Holly Golightly Syndrome

  Chapter 5

  George set his bag down, and proceeded to set up his things in the guest room.

  By the time half of his things were properly ordered and put into place, his grandparents called him to dinner from the front hall.

  His grandfather had bushy white hair, and eternally expressive eyebrows to match. His face was tanned from the sun, and callouses that had once frequented his fingers had long disappeared. He was ah yes ever so proper in all aspects, except when it came to bowel movement, which was something he seemed to focus extravagantly on.

  At the moment, he was lounging at a red leather chair, which didn’t match the table set of the kitchen, but he insisted put at the head of the table. Needless to say, he made a formidable shadow as he sat down at the end of the table, quiet, but so deliberate when speaking that the rest of the room instantly went quiet regardless of where they were.

  (Grandpa King George the third.)

  George found himself in the unfortunate position of being named after him almost predetermining him to follow in his footsteps of lawyer-dom, and make the less intelligent defendants cower and soil themselves.

  Unfortunately and fortunately, George hadn’t done well on the LSATs, and had developed into an entirely different person. He was quirky, friendly, stoic, and outlandishly intelligent all at the same time but he didn’t have any aura of omnipotence.

  Grandpa King George the third was a bit of an Old Testament Godly figure setting strange regulations, and ever powerful with the ability to smite or bless different family members.

  And George was nothing like that.

  (I suppose when kids kick in the particularities of my mother will kick in.)

  (Or his Martha Stewart-cream friege phase, as Bertha had lovingly called it.)

  (Oh god if Bertha had children…)

  A thudding horror whirled around the house; a lanky girl in converse occasionally running into things, unnaturally excited after prematurely trying coffee for the first time. As she runs into the table, pausing to rub her shin, another similarly lanky girl with big blue eyes tackles her from behind shouting “Don’t you dare ever take my cd again…” In the meantime the third is crying in a corner loudly sobbing from the corner, morally opposed to any form of fighting because “it’s mean.”

  And then, as he’d walk through the door, their babysitter would come out of the closet, shaking like a hostage, having become the conquest of the children.

  “Oh Mr. George Blah-Blah, it’s so good you’re home.”

  “How were the kids?”

  Normally you just lie to parents even if the kids act up a bit cause it’s easier just to say “Pretty good” but the mousy looking babysitter would just continue shaking like a crack addict and say “Well… they have a lot of energy…”

  “Yeah…” Mr. George prepared for tsunami of necessity. “.. They’re just like their…”

  At which point Bertha would come bursting through the door, taking off her heels dramatically, and complaining about her last case.

  “That Mr. blah blah blah is so full of shit.” Her face red and explosive. “Aghhh…anyone up for walking the dog?”

  Meanwhile at the dinner table, his grandmother sat next to her grandfather, making up for his lack of conversation, chatting away about the new people at the country club. The pearl necklace around her neck glistened against her sloppy skin.

  She was the keeper, and presumably the only thing that could pull any sentiment out of her husband. The magician.

  It came out in little ways. When he got too angry about something she’d, put her hands on his shoulder and say “now George be reasonable”, which worked as well as if he had some button on his back that said “decrease anger mode.”

  Despite his sternness, George opened every door for her, and held her hand when crossing the street for an early dinner and morning mass.

  George the younger barely touched his food, his stomach still upset because of the transition from the city to Florida. He and his sister talked amongst themselves, wary to let their red-faced cousin Alec into their conversation. They knew if he did he would go on and on and on and on about all of his charitable endeavors, which sort of defeats the purpose of the endeavors in the first place.

  (“Cousin Seintjohn Alec you will never be a saint.”)

  After dinner, George retreated to his room and lay on his bed with his hands behind his head. (How am I going to break up with her?)

  The thought of being with her for a long time seemed, at best, wishful thinking. She was the type of girl who brought excitement and passion and all of those things, but it was beginning to wear on him.

  (She seems more like a character than a coherent person.)

  (Maybe Emily is right…)

  (Wait… why am I taking relationship advice from her again?)

  (But she does have a valid point about Bertha she isn’t easy to date, that’s for sure.)

  Meanwhile, Bertha was staring at her phone, eager to call George, picking up her phone every once in a while and then putting it back down.

  Finally she gave up on that, and sat down on her leather couch.

  Kitty settled on her lap, and snuggled against her legs, purring.

  “I guess it’s going to be you and me for a while, at least for now, do you like George?”

  Kitty tilted her head.

  Channel flip… nothing nothing nothing nothing…

  (This is better I guess. I do love Gene Wilder…)

  “… but nevertheless … shortly about to be… Cause I’ve got a golden ticket. I’ve got a golden way…” (“Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”).

