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“It’s called dry lightning,” you say and there’s a shiver of excitement under your skin. You love learning new things, love it more when you come across something you’ve heard about but never seen. You never really know until--
Chris blinks up at you, “How does it work?”
You smile, “Well, most of the water evaporates before it hits the ground.” He doesn’t smile back at you.
Someone screams from behind you but you don’t look -- you never turn away -- because if you look then the kids will look and there are some things a kid should never see—
“They’re in good hands,” you begin, but the screaming has stopped and it is just the two of you on this vast lonely beach and Chris is gazing at the sky.
“It came out of nowhere,” Chris says.
“It’s called dry lightning.” There’s a shiver of excitement under your skin. You love learning new things, getting up close and personal, working with your hands, pulling apart the universe one discovery at a time. You never really know something until you’ve reached out and touched--
“Or heat lightning,” Chris adds.
“Yes,” you agree, “The lower atmosphere is so hot, most of the water evaporates before it hits the ground.”
Someone screams from behind you. Buck! The water is rising in the corner of your eye and the beach takes on a menacing tone and Chris looks out at the ocean and quietly says, “Buck, what’s that?” and Christopher–-
But the water is flat and still. A strike of lightning hits the sand and the two of you gaze at it for a while before turning back to each other. Together you say, “It’s called dry lightning.”
There’s a shiver of something sparking along your spine. The world has not always been kind to you. Sometimes you wish the secrets you found had never been uncovered. You don’t really know until it is impossible to know anything else.
“Where’s the rain?” Chris asks, “There was so much rain.”
“It could be miles away,” you say, “Sometimes the lightning travels so far you can’t see the rain anymore.”
Someone is screaming at you, somewhere you’ve left far behind. It might be the universe.
It has rained for five days
running
the world is
a round puddle
of sunless water
where small islands
are only beginning
to cope
a young boy
in my garden
is bailing out water
from his flower patch
when I ask him why
he tells me
young seeds that have not seen sun
forget
and drown easily.
[Audre Lorde, ‘Coping’]
There is a baby crying. Its newborn wails fill the air and something in your chest cracks. It's familiarity — you know that sound, it’s you, it’s yours, it will never be yours; it’s horror — that cry is a warning for something unknown. Children feel the most acutely.
You are searching, fumbling, tripping, banging into walls in the dark, choking on smoke, knocking down doors to no avail. Your arms ache to hold, your chest burns with loss.
You can hear people in the next room. They are comforting and shushing and cradling and soothing and all of it you can hear but none of it you can see.
The crying persists. You are grieving what might have been.
I’ve always preferred Cain.
His angry
loneliness, his
lack of mother’s
love, his Christian
sarcasm: “Am I
my brother’s keeper?”
asks his brother’s murderer.
Aren’t we indeed
the keepers of our dead?
[Valzhyna Mort, ‘Genesis’, from Music for the Dead and Resurrected]
Buck is sitting in a living room that could have been the one from his childhood if it had ever actually been lived in. There are tiny signs of life everywhere – stains on the carpet his mother always kept immaculate, tchotchkes adorning the shelves he only ever saw arranged with select cultural titles, mismatched throws all over the same pristine couches he was in constant fear of dirtying.
He is both the eight-year-old boy grappling with his brother over toy cars in the middle of the room and a much older version of himself staring from elsewhere.
Daniel! Evan! His mother calls in the voice of a woman that’s never sealed herself away for days at a time. One for which toys and bikes are mementos of joy rather than grief. You’re a miracle baby yourself, Buck, why not share it?
Maddie rushes in the front door of the house that might have been the one from his childhood if it had ever actually been a home. Her hair is windswept, and her eyes are bright. She’s always arriving in the nick of time.
Dinner’s ready! Buck watches this tiny happy version of himself scramble to his feet, racing to get to the kitchen first, his siblings close behind him. He catches glimpses of the food on the table, of the whirlwind of grabbing plates and glasses and cutlery, laughter and chatter rising over it all in a joyous camaraderie he’d only ever found in adulthood.
