I wanted to visit the home of a great author. Maybe McCullers. Stand within her walls and absorb her brilliance. Speak to her by breathing and nodding. There had to be something there, in the floorboards or the old drapes, the secret to good writing, the key to a lasting legacy. I sensed a hole and believed one day I would fill it. The world was waiting for someone just like me.
I made the pilgrimage. The door opened and I stepped inside ready to be struck by a revelatory force. My stomach ached with anticipation. I walked farther in and stopped before a framed portrait hanging above a row of her novels. Someone had painted her very blue. We made eye contact and I nodded, thinking tell me the secret, my fingernails digging into my skin, the air going cold until finally, my vision had become so unfocused I no longer saw a woman but an abstract collection of brushstrokes. I knew it was lost. A man with a lanyard tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I wanted to join their newsletter. He told me about how Marilyn Monroe once visited there for lunch, and his tone suggested that this one event added much significance to the home. Skin stretched and hollow as a drum, I felt more disconnected from the dead Carson McCullers than I had ever felt from anyone before.
I had a fantastical dream of giant talking geese and amorous mermaids. In my ballet class an older woman called me sexy, and as others agreed and shared similar compliments, my pink leotard folded down. I was exposed and vulnerable and raw. I was high and on fire. Then the scene changed and I was driving, floating down the road with a well pleased grin, when an enormous white and brown bird appeared before me. It thundered forward and gripped my car in its massive teeth. There were horrible squeals of metal and soon, echoing like a lasso around my head, the shrill sound of my own screams. The monster lifted me far up off the ground with a swift neck motion. When I looked around, I saw a panoramic view of a beautiful mountain landscape. A sense of serenity washed over me. Suddenly, I felt prepared to die. I curled myself into the car seat with a soft, teary-eyed smile. The goose saw this and dropped me back to earth. It opened my door and beckoned me outside with a smooth, ancestral voice. The voice of a mother. I followed her toward a lake at the base of a hill until we reached the shoreline. Out in the water, there were two purple-green scaly bodies shimmering and intertwining. Making love.
The goose said, “They’re just kids,” with a deep laugh like warm milk. “All that matters is sex, sex, sex.”
I replied, “I think that’s all that matters to anyone.” She peered down with wise eyes.
“You’re just a kid,” she cooed. I crawled beneath her and sunk into a pillowy shadow.
I awoke inside of a weathered cabin in a room with one large window and no doors. The wood splintered beneath my feet. Several of my relatives stood around, all of us staring through the glass, all of us waiting. I knew it was coming. Out in the distance, a film began to play—grainy black-and-white footage of a blossoming mushroom cloud, a murky picture of an imminent end. A wall of wind moved toward us, flattening the earth in its path and barreling forward like a wave. We wordlessly lowered to the ground. Someone chanted in a steady rhythm.
“One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.”
I put my hands over my ears. Everything went silent just before a loud roar, and I heard the glass shattering all around us, I felt it splintering over my skin, I could taste it on my tongue, I felt my body breaking apart until there was nothing left anywhere but little shards. My energy oozed away as the light drained to blackness.
My eyes reopened with some confusion into the darkness of my room. It took a few seconds to comprehend my surroundings. There was my bed, the wrinkled sheets, the acrid sharpness of reality, but my thoughts still circled like clouds. My heart raced. I pictured the brain inside my skeleton and saw my face as bone. The stillness of my limbs abruptly frightened me, and I jerked my head to the side to make sure I could. Instinctually, I grabbed my phone from the nightstand. I started to search the internet for something, I did not know what, but I began with phrases like what is death and how to not be scared of dying and how it feels to die. This led me to a forum of users sharing near-death experiences—people who physically flatlined and came back to life. Many of these stories described overwhelming peace, love, and weightlessness, as if the body melted into a vast ocean. They mentioned seeing new and vivid colors. They said they longed to have that feeling again. Some had more spiritual accounts of meeting extraterrestrial figures, deceased relatives, or even Jesus Christ himself. Others reported sensations of extreme fear and despair, of hearing angry voices and pleading for their lives. The most haunting responses used the same awful word. Nothingness.
I googled proof of afterlife.
I had a drink at a dive bar Jack Kerouac used to frequent. Cold whiskey stung my throat. Again, I awaited a lightning bolt. There just had to be something there, in the stale cigarette stench or the crude bartender’s haggard face. Greatness. Connection. I searched for signs in melting ice cubes. Billiard balls clacked together and pulled me out of concentration. Maybe if I spent some time in isolation an answer would take shape.
Slouched silhouettes of lonely men filled the stools around me. They exuded a disgusting and pungent aura of lust. I desired to hurt them, and at the same time, I hoped they wanted me. The idea that I might infiltrate someone’s thoughts, that I could exist outside of myself and take on new forms, thrilled and aroused me. To consider the likelihood of having appeared in others’ dreams nearly brought me to tears. There was a higher dimension, a web woven above all of our heads, and I would get there, if not on a pedestal then at least on my back. It was vile and true. I would achieve my legacy somehow.
As always I love your writing ❤️