playing with fact and fiction

I was running for my life. Thickets and thorns were scratching at my tired thighs and aching calves, painfully reminding me of what had just happened.

Whizzing by park benches and lamp posts I couldn't stop no matter how badly my lungs were shrinking. My heart was racing as fast as my feet.

Focus on breathing, in and out. In and out. I sounded like a donkey, hee hawing but my mind was what I wanted to stop.

I remember a dim lit candle and the spanish guitarist plucking away parts of his soul through the somber melodies and erratic fingering. Sitting in that dusty bar thinking this was a good idea for a while. I was too confident in that black dress, teasing my hair with my fingertips and trying not to look like I didn't belong in there.

The glass on the bar looked dewy and I remember I liked it. Slinking my fingers across the drops of condensation felt familiar tracing back to when I was a child and would sit at the windowsill of my families bungalow, drawing pictures on the window when it would rain. I felt alive when it rained and yet miraculously restless as my father droned on playing keys on the piano as he often did during the storms.

The guitarist took a break and the cliche, background bar music began to play. He was twenty minutes late and the cigarettes I had were too few now to continue waiting.

I am not a patient person and unless I have a cigarette to fill the time I become antsy and bothered. I was bothered all right and twenty minutes is too long to wait, especially for a guy.

"A woman should always be the late one. The man waits on you, not the other way around. If you get there before him, leave," my mother used to say to me as she would brush my curly hair out, trying to make it straight. She bought me my first hair straightener and told me to treat it as another appendage.

My unruly curly hair would make men nervous. Meditterranean and Arabic women with their wild hair made her fearful. They looked untamable, and I was supposed to be tamed.

I got up and left after thirty minutes of my legs falling asleep and my backside becoming numb. I was livid.

As I walked out of the bar and down the street, I was going to go home and watch another old movie again. I would have probably mixed it up a bit and watched something other than Casablanca this time.

Like a whiplash, my body was stopped and pulled around like some sort of jitterbug dance move, nearly dislocating my arm.

-"Give me your money." He was tall, rotund and hispanic, showcasing a toothy mouth topped off with a sparse "stache."

-"Please, let go of me and I'll give you what's in my purse. I don't have any cash but I can give you my credit cards."

He hesitated to let me out of his firm grip and I rubbed the skin on my arm where he had touched me. It felt rough like after an indian sunburn.

You should run for it, Claire. He's not armed and he's too big to keep up with you.

I didn't have much time to think, but my cleverness reminded me of Pseudolus and for a moment, just for an spec of time, I felt cunning and alive.

Throwing down an Old Navy Debit Card I kicked my black stilettos off and I ran through the alley all along the dirty pavement, nearly skinning off my callouses. I heard him yell something as though he planned to cut me off, but I was too fast for him and knew these streets all too well. My brothers and I used to map out this neighborhood when we would shoot our documentaries back when we were younger. I'm still young and I shouldn't have been in a place like that on this night. I realized I had all the time in the world to be old. You're only young for so long, and it's so hard to keep the memories. I cherished the ones I still had.

Running through the alleys and streets, passing lamp post after lamp post, trash bin after recycling bin, I couldn't stop until I got home.

My arm was throbbing and my shoulder kept clicking. After a mile or so I decided it was safe to stop. I called a cab to take me home. The ride back felt longer and I wasn't in the mood for small talk.

Exiting the cab and walking up to my house, I felt a wave of relief.

I sat on the steps and continued to catch my breath. I noticed my hair start to frizz and looked up at the cloudy night sky as I sniffed in the smell of the air. It was going to rain. It was going to rain right now.

As the drops fell from the sky, I lifted my face to catch the sweet dewy beads. I was getting cleansed by the rain. As I stood up to walk inside, I noticed my reflection in the window. My hair, now wet, was becoming curly again. I liked it better that way for once.

For once, I felt I was who I truly was. Untamed, unmarked and naturally curly.

past's misery still haunts me.

It would all be behind me at some point.

These people, these feelings. They would all somehow vanish one day and none of this would matter. If anything, the experience would make me stronger.

I couldn't see it then, in the cafeteria full of my classmates. The words on their tongues about what I had done. Like projectile vomit, they couldn't help it.

I wasn't concieted, it was the unfortunate truth and at that very moment in time, it was all that mattered. I couldn't believe who I had turned into or even worse, what I had just done.

I didn't blame them for talking about it. If I were them I would have done the same thing, and you know what? I would have been ruthless. Junior year was actually where it all started. Senior year would have played out perfectly had it not been for that prior year. Tracing it all back, I now realize it did all start with that one person.

He who ruined my life and knows it.

He who I tried so desperately to make love me and to fix.