  “I have a good feeling about him too Kitty.”

  Kitty settled back into her lap.

  “Although that in and of itself could be an issue, besides the fact I’m talking to my cat…”

  (Yeah, and your cat has better instincts that you do. Maybe you should do more listening. I’m highly symbolic.)

  George looked up at the cracked ceiling and pictured Bertha crying over him, steady as a shower, with his efforts to break up with her.

  (Am I really worth getting that upset over?)

  She’s wearing a black dress but she seems to lose weight when she hears the news, like a parachute that has recently descended.

  (Well…) She wipes away her hypothetical tears (If I didn’t get upset over something I really cared about wouldn’t that be a problem?)

  (I guess… you don’t see me crying at all.)

  Meanwhile Bertha has a sketch pad out, and begins to draw formal dresses. After picking up the Freudian slip piece, she realized, terrified that it looks a lot like a bridesmaid dress…)

  (What is wrong with you? You’re under the impression that that’s supposed to fix everything, but really it could just make things worse. Two people who fight a lot aren’t going get along any better when they’re married than when they’re dating… I don’t think.)

  Someone knocked on George’s door.

  “Brrriiing…” Bertha’s phone lit up, and began to vibrate violently.

  “Hello?”

  No answer.

  “Hello?”

  “Are you in significant debt…?”

  (Oh, I didn’t think that I knew that anyone in Pasadena California.)

  There was something in her that wished that it was a wrong number, she could never tell if the voices were robotic or human.

  (Am I really that much of a…)

  “Is anyone there?” George peered out into the hall, but the only noise he heard was the sound of the warm breeze sifting through the hallway which made the whole house seem hollow. Unable to detect the source of the three clear rapts, he shut the door again and returned to the indent in the covers where his phone was waiting.

  (Hmm to call or to text?)

  “Hey, how are you! I was just about to call you!’

  (That made him feel all the worse.)


  “Listen about that…I have something very important to tell you.”

  “Oh, me too!” She gushed. “I had such a busy day and…sorry you go first.”

  “Listen…ah… I think we should see other people.”

  The line remained silent for a few, exaggeratedly silent minute.

  “Oh.” Bertha’s voice took on a tone he had never heard before. It was terrifyingly flat and dead like a raccoon that hadn’t been picked off the road after it had been run over the first seven times.

  (Well, that was a lot easier than I thought…) George breathed a sigh of relief.

  (“I’m… I’m going to go now…”) her voice was quavering.

  “Are you…”

  The line went dead.

  George sighed.

  (Well I could end on that note, but I really don’t want to…)

  Surprisingly, she picked up.

  “What? What do you want?”

  (Nevermind then…)

  “At least talk to me, what do you want?”

  “I just wanted to ask if you’re going to be ok…”

  The line went silent, though he heard rustling on the other end, and distant screaming.

  “What is that?”

  “Oh, I’m watching something on TV.”

  “I said are you going to be ok…”

  There's no earthly way of knowing

  Which direction we are going

  There's no knowing where we're rowing

  Or which way the river's flowing

  (I don’t want to be alone and trapped …)

  Is it raining, is it snowing

  Is a hurricane a-blowing

  (Don’t make me do it. Distract me longer, free me from myself please don’t let me just be.)

  Not a speck of light is showing

  So the danger must be growing

  Are the fires of Hell a-glowing

  Is the grisly reaper mowing

  “No.” She began to cry coffee tears, a miracle. “No I’m not” and hung up.

  Yes, the danger must be growing

  For the rowers keep on rowing

  And they're certainly not showing

  Any signs that they are slowing. (“Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”).

  Gene Wilder’s big eyes wiggled back and forth, so resolvedly unresolved…

  (I need to find myself a crazy man like him.)

  (Now drink up the dregs and good riddance.)

  (You were a wild thing. How was he to tame you anyway?)

  Four hours later she began to feel the burnout effect; the hot tears scrunched out of her face had apparently dragged everything else with them.

  Kitty curled up at her feet as she slid into her pleasantly cool sheets.

  But despite being tired, she could not fall asleep, so she decided to make a general petition.

  (Dear potential God, Buddha, Yaweh, etc. You let other people sleep. So let me.)

  But it never worked. She remembered being eleven and being awake, half scared to walk through the dark house while the others snored on, trying to make the drawer in the fridge squeak as little as possible. And earlier than that creeping to her parents room, half running because the house was haunted, bare feet cold rabbits on the floor snow white.

