Small. Smaller. Tiny.

On my morning walk, I spotted an autonomous lawnmower– absent a human.

I started thinking what it would be like to mow the yard without a body.

Then I wondered what it would be like to sit down with my family for dinner without a body–

And to embrace my wife without a body, for her to know I’m there.

Then I rubbed the callouses on the palms of my hand with my thumb, and felt grateful for the body, for this work of spiritual, tangible braille that I can touch, and read, and know God through.

Driving home to Tennessee, we passed through Columbus , Ohio. It’s about a third of the way home for us. We started in Rochester, NY with a terminal point just south of Nashville, TN. In Pennsylvania and some parts of NY and Ohio, there’s the occasional slow traffic of Amish buggies when you take the side roads . They bounce down the shoulder, cluttering the dirty road air with dust pebbles . Their historical and pastoral appearance of hand-sewn dresses and chinstrap beards, in addition to those stern faces, makes everybody in my car sigh and relax . It’s one of those moments for turning the radio down to silence , and when everybody wants to be most attentive to a passing mystery.

It makes no sense.

If they were on a bicycle, each and everyone of us would be agitated– cussing out the window, maybe even spitting.

But because they’re driving buggies and look ancient to us, we stare at them as if staring at a river that leads down into Columbus, Ohio– the land of unfinished bridges. I couldn’t count all of them — because I was driving, balancing my coffee with one hand, not wanting to spill it on my wife. However, there was one bridge I noticed, less finished than the others, and I wondered where it would lead to, what lands or people would it be joining, what states of consciousness would it stitch together to make a person whole. Lastly, I wondered what toll it would charge for its use.

And that’s when I felt scared, and mute. I turned the radio up, and prayed for the music to yank me up out of my skin, to stretch me from one side of the unfinished bridge to the other side, which I couldn’t see.

Here’s a brief side project I worked on while drafting some other pieces. It’s odd, but I may like it in the future.

Somedays, writing and publishing a proper story or blog is too tedious.

So I draw.

This one is the story of a man who only communicates through surveys.

You know the type.

He never makes eye contact with others.

He nods his head in agreement.

But give him a survey and he’s the loudest possible world in our entire galaxy.

At 10 in the morning, it’s already 92 degrees with a heat index of 101. My sheets stick to my skin, heavy with my sweat and all of the dreams that flushed out of my body last night. Although I’m not sure, I sense that somewhere on the sheets is a salt crusted stain in the shape of Alaska, which is the place I dreamed of. I was fishing in a river there when a plane landed, skipping across the water like a flat stone. When the pilot opened the door, it was myself as the pilot and passenger and I offered to fly me away.

But there’s no time to write it down in my dream journal . I’m late to work so I throw on a pair of skinny jeans that my legs resist due to the sweaty dampness that slows the fabric down as I tug them up.

Arriving at the corner of Cool Springs and Carrothers , I park my 1983 Chevy S10 in the walking park, then I grab my signs. My task is to advertise the mattress sale. While I get paid hourly, we earn bonuses if we move five customers to the store.

The bonuses make the difference and I do anything to get them. All it takes is a little showmanship.

Me, I actually re-enact the Michael Jackson Beat It video and Thriller.

I have an old guitar amplifier that I plug a cd player into. Then it’s showtime.

The bells ring and I make a dramatic face, then I point my finger at a driver,   coaxing them towards me with a “come hither” look.

Nobody usually gets out of their car, but it’s fun.

On this particular day, a woman in a jeep with her roof down pulls over and begins to dance.  At first, I think she’s doing it to mock me and be ironic. That’s usually the case.

Standing out here I’ve had stones thrown at me,fast food  trash projected towards my sign, and I’ve even had a father drive his son close to me, take a picture, then state, “If you keep getting in trouble in school, this is what you’ll become. A fucking no-name on some corner , twirling a sign.”

However, that doesn’t happen today. The woman hops out of her jeep and moves towards me without violence.

” Hey, I really need this today. I’m Shirley.”

I extend my hand to shake.

“Hey Shirley. I’m Bob. What can I help you with?”

“It would be fun to do the Beat It routine. I haven’t done it since I taught a few years back. Can you take the lead?”

“Sure. Weird request, but sure.”

I walk over to my cd player and hit the button again.

“Ready? Stand behind me to my right, and follow.”

The music begins.

I narrate the choreography directions, and she follows  my moves.  Even at 45 years old,  I’ve never led anyone in anything, but this feels good. It’s a first. 

We have a great time dancing and  have a lot of laughs. Other cars watch us and cheer us on. When the song is over, she asks if she could get a cd from her car.

Of course, I oblige.

 She may have friends who want to buy a mattress– which means a bonus and maybe two big macs for me.

“Here we go. It’s Patience by Guns and Roses– one of their slow songs.”

I remember how much I  loved this tune in high school.  

We pop the cd in and feel timid as soon as we hear Axl’s whistling. Shirley takes baby steps towards me, as if fighting gravity, going against the wind,  and I feel the heat rise to my face.

She places her right cheek on my chest and dips her hands under my arms to embrace my shoulders.

She sways back and forth, like a boat on water.

Then I hold her and I sway.

She starts to shake as she cries on my chest. My cheeks get wet from my tears, but I wipe them, afraid of soiling her hair.

All I can do is hold her and tell her it’s all ok until it’s not . So we hit repeat on the player and dance until the sun goes down, and the traffic is gone, and we can’t separate our bodies knotted together like two cars in a wreck.

