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lisseulement-blog · 6 years ago

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in memory of ms. pontellier

SHE left the note on the nightstand, where he would surely see it. She had kept it brief, wrote single-spaced in stiff Times New Roman.

The hadn’t been much to say to him, much she could have said.

She had gone with the usual cliches, the repetitive messages that explained all she wanted to say.

“It’s not your fault.”

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

“You’ll find someone better.”

She had printed it in the office hours beforehand, folded it in half neatly and slipped it into her briefcase under the folders for the cases she would never see finished.

After he had fallen asleep she had had to pry his heavy arm off. His slumbering flesh had felt warm, and for a half-second she held the fleeting fantasy of climbing back in bed. She could still call it off, could still unpack the bags, could still shred the note.

She hadn’t turned on the lights--he was a heavy sleeper, yes, but why risk it?

White moonlight through the half-opened blinds guided her path as she grabbed the bags she had packed that afternoon. She took everything with her so he would have nothing to remember her by; nothing to cling to; nothing to miss. The sooner her got over her, the better.

The warm night air, languid and relaxed, cloaked her as she stepped into the driveway. Her steps were measured and resolute; she moved as king to a coronation.

“I’m moving to Europe,” she had written in the second paragraph, near the end of the letter. She kept it vague on purpose. Knowing him, if she listed a nation, he might actually go searching. “Don’t look for me.”

Deep in the dead of night, the city stirred with drunken light and fearful motion. People chasing money, people chasing dreams.

In her mind’s eye she could see the city, then the state, then the country. The satellite images of a city that became a dot, that became a speck. Further and further, until it became nothingness on a blue orb floating in a cloud of vastness. Even now, that cosmic insignificance still held a sort of bemusing novelty to it.

She smiled at the skyscrapers, at the office lights still glimmering in the pitch-black sky. So much blood and tears to carve a sliver out of that nothingness.

Then the city was behind her; only the road and the lights around her remained.

She stopped two hours in, at a mall with a Goodwill bin. It took her a good fifteen minutes to get everything out of the trunk--the clothes, the jewelry, the books, the bedsheets. She apologized silently to the Goodwill worker who would have to sort though it all.

She paused before she got back into the car, suddenly remembering several items she had meant to dispose of separately. She felt a twinge of embarrassment but pushed it aside. The Sexual Revolution had come and passed long ago; Goodwill had probably seen worse.

She turned the keys in the ignition and continued on her way.

Buying one-way tickets had felt strange. It was after only she had type in her credit card number that she’d realized it was the first time she’d bought a one-way ticket. The first and the last. She waited to see if she would feel regret. And as expected, she felt nothing. Just the same tiredness of the mundane, of the repetition, of the boredom. She had a sudden memory of an English professor lecturing--there was a better word for that constant feeling, one she couldn’t recall it now.

She looked to the dim horizon, peered into the half-lit darkness of the rural roads, and felt a sense of relief.

She felt like a runner nearing the end of a long awaited finish line. In a way, she was.

It was the same bone-tiredness she had felt years ago, backpacking through Europe. Staring at the palaces, staring at the tower, staring at the old cities and the history. There was supposed to be a sense of wonder, a feeling of reverence for old glories and arcing triomphes.

Instead she seen only old stone and crumbling foundations; metal and marble fighting against time. But she had seen it all, and when her friends asked, she had dutifully relayed the manufactured answers. Why yes, the Buckingham palace had been quite regal and the Eiffel Tower nothing short of breathtaking. The Arc de Triomphe had moved her in ways nothing short of the Brandenburg Gate could compare.

She had said it all with a smile to everyone that had asked; she’d posted the pictures after some light editing, and when it was all done she had checked it off of the list.

---

He’d been the last thing on the list: “Fall in love with a handsome guy and live happily ever after.”

She’d left out marriage and children on purpose. It hadn’t worked for her parents, so she hadn’t felt the need to make it an obligation.

He was every bit the fairy tale prince. Smart, handsome, well-off and deeply devoted to her. And she, for her part, had fallen in love with him correctly. She’d written the cute messages of love like she was supposed to, kissed him, cooked, cleaned, and given him her body for as long as he wanted, however he wanted. As long as she smiled, it was exactly like the love actors played out in movies and authors feverishly transcribed into books. She had done everything right.

Her dress shoes crunched on the pebbled beach. In the silence of the night, the lake roared like a slumbering beast, the rhythmic sound enveloping her in a pulsing heartbeat.

This was as close to eternity as she would ever personally experience she decided, as she walked towards the lapping waters. Long after humanity ceased, long after the world grew too barren and polluted to support life. Water would wear against land.

She looked up and saw the stars, their brightness unobscured by city lights.

This was as close to eternity as she would ever comprehend. The stars that shone when Earth had glowed in fiery youth; the stars that would continue to shine after the sun damned all of the human solar system.

She started scooping up rocks, piling them up away from a pit she had begun to dig. The action brought back memories. She was young again, her hair tied in pigtails, a her bright yellow one-piece blending with the blinding sun.

She remembered the companion that had been by her side, the kindred spirit that had laughed with her when the waves had suddenly reach up and knocked over their sand castle.

There had been weeknight slumber parties, movie premiers, amusement parks. They had gone to college together, roomed together, and when the time came, she had been there to catch the bouquet.

“You’re next,” her white-clad companion had said with a smile, a droplet of sweat running down her flushed face as she pointed. She could see the drop of sweat now, running down that slim neck, between the soft curves of those breasts, down into the depths of that tight wedding dress.