He embodied pure evil. His hair was as black as oil and his eyes were black holes in outer space. I craved his re-assurance and his sporatic affectionate touch. I wanted him to be a better person because I needed him in my life. Actually, I needed the person I wanted him to be.

No one could help him and anyone who tried failed miserably, resulting in either leaving the school, starting intense therapy, or in my case, becoming obsessed.

His heart was blackened by his twisted words and negativity. He became the only thing my mind fixated on. My only thought.

I knew what I had gotten into back then, but my mind was too clouded by analyzing his every move, word and touch in order to save him. He is who started it all, and with his conniving, twisted tongue, sick personality and in-ability to love anyone, even himself, he would take my life down with him. All that I had worked for and built on, he would take it down in one clean stroke.

After four years, I feel like I can finally say what I have wanted to since that horrible day. That day that it all caught up to him in the sickest form. They finally stopped talking about me when it happened.

That's right assholes. He's the one you should have been talking about. He's the one who terrorized you and made a monster out of me.

Death knocked on his door, it lurked behind every corner, watching him. Waiting for him. His evilness had finally come to a stop, and I cringe when I say this, I really truly do. But, I wouldn't if I did not truly feel this way.

I've had time to think about it, assess what happened, and make a full circle zinger out of it: The day he died, I did not cry.

I did not close myself off to the world and pray for me to follow him.

I wanted to live. I needed to live without him.

Honestly, if he had not have died, I would have had to go first. It was me or him. I wasn't going out without a fight.

He knows, wherever he is, that it would have caught up to him eventually. He knows what he did to me, and he knows it will never be fixed.

Somewhere deep inside me, within the depths of my complex soul, there remains a black spot on my heart. The spot that he destroyed, the spot that he claimed. I will never get it back, and I still curse him for it.

So I'll say it, with confidence and a bit of hesitance: I do not mourn his death. Quite frankly I never did. After the funeral, I went to my room, shut my door and smiled. I was free from his grip. He could never harm me again.

I will never wish he still walked this earth. He did nothing but hurt me, and stopped at nothing to make me turn myself into him.

A case of the mondays

I can't wake up on Mondays. I just can't. Something in my brain sends my body a message saying, "Attention, Attention. Can I have every organ, muscle and nerves attention, please? Thank you. Today is monday people. You know what that means. Muscles, avoid moving at all costs. Do not let Claire out of bed! "

I cannot for the life of me get my ass out of my bed on mondays.

No other day faces this issue. Something in me knows when the beginning of the week is starting and it has set out to destroy me. No, really, it wants to destroy me.

I can't count the number of times I've been late to class, meetings I've missed, or breakfast's I've slept through.

Is there any way to get over this?

-I've tried going to bed early Sunday nights- but that just means I end up sleeping more hours than I need to.

-I've even tried staying up all night on Sunday, however I always seem to pass out in awkward positions, or uncomfortable places.

I woke up one monday morning in my desk chair with my head slammed right up against the key's on my laptop. My arms were flailed behind my back and my hair managed to get tangled up in some sort of shape resembling a funky fruit hat.

When did I fall asleep? I thought I was wide awake! I must have drank eight coffees and they didn't do shit! Nothing! Ahhhh.

Alarms don't work either. There is no sound in nature or any musical chords that will wake my ass up. None. Unless someone, I guess, has a blow horn to my ear.

Maybe there are pills that can solve this problem. Just maybe.

Scared to death.

"You can't tell me that you've never thought about dying, Jack."

"No, I really haven't."

"Seriously? I mean, I'll even admit..."

"Alright fine. I have, O.K.? And I'm fucking scared of it. It scares me to death. Well, I mean, you know. Not literally. I can't help not thinking about it. When I'm lying in bed at night, all alone, lying there in the dark after closing my eyes, I wonder if I'll wake up the next day. I wonder if people would miss me, or how they'd find me. Do you think I'd look happy or sad? I think I'd look terrified. Can you imagine, not waking up?"

After he said that, we called it a night. He opened the door of my car, exiting into the dim lit street, as he slammed the door, leaving me in the dark, cold, confines of my car.

I rolled down the windows as I raced home. The wind beat against my face as my hair tried desperately to stay in my ponytail.

I had to admit that I didn't think he'd open up like that. At least not on the third date. Aren't those things usually reserved for a later time? The darkness of his words attracted me to him though. He wasn't afraid to be deep and inquisitive. I needed someone like that compared to the pansies I had been dating up until then. Not one of them would ever really confront a question. You know? They'd dance around it and then just peep out a, "Lets change the subject, O.K.?"

But it wasn't O.K. I didn't want to change the subject. My entire life, I've never been afraid to ask questions, and yet, I can't help but think it's a major flaw with me. How can I get to know someone, know someone REALLY, if I am too scared to ask those kinds of things?

