Submerged

Submerged

A cobalt wave washes over her, fills her lungs, and blurs her eyes. Her arms flail hopelessly, trying to remember how to tread. Her legs are non-compliant anchors. As gulps of salty water charge down her throat, she watches two bubbles from her nostrils float past her face, and she thinks: I am going to die. But when she opens her eyes, nothing has changed. She isn’t submerged in a violent sea; she is still herself, a lonely housewife sitting at the kitchen table, drowning in solitude.
She is an image of perfection, from head to toe. Her manicured feet sit gracefully in her sandals, and her clean shaven legs are crossed under the table cloth, under her dress, which is ironed faultlessly, paralyzed with brutal starch. Her husband likes the color, so she makes sure to wear it on a regular basis; the lavender tone compliments her eyes that stare heavily into the glass of ice water sitting before her. She takes a dainty finger and smoothes the condensation from the sides of the glass, fiddling. Passing time.
Its 1:33 pm. The kids are at school, her husband at work. The floor is swept, mopped. Laundry is done, folded in neat, geometric stacks. Delicates. Dinner is marinating, she is marinating in the truth that there isn’t a thing left for her to do. No more domestic duties and this makes her feel useless.
Is this what I have chosen?
What happened to the surreal college-student aspirations of traveling the world, of writing books? Of tasting wine with exotic foreign men and viewing art with pretentious company? Instead she is on a short leash, with no chance to fulfill the pipe dreams she conjured as a young, unattached woman. Now, she is nothing but attached. She is a piece of double-sided tape, sticking to everything around her, but never getting the chance to hold together something of her own.
A glass of water because it’s too early to drink. The condensation has formed once again, and for lack of anything better to do, she raises her finger to the frigid surface a second time, erases the dew. Delicate.
Kids come home, husband comes home. Each arrival is greeted with a kiss and a “how was your day?” Like clockwork, she operates on a timer. She fills their stomachs, fills their ears with questions, nagging, detached thoughts.
Bath time for the children and he’ll take a whiskey on ice, it’s been a long day. She cleans the plates—it’s something to keep her hands busy and when they’re busy, boredom doesn’t inhabit her, doesn’t seep into her brain and eyes and push her down. Bubbles cling to her fingers, to that ring, and he comes up behind her. She can faintly smell the amber of his whiskey as he runs his large hands over her shoulders, through a sea of purple. The cotton scratches her skin and she slightly winces, but not so he can see. She remains focused on her dishes.
His whispers tickle her ear, something about “the way you look”, something about “taking off this dress”, and she smiles, for his sake. She tells him to put the kids to bed. I’ll wait for you, she says. And like an obedient puppy, he trudges up the stairs; the only incentive for him to put his children to bed comes from a wife’s promise of gratification. She felt a welling ache in her throat, a hybrid of anger and guilt.
She hastily finishes the dishes, jogs up the stairs and puts an ear to the bathroom door. Brushing teeth, they’re almost done with the routine. She continues to their bedroom, heart racing, and throws off her dress. Her docile lavender costume lay crumpled on the floor as she frantically puts on the frumpiest pair of sweats she owns. With a flick of the light switch, she is already in bed with the covers pulled past her neck, eyes squeezed shut. She listens to him lead the children to their beds, hears him quickly read a bedtime story—rushed, with no special voices or dramatic pauses. Their doors gently close, followed by the slow creak of the door to the bedroom they share. Soft hall light spills onto the bed, over her face, across her closed eyelids, dancing over her lashes. She lay still, feigning sleep with all the strength she has. He stands in the doorway, hands on his hips, waiting for her to rouse.
It was a silent stand-off. She tries to keep her breath even, and when she hears him let out an exasperated sigh, she knew she had won. He slogs back down the stairs to refresh his drink, maybe read the paper. She sighs too, noiselessly. Off the hook for another night.

All her life, people told her she looked pretty when she cried. She never understood this odd observation, but her countless ex-lovers and friends saw it. Somehow, the green of her eyes grew deeper and richer with the sting of tears, and her long eyelashes clumped together with moisture as the drops fell.
Months had passed since the evening of the lavender dress—months characterized by increasing instability and more avoidance of making love with her husband. Now she stood, face to face, inches away from her curer, the one who pulled her from the crashing tide.
“You're beautiful when you cry,” and there it was again. Madison said this with the kindest intentions, to try to bring comfort to Alice's aching heart, but it worked adversely.
“I can't do this anymore,” Alice muttered, looking past the light hazel eyes that pierced her chest.
