Category: stories (writing)

This is the story of some pants and a fire, but the pants were not actually on fire (nor on, for that matter).

A little background as to my state of mind: following a long week with little sleep, I topped it off with an eventful weekend with even less sleep. Monday morning, I oozed my way out of bed and managed to pull myself together for the workday, where I got things done without much grace or efficiency. Driving home, I fretted about my environmental group meeting that was to occur that same evening (and wishing I could just veg instead). I was nearly in a fugue state, I was so tired, but got my car parked and myself up the stairs and home, sweet home.

After setting down my bags and kicking off my shoes, I did a quick sweep of the kitchen floor and meandered to the bathroom to put in my contacts. While putting in my left contact, an alarm sounded, startling me and my contact fell in the sink. I thought at first that one of the alarms was malfunctioning and just needed to be turned off. I rushed around semi-blind trying to figure out which alarm it was, and gradually it dawned on me that it was probably a real alarm. I wondered if it was carbon monoxide and fear slowed me down enough to realize the alarm was not coming from inside my apartment. Opening the door to the hall, I was hit by a wall of sound and nearly stumbled, it was so loud. Like air raid sirens, with impossibly bright flashing lights. Obviously the fire alarm, then, but no smoke was apparent, nor any neighbors. My blood was pounding in my head.

I jerked the door shut and turned away. I stood facing the closet with my mind skipping like a broken record, not knowing what to do and what about my meeting? I’d faced many false fire alarms in my life, but never a real one, so I had an irrational impulse to hide under the covers and to wait for it to go away. Continue reading “pants on fire”

In the end, it all comes down to the bitter bean. All I remember of my childhood is a swirl of disappointments. I know there must’ve been wonder and exploration, but my earliest non-memory is tripping over the carseat in the concrete garage and my teeth slicing through my bottom lip – you can still see the scar (see?). Mostly, I remember resenting the adults who held me back (most all of them) and hiding out (in video games, fantasy novels, bad poetry). My favorite thing was Halloween, where I got to be the monster (roar!).

I never thought my parents to be similar; in fact, I only remember them in isolation – certain interactions with my Dad (watching movies together, fights about church) and certain interactions with my mom (crying and comforting, being chased around yelled at), not really anything as a couple, though of course we did many family activities together. Perhaps the oddest, most frustrating thing was the completeness of their restriction – my mom was more of the disciplinarian (very strict in many ways, no MTV, etc.), but in the few ways she wasn’t strict (church, for example), my dad was – very. On the flip side, they were each very tolerant in nearly every way that the other was strict.

My parents weren’t responsible for my miserablist childhood, unless maybe you want to blame them for passing on their genes & a regimented society hostile to my complexities. But their complementary restrictiveness added to the considerable frustrations of an unusually adventurous, precocious and sensitive child. Continue reading “the bitter bean”