I guess the difference between me and a lot of people is that I don't find those kind of questions to be intrusive. I guess I should because death can be very personal to some. The way I see it though, is that death will be a new beginning.

I do believe in some sort of afterlife, considering my father has told me stories about people he's known while working in hospitals who have had near death experiences.

Every one of them say that it starts out with a bright light that comes toward them. A feeling of pure comfort and warmth succumbs them and then, someone speaks. "It's not your time. Turn back and wake up. Wake up now."

One time, I asked dad when I was very young if any of those people experienced something that wasn't as kind. If any of them didn't see a bright light, but rather flames and darkness. Perhaps, just maybe, alluding to hell?

He told me, "No," and to not think about it.

Thinking back, I know he was lying. He had to have been.

I called my father the other day because that question that ate at me when I was six years old came back. It haunted me in my sleep.

"What about the people who don't go to a good place? What about hell?"

My dad picked up on the third ring.

"Dad? Remember when I was little and you used to tell me those stories of people who had near death experiences?"

"Yes, Claire. I do."

"Well, there is something you never quite answered for me. Were there ever any people who experienced something terrifying?"

He paused for a long time. Almost two minutes of silence.

"Yes, Claire. There were people who did not see nice things. It was not a good place that they had entered in. They were uncomfortable and very hot. They were scared. But you can bet your ass that when they woke up, and got a second chance at it all, they changed completely."

No one spoke, until he asked, "Is that all?"

"Yeah. Thanks, Dad." I hung up the phone.

I was shaking, even though that had been the answer I was expecting.

I guess some questions, even though you know the answers, are better left unsaid.

smug smiles and a fire show

As he traipsed in the door of my unfurnished, one bedroom, peach colored apartment, his black shoes tracked mud all along my clean, vinyl kitchen floors.

Dressed appropriately for a gas technician: clad in worn tattered, light washed workers jeans, sporting assorted condiment stains, a gray T-shirt looking as though it had been through a number of washes that equaled the span of his lifetime, and all black tennis shoes, he carried a staged and insincere, pompous attitude with him that almost matched the smell of gas that was now overwhelming my kitchen.

His one job was to turn the pilot light on for my 35 year old, gas stove that I just unwillingly adopted. His job was not to flirt disgustingly and yap on for 10 minutes about the ho-hum details of his day.

"I've been doing this for a while now. You just sit nice and pretty little lady and watch me do my job. Don't worry, the gas smell will leave the air soon."

Yeah, aside from the gas, there's some hot air blowin' in here too.

I had my doubts immediately, but with a smile of missing front teeth and a hand gesture that resembled a gun, showcasing his dirt lined fingernails, I assumed he may have known what he was doing.

He hunkered down to the floor in front of the oven and lit a match with one crisp swipe. First, he would light the stove.

As his worn and grubby hands began lighting a second match to now light the oven pilot light, like a flash of lightening, once the match had lit, a billowing cushion of fire came swooshing out of the oven and extended a few inches out of it's perimeter, singeing quickly, but efficiently the hairs off of his ashy arm.

Whoa.

He muffled a light yelp and then with a hick-like chuckle that bubbled in the back of his throat, he widened his eyes to blink and process what had just happened.

I knew that smell of gas meant trouble.

His lips began to curl upward, back into that toothless grin that sent shivers up my spine.

This time, however, the grin wasn't backed with so much smug.

hair scare

I have learned to really hate the rain. The reason?

I have curly hair.

This means that I have my own personal meteorologist atop my head, never failing to remind me when the slightest bit of humidity is in the air. Not to mention the incredible amount of up-keep it demands. Heaven forbid my hair could be normal, and I could one day walk out of the shower and let it air dry to perfection.

Yeah, right. In an alternate universe perhaps.

The amount of product I use every day is enough to keep any hair product line in business. It's the curly headed people they are after. That's where they're getting all their money from.

Today while walking to class, I looked like Weird Al Yankovich. That, or Carrot Top. When I caught a reflection of myself in the mirror, I was scared. No, terrified.

If I saw that thing coming toward me I'd probably stop dead in my tracks, trying to determine whether it was an animal that died on top of their heads, or just an unfortunate human having a really bad hair day.

I have grown to accept my hair, however, on days like today, I have to surrender to it and give up. It wins the battle every time.

- I have tried pulling it into ponytails, but then I get some sort of fuzz that pokes out from all sides.

- I have also tried wearing hats, but I've found that my hair looks worse when I take the hat off than it did before.

I will never win the battle between myself and my hair. It has a mind of its own. I'll just have to learn to live in places where it never rains. Does a place like that even exist?