Boxes
By DB Cox
Again it is night. Here, is where I hide from the soulless cold. A small lamp lights the corner where I sit. There’s the sound again—a junk-sick headache thumping and ringing and generally raising hell inside my skull. Everything in the room is moving in and out of focus.
I bend forward in the chair and lay my head on the kitchen table, waiting for the drugs to kick in. When it happens, the fog clears and some of the bad things disappear. Now, for awhile, I can make up any kind of dream that suits me—give life to the fantasy images stored in a spot just behind my eyes—cover the shit before the shit covers me.
I sit up, tilt my head back, and stare at the peeling yellow paint on the ceiling. I can feel the sweat running down from my hairline. I am sinking and rising in slow, dark circles. My breathing is slowing down and the nausea is beginning to ease off. I let myself sink like a rock to the bottom of an abyss where no one can reach me.
Feeling a little dizzy, I turn my eyes back toward the table and reach for a pack of cigarettes with my right hand—a right hand that is no longer there, except in my mind. More than forty years without a right arm, and the reflex is still hanging on.
Two months after being discharged from the VA hospital my wife says she is leaving me. Her explanation is simple and cold: “I want a man with all of his body parts.”
_____
I glance down at the box under the table—my box of words, damp and damaged words, words that have been picked at like old sores until the blood runs. In the box, I have captured the sights, the sounds, and the smells of fear—a place where I can push the characters without ever touching them and leave them where I will. All of the characters and actions are controlled strictly by whim and fate. They make no decisions on their own. There is no ending in the name of redemption.
After many years, I have learned to write with my left hand. At first the going was painfully slow—cramps in my left hand making it impossible to continue. Now, I have accumulated a huge cardboard box of note pads covered with dream images. I have become God within the borders of this paper world.
Just to be moving, I get to my feet, walk over to the sink, and throw up. I turn on the spigot and splash a handful of water across my face. A sudden sense of dread crawls along my spine. I let my left hand drop to the .45 strapped to my left leg. I look toward the front door. The bolt is locked. I am safe. I turn off the water, walk back to the table, and sit. I take a pad of paper from the stack on the floor, and select a pen from the many scattered across the tabletop. I gather my thoughts, and begin to write:
My headache is back—blood pounding through constricted veins. I leave the pen and pad on the table and get up. I grab a flashlight from the top of the refrigerator and walk down the hallway to the bedroom.
The room is empty except for a single throw rug. The walls are bare. No curtains or shades cover the windows—glass panes all painted black. I bend down and slide the rug aside. I lift the trapdoor and squeeze through.
The cellar is damp and smells of mold. As I make my way across the room, I use the flashlight to scan every corner of the concrete chamber.
Outside, the night birds are crying.
When I get to my mattress, I kneel down and roll onto my back. I slide the .45 out of the holster, and lay it on my chest. The weight is reassuring. I switch off the flashlight and close my eyes.
Far away, pinpoints of light come and go. My mind cannot hold them steady—little doors opening and closing—vague reflections of half-remembered places—clean, well-lit spaces that I can imagine, but never know.
The flickering fragments drift away. They are frail, and will not last the night.
- - -
By DB Cox
Again it is night. Here, is where I hide from the soulless cold. A small lamp lights the corner where I sit. There’s the sound again—a junk-sick headache thumping and ringing and generally raising hell inside my skull. Everything in the room is moving in and out of focus.
I bend forward in the chair and lay my head on the kitchen table, waiting for the drugs to kick in. When it happens, the fog clears and some of the bad things disappear. Now, for awhile, I can make up any kind of dream that suits me—give life to the fantasy images stored in a spot just behind my eyes—cover the shit before the shit covers me.
I sit up, tilt my head back, and stare at the peeling yellow paint on the ceiling. I can feel the sweat running down from my hairline. I am sinking and rising in slow, dark circles. My breathing is slowing down and the nausea is beginning to ease off. I let myself sink like a rock to the bottom of an abyss where no one can reach me.
Feeling a little dizzy, I turn my eyes back toward the table and reach for a pack of cigarettes with my right hand—a right hand that is no longer there, except in my mind. More than forty years without a right arm, and the reflex is still hanging on.
In the mist-filled darkness, birds cry like human beings alerting the Viet Cong to our every move. The birds are like ghosts that refuse to depart this world. Above ground, threats come from every direction. Any time I am moving along a jungle trail, I can feel the tunnels below tugging at the soles of my boots. The only place that I feel safe is crawling around VC tunnels with a .45 and a flashlight. Inside, I am able to lose the sense of where I am—my underground sanctuary.
I can still feel the pressure of the tripwire just above my right boot. The sudden surprise of the explosion--a mouthful of bone and dirt—a ragged, wet hole just under my left eye—trying to scream for a medic, or maybe my mother. But the thing that is forever fixed in my brain is the shock of someone dropping my severed right arm onto my chest—the exact weight of reality.
Two months after being discharged from the VA hospital my wife says she is leaving me. Her explanation is simple and cold: “I want a man with all of his body parts.”
_____
I glance down at the box under the table—my box of words, damp and damaged words, words that have been picked at like old sores until the blood runs. In the box, I have captured the sights, the sounds, and the smells of fear—a place where I can push the characters without ever touching them and leave them where I will. All of the characters and actions are controlled strictly by whim and fate. They make no decisions on their own. There is no ending in the name of redemption.
After many years, I have learned to write with my left hand. At first the going was painfully slow—cramps in my left hand making it impossible to continue. Now, I have accumulated a huge cardboard box of note pads covered with dream images. I have become God within the borders of this paper world.
Just to be moving, I get to my feet, walk over to the sink, and throw up. I turn on the spigot and splash a handful of water across my face. A sudden sense of dread crawls along my spine. I let my left hand drop to the .45 strapped to my left leg. I look toward the front door. The bolt is locked. I am safe. I turn off the water, walk back to the table, and sit. I take a pad of paper from the stack on the floor, and select a pen from the many scattered across the tabletop. I gather my thoughts, and begin to write:
The Play…
is a never-ending performance made of watching & waiting. A solitary actor stealing sidelong glances into the wings, hoping to be fed the next line. Praying that another player will walk on—someone who recalls the plot.
The beginning showed promise, but now the story has ground to a halt.
The leading man stares at his feet, too bewildered to move. Where is he in this thing? The opening. The middle. The end. The stage has shriveled to a tiny box. The possibility of enlightenment has turned to an image of despair.
Are there no illuminating truths to be revealed?
The abandoned artist gazes like a fortune-teller into his sweaty palms. Wrinkled lines of a maze—all broken dead-ends…
_____ My headache is back—blood pounding through constricted veins. I leave the pen and pad on the table and get up. I grab a flashlight from the top of the refrigerator and walk down the hallway to the bedroom.
The room is empty except for a single throw rug. The walls are bare. No curtains or shades cover the windows—glass panes all painted black. I bend down and slide the rug aside. I lift the trapdoor and squeeze through.
The cellar is damp and smells of mold. As I make my way across the room, I use the flashlight to scan every corner of the concrete chamber.
Outside, the night birds are crying.
When I get to my mattress, I kneel down and roll onto my back. I slide the .45 out of the holster, and lay it on my chest. The weight is reassuring. I switch off the flashlight and close my eyes.
Far away, pinpoints of light come and go. My mind cannot hold them steady—little doors opening and closing—vague reflections of half-remembered places—clean, well-lit spaces that I can imagine, but never know.
The flickering fragments drift away. They are frail, and will not last the night.
- - -
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