story: Anna's Crumbs

Anna's Crumbs

By Kim Nowlin - Kimnowlin@Hotmail.com

Anna was made from scratch. She was never finished, and was constantly being remade, over and over again. It took her twenty-eight years to discover that she had been created incorrectly, that something in her was off. Anna was like a yellow, fluffy birthday cake with crumbs that had fallen off and holes dipped in where fingers had probed, slopped over with a decorative coating of rich and creamy vanilla frosting. Occasionally, when her lumps became visible, Anna would find some edible flowers and confetti to slap over her mistakes, to keep her looking like the symbol of delight that she desperately tried to resemble.

It had begun to seem unfair to Anna, that with all the expensive frosting and her time spent self-decorating, that she did not turn out just as she wished she should. She had spent years adding to herself, trying to make herself more interesting, sturdy, self-reliant and attractive. But as she reached her peak, where she found that she could not add much more to her collection, Anna found supreme disappointment in the realization that she never truly wanted a collection to begin with. "Why," she would ask herself, "do I have to become someone for everyone else?"

Anna had grown up in the suburbs, in a slightly non-descript tract home, with suburban values and non-descript friends. The first of her many best friends was, however, different. She was named, Jennifer German. It had seemed silly to Anna, that Jennifer's parents hadn't changed their last name, since they were in fact German. It was just all too funny to Anna's seven-year-old self. Jennifer was innocent and giggly and Anna became that too. The would spend their after-school hours designing Barbie's hair and arranging puffy stickers in their sticker books.

The Germans celebrated Advent, which to Anna meant, opening little doors of a cardboard, Christmas scene, finding chocolates to split for 24 days. The family was so different from Anna's. They were quiet and proper and stacked their records in the living room. On special occasions, Jennifer's Grandmother would baby-sit. To Jennifer and Anna, this meant there were at least two hours of uninterrupted goofing off with no penalties. Grandma German only spoke German, and therefore did not speak too much. This came in handy every time she played guardian, but once. The time that Anna had watched Jennifer's instructions on how to flip over the top of a bunk bed, Anna did not realize that you must hold on to the frame, not just the blankets and fell nose-flat on the hardwood floor below. The comforting words of Es ist okay liebes, simply did nothing to warm Anna's heart or cure her bleeding nose.

Long after the innocent years of her friendship with Jennifer, Anna searched her way through friend after friend, looking for the balance of peace and genuine happiness that she knew with her first grade companion. With each year, friends and acquaintances, just as Anna did, became complicated and diluted. Female friendships were so much harder than romantic relationships. When she got to know her boyfriends well enough, she could let them know when they did things that bothered her and she could try her best to change the unappealing sides of them. Getting that involved with a girl would require so much delicate egg walking that Anna never let her friendships get that far.

Each year she would find the best friend for those two semesters and perhaps a summer that would best match Anna's current likes, hobbies and humor. She spent her college years with friends who enjoyed discussing similar theories and watching the same movies, shopping the same stores, but never anyone memorable.

Spending the middle and second half of her twenties creating the image she had intended to, Anna became well versed in the art of "smoke and mirrors." With a job that everyone would compliment, as Art Director for a major advertising agency, she found true misery in Monday through Friday hours, but slight delight in the compliments from new acquaintances. She had become a master of knitting, scrapbooking, yoga, French and pastry baking. It was a Friday afternoon, two weeks before Anna's birthday and one week before her boyfriend of six months planned to propose that Anna would quit her job with ten minutes notice, go home to throw away her knitting needles and let herself die in her garage.

Something lovely inside of Anna had snapped the hot August afternoon, and it was then that she decided there would never be enough time left in her life to be beautiful. There were always too many new things to learn and become good at. Too many people to show her presentational charm off to and not enough to see straight through it, into the hole that was widening within her. The more she collected, the more Anna became crowded. Her thoughts and passions were drowned in self-inflicted responsibilities and attempts at completing the self-portrait that she thought should have been done by now. After she pulled into her two-car garage and closed the door, Anna's cake stood no longer. There would be no more bland kisses with her lover, no more Range Rover to continue leasing, no endless reading of Women's magazines. Her chunks of vanilla patchwork were melting away, leaving a mound of moldy cake to quiver into sleep. As she began to nod off in her toasty, pungent garage, Anna felt satisfaction in the one deed she had done solely to impress herself and no one else. She longed for Jennifer to sit in the passenger seat and sweetly sleep along side of her. As she gently prepared herself to die, Anna whispered, "Es ist okay liebes."

