Write it Down
"You chasing the light?"
"Mm?" He didn't look up. Sitting at the desk. Loose-leaf notebook papers strewn before him, marked with blue and purple ink. Marked with manic, mousey manifestations.
"You're staring at that ... " She haphazardly pointed. " ... flame there. As if you're gonna pounce it. As if you're trying to chase it."
A candle was lit. A little vanilla (bean) candle. In a little glass holder.
The mouse blinked (finally) and offered a distracted smile (though she couldn't see it from her position). "I guess."
She took a step closer to him. From behind. In the bedroom. "Your mind is running on a wheel ... "
"I know ... trying to air it out, write it all ... away. But ... " He trailed. Feeling that familiar feeling. That nagging. The "what if I've failed" ... the things like that. Those things. The immature, childish things. They pestered him.
Adelaide sifted through the pieces of paper. Squinting, reading, 'Laugh again. Do you have to be so serious all the time?'
"That was the first line ... "
"Of what?"
"Of something I can't start. Something I ... have no desire to start. Some story. Some seedling somewhere. Some shell."
She smiled slightly at his intentional (or maybe unintentional) alliteration.
"I'm trying," he said, "to write of things, of different things, but I keep circling back to my ... emotional dependencies. To my ... self. To love. It's all I can focus on."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"Well, I just ... I can't break from it."
"And?"
"Well ... " The mouse lowered a bit, shrugging (something he rarely did, for he loathed the motion ... but he did it now, out of frustration). "Well, I don't know. I just ... want to capture everything. Every ... thing. In every way. And ... I can only write from my own perspective. I feel I'm repeating myself. Even as I think, even as I talk to you, I feel I'm saying things I've said before. Only, maybe ... I'm discovering newer, cleverer ways of variation. Of putting the same words to different tunes."
"Well," she said ... thinking that, perhaps, the word 'well' had been used too many times in too short a span. "You're undergoing a transition. Caught between things. Awaiting things ... recovering from others. You're in a period of ... a grace period. Equally removed from your pains, your past ... but equally far from the future you're beginning to envision."
"I don't ... "
" ... understand, darling, that ... you need your rest. Don't force it. Don't force your words. Rest, and ... let them come when they need to. When you need them to."
He turned around. Squinted at her. As if trying to figure her out. As if wondering ... if she were his love (as he knew she was) or some kind of muse. Some kind of otherworldly being. A conduit through which to feel love and better things.
"Just let it happen ... when it does. Your writing, your words, your pictures ... you long to express, to connect, to share, but those things, Field, they need to be, at their peak, effortless. They need to happen. To just ... happen. To ... they aren't things that can be honestly plotted before-paw. They can't be rushed. You ... want so much out of yourself. But you can only give so much ... with each day. You have to be patient. Sow things, reap them ... make something of them. A day at a time."
"You're losing me," he whispered, shaking his head. "I don't ... Adelaide, don't ... what are you ... "
"I'm saying not to worry about it. I'm saying to come to the kitchen with me ... and have a drink."
"Drink?"
"A fruit slush."
"We have a blender?" He blinked.
"We have a blender," she said. "Yes. And ... and it's in the kitchen."
"I don't ... "
"You coming?" she asked, turning ... pausing in the doorway, backside to him. Stubby, rudder-like tail ... flitting. Winged arms ... lifting. Pink. So pink, her fur.
He nodded and stood, leaving the scattered papers (and the half-baked worlds) on the flat surface. Creation an up-and-down act. But ... how he longed for those times, those stretches ... when the sparks flew. Hourly. Sparking, sparking ... in the dark, the sparks ... lighting everything. Lighting him. And, afterwards, in the morning, he would look at it all ... the words, the images, the yearnings, the emotion, the honestly, the sensuality, the animal desire ... the intellectual pondering ... all of it. He would see it, look at it, and would feel an immense ... something. Something immense. He would feel immense.
He wanted that. Wanted it back. Wanted it again.
Wanted it ... as opposed to now, when ... the worlds that had once come so easily ... were dancing beyond his finger-tips. Were dancing around his mind. Were singing, were saying to him, telling him ...