Madison's face was stricken with grief and desperation. She dropped her arms from Alice's shoulders and lowered her head. Her voice softened, and tears fell to her toes as she said: “don't leave me.” Barely a whisper, but it shook the room.
Alice stared at Madison's small frame, at the legs she danced with the first night they met, at the stomach she'd kissed during passionate nights, at the arms that cradled her when she slept. She loved this woman. She loved this woman more than she had loved any other man. And now they stood at opposite ends of Madison's room,. Alice's arms hung at her sides, her fingers tingling, screaming “TOUCH HER, TOUCH HER!” but all she could do was look, in horror, at the woman she was wounding.
Madison lifted her head and held both of her graceful, womanly hands over her mouth, muffling her heaving sobs. Tears slid between the cracks of her fingers, and Alice traced them as they crept down her wrists, disappearing under her sleeves.
“Please, Alice,” was all she could muster. Her chest quickly rose and fell as she gasped for air, the rhythm of her lungs pleading: “Don'tleaveDon'tleaveDon'tleave...”
“It hurts me to lie,” She continued, “I feel heavy.”
“Don't hide it anymore, Al. Liberate yourself,” Madison begged, lunging forward and grabbing Alice's face in her palms. Her eyes danced between Alice's left and right, eyebrows high and raised, drenched in vulnerability.
Alice's eyes released a flood of tears as she saw snapshots of her family—a little blonde girl running in the sprinklers, a light-haired boy speeding around the bases. Her husband, her poor husband--the man she fell in love with so long ago, the lapse in time feeling like centuries had passed. She looked up at Madison, and her heart felt whole again. Whole, but pained, like it had just been sewn back together. No anesthesia.
Alice stepped down from Madison’s doorway after giving her a: “I need to think”, and got into the car. Madison’s porch light flicked off, and Alice let out an exasperated sigh. She looked at her tear-streaked face in the rear view mirror and wondered how her life had taken such an unexpected turn. Her mind flashed back to the night she met Madison; each time she re-lived the memory, the recollection was flawless.
It was a dark bar, darker than the wine in her glass and darker than her emerald dress that hung loosely off of her shoulders. An old friend had taken her there; she told her she needed a night out, and after about fifteen minutes of hesitation, Alice caved in. It was supposed to be “just a few drinks”, but after about an hour at their table for two, she found that her speech was slurring, and her head was feeling dizzy. Her slow, drunken eyes carried her to the dance floor, where she saw a tall, brown-haired woman dancing slowly, but with rhythm. And she was alone.
Alice envied her for having the bravery to dance with no partner—her insecurities would never allow her to have that amount of gallantry. The way this woman moved was mesmerizing, for reasons Alice couldn’t quite place. Her arms moved as gracefully as a ballerina’s would, and as her eyes turned to meet Alice’s, she smiled the most natural, hypnotizing smile Alice had ever witnessed. Alice shyly turned her eyes away, for she was embarrassed after their awkward accidental encounter. She turned her attention back to her glass of wine and held the stem between her fingers, her chin on her other hand.
“I’m gonna use the ladies room. Do you need to go?” Her friend asked.
“No, I’m good. Thanks, though,” Alice replied. Her friend left the table, and Alice swallowed the rest of her glass. As she was setting it down, she felt a gentle hand on the middle of her back. With a start, she whipped around and found the dancer there, smiling and tugging on her earlobe with her free hand.
“Hello,” she said in a soft voice.
“Hi,” was all Alice could think to say. Why was this woman talking to her?
“I’m Madison.”
“Oh, nice to meet you,” Alice’s shyness often came off as rudeness, but Madison paid no mind to this, even when Alice didn’t offer her name.
“And your name is?” She said, finally removing her hand from the silky green fabric of Alice’s dress.
“Alice. Sorry, I didn’t realize…” She chuckled, realizing the intensity of her awkwardness. She was taken aback by the debilitating nervousness she felt simply from this woman’s presence. What was it about her? Did she know her from somewhere? As her mind searched for answers, Madison took her friend’s seat.
“Do you dance?”
“Oh! No, no. I can’t,” she laughed, vehemently shaking her head.
“You can’t?” Madison made a great show of seeming appalled by the statement. She placed a hand on her chest and sighed, “Everyone can dance.”
“Not me,” Alice insisted.
“Dance with me,” she said, suddenly becoming serious. Her dark eyes narrowed at her as she placed her elbows on the table and leaned over the table.
“Dance with you?”
“Yes, with me. What’s the harm?”
