One-cent miracle
The following is a short story I wrote in regards to abusive relationships.
I
stood there staring at the fountain. Its water a reflection of cool, blue
resonating off the painted tiles that comprised its handiwork. I thought it
ironic. That we throw wishes into water in the form of pocketed coins only to
watch them slowly dance to the bottom of a marble holding cell. Wasn’t hope
supposed to float? And what if one coin landed pompously upon another? Was that
wish suffocated and prevented from coming true? What about the men who cleaned
out the fountain in the winter, who gave them permission to remove the hopes
and dreams of the millions who placed their thoughts in sinking copper?
Alone,
I looked around the cobblestone that surrounded the vacant park, thinking of
all the footsteps that left their impressions upon the companionless stone. I
pictured mothers with children, holding ice cream in one hand and fumbling
within their pockets or pocketbooks to find pennies to hand their loved ones.
The chubby fingers that clenched copper wishes and dipped fingers into the
rich, water before flicking hopes into a ceramic god.
I
pictured men on cigarette breaks blowing smoke like pride out through their
quiet mouths. Their left hands grabbing at suit pockets picking pennies and
tossing them into the fountain as careless as they cast away their feelings.
All
that responsibility the fountain had, I wonder if sometimes it got too much to
bare. I wonder if it cried at night, its water spilling from the cracks in its
stature, afraid of not being able to satisfy, afraid of not being good enough.
A lot of pressure it was, to house the hopes and dreams of those deserving and
those who selfishly wished for more.
Maybe
I really wasn’t alone. I stood beside the fingerprints of those who believed
enough in fate to cast a wish, a hope, a desire, a prayer, a question, an
answer. The air was thick with yearning, with fear.
The
sun was just now coming over the tops of the trees, soon to cover the day like
a security blanket and soon the park would be filled with the footsteps of
those who lived their lives trying to be good enough.
I
held my bag tighter under my arm. I felt the weight it possessed, almost like
the weight I carried on my chest every morning when I woke up and held in the
pain I slept with the night before. I sat down on a bench underneath a pine
tree, its needles who made refuge on the cool autumn ground, scattered oddly in
patters unable to be traced. I swung my legs forward, backward, side to side.
My decision as indecisive as his moods.
I
reached inside my bag, my palms sweaty, but the body of the gun cold and
solemn. The indent of my finger pressed gently on its black exterior. I had
left that morning most similar to every other, after a night of black and blued
flesh and booze. He’d hold his beer bottles gentler than he’d ever hold me, and
just like finished bottles he’d put me on a counter, empty so that everyone
else could see my existence, but know nothing about my insides.
I
remember thinking that if walls could talk, they’d scream for me. They’d shed
their paint and swallow me into their woodwork, to keep me safe, and to provide
me the opportunity to see him for what he really was.
This
morning, when my alarm went off he threw my phone across the room, and rolled
over pulling all of the sheets with him, my sheets.
“Why
the fuck do you get up so early? Shit. You shouldn’t even sleep here if you’re
going to wake me up, now I won’t go to class and I’ll blame it on you for
fucking keeping me up last night with your stupid crying. And for waking me up
now with your stupid alarm! Make sure you close the fucking door.”
I
couldn’t even muster a response. It probably wasn’t even worth it anyway. I
knew the walls were taking stock of all the worthless words and broken promises
anyway. Someday I’d come back and retrieve them, I’d spackle their holes after
I spackled my own.
I
couldn’t even cry in the shower that morning. There were no tears left, he took
them all. I did my hair and my makeup, thinking that when they found me they’d
know there was beauty in the breakdown, there was beauty destroyed, there was
beauty worth preserving if only the right person had come along to save it and
make it their own.
Making
my way to the park my mind was completely vacant until I caught the fountain in
my peripheral vision. Then it was flooded with thoughts, cultivating sadness
into blame, into anger.
Fuck
wishes, I’ll give you my two sense on that one-cent dream. I didn’t get mine. I
got a nightmare. I got bruised ribs and a superficial touch. I got
self-mutilation and unanswered questions.
I
got the wrong idea of love.
I
reached for the gun and let my head fall in this emotion packed autumn. I
released the safety and wondered if when a heart exploded it felt the pain. I
wondered if there was even any more pain to feel. I stared at my wrists and
decided that the cuts provided a map that illustrated the hurt I had felt, but
had been unable to speak of, when suddenly I heard footsteps scuffing the
cobblestone.
Those
eyes I could recognize from space, although I hadn’t seen them in the longest
time. A green so perfect and indescribable, so inviting, so comforting.
Without
words he approached me slowly. Sitting down, removing the gun from my hands and
dropping it in the garbage can that devoured its power and sent its bullets
packing for a demise that wasn’t mine. Silently, he placed his arms around me
and pulled me close.
“As much as it hurts, sometimes it is all you
can do to wait, to endure, and to keep shining, knowing that eventually, your
light will reach where it is suppose to reach and shine for who it is suppose
to shine.” (tsg)
I
turned to the fountain and smiled as I laid out pennies on its edge for other
quiet, victims.
Someone else deserves to survive too.
~vbr
