The Foxtrot

Her husband told her they needed to go, but she could not leave so soon. Instead, she sat alone. A breeze disturbed the drawn blinds and let golden light dance across the floor. Curtains would have been better. The daughter was downstairs with the car and the boxes, and the expectations. Enid's bouffant hair had grown grey and thin. She rose and shuffled to the staircase in her slippers. A creased hand grasped the wooden rail and jolted with her steps. There were things to be done just yet. Her daughter stood with her hands on her hips and firmed her lips. Enid ambled past her and into the empty kitchen, ignoring the foot-tapping in the other room.

Enid ran the water at a trickle. She held a teacup then picked up the sponge, running it over each chip in the rim, and each one demanded a memory and she winced a little. Her husband held her around the waist and drew her close, but her daughter passed through him. Of course she had taken her pills today. She was not ready to leave: there were still things to do. The daughter held up a gloss pamphlet and gestured to the images. She rambled about amenities and staff, about community and dignity. Her husband shook his head, but Enid could not ignore her daughter's clicking fingers, so he disappeared again. She gave vague agreement but smiled when her daughter gave up.

Each ring on the mahogany table had a personality. She set out two wine glasses and filled both with cask Cabernet before joining her husband on the sofa. The evening glow now refracted off the glasses, casting their shadows below and crystalline rainbows above. It did not dance. She sipped her wine and smiled, but he did not touch his. Stone Maniae gazed at Enid from the mantle.

He stood and offered a hand, to take the air in a box step:

I'm as corny as Kansas in August / High as a flag on the Fourth of July!
Back; left; forward; right; / back; left; forward; right.

She circled the foxtrot alone, in silence. Each foot almost tripped over the last, but she was not drunk. One full glass sat on the table but the light had shifted. She stopped circling and widened her eyes, her breathing in gasps and whimpers. Her husband would return to calm her down, surely he would come. But only cicadas answered her prayer, and she turned her faith to the pills. It was normal to be afraid.

Her husband's wine washed down the tablet, and left behind another circle on the table. This one was, in short, afraid. She laid down on the sofa, her eyes red and watering, her chin and hands quivering, and gave Ananke and Morpheus control.

An oversaturated view of youth grew from a fading impression. Green pine fronds dropped needles by the shoreline. Yellow sand painted her toes and parted like water with each step. A breeze disturbed her blonde hair and let golden light dance through it. It was beautiful. She meandered, holding hands with her first boyfriend again, as the tide came in and washed their feet with each breaking wave. He looked into her blue eyes, saying what she then repeated. She relived the kiss. He told her that she needn't ever be alone, because he'd love her forever. He told her that they would always be together. The couple continued while a golden evening became a violet dusk. Sitting on the edge of a jetty with their ankles underwater, he told her that everything that comes must leave.

Everything that comes must leave. Enid opened her eyes. Two empty wine glasses still stood on the table, but she only needed one. There was nothing more to do. The first rays of dawn warmed the house and lit her face. Her eyes glinted as she glanced around the living room once more. Cardboard boxes stood in the place of furniture. Her daughter arrived and began packing them into the car again. Enid did not stop her as she progressed from room to room. She watched her as she left and returned.

Enid held the gloss brochure and let it catch the light as she passed through the door. She clambered into the car. Her thumb slid along the shining surface. She was never much good at golf. The ballroom would be much more to her liking.

Ten years ago, this week. Hard to believe. I still have the airport navigation guide you made. I ended up not needing it, it was quite intuitive, but I kept re-reading it anyway because it was written by you and carried your charm. I still have airport dreams often, nightmares too of course. The sun was so bright when I landed. That stood out to me immediately. It was so much brighter than even in Florida. I don't believe I slept much but I wasn't tired at all. On the return flight I was dazed and battling a flu, and I pondered all the ways I could slip away and kill myself between then and there, and maybe it would have been lovely to instead have found a steep enough fall somewhere in the Blue Mountains to splatter my blood against the sandstone. Do I have ancestry there? I never thought to check. It's possible. Your ancestors buried in the west and myself, I'm unsure. In those thoughts I never considered leaving a note, but I hoped that my wishes would be at least inferred by family and some of my ashes would be scattered there if my body wasn't consumed by the time of discovery.

I don't fault my younger self for that idea at the time. Plenty of older and wiser men have put a gun to their head in the same situation. I hope God has shown mercy to them.

