The Red Block Numbers

I hate waking up. Every time I open my eyes I curse my maker that he (or she) didn’t decide that the best thing they could do for me is write me an exquisite death scene. Hell, at this point I’d take a drab death scene. 

Bernard drowned in his tub. The end. 

That’s me, Bernard. Is that the kind of ending that any of us really hopes for? Of course not. The only thing more embarrassing than drowning in the tub is dying on the toilet, Elvis style. But at this point, I’d take it even with clichéd lip curl and “uh-huh-huh,” that I know my maker would throw in. 

Every story always starts with me opening my eyes. It’s like my maker never heard of in medias res. I mean come on, we need to start every day with me opening my eyes and looking at the alarm clock. Just once, couldn’t he (or she) have me jump out of bed because a fire alarm was going off or there was a leak in my ceiling or there were fire ants in my crotch. Nope, Bernard opened his eyes and stared at the red block numbers on the alarm clock. Every. Single. Time

And then I get up and put on a suit, or a uniform, or I sit on the couch in my underwear, or I make breakfast in my underwear, and then after that, who knows. I’ve been on this journey for twelve years, on and off.

On and off, because there are weeks, months, and one time even over a year between him (or her) picking up the pen and bringing me to life. And that life has had many incarnations.

I was a handyman for my apartment complex who was a recluse and was afraid when people would come to the door. I ended up befriending a young boy and he was helping me get over my fear of people when a swarm of giant cockroaches overtook the building. 

And then I woke up staring at the red block numbers. 

This time I was a boring accountant by day and an international gigolo by night. I don’t even know what international gigolo means. Was I supposed to travel internationally or did I service an international clientele. We never got far enough for me to know. Truth is, I actually kinda liked that one. I was in deep with an underground mafia and had to pay off my debts by cooking their books and pleasing their women. I think I could teach my maker a thing or two about hot and spicy sex scenes, not much of a gigolo actually. 

And then I woke up staring at the red block numbers. 

One time, he (or she) wrote that I had a dog, his name was Bruce, and the story was called Bernard and Bruce. He was a golden retriever and after rolling around with him on the floor for a very long time I took him for a walk in the park. I wore a Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts and sunglasses. The dog somehow disappeared as my maker wrote nearly twenty pages about the park. It was a warm spring day and I seemed to notice everything, the pink and white buds speckled on the trees, each type of flower that was blooming along the long and winding gravel bike path, how the blades of grass were still one second and moved with the wind the next, and the way the sun created shimmers on the water creating little diamonds of light. My attention shifted to all the other people sitting on blankets or playing frisbee or walking their dogs, there was even this one elderly asian man walking a cat and a mongoose. Seriously. I noticed every sound of the park, birds chirping, people chatting, insects buzzing in the background, and the low thrum of cars off in the distance. Footsteps, random whistles, an ice cream truck tune, and the soft lap of the water hitting against the rocks on the shore. I felt the warmth of the sun and the cool breeze blowing across my skin. Then I saw her. I didn’t know her name, and in fact the way that my maker wrote it was a little creepy, but I took in every aspect of this one beautiful woman who was standing by the edge of the water balancing on the rocks first on her left foot and then on her right as she talked on the phone. She had soft pink lipstick and naturally rosy cheeks. She was wearing a light blue sundress and and dark blue flip flops. I was rapt in how she moved and the way she flipped her hair as she talked, spinning from one foot to the other and somehow never looking off balance. I stared (again, somewhat creepily) at her delicate bone structure and the toasted marshmallow complexion of her skin. Her eyes were hazel, almost gray and she would kick out the non balancing leg in front and then behind her before twisting like she was imitating a pirouette. Her smile entranced me (it was quite stunning) and her laugh echoed through the park blocking out all other sounds. She had a small handbag with a picture of a ladybug on it, a pink ladybug that matched her lipstick in her free hand and spun it around. She was in a dance with the wind and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. 

In fact, my favorite version of my life was the one where he brought the woman back. It was after the story about me selling magazine subscriptions door to door and accidentally almost catching a serial killer, or at least I think that’s what it was going to be about, because my maker stopped mid sentence and the next thing you know I’m waking up staring at those red block numbers again. 

Before that I was a golf instructor that had to prove myself to my Dad by teaching a ragtag group of youths how to play golf. It was like The Mighty Ducks, but with golf and honestly it didn’t make much sense. Golf is not really a team sport and it didn’t even seem like he (or she) knew all that much about golf, so the story didn’t really get that far. And before that there were nine or ten starts that didn’t even make it a full page. I woke up, did random things around my apartment and then he (or she) would just start over. And start over and over again. It was painful and that’s the first time I started wishing for my coup de grâce. My sweet relief. Kill me off and start new with someone else. Give Bernard some rest. But no, he kept waking me up to those red block letters, and honestly, even though I’m much more desperate for an end now, I am glad that he did, just so I could have that one story. My favorite story. The one with Vivian. 