Then there were the words that had followed: “You caught the bouquet, so I’ll be attending your wedding soon.” The words were casual, nonchalant. Their truth was self-evident; obvious, inevitable.

From anyone else, it would have been easy to smile. To agree, to nod, to keep up the charade. But when she said it, something had broke. Control had falter and fumbled, and in that part of a second, she had almost lost everything.

Recovered had been graceless, awkward and forced. She hoped fervently that, in the all excitement of the day, no one had noticed. She told herself that, as long as she smiled, the tears were from joy.

“Yes,” she had replied, her voice quivering with what she told herself was excitement. “Yes.”

---

Satisfied with the hole, she stripped until she stood naked in the night.

The moon reflected off the waves; she noted this beauty absentmindedly as she searched for any last minute doubts. Anything else to add to the list, any excuse to prolong the meaninglessness.

“Call me,” she had said, years ago. Before the wedding, before Europe, before they had even graduated.

“If you ever need me, I’ll be there, I swear.”

The phone was in her hand without her realizing. She had pulled it out of the pit without thinking, had the number typed out before she had even determined what she would say.

I’ll tell her goodbye she decided at the first ring. She would say goodbye, and then she would be on her way.

Just goodbye? A voice asked her at the fourth ring. Is that really all you’ll say?

It was on the sixth ring that it dawned on her that people slept; that 3 AM was really not an appropriate time to make phone calls.

Then a click--a voice on the line.

“Hi, you’ve reached Barbara--and Brad!” a voice interjected. “Please leave a message after the tone.”

She smiled and shook her head. How silly she had been.

---

She ignored the pain of the pebbles digging into her feet as she filled the pit. She wondered how long her belongings would last. Perhaps in some distant future, archaeologists would excavate her phone; some academic hand would painstakingly extract her dress shirt from sedimentary rock and say, “Ah, so this is how humans of the 21st century lived.”

The roaring of the waves filled her now; the feeling of escape rushed through her like primal adrenaline.

She took a deep breath. She was at peace now, and would be at peace for all eternity.

The water was surprisingly warm when she stepped in; the pebbles still digging into her feet as she made her first strides into the water.

Then it was around her, shuddering and violent. It wanted her now. She had to struggle to stay afloat, to steal a breath between slams as the waves rushed at her. Not yet, not yet. I’ve still a ways to go.

----

He’ll never know she thought with some satisfaction. Her smooth breaststroke cut through the water at a leisurely rate. Her legs pushed in a powerful, lazy motion.

He’d never know the loneliness she had felt in his arms, never realize how unhappy she had been in his joyful embrace. The thought seemed absurdly hilarious, and she had to actively fight the urge turn back and text him all of it.

All of the feelings she had bottled up, her true thoughts and beliefs and opinions--all of it, she suddenly wanted--needed--him to know. But that would ruin it all, that would stain the pure fantasy life she had worked so hard to manufacture.

Nevertheless, the urge persisted. It pulled at her and pestered her with the voice of full of madness and desperation.

Tell him how horrible he is in bed, tell him how you were faking it every single time, tell him how you look at him and feel nothing but obligation. Tell him how you wish his arms were softer, tell him how terrible his body feels against yours, tell him how meaningless his job is, his promotion is, his coworkers are, his existence is.

The shore had long since disappeared into the darkness. She could feel herself tiring now, the slow, easy strokes becoming harder and harder to complete.

Finally she stopped, unable to continue. She started treading water, her arms and legs clawing furiously as obstinate animal instinct refused to succumb. But even as her limbs burned and her breaths came out in ragged gasps, she felt peaceful. Eyes closed, she waited for her body to tire, for the end to come.

---

Dawn came, shining and brilliant. The sun rose from the edge of the horizon, pushing back darkness slowly but surely.

In the last moments before her arms gave out and her legs ceased to struggle she allowed herself one last glance at the light.

Goodbye she had wanted to say, but there was no one to hear her and no one she wanted to listen. No one she told herself even as an inkling of someone gave her reason to pause.

Goodbye she insisted and then let herself be still.

She released herself to the water she had held at bay for so long. She fell into the darkness that had clamored at her face for hours, that had grasped her neck from dusk to dawn. She felt herself sinking even as her feet instinctively pointed downward on tiptoes in search of a bottom.

Finally, peace at last.

This was okay right? She had nothing to regret, nothing left worth pursuing. This was what she wanted, this is what she had planned. There was no meaning, no reason not to. All choices had the same end; now or later, it made no difference.

But the more she told herself, the more she embraced the cold logic, the more something inside her struggled.

There was no reason to her trepidation, no logic, no sense, rhyme or rhythm.

Biology she realized. It is biology she thought darkly as she felt the cold embrace her still body.

But, though she waited and waited, the water never filled her lungs.

Gradually, she realized she had touched the bottom of the lake--she had been so preoccupied with her thoughts that she had failed to register the soft sand between her toes.

She attempted to stand, her tired legs burning with fatigue with every movement. Gradually she realized if she stood up straight the water only reached her chin.

She started to laugh. All that effort, all that planning, all for what?

The universe is laughing at me. Hot wet tears dripped from the corner of her eyes, mingling with the waves of the lake. She could not tell if it was laughter that wracked her or violent sobs. Probably both.

Relief filled her as the tension escaped. She stood limply, letting the waves push and pull her as she stared glassy-eyed at the light blue sky.

For a time she stood there in the lake, too tired to move, too tired to think.

Then, taking one last look at the horizon, she sighed and starting the long swim back to shore.

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