila with her.  Two shots materialized on the mahogany bar as if by magic and, before I knew it, we were toasting to autocratic turtles.  I tried to figure out if chance or design had the tequila running down my throat.  Then I choked, trying to hold down vomit and desperately searching for a chaser.  I grabbed some man’s beer and took two long gulps.  I handed his cup back with apologies while reaching into my pocket for cash because, even in my stupor, I knew this man wanted to start a fight over me taking his beer like that.  Jacqueline had disappeared and I wasn’t finding any money in my pockets and the man was standing in my face and yelling in French so that his beer-breath flooded over my nostrils.  I felt a crisp something between my fingers and knew it was money.  I handed a red note to the man and he smiled and handed me the rest of his beer.

I felt like falling over and was vaguely aware that I was swaying.  I drained the beer in a single gulp.  The faces in the bar were blurring together and the din was a raging storm and I was stumbling around when I stopped remembering.  Dark ran this last act, who could rework the happenings of fourteen while it grew fantastically?  Here the filth turned to the sublime, the vomit glittering with diamonds, canned bile and canned memories stocked along a shelf stretching off through eternity.  Obliterated.