10.18.04 There was a party stirring in the house next door. She could tell from the muffled laughter, from the occasional shriek of amusement from the tall woman who wore short black numbers and always drank too much, from the constant beat of this bass guitar that rattled the wineglasses in her china cabinet. Her unused wineglasses. She walked toward those glasses daily with rag in hand and they shivered in anticipation. Perhaps today they would finally come to life. Oh, how they yearned for human touch, how they ached to be filled and refilled again for hours and hours into a glorious, candlelit evening, warm tongues pressed up against these fluted hips. How they were tired of watching her from behind the wall of their own skin as she sat so still; so silent. How excited they became each time she stirred. Maybe she’s changed, they would think. Maybe today she will take a broom to the floors, a cloth to these windows so translucent with dust. Maybe today her mouth will open and she will smile and her cheeks will glow and the world will become renewed again; intricate etchings of “1984” upon the feet of the glasses now gracing the fingertips of men and women who laugh so lightly and know so much more than a daily cleaning of their utilities, these cleanings that have ended so quietly with the curtain of a predictable sunset…closing to another forgotten night. She polished each glass just so in its unromantic chamber and set it back to its exact location, marked by round circles of clarity that grazed these glass shelves. And then she walked back toward her corner and sat down again so that her body may return to its fetal curl. She held her legs close against her frame and watched the glasses as they stood, polished, perfect, still clinking against one another with every shiver. As the bass quieted down next door they lost hope; tonight would be the same as all the others they have known. How could it stand to be different? The room was dark when the sun had set and the only lights that entered through her bay windows- so open to lushness and beauty and children- were those of the flames of tiki torches and plastic chili peppers. This light reflected off her eyes, these hard, destructed eyes that chewed into the thick black air…these eyes that grasped the light of those torches and threw them back in merciless anger, in keen anguish, in impenetrable disgust. Bah. How she could kill them for the laughter and the lights. How dare they see such fun in the absurd. See how happy she was in her able attire, away from metal smiles and plastic hearts. Her shoulders shook, silently, dryly, and her head fell to the floor, these great years of ballet lessons and piano recitals and all her parents had taught her since she was twelve and now she’s finished with it all, finished with playing the game that the others played, finished with the drama of being a woman on her own again. His chair sat in the opposite corner but she couldn’t look at it, for he had ruined her and the world was nothing. She had let the dust build for so long that its color had come to almost match that of this darkened room…this tired cave…this pure, consistent hell. And all she could do is sit here and let her head hit the floor, let her tears swim into the grains of the musty cheap planks of wood. Damn him. Damn his inconsiderate failures and their sick life together. The life she never had a chance to lead. It was a sudden movement. Her first sudden movement in a long time. But she felt it rise in her like lava from a child’s 4th grade volcano project, like vinegar and baking soda dyed red and watched by fresh eyes, and she had not a second to pause and reflect but rather tear across the room and grab the wooden leg of the bastard’s seat and rip the chair out of its place, this cloud of dust forming around her and stinging her anger-filled eyes, this grand swing that she had practiced for years with her softball team, this one chance to prove to herself that she still had it in her, to send this chair to its misery, to hurl it into the beautiful glass doors, into the intricately carved oak frame, into the ridiculous “1984s” that should die, all of them, so they know how she feels. They learned quickly of her disgust, and they learned two by two, shattering into tiny remains and catching in her hair, this beautiful crash that cut her hands and arms and made her build in intensity, screaming into the noise, fighting back, pushing the rest of this trash cabinet over to its doom, hitting the floor with a thunder and a cloud and a deathly silent halt…so silent that it quieted the house next door and the people turned and strained their eyes to peer through her windows to see what just happened. She knelt among the shards of glass and kissed them, felt them each as they nipped at her knees and hands in this admirable darkness, this pristine peace. This is what it is to feel again, she thought to herself. This is what it is. She dropped onto her back and lay on the floor, her head deeply hidden in the shadows, pressed up against a solid wall. She gasped for air just once and used it to sob quietly, painlessly, freely. The neighbors saw nothing through the windows’ reflections, nothing but chili lights, and turned back to their party games and chardonnay but she cried one of the most wonderful cries in her entire existence, a cry that finally helped her to take off this ring she was not yet given and throw it among the scatterings of memories that she would never for a minute forget amid a million anthills of earth and pain.