17 April 2012
'We traveled by train to reach the hub, watched Downtown flicker by outside the windows. Snow cascaded from the sky, and beams of morning sunlight pierced the clouds hanging between the skyscrapers. Endless streams of cars moved in the streets below, trapped in an ever flowing loop. It was hard to make sense of such chaos, and yet there was a peaceful zen to it all.
From on high, I couldn’t imagine the multitude of memories, desires and stories down there, all of them pressing to get somewhere, to do something. Every minute of the day was counting down to my death and I might never see another morning sun, and yet, down there, millions of people were jammed together, most of them hardly aware or concerned about their mortality. To them, it was just another day, one that wouldn’t matter nor be anything special in the larger canvas of their lives. Just another workday, a trip to the store, a haircut, or some other inconsequential bullshit.
I’d wasted my life, I suddenly thought. Taken it for granted, like so many did, and only seen the beauty of a thing the moment it was taken from me. I despised the feeling, convinced I’d always been a little smarter than the average workerbee. But I wasn’t. I was just another cog in the machine, always looking for ways to better things instead of appreciating what I had.
I missed Cam. Missed her smile. Missed laying next to her at night, her scent and warmth. I missed the person I thought she was. I missed my kids, missed listening to them sleeping through a crack in the door. I missed all those things that had the proportion of a mountain in my heart, but only existed as a snapshot in my head. Things that would die with me, as though they never were.
I remembered when things were at their worst, walking through that front door, walking into a home that was neither empty or silent but felt both. Where every breath seemed like my last, when Cam and I were caught in the gravity of things we couldn’t change. The kids were too young to know what was going on, playing and learning about the world from ground zero. I remembered Cam sitting on the bed, not acknowleding me as I stepped into the room. Nothing was said. She looked so alone. I was in the room with her, but she was alone. Shipwrecked and capsized. I hated her, could never forgive her, but she remained the love of my life refuted.
Maybe Gray was right; maybe Cam and I were wrong for each other and our life together was no more than a stolen dream. Maybe we were off from the start and we’d gone too far before we realized it. Sometimes lightning strikes and two cars going opposite direction crash in the middle of the night and are tied together. Years of denial go by, fucking and laughing with nothing in common, sitting and watching the flames of the wreckage, holding hands and smiling, until the sun comes up and shows there is nothing to laugh about. Just two burnt cars, going nowhere, and sirens getting closer . . . '
Excerpt • Opuss № I