At the Bottom of Everything by Ben Dolnick

Author:Ben Dolnick [Dolnick, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307907981
Publisher: Pantheon
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

From: <Thomas Pell>

To: <Adam Sanecki>

Date: Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 5:01 AM

Subject: re: (no subject)

… Here’s something I don’t think you know, I kept her obituary in the locked drawer of my desk, I would look at it, alone at night, she smiled like someone had made an old joke, she wore glasses, someone outside the frame had his arm around her, I would imagine I knew her, it was my arm, sometimes I could hear her voice, I could feel her sweater against my cheek, I’d shake like a tuning fork. To my parents I must have looked like I was doing nothing, lying on the couch, turning to face away from the sun, I could have been paralyzed, I could have been a house-plant, inside I was screaming, the fear was worse, when your mind turns against you, the felt experience, I didn’t know, was that the world turns against you. I wanted to see her parents, wanted to ask were they all right, had they lived their lives, I wondered if I’d taken their suffering (matter is neither created nor destroyed). I knew I was evil, I’d been a mistake, if I lived as I was, continued to live, I was a spinning blade, a driverless car. Not sleeping for days, I would have conversations with Mira, see her sitting with me on the couch, whispering to me, the back of her head was missing, she didn’t know, I would sit up sobbing, tell R I didn’t know why, must have been a nightmare, he would hold my head in his lap, I’d never known my parents, something had gone cold, these people I’d loved were strangers, obstacles, I needed to stop feeling the way I felt, endless planning. I would try, sometimes, to test whether parts were still OK, I would take down a book from the shelf, the sentences would close up as I read them, I would forget the meaning by each period. I would turn on the TV, daytime movies, I couldn’t follow plots, what plots I could understand had to do with terror, death, exposure. Sometimes I needed a blanket, I became cold, much colder than the temperature. Other days the floor, the couch was too soft, I would need my face against wood, I would quietly moan, feel the buzz, I would ask the floor, Did I deserve to live, if I did, please tell me how, please tell me how Adam manages. This lasted months. I started to walk sometimes at night to their house, 3409 Ordway, leaving my front door like walking into a fire, such terror, I would stare at my feet, every step, fifteen minutes, a street just like yours, red brick, shingle roof, the lights were off, island in the ocean, I thought of her parents asleep in their beds, I thought of her childhood room untouched, I would lie on the lawn by their brick path, imagine she was buried underneath, flesh turned sod, I would think, How will I get home, will I be found here, will I be buried here.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.