Alice pondered for a moment. Dancing with another woman? The thought seemed absurd to her; it would look out-of-place and unnatural. Plus, the only people dancing at this bar were male and female couples. Madison noticed her deep contemplation.
“Don’t think,” she said.
Alice stared at her, and realized that this woman wouldn’t take no for an answer. She looked from her piercing eyes, to the dance floor, and back to her eyes. It was as if there was a magnetic field within her; the negative-charged tongue playfully forced the positive-charged “no” back down her throat endlessly, until she forfeited and swallowed it. With a tentative nod, Madison led her from her seat, into the music.
They spent the rest of the night there, apprehensively dancing at first, then gradually moving closer after the end of each song. Alice couldn’t decipher the freedom she felt as Madison led her body through the night. When it was time to go home, Madison stared at Alice, then leaned into her ear and whispered: “thank you”. Before Alice stepped into the cab that her friend paid for (she left shortly after she saw that Alice was preoccupied on the dance floor), Madison gave her a small napkin, with seven numbers printed neatly on it. Not another word was said. Alice exited the bar, got into the cab, and spent the ride in silence, wondering what to think about the evening she had had.
By the time Alice had relived this story, she was pulling into the driveway of her home. She looked in the mirror again, and noticed that the swelling of her eyes had gone down. Good, she thought. She gingerly shut the car door and unlocked the front door of her dark house with care. She made her way up the stairs, deciding to bypass her children’s rooms; for fear that checking on them might send a surge of guilt up her spine. She slowly opened the bedroom door, and found a large, snoring mass under the sheets of their king-size bed. The moon illuminated the curves of his silhouette under the blankets, and she stood there watching his chest rise and fall peacefully. She sighed sadly, her breath shaking, and got into bed.
It had been about a week since Alice had seen Madison last. She tried with all of her might to continue her normal life, washing dishes, running errands, cooking meals, but nothing could distract her mind from wandering to the delicate face of her lover. She watered the plants and she thought of the time they had walked along the beach, a nighttime blanket of indigo shrouding them, hiding them. She packed her children’s lunches, and she thought of the first time Madison made her dinner. How she wouldn't let her help, how her wrists bent in the most womanly way as she poured two glasses of wine. Madison inhabited her thoughts constantly; there was no way she could go on like this.
Still, she tried. During the period of that week, she tried to snuggle her children extra tight when they watched a movie on the couch. She tried to feel something when her husband's lips met hers, she tried to enjoy when they made love. But his hands felt like carnivorous, beastly claws compared to Madison's; Madison's hands were slightly heavier than air, and when they landed on Alice's skin, she saw colors, felt dizzy, lost her breath. Still, nothing cured her of her numbness. Nothing throughout the course of her normal days could send electricity through her veins like one minute with Madison could.
On days when all of her tasks were completed, she took to sitting on the foot of her bed, glass of ice water in hand. She sat before an open closet door, gaze fixed on her empty suitcase on the top shelf. She thought about how many outfits she could pack into its contents; she imagined her toothbrush and nail clippers and lotion in the small outer pocket. How many pairs of shoes would she have to leave behind?
She left rings on the hardwood floor from setting her glass next to her feet. Now, there were six. They stacked on top of each other, all in the same relative area, perfect damp circles. Her minutes spent contemplating were measured this way.
I could go. I could leave here and Madison and I could run away. Her gaze upon the suitcase thickened; she stared at the worn zippers, black paint chipping off. She studied the dirt caked on the plastic wheels. The last time she used it was on a family vacation to the Grand Canyon. The kids complained about the heat and her husband griped about the “shitty motel” she chose for them.
Madison would do that for me. We could go to the city, we could make a whole new life. But what about the kids? They would grow up; they would understand when they hit their college years. They would see that she was suffocating, that she had the same dreams they would have, except she never got to live them. They would forgive her, they would correspond in letters. They would meet for lunch in some time, when their anger would subside, replaced with genuine curiosity.
I have money saved. We can find an apartment and get crappy jobs. It wouldn't matter, we would be together. Living without Madison was torture; at this point of her internal monologue, there was no other option but to flee. All her life, she had settled for stability. This was her chance to taste risk. She sprung up from the edge of the bed and knocked over her glass of ice water, but was too frantic and fueled with adrenaline to worry about picking it up. She yanked the suitcase from the shelf and threw it open, revealing its emptiness; it looked like a monster, mouth gaping, stomach aching, saying:
“Feed me, I'm hungry. Fill me with your clothes. Leave.”