  “Just try and go back to sleep, there’s really nothing we can do for you honey.”

  24 years of not working.

  (Doing the same thing and expecting a different response is insanity.)

  And despite using Advil P.M. or drinking or other depressants later in life, nothing really seemed to work, so she’d use the time to try and meditate on something.

  (If you dig deep enough into yourself, aren’t you supposed to find something inherently good, or an aura or something weird like that?)

  Her pseudo nirvana was a place with violins playing, hot springs, and violets everywhere, but today she couldn’t get there.

  Instead she tried to knead her consciousness for answers, and followed herself down cerebral tunnels.

  George’s mint tasting kisses, and the furry slither of Kitty at her ankles, past a young brother and sister the brother with blonde blonde hair and the sister with precocious, bang fringed eyes, how I have let them down by not being someone who just gets a grip, darker, darker, roaming the streets full of summer beer with friends wizard of Oz style, past the nights where you hear the morning birds, past the words bound in print, climbing over pages and pages of notebook space, unconquered territory binding me, past the sound of nothing in Yosemite, and past the wonderful feeling as a plane goes into descent… “Folks we’re clear to land in Buffalo, please prepare for descent.” Grainy crackling voice.

  Dead end.

  There was nothing there.

  (Where is the complicated inner nexus of guilt and purpose? All I see is a void…)

  She plunged into it deeper and deeper, but it was like being trapped in a current of black velvet with the hum of distant organs in the background.

  (What a pity. It seems someone has misplaced my soul.)

  (A soul, what a strange concept. Whoever came up with the idea that people have souls in the first place?)

  (Someone inflated me some time ago with sugar, spice, and everything not so nice plus chemical x…but I don’t see what that has to do with having some eternal inner figure that lives on after I die. So far as I know they used up all that animation on the clay and ribs.)

  (Can some people have souls and others not?)

  (Am I in the minority or the majority?)

  (Oh, eternal void so delightfully unconquered.)

  (Well… I guess lack has as much significance as full does.)

  (Beyond these primary narcissisms, I’m just left with just black velvet lakes of nothing, or in turn, whatever I wish them to be.)

  (They can be purple hillocks or nothing…)

  (“Oh, we’ll never get to see the wizard now, I feel so sleepy…)

  (So much for yoga being relaxing, I am only ever really relaxed on the surface anyway then…)

  (Take a deep breath… and find your center, let the rest of the world fade away.)

  (When the world fades away so do I.)

  (So where is my center?)

  (I am nothing separate, so much as I long to be… oh homo Fugue!)

  (I need a separate anima mine died out long ago.)

  (The thing that makes me move is not inside of me but rather outside of me.)

  (But it is real, and it is not just one thing.)

  (Am I a fiction?)

  (I live to be the woman who continually rises and falls, pretty woman phoenix, oh we do love our stories about resurrections… every book needs that Sisyphus character, that person who cannot break the cycle of ever up and down the born celebrity or butt of jokes… if you are different you will be noticed whether you like it or not it’s mandated …cold Marilyn lady fingers.)

  (No one pays attention to Cassandra’s seemingly inconsequential mutterings. Holly, shall we put on our beaded, crystalline ornaments, I didn’t find any shiny auras, so let’s put something shiny on the outside, if you dress well no on realizes you’re slowly spinning into oblivion.)

  (Is this what lies behind the green curtain?)

  (I want to map out the interior where my soul should be, trace every inch of the velvet sea, and draw a demography of all the crevices and peaks, dark cave… no wonder I am claustrophobic in the dark underground places, because it reminds me of the extended collapse.)

  (And as it shall be a world without end.)

  (Homina homina homina santa spree amen!)

  (I need some primal force to spin the stars into shape, to turn the soul into something that looks like it makes sense, with billions and trillions of stars that can be old or young at the same time depending on where you are in the soul-a-verse. Stars are pretty, so we assumed that inherently gives things meaning. Pretty things are supposed to make sense.)

 
“Hey!”

  George rolled out of bed, eager to get his mind off of Bertha.

  (She’s probably fine now anyway.)

  (No use wallowing about.)

  His cousin Bob stood at the door with his unusually graceful posture for a man of relative goofiness.

  “Dude…” he stooped under the doorframe and sat on the other twin bed. “… everyone is making us go to the Margins tomorrow.”

  “Ugh are you serious…” George shook his head. “And whose brilliant idea was that? I thought grandpa and grandma hate nature.”

  “I know right?” But he didn’t seem too torn up about it. “I guess we’re just going to have to get away and smoke there, aye?”

