The Suffering Season
“It’s been awhile, Autumn.”
“Yes, Alex, I’m so sorry. I just needed to process some things, you know?”
“I’m really worried about you. I’ve tried calling, stopping by, tantalizing you with the idea of a business trip, and none of those elicited any response.”
“I know, Alex. It’s been a rough season here in Hel for me, for some reason.”
“I can tell. You’re looking tired.” He leaned against the wall in the hall outside my doorway. I knew I needed to invite him in.
“I feel tired. Do you want to come in?”
“Of course I do, Autumn. I want to listen to what you have to say, and why you haven’t come out of your house in a long, long time.”
“It hasn’t been that long.”
“You haven’t been trying to manipulate the sound in a botanical garden using only plant material. That makes any string of days feel long.”
“Oh man, I got the calls from you as you worked on that project. Can you blame me for staying in?”
“I get it, Autumn. But I needed you!” He drew out the last phrase to make himself sound comically desperate.
I looked at him with my itchy, red crying eyes. “Alex, you are so wonderful. Thank you for coming here to get me out of my house.”
“You need me, Autumn. I can tell. I mean, maybe not me, but you need a sidekick right now, someone to help get you out of the house.” I could see him eyeing up the mess in my normally tidy house. “What’s going on here?”
He walked over to the sink and began to run the water, filled up my tea kettle and turned it on. Instead of coming to the couch he turned on the hot water tap and began to wash the pile of mugs and plates and bowls, coffee spoons and forks that had piled up in the last two weeks.
“What else, other than the obvious, can I do to help you?” He asked me.
“Lets go somewhere.” I said, surprising even myself.
“Where, Autumn? I’ll take you anywhere you like.”
“Lets find an ocean. I’ve never been there. I want to learn how to surf.”
“What?” he said, clearly surprised.
“Yeah. I want to try something new. To see if I can.”
“I thought you were more of a teacup and good book sort of gal.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“But you want to learn to surf?”
“Yeah. I do. Where’s the nearest ocean?”
“I went there once, a long, long time ago. I think it took me a day and a half to drive there? It wasn’t too bad. I can’t remember if people were surfing on it but we can go figure out where a good beginner surfing beach is.”
“Yeah. That’d be amazing. You’d really drive me to the ocean? I used to love the ocean!” Half a second later I realized what I had said. Everything I knew about myself had embedded itself into me and that tiny detail about watching the sun sparkle on the water had become a memory to me, real and living, sparking assumptions about myself.
“I thought you’d never been to the ocean.”
“I haven’t, not here.”
“But you said you used to love it.”
“Yes,” I said. It made no sense to cover the slip up to me. “I think in the life I had before I would have loved the ocean.”
“Then lets go find it.”