In a near-psychotic craze, she threw handfuls of underwear and socks into the monster's belly. She emptied bathroom drawers, she decided which shoes to bid adieu. When the suitcase was plump, fat and happy, she stood back, hands on her hips, and looked at the void in the closet. All that was left were mens suits, jackets, loafers, and old shirts with holes in them (which she hated). The zipper screamed under pressure as her knuckles went white from forcing it closed. In one last glance around the room, she rolled the suitcase out the door and left it sitting against the wall. She half-jogged back into the room, to the bed, where her pillow lay. She slid the gold wedding ring off of her finger and placed it on the white pillowcase. She imagined her husband sleeping next to that display in mere hours—would he cry?
She bypassed her children's rooms again, this time even more fearful of the wave of guilt that would undoubtedly sweep over her. The roaring of the suitcase's wheels behind her beckoned her to hurry, and she opened the front door in a fit. Before she closed the door, she took a deep breath. Am I really doing this? It felt as though the Alice who was making this choice wasn't the usual Alice that inhabited her body. This was an impulsive, stupid Alice. But she let her stay. She closed the door.
Madison didn't know she was coming, but she knew she'd be okay with the sight of her at her door, suitcase in hand, ready to run. This was what they needed. Alice turned on the car and backed out of her driveway, not looking back. Goodbye, Suburbia. Goodbye, little boxes made of ticky tacky.
As she traveled down the road, she thought of her destination: a beautiful, loving, genuine woman waited for her. Perhaps she was reading a book, or maybe she was taking an afternoon nap. The fifteen minutes on the freeway it took to reach Madison's house seemed like an eternity; she pressed her gas pedal to the floorboards as she merged onto the highway. Not once did she think of her husband, ignorant as he was in that moment, answering e-mails at work. She didn't think about her little boy, who, at that instant, was sweating over a math problem in class. She didn't think about her young girl, on the swings at school, a gentle breeze flowing through her hair, closing her eyes because she felt like a bird when she was up that high. Instead, she thought of Madison.
And when the driver of the car in the opposite lane stopped paying attention, she thought of Madison. When her focus met the front of the vehicle that was speeding towards her, skipping over lanes and out of control, when she saw the horrified expression of the driver seconds before the impact, she thought of Madison. Metal collided with metal, and the fronts of their cars had become one. The crunch of the steel was loud and effortless, like the crumpling of lined paper in a classroom—math problems. Alice's vision went white as she heard, from another place, the honking of horns and the screeching of tires. She felt her body spinning, her bones cracking, her skin bruising. She felt heat, warmth traveling down her face and arms. When the scene slowed to a halt, Alice slowly opened her eyes. Glass shards fell from her eyelashes onto her cheeks. And when she looked through the blood in her vision at the sun beating through the spider-web cracks in her windshield, she thought of Madison. She wanted to apologize, to tell her she was going to be late.
Ten minutes away, in the house that Alice left behind, sat her overturned glass of water. The ice cubes were slowly melting into the floorboards, leaving nothing but a dark stain marking where she had once sat.
 

there are power lines in our blood lines

The dim light of a vehicle passing washed over his tired eyes--it was his nineteenth hour awake. He yawned again, scratched his cracked palm over the jagged hair that had begun growing from his chin.
Can't get tired now, he thought, three hours to go.
With this meek attempt at personal motivation, he drank a gulp of coffee, rolled down his window, and lit his seventh cigarette of the night.
I really ought to quit, he thought, the habit gets worse when I'm on route.
The tiny orange tip of his cigarette traveled with him down the desolate country road, leaving a microscopic trail of ash ever time he flicked. The only evidence of his body being in this place at that time, evidence no one would ever see. Barely evidence at all.
Every so often, a car will pass his rig; He watches the two white eyes approach, then adjusts his gaze to the rear-view mirror as they continue on, two red eyes warning: watch the road.
Another yawn as he tosses the butt out the window. He wonders odd things like: If I gathered up all the cigarette butts from this road, I wonder if it would fill this truck.
With the cool night air dusting his face, he looks over to the seat next to him. Reclined, swallowed in blankets, sleeps his son, barely eight. His heart fills with love and guilt, both paralytic in their own way.
He notices that the power lines, looking like dark giants in the night, keep rhythm with his breath. He passes three poles on every inhale, he passes three poles on every exhale. He keeps this time as he rolls up the window, takes another swig of coffee.
Two hours and fifty minutes till we can stop, he thinks.
And his phantom machine travels through the darkness, gears shifting and hinges creaking, but with no one around to hear it.