  George peered cautiously out the doorframe, listening to see if the others had come back from getting ice-cream, but the house was quiet. “How much did you bring?”

  “I forget have to check… at least a gram…. And I picked up so Vicodin too from getting my wisdom teeth out…. I’ve been selling the stuff like candy. You want any?”

  “Nah, man. “ He lay back on the bed. “Ugh… I don’t want to go the Margins though. I wanted to sleep in and then escape to the beach and maybe get a good burn going.”

  “Yeah we could hit the shore…”

  It was so amusing how out of it Bob’s parents were. Karen and Joe were your typical parents that try too hard. They had all of their children wear matching tee-shirts for Christmas photos, and they were the horrible sort to include an overly-informative Christmas letter. They were the church every Sunday family with chore charts and other weird things, but despite their odd upbringing Karen and Joe ended up being some of the absolutely craziest partiers that George had ever met.

  Bob, or Robert as his parent’s called him, had been dealing for five years, and making a pretty substantial profit off of it, selling to other college students. He had a crew cut, straight As, and was a mean quarterback just your all American guy.

  His sister was similarly popular, with bleach blonde hair, and straight A’s. In her spare time, she worked as a club promoter, wearing tiny sequin skirts and dresses of questionable coverage. She drank heavily, but it didn’t seem to affect her grades. Emily always seemed to have hard feelings towards her, seeing that she got better grades than her.

  Naturally they were both in the business school.

  George kept himself busy; he didn’t want thoughts of Bertha settling like the fat, whitish, top layer of hardened grease on an otherwise appetizing soup that needs to be skimmed off later.

  The next morning, at some absurd hour where you’re so tired you feel sick, George had somehow been herded to the car, with a golden delicious apple that he never got around to eating, because he promptly fell asleep with his face flattened against the window.

  He woke up with little recollection of his dream, except that it had ended in a dead corpse telling him to “Turn left.”

  (Turn left, what does that mean?)

  (What is this, a bad horror movie that tells me something lifesaving?)

  (At least I haven’t been thinking about Bertha.)

  (Damn now I’m thinking about her because I was thinking about not thinking about her.)

  The sun began to filter up through the trees as they stumbled out of the car awkwardly with stiff legs and sore butts from sitting too long like marathon runners at the finish line.

  “Is this it?”

  To all extents and purposes, it looked as though they could’ve been anywhere next to the highway. The landscape was not particularly distinctive, and the only thing that distinguished it was the two tall posts with a swinging sign cut out in wood which had probably originally looked charming, but it had since began to rot a bit, and the “m” in “margins” could collapse any minute.

  “Yup. This is it.”

  The air whistled through the trees and blew up the half frozen, crisp leaf ghosts on the ground. (It’s probably better leaves have no conception of mortality, they’d have to watch the other leaves around them die, leaf by leaf, waiting for the inevitable and the ancestors clearly visible on the ground.)

  (Wow that’s grim. Very positive…)

  (Shush sanity. Leave me be. I was in love you have no part in this.)

  (Well obviously not if you have two different voices of yourself talking to yourself.)

  (Yes, well it gets very lonely in this narcissistic head. Can’t imagine how Bertha does it, she’s far worse than I am.)

  (That she is. Eh I think you’re going to be ok.)

  (Thanks rationality! Wait, aren’t I obliged to say that via instinct?)

  Suddenly the path opened to a big clearing. The sun lit up a mirror lake pink, orange, yellow, your basic stereotypic poetic variety pack sherbet sunrise. To the far right, a series of cabins appeared, much to everyone’s relief.

  (I had always pictured the Margins as this desolate uninhabited place, but it looks alright now…)

  The cabins were pretty well cleaned and kept up, but there was a catch. Each room had a theme: one was full of dead eyed deer, another various turkeys and other frozen fowl, and the final moose and deer.

  (“Dead staring things on the walls always add a certain quaint charm to the room…”)George pictured Martha Stewart hanging up the rabid raccoon, frozen in attack stance, on her wall, and tying a little lace-strapped bonnet under his chin.

  “Well…” Bob nudged George as they stayed behind to carry in the coolers of food. “At least we can go outside to…”

  Rain began to pelt them from above.

  “I swear,” George said “Whatever is doing this up there is just having so much fun.”

  They ran inside the Turkey house with the cooler, where they proceeded to notice the peacock standing between two hawks.

  Even dead, it looked at odds, so alone…

  (Really getting carried away with the whole death theme, are you George?)

  (Oh, come on, this was just a give-away symbol. Obviously Bertha is the dead peacock.)

  (Oh really, really, are you really going to go there?)

