This is an ongoing venture in pseudo-fictitious writing. There are currently three sections. I’ll post one at a time. I welcome any feedback any of you can offer.
I.
[tab]The moments that stay with us, that surge up now and again unexpectedly out of the dusty halls of recollection, the memories that refuse to lose their vibrant sheen with the passage of time, the memories whose edges are jagged, whose emphasis are stones thrown violently into the calm of what no longer is, what has past, these memories, curious, persistent creatures that they are, indefatigable and unapologetic, they are all marked by a particular conjunction of smells, sights, and feelings that, when taken each on their own, are otherwise completely empty of significance. I was fifteen, a small-statured, pudgy, long-haired, baggy-clothed high schooler taken with metal and skateboarding, two cultures defined by their own particular brands of stunted rebellion, non-conformity, freedom—one equal measures aggressive and abrasive, the other more willing to enjoy itself. I was one of only several of my school’s students so inclined. Shy, vulnerable, easily embarrassed, endlessly insecure: such is the nature of teenage boyhood. So it helped little that I had found myself enmeshed in so lonely a set of identities. I often entertained, during the ubiquitous bus-rides of high school existence, the misfortune of who I was, given even at that age over to a sense of excruciating self-consciousness, utterly incapable of dancing or truly partying in any authentic sense for fear of seeing myself through the eyes of others: awkward and totally out of place, an intruder, an imposter, a fake, a poseur.
I recall one particular bus-ride, jammed against the blossoming body of a less popular girl, Elizabeth, a twin, whose hair had recently changed from blonde to black, but faded now to something old-looking, something weathered, the brown of a chair left outside through too many rainy nights. She was taken with me at the time, to an almost unimaginable extent, forcing her hands onto my legs, against my half-hearted protests to the contrary, showering me with compliments tinged with an edge of sex, for that is what it was that she was after, and even then I knew it, it was sex, always and only sex that she wanted, perhaps to be the first among her small circle of friends, perhaps because she imagined it might be her ticket to popularity, I’m unsure. She excited me, and I often found myself actually conversing with her, a girl I otherwise would have never bothered to speak with, even then I liked to be alone, not physically, but existentially, although I could not at that time have guessed at the distinction between the two, could not have articulated the basis for my withdrawal. What I knew is that I did not much like to talk. But this particular ride, we talked, unsurprisingly of the one topic that every girl my age had found utterly irresistible: Brian Mikkson, a good-looking, well-liked, student at our school, a football player, the son of wealthy real estate agents, who had his own car even then, an expensive one at that, and died the tips of his hair blonde, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and drove every girl in perhaps the city dizzy with desire. “He could have any girl he wants,” I remember saying, for what reason I can only guess at now, before blushing with embarrassment at the implications. “So could you,” Elizabeth said back, giggling, her hand on my leg, squeezing it playfully, a luxury afforded us by the privacy of an overcrowded bus and the yells of so many easily excitable teens; “you just don’t want any of them,” she added.
Her fingers curled around a fold in my pants, dangerously close to where my penis hid, petrified. This was, by then, a familiar game of ours. But even then, I was unbearably aware of myself. Elizabeth was, by any standard, sexy, promiscuous, and into me. And all I could think about was my utter lack of interest in the personality she cultivated for herself. I understood the meaning of her intentions, I understood the effervescence promised by the experience of giving myself over to them, I knew all this, and yet, I couldn’t help but cringe, withdraw, refuse to play along. I saw the experience unfold as it did, but I saw this seeing as well, as if from an angle removed. I saw the implications at stake: I couldn’t possible maintain the conception of myself I had while leaning into flirtations. And this is, in the end, all that really matters. How we understand ourselves, and how this understanding allows us to act, to relate with others, to live. Elizabeth pushed the palm of her hand into the crotch of my jeans. She held it there, as if the sheer continuity of contact might implicate us in something riskier, but all I could imagine was the way Mr. M. had asked us, in third period Phys. Ed., to imagine stretching our limbs the way you stretch a shirt you want never to regain its original shape. You hold it, he told us. You pull it apart until you think it’ll rip, you hold it, and you let it go. That’s how you stretch.
Taken on their own, a memory’s individual elements are empty. The smell of sweat is as meaningless as the roar of underdeveloped vocal chords. But their conjunction immediately calls to mind the blind rush that overtakes a whole high school every time hushed whispers promising an afternoon fight grew to something between rumour and actual fact. Even now, the reason eludes me. Meaning is, I think, somewhere in the middle. Set out to look for it and you’ll always fail. No one sensation lasts, no one impression sticks. Savour every reminiscence, wring the colour from every recollection, for there is no telling when they will again grace you with their presence, surging up only when you least expect it, and even then fading without leaving with you the traces of their meanings. This is all you can do. It helped me, at that age, to think of the way culinary flavour exists somewhere between the lines in a list of ingredients. If you miss too many, the whole dish falls apart as if at the seams. A mess, it is hopeless. I thought there must also exist a particular recipe for what will stay with us through the years, but its logic is, I now see, completely unknowable. So we grope blindly, pushing our way forward, the only way we can, attempting to navigate the labyrinths of our lives as if led by untrained guide dogs, eager, confused, and hungry. The best we can hope for is a chance encounter with purpose, an accidental glimpse of meaning, that particular conjunction of smells, feelings, and actions that stick so stubbornly to the walls of our minds, demanding that we probe their contents in order better to understand the people we now are, by turning from our guides and letting them breathe, running momentarily ahead while we explore the only partially illuminated halls behind us before even those traces of our passage through them fade, pausing to survey the paths we’ve unwittingly forged for ourselves and taking stock of the branches that broke along the way. And as Elizabeth’s sister Anna, seated a few rows behind us, searched the tangle of our bodies for what she knew we were doing, the task she knew Elizabeth must’ve been set to, as she eyed the knot of arms, noted Elizabeth’s giggle and the red blush of my face in response, as the humidity of so many sweating, pubescent bodies reached an almost offensive degree, as the windows fogged with our exhalations, the bus vibrated in tune with the imperfections in the asphalt below us, a thousand conversations culminating in a cacophony equal parts expectation, uncertainty, and self-loathing, as this whirlwind of sensation swirled around me, threatening at every moment to envelop us all in the haze of its purpose, the only thing I could think of was how easy it must be to deform a shirt, and how much I hated third period Phys. Ed.[/tab]