She was a waitress. I met her because I would go into her diner every day and order a slice of apple pie. It was uninventive, guy meets waitress at a diner, but I didn’t care. I loved the ding of the bell as I opened the door. I loved the blue and white tile floor and the booths with jukeboxes built into the table and I loved flipping through the sheets of music and reading off the titles, like Hey Jude, and Raspberry Beret, and Bohemian Rhapsody. The songs would play in my head even though they weren’t playing in the scene. It made me feel alive like I had never felt before, like my maker and I were connected on a deeper level. And beyond the diner itself, there was her, Vivian, in a white and blue dress, and a name tag always a bit askew above her breast. She kept her hair pulled back into a bun and a pencil stuck behind her ear. She was even more beautiful than she was spinning on the rocks in the park somehow. Every time that I walked in my maker would write the same thing, but always just a little bit different, but it would amount to Vivian smiling at me and me ending up in the booth with her standing above me. Sometimes she would walk with me, sometimes she would meet me there, and sometimes she’d sit across from me, which then would start the banter. Quick witted banter that felt effortless in a way that still makes me believe that my maker had less to do with writing the words and somehow I was able to craft the words that flowed out of his (or her) pen. It just felt too natural, it felt too real, in a way no conversation I’ve ever had before or since has. 

We ended up going out on a date, but it took a lot of slices of apple pie for that to happen, and I don’t know how many readers would have been able to power through to get to the good stuff, but I could have eaten a million more slices just to spend a few minutes a day with her. When I finally worked up the nerve to ask her out my hands were shaking and my palms were sweaty and my mouth was dry and I was actually nervous, in a way I had never been before. I was scared she might not say yes, but after all of my bumbling she did, and so we left the diner together and made our way downtown. The date was less of a date than walking around the city and noticing landmarks and talking about the world and slowly revealing more of ourselves to each other. On that walk I learned more about my own back story than I had ever known before. My mother was an alcoholic and my Dad took me away from her when I was eight years old. Never even thought about my past before and I felt a sense of depth that had been missing in every other story that my maker had placed me in. In this world I was a mechanic, who apparently didn’t work very much because I was too busy getting pie and chatting with Vivian. I shared little tidbits with her about my favorite food and my love for dogs and then bigger things like I dreamed of being a musician but never pursued it and that I wanted at least four kids, but more preferably eight. 

But even as I revealed these details to both Vivian and myself, my maker peppered in exposition about how she would look at me with those hazel eyes and my heart would flutter in my chest. At one point she reached over and touched my arm and it’s the first time I ever felt goosebumps. When we turned down a street and she ended up by the road I switched places with her so I was walking on the outside and she called me such a gentleman and it made my face turn red. I think I may have blushed before, or at least my maker had written that I’d blushed but I’d never felt it like that, like a warm coal had been placed inside my mouth and was radiating outward. 

When the date finally ended at her door, she didn’t invite me in, but she fell into my arms and I held her against me, the scent of her shampoo like lemon zest and lavender intoxicating me. She leaned back and kissed me leaving a soft pink sheen on my lips. She broke away and I watched as she ascended her stairs and opened, then disappeared behind a bright red door. I stood staring at the brick home, and caught one last glimpse of her as she peeked out from behind the curtain and blew me a kiss. 

That’s when I fell in love. 

My maker wrote that I fell in love as I walked home and thought about the evening and what our future might look like, but I fell in love minutes before that. He (or she) painted visions of possible futures as I walked somewhat oblivious to the world around me. A wedding and children and growing old together. Trite scenarios that I would have been annoyed by if I was paying attention, but I was too busy in my own world, wrapped in this new feeling. My maker wrote about love like someone would describe the ocean without ever actually stepping foot on a beach. In deep contrast, I was overwhelmed by the feelings that were rushing through me. I couldn’t stop a small smirk from gracing my lips and I had this aching pain in my chest, but in a good way.  It was like the infinity of the universe was swirling inside me and I could literally do anything. My body was warm and I felt like I could run for days. And all I wanted to do was turn around and knock on that big red door and tell her that I loved her, but my maker kept me moving away and writing about how I imagined I was walking through a field of daisies. I have no idea what that’s even supposed to symbolize.

And then I woke up and stared at the red block numbers. 

I tried to hold onto that feeling, but in this story I was a cab driver and I was kind of an asshole. I tried to hold onto that feeling, I tried to hold onto my love, but the version of myself that fell in love with Vivian started to crumble as this new version, this asshole version took over. The story didn’t go very far, mixing parts of Taxi Driver and On The Waterfront before stopping with a drunk woman throwing up in the back of the cab. 

And then I woke up and stared at the red block numbers and for a moment I remembered Vivian. 

It has been almost seven years since my maker wrote the story that made me feel alive. Seven years since I fell in love on that warm spring night in front of that red door. As I jump from new beginning to new beginning, without there being any end in sight, that woman and that night still captivates me and has somehow been woven into every version of me since. Each time I wake up and see those red block numbers the first thing that I think about is Vivian, and I try to hold it as long as I can, but it always drifts to the background as my maker crafts each new version of Bernard. 

And as she fades I wish for my death scene, partially because my maker is an uninventive twat, partially because I’ve never made it to a single ending of a story, but mostly because for one night I knew what it felt like to be in love and now I can’t remember anything beyond the aching in my chest and the fact that I felt alive for once. Really, truly alive.