Hard Dreams

There is something in my intestines that feels weighted. This winding gut knot presses against a cradle of flesh that holds it inside me. No matter how I adjust myself it remains, just barely tolerable, thrashing and trying to escape. It feels like something I shouldn't be aware of, the kind of thing your body isn’t supposed to let you know you feel. It distributes itself along my sides, sloshing around inside my guts as I toss and turn. Uncomfortable memories of videos a vegan friend showed me flash in my mind. Cow guts rolling out onto a dirty cement floor. Why did he think showing me something like that was appropriate during lunch? I didn’t even order meat. 

Without my consent, another hour has passed. The backlit clock’s face stared down at me without saying a word. I turn away. Slosh. My lip twitched. Something flickered in my mind before running away into the fog. I watched it go and felt nothing. All I want is sleep. 

It’s morning and I don’t remember falling asleep. I don’t usually remember, but being specifically aware of the lack of memory sits in front of me like a resource I don’t know how to utilize. I scratch my neck even though it doesn’t itch and stand up. The weight inside of me is gone.

Work is only 20 minutes away. Both the bus and I arrive on time, for a change. I help Noah, our most recent hire, clock into the tablet and put him to work cutting tomatoes. After watching him brutalize a perfectly good tomato with a bread knife I introduced him to the tomato slicer, the one Mark had hidden behind his back. We all laugh and he fills up 2 8Qt. tubs as I prep the slicer, check for online orders, and grab the bread delivery from the back. Mark moves all the meats and cheeses into their spots in the display fridge after wiping it down. By the time we finish, there are 10 minutes till opening and there are already 8 people waiting outside. 

After the morning rush Noah works his brutalized tomato into a comical-looking grilled cheese sandwich, chuckling at the uneven slices as he scrapes the black char off of his “perfectly toasted masterpiece.” We’ve had a lot of types work here for a month or two at a time, funny or stern, tall or short, fake or genuine. Noah’s funny, short, and genuine. I’m beginning to hope he stays for the whole season. He makes jokes that aren’t at anyone’s expense, adding humor to the room without burning anyone for its warmth. It’s pleasant. He’s Chinese and holds a lot of weight in his face so when he smiles it's like his face scrunches up, it’s almost cute. Mark hands me half of a Philly cheesesteak and its juices drips down my chin.

 It was so comfortable back then. The worst that happened was a bad review online, or having to say goodbye to the seasonal high school hires that went on to college. It was nice when I was a teenager working with teenagers. It feels a little weird these days. Years and years later some of them returned, looking like different people. They speak with the same cadences and mannerisms, but stripped of their familiarity. Some return with wives, and husbands. Mark brought me around the block in his Mercedes when he came by. 

You noticed a ring on his finger but didn't say anything. Two years ago Noah came back with a bunch of friends in matching college hoodies. He looked around the shop and grabbed a drink before seeing you. When he saw you recognition and pity flashed in his eyes. His hand went behind his head as he looked away and laughed before greeting you. It was a mannerism he used to save for customers who were angry at him. You asked him if he wanted the usual and he didn’t remember what it was. He says something about it already being 6 years and something inside of you recoils. You mentioned his thick-cut tomatoes and his face lit up. He tells his friends that this was the place where he made the mistake that birthed the thick tomato grilled cheese. Some of them look him in the eyes as he talks, one of them chuckled while grabbing chips. When he asked what you were up to you hesitated before noticing his friends at the fridge. You smiled and told them the macaroni salad was fresh, you had just made it that morning. You could see Noah staring at you out of the corner of your eye. He ordered the grilled cheese with a smile that didn’t make his face scrunch up anymore. You made it exactly like how he used to. There was something wrong about wrapping it to-go instead of handing it to him. His friends didn't pretend to be friends with you when they ordered. The distance they established was almost as comforting as watching them leave. You closed up shop when they drove away.

Somewhere along the line a voice entered your thoughts. Not a crazy one whispering about people following you or anything like that. It was a calm and reasonable one. It talked down to you with a unique air of certainty. It was barely a whisper at first, only perceivable through dashes of shame throughout the day, even if you did well. You began to resent it as it made you doubt yourself even on days when you didn’t make a single mistake. Over days that blurred to weeks that blurred to months it grew. It’s will pulled you like the wind on a sail and you held on tight to your mast. Whatever it wanted was out to sea, you were certain of that.