  (I just did. So there… maybe I’ll even write a poem about it.)

  (I can’t talk to you anymore.)

  Back at the Moose house, a table with an absurd amount of food had accumulated with all the classic weird foods that sort of end up on tables at family gathering. There was the rolled salami, and the chips and onion dip, and the deviled eggs mainly untouched except by that one person in the family who is enthusiastic about eating deviled eggs.

  And there were piles of glistening olives, sending beacons of redemption from the middle of the table.

  “So,” Emily nudged her brother, after her aunt ran out of things to ask them to compare them to her own children. “How did it go?”

  “Ok.” George spit a pit out into the rain where it landed in a muddy basin like a planted seed.

  “Did you get my sweatshirt back?” She eyed him accusatorily.

  (Ah yes, the ballad of the tie-dye sweatshirt...)

  Originally a not terribly noticed, too small tie-die hoodie that George had grown out of, he had, on different occasions given it to both his sister and Bertha. However, Bertha had been the last one to have it. When Bertha had received the hoodie, Emily felt betrayed, vowing to win back what had become a symbol of her brother’s affection.

  “Is that why you tried to break us up? Because you wanted a hoodie?” He asked Emily laughingly.

  “No, no…” She shot back. “Well… actually yes. But also I don’t like her.”

  Thoughtlessly, he texted Bertha “By the way you need to give me back that hoodie. My sister wants it…”

  Two hours later he got the curt response “No thank you.”

  He hid his phone, afraid of the response he would get from Emily if she happened to see it out of the corner of her eye.

  “What do you mean no, thank you…”

  “Well I don’t really want to give it to her. If it’s just
for you I don’t care, but not for her.”

  “But it was mine originally…”

  “Well, you gave it to me, not to her. Why don’t you just tell her that if she had wanted it so badly she should have been a better sister to you and we wouldn’t be in this dilemma?” Meanwhile Bertha was laughing at home. She was going to give the hoodie away soon anyway; it was just a matter of victory.

  It was the only time she had gotten a really good girl fight in a long time.

  (Now I know why George likes making me mad all the time. There is a certain guilty pleasure when you stop letting the other person get to you, and play with them.)

  Bertha sighed openly, causing her friend to look over.

  “You ok…”

  “Oh, I’m alright.”

  Down at the other end of the table, her friend and the others were engaged in a conversation centered on a tiny girl in a black turtleneck.

  They were discussing something very excitedly and her friend would periodically look at her hand. At first she thought it was a class ring, but then she quickly realized that it was something else….

  “Oh, you’re engaged?”

  The table went silent.

  (Well that was sufficiently awkward.)

  (I really should listen.)

  “Oh nice, congratulations!” Bertha smiled.

  She pictured her friend Rose, writing on the other end with jealousy, and probably not being very subtle about it.

  When she Bertha remarked how odd it was for someone to get married that young, but secretly she was sort of… well… jealous.

  (But but she’s so…)

  (No don’t think that you’re not supposed to think that…)

  (But she’s just so …)

  (No, don’t think it, don’t you dare…)

  (Ugly)

  (And boring.)

  (It’s like vanilla granola…)

  (Wow I am such a bitch aren’t I?)

  (Well at least you aren’t saying anything out loud.)

  (Keep looking in your soup do not look up, whatever you do.)

  (Am I really that inwardly ugly that I can’t get engaged before her?)

  And that’s when Bertha realized that she needed to change.

  (From now on I’m not going to judge anyone.)

  In the meantime, her friend and boyfriend were fuming at the other side of the table because her ex had just come in, and between the three of them there was such an array of talking too loudly and other poor battle tactics. The others had left, leaving money for the check and Bertha to her thoughts, occasionally interrupted by the awkwardness of the love triangle going on over her head and ducking her back into her thoughts.

  (I mean maybe she’s sweet. That’s it. You could try that out.)

  (…. Do I have to?)

  (Yes, you really do.)

  (….cricket cricket…)

  (Oh forget it I give up trying to make you good.)

  (You’ll save myself a hell of lot of trouble.)

  (At least stop comparing yourself to people, you’ll be better off.)

  (… that’s a bit more reasonable…)

  On the way outside, Bertha tripped and fell down a few stairs, nearly mauling an old couple who stepped out of the way at the last minute.

  (I don’t fall I just fly downward.)

  Her ankle burned, and she stumbled a bit trying to roll it off, but it wasn’t bad enough that she couldn’t walk back.