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Bio: Previous publishing history: Nov/Dec issue of Farmhousemagazine.com Essay: "Character"

story: State

State

By Cynthia Burke - cynburke@gmail.com

Upon entering the clinic he led me directly into his office past the poor woman waiting in the sad, satin coat. He looked intensely at me as if I were to utter a deep secret. I announced myself and he was perplexed – we were double booked. As he explained the situation to the other woman, I volunteered that it must certainly be my luck that created such confusion. He took my appointment and sent her away.

His square jaw and gaunt face seemed sad and familiar. Truly, in this life, such attractions are rare if at all real. I flashed forward to languid Sundays as we read the paper and shared coffee. Long defunct evolutionary chemistry, what would drive someone instantly to such madness?

We settled into our session. "Tell me about your character," he began. His eyes clear and blue like the sky that September. A blue that disarms; that makes you believe no damage could possibly be done. No pain, no destruction could come, not in that blue.

My character is myself? I wondered of whom I should speak. The person who worked in a government building or made the evening meal? Should I describe the newly-wed who just moved into the home where she planed to grow old; the hopeful, one day, mother-to-be?

The notion of classical homeopathy is discovering root causes – like cures like, he explained. So what of my roots? How far must he dig to find them and would they be healthy or twisted with rot? The mere idea that someone might see such depths ignited a slow longing.

The interrogation continued as the cool, evening air crept through the window. I grew exhausted as my words were never clear enough for him. "That's not an emotion," he barked. "No, go deeper," he demanded. We discussed my tendency to lie; my desire to feel intelligent. The shock in me when others felt I was less or insignificant, my need to control all. Too many hours, I had to leave. "I'm in control now," he beckoned.

As he studied the notes from our session and contemplated the alchemy he might employ, mutual glances were stolen. Suddenly his decision was made: "opium." This substance would potentially bring about a state of deep healing. I was speechless. Should a struggling addict take opium? But there was trust in the blue.

The homeopathic opium dissolved under my tongue. Upon waking I rolled over, pushed my legs about the bed, and explored the cool pockets inside the sheets. I spoke his name and smiled. There are an endless number of doors leading inside the human heart. So many paths, and we often choose one and blindly follow, ignoring the alternate routes and twisting roads. How do you bend fate to forge a new path in another's heart? As the day began a quest was started and he became my constant mental companion. How complicated it was: he there, I here with a husband and lovely life.

When the world was sleeping and the sky was filled with the dawn's blue haze I rose to spend time with my love. Inside I was me again, wholly myself, loved and free. Like water following gravity my thoughts returned always to him. To his face, his body, his warmth, but anxiety slowly overcame everything. Weary from the indulgence I wrote a bold message and confessed everything. My attraction to him was too strong to continue treatment and I exhaled for the first time in days, years.

A message flashed in my mailbox. It is okay to be attracted to him, he said. It is okay if he is attracted to me, he said. The problem lies in the fixation. The fixation. His face. The fixation. His name. He gave me "permission" to feel this way – it must be part of what needs healing, he said. He said.

Plumbing the depths of this mystery his eloquence, determination and compassion were beyond seductive. My form shriveled and daily life ceased. The quest consumed me. No longer were there evening meals or stories of my day exchanged with others. There became only fragments of the person left in the body my once husband knew – shards tangible enough to cut through and remind him of what was.

Each question the doctor asked about my love drew blood from my veins. The pain; I pulled further and further away from myself until I was no longer in my body. My hunger for him was insatiable, ravenous. And anger welled that made the most violent act seem kind. The fixation. But the quest, yes, healing, yes, fulfillment; I pleaded for clemency, begged like a pauper for his touch.

"Though I may have desires," he confessed in a late night message that brought me to my knees, "I cannot lose perspective."

"The proper substance" he insisted. "This would bring inner peace which is a prelude to intimacy."

Intimate, have we not been? I was his and it was never dissuaded, never judged. Fantasy and reality had merged into a purgatory where I was trapped. Just beneath the concrete wall I could feel his presence. If this was as close as I could be – all the strings in me snapped – it was here I would stay. And remain in the state of my new freedom.

He grew exasperated of my insolence and finally sent me away; there were sadder, satin coats waiting. Beyond hope, I suppose, beyond healing. "Close this chapter;" he must have felt charitable that day or the strength of my delusions slammed into him with cataclysmic revelation. Or was it that he too felt trapped? The concrete wall will never be destroyed or reveal such secrets. They are only ours to guess and wonder.

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Bio: Cynthia Burke is a historian by training and computer geek by living.