Genevieve Buechner in a scene from Saint Monica.
| Genevieve Buechner in a scene from Saint Monica. |
I want to
like you but I don't know how. I see you playing across the street. I don't
know you.
I know none of you. I knew other kids back where I used to live. I knew their
names.
I played with some of them. Mostly, I walked around, or I went to the church
to look at the statue.
The statue is of the Virgin. I am always thinking about the Virgin.
Each time when we are together, I just want to be alone.
I try to understand you, but nobody seems to understand me, or how important
my life is to me.
I am with the Virgin. Don't you see her at all?
When I look around, I can see God. Don't you see her at all?
Do you see. Do you see what I mean. Do you know. Do you say anything at all.
Apart from what I understand to be your perspective on life.
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I
don't understand you. You are so very present, and you come up beside me. I feel lost.. I feel awkward. I am a woman, but not really. I am awkward. My hair is long and orange and all dried out. I'm wearing a hat because it's winter, but it's not really cold outside. I am sitting in the subway car. I am very tall but I sit all scrunched up, because I'm small and I'm wearing high heeled shoes. You are tall, and you have such amazing brown hair in your eyes. I'm swooning. Your legs are so nice. Your are too beautiful. My body is beautiful. That's one thing that I'm certain of. You won't ever know my body, or know how blissfully I would have uncovered myself before you, forever. I see you from top to bottom. You lean back from the rail. I am thinking about you, man. I have fallen so in love with you. We'll never see each other again. I don't think that things will ever be the same. I have felt it before, once very much, but never like this. I have never been hit by the force of love ever like this. I'm so sad. I'm lost. I'm crushed. I feel stupid for being as obvious as I could be. You stand there, half there. How beautiful your hand looks to me. I'm close to it. I want to touch it, but all I can do is wave my left, gloved hand, up and down. I'm looking into the distance, and I know that you are looking at me. I see you. We get off at Yonge. As you move toward the escalator I jump in front of you. Please, ask me for an apology. But nothing. We ride up, you don't follow close behind me. It was a dream in a moment, but I'm so torn. 'Wasn't I tall enough for you?' I can't eat.
I ask her to help me find you. I don't know where to look. That is why I pray to the Virgin. I'm not sleeping. I wake up and the time is 2:41. I hope that it means that I have two chances. Next time I will do something. I don't know what. You look at me. Why don't you talk to me? It took a lot of nerve to do what I just did. I felt so stupid, so exposed. Couldn't you at least say 'excuse me; you look like a nut.' Then I would know the sound of your voice. |
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When we got onto the subway, my mother told me to sit beside you. I wanted to run to sit beside you because you are so beautiful. You look like Jesus. My mother and I ask each other questions just so we could look at you. You are between us. I am small, but still I push up against you. I have no father. My mother gave birth to me when she was thirteen. I am eight. People say that my mother looks like my sister. Because she is small she looks like a kid. She looks like Avril Lavigne. You have to look at her hands to know how hard she works. That's what my grandmother says. We live with my grandparents. Because our house is small, my mom and I have to share a room. I push against you because I want to feel what it is like to have a father. I know what a father is, but I don't have one. I wish that you would talk to my mother. Then I could talk to you too. I wish that you were my father because I want one so badly. Please talk. Talk to me about the trumpet that I have in a case by my feet. I want you to ask me about the trumpet. I am on my way to a recital. I hope that I am selected to go to a special school for kids who play an instrument. I want to go to the school. When you got up to go I was holding my hands together because I wanted to touch you. My mother said that as you got up to go, you gave her a look that made her feel like she wasn't the bad or stupid person that everybody says she is. She felt like you wanted her to know that she is loved. I have decided that you are my father. I want to love you and so I will. My mother wants to love you too, so we will share you. Please remember me. |
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It wasn't long before Edie discovered that Foma and Po and she were occupying a room. Foma and Po were in a box, a large square box with five sides. Being on top of the box Edie could lean over its side to look at them. She wanted to join them inside the box, but it was a small one and they implored her to not do so. Instead, she looked at them. |