  It’s odd, you expect the emotionally sensitive to also be sensitive to physical pain, but for Bertha it was the opposite. It was as if the proportions were completely wrong, so there wasn’t enough sensitivity for pain. In fact, she had burnt her elbow pretty badly because she had a delayed reaction to touching the hot glass plate of a gas fireplace being very preoccupied with her emotions.

  (Damn things are going to get me killed.)

  The rain didn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon, but George decided to go outside anyway. He was beginning to feel suffocated by his family. They were all panicked and hyper, and in a sense they reminded him of Bertha, especially his aunts all together in a pack.

  He was seemingly unaware of the damage he was causing his nearly submerged black converse, as he stepped out into the rain with his mother’s umbrella. Droplets collected on the wider leaves until they broke and tumbled headlong like crystalized acrobats. Out of sheer instinct, he found himself shuffling in the denser clusters of trees.

  Unfortunately, everything was beginning to look less familiar.

  For one, the trees all looked older, and mossier. The foliage had grown so thick that George closed his mother’s umbrella because it was getting caught on too many things.

  In normal circumstances he would have turned back, but he figured he had very little to lose. Suddenly his foot flew free, and he noticed the two startlingly cleared paths branching off to the left and right.

  (Oh so this is what that whole dream business was about.)

  George had since gotten himself so lost that at this point it didn’t seem to make much of a difference where he ended up.

  (Hmm, my dream told me to turn left so I’m going to turn right to spite it.)

  Rays of sun began to poke their brilliant heads out of blanket clouds.

  Huge, endless faces of rock blocked him from going anywhere but through the wide alleys that broke up giant shoulder of what had originally been part of a glacier.

  (Rock city…)

  George ignored his intuitions not to go in alone, plagued by the impractical curiosity that specifically asserts itself on cats and main characters as a rule. The uniformity of the path disintegrated, and he found himself going left and right, through the narrow and wide and changing elevation.

  (What if they all cave in?)

  (What if I never get out and tell Bertha that I love her?)

  (Wait but I don’t… right?)

  He began to walk faster with an impending panic.

  “Damnit.” He felt his center of gravity disappear as he tumbled down into one of the side nooks.

  George paused to rub his ankle, which thankfully wasn’t swelling yet. He looked up, still dizzy from the fall.

  Sunlight guided his eyes to what he thought was the west, illuminating the well-worn wall.

  On closer inspection George noticed what he thought might be a carving of his name.

  Careful of the shifting sodden leaves, he made his way over.

  George dumps Bertha at his grandmother’s house

  He stepped back, paranoid.

  (That can’t be right, I’m hallucinating.)

  George dumps Bertha at grandmother’s house via text message-Bertha becomes a miserable workaholic and eventually kills herself. George meets next girl-Autumn?Auburn? Actually manageable beautiful girl, everything Bertha is not-never thinks of her or speaks to her again Bertha gets into a fatal car accident four days later driving back from a night out…

  (What the hell?)

  He craned his neck at the wall where the writing went on and on and on. It was all about him and Bertha.

  George sees Bertha at a funeral notices that her apartment… talk about how apartment is almost like a hotel… crazy sister… sweatshirt

  His head began to swim.

  (Am I dreaming right now?)

  His ankle continued to throb.

  (Calm down, calm down.)

  (Well, has everything before this come into fruition?)

  But George searched in vain for something that hadn’t happened between him and Bertha

  Well you shouldn’t cry all the time it gives you wrinkles. Goodness woman, are you still crying?”

  There were other writings that hadn’t come true, but they were vigorously scribbled over. For instance, Bertha’s cat had not gotten hit by a car.

  (Nine lives indeed.)

  Clumsily, he dropped his phone into a pile of soppy leaves, and brushed the clods of dirt off frant
ically.

  His first instinct was to call her, but he paused, cautious.

  (Well, what happens if I break the direct orders? Will it call attention to myself from some unjust figure peering at the whole thing above?)

  (Was it worth it…?)

  Feeling horrible, he began to look at the next wall, which had descriptions of a girl he had never met: An earthy girl, with brown eyes and tan skin, who loved to play Ataris and actually liked metal. And she could cook.

  (She sounds perfect for me.)

  (I can’t deal with this; maybe I’ll pretend I never saw this.)

  But as much as he tried he couldn’t forget the look of the grove, it haunted him as he sat back in the cabin. His phone haunted him too, with phantom vibrations.

  (I can’t stand this…)

  He opened a can of bud light, and then another, and then another.

  For once he felt that the company of his family was less grating and a better buffer to whatever weird things were happening beyond and yet within his immediate existence. But as the others nodded off to sleep in pseudo food induced comas on the way home, he found himself wide awake and feeling a little nauseous, staring at the passing moon that made the shadows of trees dance rhythmically.

