(no subject)
ahh. i need your help! i've written a story for my creative writing workshop, but i'm dreadfully unsure of it. so, because all of you are absolutely maddeningly brilliant, maybe you can help? there's a certain line i've left blank because i can't for the life of me think what the character would say. i need suggestions. also, general critique. does it work? do you like it? what's awkward? yadda, yadda.
We lay around languidly, stretching back over the arms of chairs until our spines melt into the furniture and we become as still and lifeless as they. We practice looking at the world upside down; ceilings become floors, the dust stinging our eyes causes tears to run upwards, our hair dances about as if we are in space or underwater.
In Delilah's house everything is covered in sheets. It is hot where the sun shines through the grime-covered windows and cold in the shadows. It is mostly shadows, now. Her mother sits out in the garden everyday, pulling up weeds, pulling flowers and vegetables until everything is a mess of dirt and green. I tell myself it is the anti-garden.
Delilah says, "My father loved the garden. He loved it because it was my mother's and she made it grow and when he died, my mother didn't touch it for years. Then one day, she went out there and it's like she hasn't been back since. She's like a life-sized garden gnome. Only without the pointy red hat."
I don't think Delilah really remembers the garden before- when it had neat rows of watermelon and roses and stargazer lilies. I know because we've been friends since we were six, and even then she had no father and her mother had no garden, really. Delilah has a tendency to lie when she knows I know the truth. I have a tendency to let her.
We lay bending across the arms of chairs, staring at each other until our faces are flushed and our eyes cross. Delilah has dark, round eyes like mirrors. She has bones like knives, all sharp, gaunt angles. She is painful to look at sometimes, haunted and beautiful. So I look away.
Delilah proclaims, "I am Delilah," in a voice like a foreign queen and I laugh at the awkwardness of a broken silence. I laugh because Delilah is always breaking things like silences and hearts and I say to her, because she knows better than I- I say, "And who am I?"
"____________" is all she replies and somehow I am disappointed, but I smile and laugh anyway.
We go to the park on Sundays and sit on the swings. Delilah and I try to swing higher than each other and it is like we are flying. Each second changes from earth to sky and pretty soon my feet catch on the gravel and I am dizzy, but Delilah keeps going because she never gets dizzy and I think she likes the blue oblivion better. I think she thinks her father is there in the shape of a cloud or cut out into stars and anything is better than her stony house with dark halls and dust and death smiling from every picture frame.
Sometimes I think Delilah is wearing a mask because of the way a grin sticks to her face, even with the all the sadness around her. She must have many masks though, because she can put on her grimace just as easily and then it's like she had never smiled at all.
"Delilah," I say, "What do you want to eat?"
And she says, "Let the maid get it," because we are in her attic trying on her dead grandmother's clothes. She has a feather boa and a sequined dress that hangs too much in the front, too much off the sides, and I worry because she is so skinny. She is thin and frail and does she ever eat?
So I say again, "Delilah, come on. What do you want to eat? Because you don't have a maid. I don't think you ever did, actually."
She looks at me, confused for a moment. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," I say, even though I am not because sometimes the things Delilah says are true.
"Well, I wish I had one. Someone spilt wine in the hall downstairs and there's an ugly purple puddle in the shape of a bunny."
"Did you want anything to eat?"
"Yes. Pineapple, please."
Delilah's house is like a maze and everywhere you look there are ghosts. Photographs of a new house with a happy family waving in front of it-- a tall and handsome man with his arm hugging the waist of a beautiful, lively woman-- a small child with wild hair and the handsome man pushing her on a swing set. There is sunlight without shadows. Every picture is a ghost.
In the back cupboard there is a can of pineapple that is not yet years past the expiration date. I find the can opener and a clean bowl. When I bring it back, Delilah is wearing an old lace dress with a veil. She is sitting on a trunk and staring at nothing with her lips slightly parted and that is how I know she is lost in thought. But when I come closer she moves and takes a breath like the kind you need when you have been underwater too long. I hold out the bowl and smile.
Delilah takes a piece and asks me as she chews around it, "What would I do without you?" and I know she doesn't mean it rhetorically.
I take a piece of pineapple too, even though I don't really like it, and I say slowly, "You'd be okay. Maybe you would have another best friend."
And she says, "Yeah," like she's considering it, and I pretend I'm not hurt by that. Her fingers are slowly, mechanically unraveling the hem of her dress and I put my hands over hers to stop them. She says, "Could you have another best friend?"