These days you don’t bother remembering the names of the people the boss finds to fill the schedule. They leave and come back and judge you for staying, nothing new to it, it’s just what happens. You weren’t meant to move on, you’re loyal to this ship. Even if your best mate is an itch in the back of your mind. It’s voice is grown this past year. You don't recognize it as a part of you and you definitely don’t bother arguing with it. You never remember what it says anyways, not exactly, but it always leaves a pit in your stomach. Nothing good will come of housing such negative thoughts. Recently, the shops owner threatened to take another person on as manager since you’ve missed too many days “sick” (hungover). You can still afford rent with the pay cut so the threat fell on deaf ears. That bastard has no idea how much work you’ve done for him, how much money you’ve earned him with your subs. 

You drank again today. You are drinking. You hold yourself down to get another shot down your throat. You're going to throw up anyway so why bother holding back? Lean into it, feel your sails pull the ship onward, cut through the sea. Fill them with a strong wind, feel the cool water spray on your skin, breathe the salty air to the deepest parts of your lungs. The crewless captain of a beautiful ship. A ship that’s trapped in a bottle. 

After you sail off to sleep the voice returns, clearer than you’d ever consciously allow it to talk. It speaks evenly, to someone other than you it would seem almost gentle, although foreboding. Tonight is different, it speaks with depth and regulated urgency. Through the fog it says,

“One day you will lean back into a bed you hate but saved $700 on over the one you loved. This time will be the last. You will never find out why you think less of people the closer they get to you. You will never realize why you begin tearing up, seemingly at random, when you read or slice bread for an order. You will look back at your regrets on that day and find among them not the life-changing failures or embarrassments, but the countless times you stopped yourself. The millions of small, insignificant killings of parts of you, parts that eventually stopped trying to blossom. You will walk through a garden of stomped-out rose bushes, daisies, and saplings turned husks, all tramped in the making of a path to who you thought you should be, or who you could accept being. You will see, in the crisp brown leaves fluttering in the breeze, that you abandoned yourself for this comfort. You’ll breathe in the air and smell nothing but the stale, barely tolerable stagnance of your room, your life, your final dream. And no amount of breathing will help you feel less suffocated.

So many safe life choices.

So little life.”

It sounds sorry for you and there's a finality to it’s words. Your eyes break open through crust and before you can think you rush to the bathroom sink and vomit. You throw up more than you remember drinking but a horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach remains. You gag at nothing, you need it out. Two of your fingers dive into your throat, pressing against the familiar dangling button. They plunge back over and over and you heave until the back of your eyes ache. It’s unbearable. Something happened, something changed, you're sure of it. The voice is gone.

Your eyes dig into the mess in the sink, as if it holds an answer. All those years you wished for it to give up and now that its gone its too silent. You’re finally too alone. Squeezing your eyes closed you rack your mind for anything, any part of that familiar flicker that you’ve let yourself forget so many times. Something moves on your minds horizon. You chase it into the fog with everything you have.

Within moments you cannot see more than a few feet in front of you. Your arms flair in al directions as you sprint in the direction you saw it last. Something inside of you wants this, needs this, with a long lost intensity. You touch something and grab onto it with a vice grip. It’s thick and worn agains your fingers, it’s so tired. It doesn’t try to run anymore, like it’s relieved you caught it, whatever that could mean for it. It’s rope has frayed and settled into this form. In your hands sits an impossibly tight knot. 

There is a spark of recognition that leads to nothing when you inspect it. You pull at it and it doesn't budge so you pull harder. Why won’t it change? It’s useless like this. It needs to change. You pull until your head pounds with pain, your fingernails begin to pull off your finger and you drop it. It sits, watching you, waiting. Regret and shame pulse through your veins like waves crashing on a shore. It’s close, so very close. Sensations and thoughts trample each other trying to get you to let it go, to release it to the fog. These sirens sing beautifully logical reasons to leave it be in the same language you’ve been speaking for years. 

It all stops for a second when your phone chimes in, the alarm to begin getting ready for work. You stare at it and it inches away from you, back to the fog. But this time you realize you're the one pushing it away. Your hands tremble. It would be so easy to let it go. Boss would be mad if you called out again. The weight this thing places on you is unpleasant but this… dealing with this is different. You bend down and pick it up. Simply holding it you notice it breathing in your hands. It has a pulse, and it matches your own, racing. You hold it out in front of you, staring at it. Pity pours out from a part of yourself covered in cobwebs and rationalizations. You hold it to your chest and cradle it, gently, suddenly not resenting it for being tied. A tightness to your eyebrows that you didn’t know you were holding relaxes, the tension washing away takes something else with it. Deep inside of your chest, something softens. The weight remains but not fighting it has made the feeling tolerable. Your hand touches your chest and the memories of Mark and Noah return. This time the bile stays down, no resentment coated jealousy. No bitterness or blame. From the depths of your chest comes a warmth, genuine happiness for them. A tear falls down into the vomit in the sink and when you look up to the mirror, in your eyes, you see a part of the knot has loosened.