Small Worlds
I'm standing in the wine section at Sainsbury's and spend 30 minutes reading the labels, as if lingering lemon and an oak barrel finish were even the point.
“I don’t know.” I hesitate. “Sometimes the world around me feels so small and I can’t breathe.”
“You feel like the world is small?” His eyes, awe-struck, dig into me and my neck tightens.
“Yes.”
“I... I’m really surprised to hear someone like you say something like that.”
I flip my phone in my hand, rubbing my thumb across its smooth surface, praying for a notification to draw me out of the conversation.
“Do you often feel like that?”
“All the time.”
“Wow.”
“What?”
“It’s just, you’re you. It’s crazy. What chance do the rest of us have?”
“What do you mean?” The eyes my father said he gave me—the ones that slit and scold—stare into his. His green eyes, set against jet-black eyelashes, are beautiful and processing. I think he means to look unconcerned, but his brow betrays him.
Ding! Deb wants to know what I’m doing for dinner. I look back at him.
“Anyway. It’ll pass,” which has become an effective deflection, a mirror against which the glaring sun of unanswerable quandaries is deflected onto something else. Something that can withstand the glare.
After he leaves, I stare at the ceiling, my mind replaying ad infinitum the terror of the situation. I shift on the couch, stare at the drab grey of the cushions and sigh deeply. How long can I stay here, in this sunken hole of a couch, smoking cigarettes, plotting revenge and crying? It feels safe here: blinds drawn, doors locked, lights off. No one asking me if I’m okay, staring at me and wondering what I’ll do next. Their stares are not empty. They’re full of questions, hope, pity. I want to gouge everyone’s eyes out. Stop looking at me. Fuck off.
I daydream. Daydreaming has always been safe. Daydreaming, drugs and a thumping bass line. Daydreaming, drugs, sweaty sex and a thumping bass line.
It’s Saturday. It was Tuesday. Shit, I wasn’t daydreaming. They say trauma augments time. My eyes, like saucers, search through my bag for my Oyster card. “Who takes the tube this high?” I admonish myself for forgetting my sunglasses again. “In all the years you’ve been doing this, and you still forget your sunglasses.”
In the shower, I exfoliate like I can scrub away shame. Buttery smooth skin has yet to alleviate my disgust, but it won’t stop me from trying. My face is ruined. Whatever facade I thought drugs would help me erect is only me suffocating myself with cellophane. I beat egg whites, add honey and lemon, and rub it all onto my face. The sting of the lemon makes me feel alive, and I laugh at the texture of it as it slides down my arm, drops from my elbow and lands on my foot. Familiar.
I retreat to the couch. I’m watching The Crown again. I stopped because it glorifies colonialism. Eric called me Debbie Downer for not giving it a chance. “There’s more to our story,” which feels rich since most of us are reduced to the worst thing we ever said or did—unless you’re white, of course. Then it’s patience and grace and forgiveness for 400 years and counting.
Hours later, I don’t want to be sobering up, and I’m standing in the wine section at Sainsbury’s. I spend 30 minutes picking up various bottles and reading the labels, as if lingering lemon with an oak barrel finish were even the point. I tuck a bottle under my arm and grab another by the neck, and I remember the monk telling me I should wish him well, that I should wish him kindness and happiness.
“Can I beat his face into a bloody fucking pulp first?”
Apparently that’s not how it works. As I wander home to my cave, I wonder why I should follow centuries of Buddhist practice over my own carnal impulses. It seems the only people the higher road was made for are those of us commanded to take it. There are quite clearly lower roads available; I can see the well-worn grooves in them, but those are off-limits to niggers.
I curl up in bed with the wine I always drink and recite the promises to myself I always break.