Last spring during the psychiatry part of our curriculum I decided to start a story motivated by the different personality disorders. I’m not sure where it will go, or if it will in fact ever become anything coherent, but I’d like to share so bits and pieces I’ve been working on in the meantime.

Here is the start…thoughts???

“When your drain is clogged grab the drain-O, when your brain is clogged, grab the Brain-O”

The bus was no bigger than a standard suburban family’s mini-van, but it was appropriately colored in honey mustard yellow and equipped with three rows of squishy plastic seats. Overall the project amounted to a small sum of just over three thousand dollars, an insignificant price to pay for the peace of eleven minds.

I woke up that morning as I had for each of the previous mornings that year, slightly hung over, exacerbated by an unsettling combination of paranoia and concern that I had accidentally ingested some of the Brain-O. As I always did before putting on my navy jacket for the first time in the fall I checked the pockets, all nine of them including the one tucked away inside. When I was younger I’d leave myself a piece of taffy or a ten dollar bill with the hope that I’d forget about it until the next year but usually I’d think about it at least once a week so it was never a surprise. These days though, I had too many things to remember and significantly less space to store the thoughts in, as glasses of vodka had wiped out information depots, cleaning out the storage units one by one. The surprise of the year was a lime green post-it note with a few scribbles around the edges with initials of the freshman I had seen during the first month. WH, BF, JK, ND. Had life played out differently, this could have been a hilarious reminder of an elaborate plan gone to waste. But as it was, it was evidence against me, and I needed to get rid of it. They ask will the world end in fire or ice, but I need both, ice to preserve me and fire to destroy my sin.

Here is my attempt to write an ongoing story where people can read it if they’d like. It is half based on my person experience and half fictionalized, so I’m sorry if it offends any one.

“It was a broken love triangle, two sides locked in place and the other lined with hate. I was a love ‘V’.”

Mark: I already knew the  cross-country move was a mistake. I realized it a month too late on my second date with Dea, three spoonfuls into her homemade french onion soup. A wave of nausea swept up my throat and I could barely swallow the worm textured mouthful of stewed onions.”Are you sure it’s not too hot?” Dea questioned as I sat there with a painful expression, not with a burnt tongue, but with fiery regret. After a forced swallow, I squeaked out a “I can’t get on that plane at the end of August. I wonder if the ticket is refundable?” which in an attempt to sound manly came out in the various tones of a boy starting puberty. If it wasn’t for a good dose of testosterone I would have shed a tear. We ate the rest of dinner around her parent’s patio table, looking at the occasional bat swooping across the backyard and hoping time would stand still.

Four days later we headed to the forested hills on the outskirts of the city for a leisurely hike. She looked so pretty in tight black yoga capris and an orange tank top, her bony shoulders just asking to be kissed. Around her I felt a bit self conscious, as if my recent doughnut splurge added an unwanted doughnut beneath my belt. I was at best anxious for her to take the belt off. The hike could only help that problem. The larger problem nagged at me, without such a clear solution. As sappy as it seemed, I could not imagine running over 2000 miles away from the woman I loved.

In itself the hike was not epic or memorable, except for when Dea slipped into the river, scraping her fragile ankle. Hand-in-hand we laughed off her pain and embarrassment. What was memorable was my realization, however simple, that I could come back. Before I even left, I knew I’d be back, standing on a sandy path, arm around Dea’s waist, staring into the smog covering the city below.

While I’m at it, here are some silly vignettes. Lately my attention span is to short to get through more than a paragraph…

Single innocent moments of failure:

1) It does not take a piece of gum a minute to fall from the top deck of the George Washington Bridge onto a barge in the Hudson below. Between the time that I spit the glob of Juicy Fruit over the metal railing to the moment it landed on the bald scalp of the jet ski driver below all I accomplished were a few strides towards the other side of the river. He on the other hand was in a much more tactical Endeavour playing ‘chicken’ with the other jet skier. They raced at each other as the speedometers pointed upwards of 30 mph and then 40 and then, the juicy fruit pounded a small crater in his fleshy skull. It wouldn’t have mattered it were a rock or a grape, the small object made enough of an impact to cause him to close his eyes, howl, and forget all together to veer to the left. The left, right? As I tugged on my blue hair tie to tighten my ponytail, his hands steered to the right as he tipped sideways in pain. Unfortunately, the other man also turned toward his left. The moment was over, so were their lives, and so was my innocence.

2) Caroline and Paul had built this day from scratch, and not the step-wise scratch was one does when making Toll House chocolate chip cookies. From the moment he slipped the ring onto her finger they began to plan their wedding. As a painter, she choose the color theme, and as a graphic designer he made the invitations. Spicy orange and spoiled milk white, two unlikely candidates to be found together anywhere outside  of a melting creamsicle. The invitations were E-cards, sent with a picture of them flying in a hot air balloon high above the California coast with a bi-plane in the background spelling out the ‘I Do’ in the background. The wedding project continued with genetically hybrid flowers designed specifically for them, with consults with bakers to make a floating helium lifted cake, and with mutual trips to be fitted for perfect wedding bathing suits built to withstand the icy waters of the North Pacific. The four months of engagement leading up to the wedding were palate full of adventures and innovation. Those moments were perfect. And then came the day on edge of the water with a cake floating in the air. There were crabs in the water and there were seagulls dive bombing into the cake. But those were only minor complications compared to larger surprise, from a tired bride, ‘I Don’t’