He is only the watcher now, the outsider. Feet dissipating into the foundations of this illusory place, watching himself disappear into a past where he cannot follow.
we can’t decide: pull it out, or leave it in? bleed to death, or live with it?
[Yves Olade, ‘Iphigenia at aulis’, from Bloodsport]
“Took you long enough,” the voice at your bedside says before you even truly open your eyes. It is fond and wry and your chest warms at the sound of it. There’s pressure on your hand where someone is holding it, and how long have you longed to be held?
But when you turn into the feeling, like a stray cat searching for shelter in the snow, squeezing back and turning your head to open your eyes, the person at your bedside is not who you expect.
“Sweet dreams?” Taylor asks, and she’s smiling and she’s here, present and paying attention; and that’s all you ever asked of her, isn’t it? Your heart lurches anyway, like it's been knocked out of rhythm and is struggling to find its way back.
She’s smiling but there’s a glint in her eye, an amusement that you never worked out if it was at your expense or not. Sweet dreams she asks but it just sounds like another what took you so long? Don’t you know she has places to be?
“Taylor?” You croak, and she rolls her eyes.
“Expecting someone else?” There’s a bitter tang to the words that rings true.
You trip over your lie to the contrary. Yes, but no – who else would there be – anyone – no one – but what about – why is she – didn’t you – didn’t she –
“You know, it was such a pain getting in here to see you,” she continues on as if you didn’t speak, and maybe you didn’t, “I had to wait for normal visiting hours just like anyone else. Do you realise you never added me to your medical paperwork?” Her voice drips with disdain.
And of course, Buck knows this. But right now, you don’t.
Staring at her, this beautiful woman at your bedside, it seems like a blaring omission, a careless mistake, and she watches you watch her, waiting for your response. It doesn’t feel like a mistake. Her radiant glow has the world around her blurring and fading, vertigo-inducing, and her grip on your hand feels more like a crushing weight than a lifeline. You wonder if it was this situation you were trying to avoid. If you knew how your skin would be crawling.
But you got out of this, didn’t you? You said promise – and she said promise – and then she –
“Don’t hurt yourself there, cowboy,” she says, rolling her eyes, and wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong –
Lord, I confess I want the clarity of catastrophe but not the catastrophe.
Like everyone else, I want a storm I can dance in.
I want an excuse to change my life.
[Franny Choi, 'Catastrophe is next to Godliness']
Buck is sitting next to Eddie on a hospital bed. Eddie’s arm is in a sling.
“Do I need to give you another speech?” He asks, lips twitching and eyebrows arching.
Buck laughs and shrugs and shakes his head.
“I will,” Eddie says, and it’s a playful threat, but it’s also genuine, “I bet I can do it better this time.”
“You did fine the last time,” Buck says. “I think I got the basics.”
Eddie hums, unconvinced. “And yet here we are again, anyway.”
Buck smiles, “This isn’t actually happening.”
Eddie arches an eyebrow, “You think I’m not actually out there, talking to you?”
Buck looks at his hands, playing with a loose thread. He can’t decide if he’s wearing jeans or a hospital gown. “It’s not like I jumped in front of the lightning, Eddie.”
“No,” Eddie concedes, “But you’ve hardly been making the choices of someone secure in their life.”
You, uh, you don’t think I’m at ease?
Buck thinks about joking it off – rude, he could laugh – but doesn’t. “I was trying to be open to all possibilities.”
“Are you sure?” Eddie asks, but his scepticism is gentle. Even the Eddies in Buck’s mind are impossibly loving. “Because it seems to me like you were avoiding certain possibilities by diving into others.”
Buck meets Eddie’s gaze. “Yeah,” he says, “Maybe.”
Eddie nods and looks away, “Well. You better wake up then.” But he looks back and grabs Buck’s hand, stilling its nervous movements, “When you’re ready.”