I want to say yes. I want to tell her that I could go to the mall on weekends and buy clothes that would make boys look at me. I could try cigarettes with the girls in the alley and laugh raucously at dirty jokes. I want to say, "Yeah, Delilah, I could have another best friend and maybe she would be better. Maybe her mother wouldn't be crazy, and maybe she would have a father. Her house would be full of department store furniture and everything would smell like lemon and bleach." But I don't say any of that because I cannot look into her eyes like mirrors and lie. I try not to even think it because sometimes Delilah can read minds.
"Do you think I'm crazy?" she asks, and there, she's doing it.
"I don't think you're boring."
"That's not an answer. It's an evasion."
"Sometimes."
"But we're all mad here," she's questioning and justifying it in the same tone.
"Yeah."
"You, especially," she grins and her mask is on again.
At the end of the fields behind Delilah's house, past the garden-that-isn't-a-garden and the broken, falling down fence, there is a cliff. Beyond the cliff there are two kinds of blue and they both stretch forever. At night, sometimes, we hear the ocean roaring there against the side and Delilah pretends to whisper its secrets to me in funny little voices. We fly kites at the edge when the wind is right and the day I remember most is the day Delilah let hers go.
"Look, look! Look how it's flying." Delilah shouts. It is a red diamond against an azure backdrop and it keeps going higher and higher until we can barely see it. She is smiling so brilliantly and I let my hands loose so the wheel turns and turns letting my kite climb up to meet hers. The wind changes and strengthens, knotting the kites together and Delilah is laughing. She is so delighted. There are bows in her hair and the wind is playing in it the same way it plays with the grass in the fields that stretch to meet us. When Delilah lets her kite go, she takes my hand instead and I know that we are best friends and we can do anything so I let mine free, too. Our kites soar until the wind slowly slips out from beneath them and we watch as they spiral playfully, freely, and crash down into the sea.
I think someday Delilah and I will crash into the sea, too, after we have soared up into heaven, away from the dirt and ghosts and up and up and up where the only things we are tied to are each other. Even if she is crazy, even though I follow her anyway, Delilah and I are kites, sometimes, and we look at the world from every angle to try and see the beauty behind the sorrow. Yes, we are like kites- Delilah and I- dipping and lively and longing for greater heights, pulling each other into the horizon until it is time to come down.
We lay around languidly, stretching back over the arms of chairs until our spines melt into the furniture and we become as still and lifeless as they. We practice looking at the world upside down; ceilings become floors, the dust stinging our eyes causes tears to run upwards, our hair dances about as if we are in space or underwater.
In Delilah's house everything is covered in sheets. It is hot where the sun shines through the grime-covered windows and cold in the shadows. It is mostly shadows, now. Her mother sits out in the garden everyday, pulling up weeds, pulling flowers and vegetables until everything is a mess of dirt and green. I tell myself it is the anti-garden.
Delilah says, "My father loved the garden. He loved it because it was my mother's and she made it grow and when he died, my mother didn't touch it for years. Then one day, she went out there and it's like she hasn't been back since. She's like a life-sized garden gnome. Only without the pointy red hat."
I don't think Delilah really remembers the garden before- when it had neat rows of watermelon and roses and stargazer lilies. I know because we've been friends since we were six, and even then she had no father and her mother had no garden, really. Delilah has a tendency to lie when she knows I know the truth. I have a tendency to let her.
We lay bending across the arms of chairs, staring at each other until our faces are flushed and our eyes cross. Delilah has dark, round eyes like mirrors. She has bones like knives, all sharp, gaunt angles. She is painful to look at sometimes, haunted and beautiful. So I look away.
Delilah proclaims, "I am Delilah," in a voice like a foreign queen and I laugh at the awkwardness of a broken silence. I laugh because Delilah is always breaking things like silences and hearts and I say to her, because she knows better than I- I say, "And who am I?"
"____________" is all she replies and somehow I am disappointed, but I smile and laugh anyway.
We go to the park on Sundays and sit on the swings. Delilah and I try to swing higher than each other and it is like we are flying. Each second changes from earth to sky and pretty soon my feet catch on the gravel and I am dizzy, but Delilah keeps going because she never gets dizzy and I think she likes the blue oblivion better. I think she thinks her father is there in the shape of a cloud or cut out into stars and anything is better than her stony house with dark halls and dust and death smiling from every picture frame.