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Because she was lovely to his eyes and he was only a classroom away, he found excuses to visit her. He was initially attracted to her twin, a more outgoing, more charming version of Ann, the twin that came to be the girl that he fell in love with. Elle was so pleased that her sister had found somebody, and it was with grace and pleasure that she turned away to other boys. Fixing to the task of catching up with the rest of the world that had danced with a boy, Ann spent much time with him at the back of the class. She told him anything that she could think of at the back of the class. Because his relationship with Ann grew into deep affection, his parents invited her family to visit over Easter. Thus Ann was able to spend an extended period of time together, time without interruption, with him. Their intimacy extended when they discovered that their nearsightedness was about the same, their eye distance about the same, the effect of wearing each others' spectacles wasn't sufficiently disagreeable as to make the exchange untenable. It was so that they passed the following days. Always together, Elle bored and feeling left out but in enough to stave utter ennui. For the first time. Parents off in discussion and plenty of alcoholic indulgence. By the time it came to leave, Ann and her love found the time a burden. She turned to Elle, studiously avoiding his glance. He felt misunderstood or a fool, not knowing why, exactly. He felt like he had lost her, didn't know how to keep her, hot under the collar, wanting his eyeglasses back. She gave them, hand trembling, coolness in his. Later his sister told him "you should have let her keep them. She wanted to give them to you another time." He didn't understand. "He still doesn't," the man said to the room. |
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"Hurry. Hurry UP! Don't be late. It's God's birthday!" So I ran after. The sky was pink. Oh, sailor's delight. We went down the lane, fine graveled, toward a cluster of garages filled with trailers and a spectacular coach. Off to the distance, the lake with crystal stillness; on the other side an ancient mountain lit by the sunset. It wasn't a long walk, of course.
But it seemed like forever.
When the Bat swept by, I grabbed a hold-on and said that we'd have to ride together. I wasn't sure whether it would be faster this way, since we spun out at the bottom of the lane, where it turns in onto the little street that we would pass along. Still, we only got a bit of gravel, and besides we were so excited. Middle part of zig (I should tell you that we were stem-christying along) we saw God's house, a huge log mansion with red-frame windows and a view on to the ancient mountain.
The bike proved to be a worthy means of transport. We quickly overtook our chums but I asked Bat to stop so that I would walk alongside my pallie. Oh, how sweet, there he is, all drunk and having a party. Oh, my, he is positively swinging his cane, what a delight! "Come throw a ball or two. You there. Yes, yes. See these summer snow balls? Here, wonderful things. Completely hollow. Perfect spheres. Wonderful for throwing, but they won't go far."
"Oh, God. Happy sweet birthday! Of course. Oh, I see what you mean. These summer balls weigh absolutely nothing. What's inside?" "Oh, yes. Always the inquiring one, you. I'm so old, I can barely see you. Ah, yes, Methuselah. Hardly a child, you. Oh, be off with you and your question. Here, have a throw." "Oh, God, you are right, the ball goes nowhere." "Yes, see. Look at this. You see, what you must do is feel the wind and then use time." "Of course. Thank you God. I think I know what is inside, then. When I throw it, shall I set in in motion?" "I should think so. Do throw. Don't feel such a sense of responsibility. The ball will find it's own sense of equilibrium. You see, once you have set that sphere off, the velocity of the thing does the rest."
"Oh my, God. All will not be at rest. All of my own doing when I throw. This little universe of mine will be filled with pressures. The action of rolling will set an opposition and time will exist." "Certainly, as will space. You can't have one without the other, you know." "I wish that you would climb off of your tractor and join me in a throw. Anyhow, where's the sense in riding a tractor with its wheels spinning in opposition. Were it not for that pivot, you would travel in circles." "I'm glad to see that education did not go to waste. But I have finished my throwing days. Croquet is much more solid, and besides, the low mass spheres that you can throw so easily are a challenge to my addled muscles, and my bandy legs. It's not easy being old, you know, Methuselah." "But today is your birthday, God. Soon you will be born." "Yes, I know. Then I will be stuck at some mama's teat waiting for meaning to do something with time." "At least you will have a good party between now and then." "Yes, yes. I will look forward to the baths. Just drown me gently.
"And throw that sphere, you silly goose. Look at all of your chums, laughing and swinging about in their mirth. Don't crash about, but throw the thing." And I did. Off to the north, over the far reaches of the lake I saw a burst and a sworl in a sky with a firmament gilded ever so ephemerally. God, slouched over the steering wheel of his tractor, snoring. What a bore, I thought. At his own party, of all things.
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