  When they got home, he helped the others unpack the leftovers, and blankets and other things.

  “Goodness…” His mother sat in the living room with a new glass of wine poured, and a book. “I never understand why your Aunt…”

  “Mom.” He interrupted her, well aware that she would go on talking quite some time unless he acted urgently.

  “George I was trying to talk…” She scowled.

  “Mom, I need to take the car.”

  “What?” She asked, with her usual, outraged New Jersey accent. “Where in the world are you going, it’s already eleven thirty? Are you going to Brian’s or something? I hope you don’t go out looking like that what in the world did you do to your shoes…”

  “Yes, I’m going to Brian’s.” He lied. “I’ll probably stay over too…”

  “Alright at least change out of that flannel, you’re starting to get a hole in the elbow … tell Mrs. Ling I said hi…”

  She was still talking when he shut the door.

  “Oh.” She shrugged, and put the lip of the glass to her lips.

  Stay awake.

  Bertha looked at the text, confused.

  This day had been full of oddities.

  It had been the first day she had considered taking a sick day that she truly didn’t need, and spent the whole day going in and out of work as if it were a dream, sucking back tears like she was back in college.…

  It was just not her at all.

  (Something is not right.)

  Her parents had skyped her later, after telling them that she was depressed.

  They both looked slightly pained.

  “You know you could try going to church…”

  She gave them a look.

  “Church is depressing.”

  “Well you’re already pretty depressed anyway, it can’t do much more.”

  (But it could.)

  “You don’t have to buy into all of it but maybe just going to it will make you feel better.”

  (What if I don’t buy into any of it?)

  Going to church always made her feel nauseous, with talk about all the blood and suffering.

  The statues and painting of a bloody tortured man aren’t particularly appealing either.

  (I am not one of the saved ones, and I know it.)

  Bertha couldn’t even explain how she knew; she just sort of felt like one of the damned ones.

  (In all my twenty years, I have never, ever felt the presence of God. Ever.)

  (But it works for all of these people, why isn’t it working for me?)

  (Once I prayed that my goldfish would never die when I was nine. Instead it lived until I was 21.

  It had since accumulated a growth coming out of the side of its body. The tumor grew slowly at first, turning white. Then it grew bigger, weighing the fish down day by day so that it had to swim more slowly. We weren’t quite sure what to do with the poor thing.)

  (Then at the end it got so bad that it just sort of clung to the leaves of fake algae, wheezing with terrified eyes, until it stopped moving and floated to the top after months of suffering.)

  (What a convenient symbol.)

  “I know but I don’t think you need medication you can just sort of keep yourself busy. You just have to be patient.”

  (Yes, if I’m patient my depression will simply disappear. Well it’s already been four years I better keep hanging in there. Be a good sport.)

  She stared down at the phone, suspicious.

  In the meantime, George was filling up the car, looking at the other people who were there. A man with an intense beard helped a woman in pregnant woman in plush pants out of the car. His truck was a bit beaten up, and looked as though it could break down any minute, and it looked as though they had trouble making ends meet.

  But when they locked eyes neither of them seemed to notice that.

  (I want that. Well minus the sweatpants and truck and whatnot.)

  The buzzer sent Bertha off guard.

  It was three thirty.

  She groaned and pulled herself off the couch where she had fallen asleep, an infomercial about the sham-wow on in the background.

  (It’s like the whole thing was some intricate embroidery and the whole time you never realized that you didn’t put a knot in the back, so everything came undone.)

  She busied herself taking the blue nail-polish off of her fingers, but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t get the bluish tinge off.

  It was five o clock in the morning when George arrived, beeping the button urgently.

  Unable to sleep but still relatively sluggish, Bertha opened the door, and before she could understand what was happening she found herself in George’s arms.

  But as a reaction she just felt herself tighten up into tense knot. “No, please no.”

  “What’s the matter?” He ceased kissing her forehead and eyes and anything else that would occasionally peak out from her fetal position.

  She didn’t say anything, she just sat there quivering.

  (What if I can’t interfere… what if the author’s will is done anyway?)

  “Hey…” he embraced her. “Don’t you want to be with me?”

  Eventually her head poked up-turtle like and strained red from crying. “Of course I do.”

  “Then why are you crying?”

  Finally she gave in, like a falling monument, burying her head into his chest.

  “Are you sure about this?” She finally popped up and wiped her eyes. “I mean I was thinking I was one of those people who aren’t supposed to be you know be with other people. Like those people who just work all the time. Maybe that will make me happy!”