Sometimes I think Delilah is wearing a mask because of the way a grin sticks to her face, even with the all the sadness around her. She must have many masks though, because she can put on her grimace just as easily and then it's like she had never smiled at all.
"Delilah," I say, "What do you want to eat?"
And she says, "Let the maid get it," because we are in her attic trying on her dead grandmother's clothes. She has a feather boa and a sequined dress that hangs too much in the front, too much off the sides, and I worry because she is so skinny. She is thin and frail and does she ever eat?
So I say again, "Delilah, come on. What do you want to eat? Because you don't have a maid. I don't think you ever did, actually."
She looks at me, confused for a moment. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," I say, even though I am not because sometimes the things Delilah says are true.
"Well, I wish I had one. Someone spilt wine in the hall downstairs and there's an ugly purple puddle in the shape of a bunny."
"Did you want anything to eat?"
"Yes. Pineapple, please."
Delilah's house is like a maze and everywhere you look there are ghosts. Photographs of a new house with a happy family waving in front of it-- a tall and handsome man with his arm hugging the waist of a beautiful, lively woman-- a small child with wild hair and the handsome man pushing her on a swing set. There is sunlight without shadows. Every picture is a ghost.
In the back cupboard there is a can of pineapple that is not yet years past the expiration date. I find the can opener and a clean bowl. When I bring it back, Delilah is wearing an old lace dress with a veil. She is sitting on a trunk and staring at nothing with her lips slightly parted and that is how I know she is lost in thought. But when I come closer she moves and takes a breath like the kind you need when you have been underwater too long. I hold out the bowl and smile.
Delilah takes a piece and asks me as she chews around it, "What would I do without you?" and I know she doesn't mean it rhetorically.
I take a piece of pineapple too, even though I don't really like it, and I say slowly, "You'd be okay. Maybe you would have another best friend."
And she says, "Yeah," like she's considering it, and I pretend I'm not hurt by that. Her fingers are slowly, mechanically unraveling the hem of her dress and I put my hands over hers to stop them. She says, "Could you have another best friend?"
I want to say yes. I want to tell her that I could go to the mall on weekends and buy clothes that would make boys look at me. I could try cigarettes with the girls in the alley and laugh raucously at dirty jokes. I want to say, "Yeah, Delilah, I could have another best friend and maybe she would be better. Maybe her mother wouldn't be crazy, and maybe she would have a father. Her house would be full of department store furniture and everything would smell like lemon and bleach." But I don't say any of that because I cannot look into her eyes like mirrors and lie. I try not to even think it because sometimes Delilah can read minds.
"Do you think I'm crazy?" she asks, and there, she's doing it.
"I don't think you're boring."
"That's not an answer. It's an evasion."
"Sometimes."
"But we're all mad here," she's questioning and justifying it in the same tone.
"Yeah."
"You, especially," she grins and her mask is on again.
At the end of the fields behind Delilah's house, past the garden-that-isn't-a-garden and the broken, falling down fence, there is a cliff. Beyond the cliff there are two kinds of blue and they both stretch forever. At night, sometimes, we hear the ocean roaring there against the side and Delilah pretends to whisper its secrets to me in funny little voices. We fly kites at the edge when the wind is right and the day I remember most is the day Delilah let hers go.
"Look, look! Look how it's flying." Delilah shouts. It is a red diamond against an azure backdrop and it keeps going higher and higher until we can barely see it. She is smiling so brilliantly and I let my hands loose so the wheel turns and turns letting my kite climb up to meet hers. The wind changes and strengthens, knotting the kites together and Delilah is laughing. She is so delighted. There are bows in her hair and the wind is playing in it the same way it plays with the grass in the fields that stretch to meet us. When Delilah lets her kite go, she takes my hand instead and I know that we are best friends and we can do anything so I let mine free, too. Our kites soar until the wind slowly slips out from beneath them and we watch as they spiral playfully, freely, and crash down into the sea.
I think someday Delilah and I will crash into the sea, too, after we have soared up into heaven, away from the dirt and ghosts and up and up and up where the only things we are tied to are each other. Even if she is crazy, even though I follow her anyway, Delilah and I are kites, sometimes, and we look at the world from every angle to try and see the beauty behind the sorrow. Yes, we are like kites- Delilah and I- dipping and lively and longing for greater heights, pulling each other into the horizon until it is time to come down.