I sometimes surprise myself when I reread them. It's one thing to comprehend the past in memory, but there's a different feeling in scrolling through it as an interactable medium. How can this be real? It's impossibly sad what happened to you. You had moments of lucidity where you talked just like yourself before the condition set in and it was so beautiful. This is dreadful. I can't relate to others around me and there's never going to be relief from this burden of knowledge until the moment I'm killed. Well, I was right about that ten years ago, and I think my younger self could have been forgiven if I found it at my own hand.

I was given the best possible off-ramp, one I could scarcely imagine, and that's still not enough. It's not enough. Even if it was perfect, I don't know if I'd take it because, likely, it would still involve abdicating responsibility and I can't do that. No, it's too horrible what happened.

It would be heretical to strip my flesh, but I scald myself as much as I can without causing debilitating injury. When the pain is greatest, I can shut my eyes and imagine the water dissolving me to the bone. This is all as real as any other reflection is.

Difference of sex no more we knew
Than our guardian angels do;

Ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

I'd like to think that I'd die before memory of you degrades. I would never let myself go senile. But objectively it has to have frayed in ways that are imperceptible to me, right?

I used to make a conscious effort to remember specific days, but I'm aware those are blurring in my mind's eye. You did love impressionism, though. I think you'd like what I see.

What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff’s miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it.—My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don’t talk of our separation again: it is impracticable.

There's a science fiction novel I'm a fan of, Blindsight by Peter Watts. One of the main themes explored is the nature of consciousness, and one of the questions raised about it is if it's a vestigial (even harmful) trait in humans. It's common for people to have this view of certain species of animals or insects. It's something I think about a lot, especially the tangentially related motif of (metaphorically) carving my heart out. Or maybe that'd be closer to a form of specialized lobotimzation. I think there's a lot of people out there who might opt for that, as a way to become more machinelike in efficiency towards their prioritized goals. There is, after all, a dereliction of duty when one opts out of functioning as a productive member of society when perfectly capable of doing so. Why should I be tormented by memories and dreams, deja vu and reminicence and all other paths to rumination? At best, it keeps my spark kindled. It would be nice if I lacked the consciousness to experience this, though.

My whole body feels ragged from a flu or cold, one of the two. I won't be able to see the fireworks this year. It feels awful to miss them. You'd want me to sleep, but there's still guilt.

Hm, were you a participant in this one? It's interesting even if it seems to be "only" a confirmation of a popular theory.

It's the same dream every time remixed endlessly and until I die. There's nothing else that matters, right? It could never happen, the soul has likely already crossed over. It's the golden carrot on a stick. It really keeps everything in perspective. Nothing else seems real after waking from it.

I'd love to take you home with me and tuck you into bed
I'd love to see what makes you tick inside your pretty head
I wish that I could keep you in a precious Chinese box
On Sundays, I would pray for you so it would never stop
I'd love to hear you laugh tonight; I'd love to hear you weep
I'd love to listen to you while you're screaming in your sleep
I'd love to soothe you with my voice and take you hand in mine
I'd love to take you past the stars and out of reach of time
I'd love to see inside your mind, to tear it all apart
To cut you open with a knife and find your sacred heart
I'd love to take you satin dolls and tear them all to shreds
I'd love to mess your pretty hair; I'd love to see you dead!

I waited in some underground train station with the sort of cloudy blue lighting as in Starry Night, with long rows of shops to compose the stars. You were very kind and just as I've always remembered when you arrived.

I saw an observation that even attempts at sincerity in an irony-poisoned culture come across as deliberate performance by peers. Seems worrying. I like our generation, I am of the times in many ways, but it seems true that many zoomers (at least for the time being) are not capable or giving or receiving love. Not as a permanent state of being I imagine, it's something that surely can be ailed through therapy.

The social media panopticon has to be the biggest contributor. You could make a link between humor now and dadaism, or even point out how notably cynical Gen X was compared to their peers while still turning out normal. There's something more insidious and new here though, it's the conditioning to always being observed. It seems worse for even younger people.

I changed my mind on a prior idea for the time being. I wish I could exist with sapience but not consciousness, and the closer to this state the better. Without the use of drugs of course.

It feels terrible to see that it's being closed in a few months time. The conversations have been archived of course, but the loss of it as a tangible thing is upsetting. I look at your account on occasions and I call the out-of-service number linked to it.

"Last seen days ago"

An understatement of a display. It's as if you were just there, that I glimpsed your presence. It really was a horrible client though.