It’s 2:00 AM and the house is being violently searched. Valerie hears cellophane wrappers crinkling while the doors throughout the house open and close . All the ruckus vibrates the home into a low-intensity buzz.

Occasionally, there’s a pause in the noise.

As Val awakes, she places her hand on Ian’s side of the bed. There’s nothing there but a crater and a few wrinkled sheets.

She swings her legs over the side, plants her feet into some blue furry slippers, then puts on her silk kimono robe.

Opening the bedroom door, she trips on a trail of toys during her march to the kitchen. It’s there that she observes her husband of 10 years standing in front of eight opened cupboards and a single pantry door. He’s in his underwear and a stained white t shirt from the Honey Ham company.

“What the hell is he doing?” she wonders, while fixing the waistband in her underwear.

Placing his hands in a box of individually wrapped chips, the husband opens a bag, stuffs and crumbles them into his mouth while the debris and crumbs rain onto the ceramic tile.

Ian’s eyes are closed entire time. It takes 10 seconds to finish a bag.

Without pausing, his hands gesture a searching motion until he hits the pantry door frame, then makes a swift vertical move with his right hand, striking a box .

Placing his hand into the box, he pinches another bag, opens it, then devours it—tossing the bag onto the ground. By Val’s estimate, there are about 20 bags scattered across the floor.

Moving closer to Ian, she grabs his hand, but he swats at it like an insect.

His language is all vowels. O. A. E. Long U. IIIIIIIIIIIII.

“Jezus you reek of vodka and gin!” yells Valerie.

Then she whispers, “I told you not on weeknights.”

But it’s too late. He’s vodka-deaf, gin-blind, and trapped in a cell of his hunger. There’s no stopping him.

He continues eating all the snacks that his hands can feel.

Exhausted, Val goes back to the bedroom, locks the door, scrolls through her phone until drifting off to sleep.

#

The next morning Val finds Ian sleeping on the kitchen floor with empty bags of chips and cookies all around him. All the cupboards, drawers and pantry doors open to reveal the chaos of boxes tipped and spilling across borders of organization.

She worked all week to organize the kitchen— and now this .

Jennifer, their eight-year-old, enters the living room, ready for school.

“Good morning, mom.”
“Good morning, baby. Daddy got home late last night.”

Val takes a drag of her cigarette, sips some coffee , then tells the daughter that she’s going to have to buy lunch today— because the father of the year ate all her goddamn snacks.

Jennifer and Valerie leave for their day while Ian lay on the floor .

Valerie hears similar noises that nigh– but they’re scratches against windows– tree branches and shrubs scraping against the the corrugated siding.

She gets dressed, then heads upstairs to lock Jennifer’s door.

She follows the sound outside to find Ian. He’s in the side garden, stuffing a globe of Hydrangeas into his throat. One after the other, he devours every floral ball until the bush is naked.

Following the hydrangeas, his hands search the exterior wall of the garage until locating a hibiscus plant, just next to the garbage can. Each hibiscus flower resembles a cocktail parasol—circular,
merlot, and as thin as cigarette paper. His hands search and read the vine until he finds a flower, then ingests.

He’s been here for a while. All the vegetables are gone and there are crumbs of tulip flowers dusting his hair.

This was my garden the way the snacks were Jennifer’s snacks, Val whispers.

She moves towards her husband, kisses his forehead, tastes the pollen on his skin. Looking up, she stares at the silhouette of a pine tree , about 8 feet from a mailbox.

There’s a full moon sitting on top of it. And there’s a halo around the moon.

On this evening, the moon is a white hole leading somewhere. Perhaps a rope ladder will fall from it, so that Val can climb the conifer while dragging her husband through the branches.

Only then may she dispose of his body by dropping it into the portal so that it can rot with space junk.

Then again, maybe not.

Maybe something like God exists on the other side of the hole. Maybe he’s laughing at the naked garden and the colors planted in her husband’s stomach.

Or maybe he’s laughing that she’s stayed with him this long.

The onset is sudden, like a sneeze. Numbness, then the inability to move. All tension and muscle tone fail and the structure of the face is compromised– as if the right side is sliding off the skull and into a
garden near my feet.

My uncloseable eye swallows the sun , the dust and the world without warrant and in portions humans weren’t designed for.

Simply stated, the eye is choking on what it receives . Therefore, tears pulse as consistently as the heart beats. The only gag reflex it has is to cry.

I tell my husband, “I wasn’t designed for this. I wasn’t designed for any of this.”

Predictably, he kisses me on the cheek, makes a joke about my two faces, tells me it’ll all be okay.

Laughing with him, I notice how my left face smiles and winks like a kid on a carousel – eating cotton candy for the first time.

Simultaneously, I notice how my right face cries, frowns, and ages me well beyond my years.

But maybe this dichotomy existed all along– and it just took the affliction to bring it to the surface.

Maybe the two sides of my face are twins , each with their own backstory. Maybe one grew up on a farm with her biological parents. Maybe the other grew up elsewhere, in an unnamed land that can only be felt in the bones.

When you enter the sauna in silence, and there’s no media on the screen, it becomes a confession booth.

You don’t use your voice to confess. You don’t need a priest.

You only have to use your breath, your aches, and your moaning to sing a picture of all the questionable activities you’ve participated in over the years. You’re eavesdropping on your body and your shadow.

It’s both a sermon and a prayer that you can’t unhear or unfeel even if you wanted to.