'When I was young, I thought the way to love was through ... '
"You don't mind music, do you?" she asked, turning her head. Having turned the stereo on. The music spilling. Music. Not like pictures. Not like stories. Music could spill every feeling you could feel within a day ... and do it in a way so intangible that ... it seemed hardly real. And when the music stopped, so did the knowledge gleaned from it. So did the echo. So did ...
' ... keeping yourself above the fray. And that was you.'
"No, I don't mind ... you know I don't mind," he said, adding that last bit.
"Well, sometimes, you do."
'And now I feel ... I was only holding my breath.'
"What are we ... gonna make?" Field asked again. Confused. So confused. Was this art? Or life? Was life artistic? Was life ... to be felt like this? To be viewed at ... through such a spectrum? Or was it simply to be lived? Was life meant to be vast and colorful? Or was it meant to be simple and humble?
Did the mouse need to be put back in his place?
Am I arrogant?
Am I trying too hard?
What do I want to go on knowing?
'Spinning faster than the years have shown me through ... '
"Fruit slushes," was her reply. Lost in his thoughts. Lost in words. Words, words, words ... light, were they? Or heavy? Or like birds? Birds wouldn't be able to fly if they could talk. That's how heavy words were. How awkward. How imprecise. So, why, then, did the mouse feel the need to capture his world in words? To put himself in words? Was he not wasting his time?
Why did he feel like this today?
He hadn't a clue (why he was like this ... to start).
And, oh, what (again) did he want to go on knowing?
'The cold resolve that brought me, innocent, to you ... '
"Adelaide, I ... " Field stammered, closing his eyes, ears swiveling, and ... " ... turn it off. Please. Please ... just ... " He twitched.
'I'm doing more than I ever had to.'
A click. The flick of a switch.
Field sighed.
"You okay?" she asked. Point-blank. Wearing his clothes. She would sleep in his clothes. In a shirt. In his shirt. In his too-large white-and-blue Indianapolis Colts' t-shirt ... she would sleep in that (for the cold). Tonight, it was warmer ... above freezing for the first time in three weeks. Maybe she wouldn't need the shirt. Maybe they could be bare like the empty trees. The trees ... with Christmas lights hanging from them. Glowing. Like how the two furs would glow. Like how their eyes, their lips ... would glow. Empty. But filled with light. Not so empty after all.
"I'm ... too much noise. Too much thought. Too many ... " He took a breath. Steadied himself against the counter. Everything was moving quickly. His life. His feelings. Her. Why couldn't they stop? Couldn't they pose? Pose for him, so he could ... etch them, burn them into place? Was that too much to ask?
"You gotta calm down. Don't worry so much. I thought you were doing better."
"With my anxiety?" he asked, the words coming as a question. And coming as anxious.
"Yes," was her whisper. Wistful whisper. What was the wistful whisper ... a waking wanting? What?
"I am, but ... it's ... you know, it's ... " The mouse faltered. "I see things," he whispered back to her, his whisper equally intimate (as hers had been). "I see things others don't see. I feel things ... they miss. I ... I have a mind," he said, "that's different. I'm different," was what he said.
"So, you're ... what?"
"I don't know."
"You want raspberry or orange? Or watermelon?"
"What?"
"We're making alcoholic slushes. What liquid base do you want?"
"Oh, uh ... raspberry, I guess."
"Thought you would've picked orange." She smiled as she went to work. Asking, "Can you get the sherbet from the freezer? I put it in the freezer. It's lime. And the frozen strawberries. Oh, and ice cubes."
"I left the candle going ... in the bedroom," remembered Field.
"It won't burn down the house. Leave it."
"Adelaide ... "
"I'll go blow it out," she said, leaving the kitchen. Leaving him to gather the ingredients (or parts of this parceled parfait).
The mouse twitched and sniffed and thought and sighed and longed and imagined and ... did everything he could do without doing much at all. Did everything intangible in about five seconds.
When she returned, he turned to look at her. Wondering what to do.
"Mix it all together."
"I thought you were gonna ... "
"You can't operate a blender?"
"I can," he defended, frowning. Sighing. Confused. What was this? Was his sanity ... had it been left in the dark? Had it left for Iowa City? Why the hell would it go there?
She sidled up next to him, behind him ... as he put everything together. As he pressed puree.
And, as, afterward, they spooned and sipped the slushy stuff. On the couch in the living room.
Feeling ...
... feeling ...
... who knew?
He would have to try and write it down ... if he hoped to find out.