  But her subsequent sobbing suggested that she believed otherwise.

  “No no no…” He began to lightly scratch her back, which seemed to calm her a bit.

  “No you’re right.” She popped up and tried to get a grip of herself. “But I have to be tough. I just want to be one of those tough people who never cry about anything and… I just want to be super super tough like you.”

  “You are tough, love.” He sat cross-legged, and she across from him as if they were a figure and his reflection reaching out to grab each other’s hands.

  “Well I have to be.” She avoided his gaze. “I figure I have to let you be with someone who’s better for you. You deserve a good girl… not… I don’t deserve you. Besides, this is, this is….”

  “What?” he looked at her inquiringly.

  “This is insane.” She sighed. “I mean you could be with anyone in the world. You could be with someone who’s nice and normal…”

  “So?” He shrugged and noticed that she had stopped crying. “Oh that’s good
you’ve stopped crying.”

  “I’m dehydrated.” Bertha pouted. “I have no fluids left.” She frowned.

  “Oh goodness woman.” He poured her a glass of water. “Well we wouldn’t want that aye?”

  “I guess not.” Her face scrunched up again. “But seriously, why don’t you go out and find some girl who won’t damn you. It would be easier. I’m sure there’s someone out there. ”

  “Actually…” he began hesitantly.

  “That’s alright.” Her voice grew flat and dead. “You’ll be happy then. That’s all that matters. I’ll be ok soon too, I’m going to get by ok. ”

  “No…no…” now his eyes were beginning to get teary, as Bertha began to see more and more calmed down. “I was going to say there is, but I haven’t met her yet. And I choose you instead.”

  “Wait….” Bertha looked up inquisitively and tried to interpret that but came up with nothing. “What? How do you know someone is better for you if you haven’t met them yet?”

  “Look.” He took her hand, and mulled over the explanation but none of his confusing ramblings would really do it any justice, so he decided to take a different approach. “It’s not something I can entirely explain but I have to show you something. I know this is absolutely insane, and I…”

  “You’re not taking me to the hospital are you?” Bertha wrenched her hand away. “Or the asylum or the cops. Because I swear if that’s the case I will sue you, don’t think I won’t. I know I’m crazy but I’ve gotten along just fine before and I’ll get along fine without you after a time. ”

  “No Bertha no, I’m not like the others. I actually care about you. It’s ok, you can trust me.” He grabbed her hand back and held on to it protectively. “I’m not letting go of you. Come with me. I promise everything will make sense very, very soon. We’re going to the Margins.”

  “The margins?” her eyes lit up with the prospect of visiting something haunted. “Well alright then, why not? Do you want to sleep here first?”

  “Ah…” He wondered if any second the author would find them entwined and have them rudely plucked from existence.

  (But if the author can find us anywhere, what difference does it make where we are?)

  “Sure.” He smiled weakly.

  They felt awkward at first, sleeping at other sides of the bed, worn out and unsure where all of this was going. But then Bertha grabbed his waist in her sleep and laid his head on his chest.

  He shifted over, and looked down at her, this tiny conundrum.

  It was as if there was just too much person in one person let alone for one book.

  If the author were to write a book about the two of them it would be the mad sort of book that would have so much outlying energy that it’d fly off shelves and hit unsuspecting librarians in the head.

  On their way out the next morning, Bertha noticed a bright pink post-it on the door.

  “Mr. Plot came by, inquiring about suspicious noises. Tenet must explain feline noises coming from room.”

  “That’s odd of him to write himself in third person.” George shrugged.

  “Oh no that’s Mrs. Livingston’s writing he must have stopped by because I wasn’t there. I’m not supposed to have pets here but Kitty is usually quiet aren’t you?”

  A pair of green eyes flickered up from her purse.

  She threw it in her purse unthinkingly, and Kitty began to play with it.

  “Just out of curiosity…” George asked. “What is Mr. Plot’s first name?”

  “I’m not sure….”

  George nervously pictured Mr. Plot being some form of a mullety bounty hunter for the known universe, keeping things in order. He began to laugh.

  Bertha gave him an odd look. “Never mind I’ll explain later.”

  “You may want to lay off that coffee…” George stared at her warningly after a few hours. “You’ll probably have to go the bathroom soon.”

  “Oh, actually…” Bertha looked at him guiltily. “I sort of already do.”

  -sigh-

  He gave her a look, and then placed an empty soda bottle in her hands.

  “There you go.” He started to snicker, but truly he was afraid to stop because of Mr. Plot.

  “Rude.” Bertha pouted.