Smash > Books: read-2012‎ (101)

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Night demised in ice.
Morning was born in inferno.
Sun beat through my window, waking me in an ocean of warm sweat. At once I smelled hints of burnt air, the fragrance raw, influencing my headache like gasoline on fire.

and

Tiny flecks of what looked like mirrored snowflakes floated through the air like fragmented thoughts from a thousand angels. Each fleck shone a rainbow of whites, not colors, reflecting everything and nothing at all; it was as if they were made of pure light, white as the center of the sun.

The day Dad left was the day mom stopped loving me. I remember the door slamming, screams breaking glass. I remember looking out my window to see him driving away. Mom broken and bleeding on the floor, all tears and pain. I remember reaching down to brush glass from her face, and the look in her eyes said that she would never love me, never see me, again.

"You see, child, this is the story of an angel who fell in love with the Devil, and the forbidden love that destroyed them both; their child of shadow and light."

[image]{Flickr: By schoschie}

And then suddenly it's bedlam: blood is spurting out of jugular veins left and right and splattering the walls like in one of those forensic mysteries shows Dad watches late at night on Gavel TV and suddenly everybody is biting everybody else. It's kind of like a big pillow fight - with teeth.

In a voice as detached as his purposeful footsteps, Proctor says, "Zombies don't cry," simply, with no further explanation.

The the one who's been chuckling looks at me and says, "It's a shame, this one. She doesn't seem angry like the rest we bring in here." And oh, do I want to correct him and say, like the rest we brought in here, moron, brought in here...

(Okay, okay, so maybe it's four-hundred-percent wishful thinking, but, hey, a girl can dream, can't she? Even if she's waterlogged and underwater and sitting on a slimy rock that's putting barnacle-shaped dimples in her rump?)

Shoot, she could definitely do worse. The movies I watched growing up, every zombie I ever saw looked like utter crap. But these two, they could definitely pose for the Aber-zoombie and Fitch catalog, if you know what I'm saying.

Some mornings, she’d wake and vow, Today, I will get it right. I won’t be such an awful mess of a girl. I won’t lose my temper or make unkind remarks. I won’t go too far with a joke and feel the room go quiet with disapproval. I’ll be good and kind and sensible and patient. The sort everyone loves. But by evening, her good intentions would have unraveled. She’d say the wrong thing or talk a little too loudly. She’d take a dare she shouldn’t, just to be noticed. Perhaps Mabel was right, and she was selfish. But what was the point of living so quietly you made no noise at all? “Oh, Evie, you’re too much,” people said, and it wasn’t complimentary. Yes, she was too much. She felt like too much inside all the time. So why wasn’t she ever enough?

“Harold Brodie is a louse and a lothario who cheats at cards and has a different girl in his rumble seat every week. That coupe of his is pos-i-tute-ly a petting palace. And he’s a terrible kisser to boot.”

Evie’s parents stared in stunned silence.

“Or so I’ve heard.”

“I hear they feed you in Sing Sing,” Evie muttered. “Three squares a day.”

“Evangeline,” Will said with a sigh. “Charity begins at home.”

“So does mental illness.”

And maybe love is terrifying. I'm terrified now, but not in the way she would think.

I'm terrified because I hate who she is and what she's done, I do, and yet there is still something strong and powerful between us, some kind of deep, primal bond that won't end, won't snap or break or change, it just remains there inside me, as solid and factual as my blood and bones - she is my mother, I am her daughter - and I don't know what to call it because it doesn't feel like love, not the good kind I felt for Ellie, with all my heart, but instead an instinctual pull that's been there from the beginning, drawing me back to her again and again, the woman who has hurt me like no one else ever could, and now she's dying and the bond is still here, inside me, and I won't call it love or hate because emotions has nothing to do with the fact that she is my mother and I am her daughter, and we will be connected in that way forever.

If she'd said she loved me and still did all those cruel and careless things, would my child mind have decided to accept that as the definition of love?

Probably.

Would I have ended up believing that love was manipulative and hurtful and full of pain, gotten use to being shoved aside, sworn at and disregarded, picked up and hugged, and then slapped around for getting in the way, starved and smiled at, neglected and cursed, told I was no good and would never amount to anything, then hefted high and proudly shown off down at the Walmart, introduced as a little pisser and a big mistake in the same breath?

Yes, I would have, because if she said she loved me and then acted that way I would have thought that was how you loved someone, and how someone should love you back.

A goes through each day trying to remain impassive and causing as little disruption for the host as possible. A has long ago come to terms with daily change. Then A meets Rhiannon when A is inhabiting her boyfriend's body. A no longer wants to stumble though life as Jane, Dick and Mary. A wants to be with Rhiannon and A does what A can to see her as much as possible. A remains careful and thoughtful about the hosts but begins to step outside the code A has set up for A's existence, all in the name of love. I think this aspect of the story felt so real, because people really do lose some of their logical reasoning when they fall in love. The mind becomes obsessed with doing whatever it takes to be with that person.

This is not your typical love story. It's raw and personal, simple yet extremely complicated. You can't help but wonder what you would do in Rhiannon's shoes, how you would feel to love someone who is a different shape, size and sex every day. For love to transcend such stiff boundaries is an incredible feat. Rhiannon definitely struggles with the situation, but in very different ways from A. Their perspectives are unique because Rhiannon cannot compare life to A's, and though A has been in human bodies since birth, A simply cannot understand what it means to really be human because A is not around long enough to feel the impact.

There comes a time when the body takes over the life. There comes a time when the body's urges, the body's needs, dictate the life. You have no idea you are giving the body the key. But you hand it over. And then it's in control. You mess with the wiring and the wiring takes charge.

We watch the trees, the sky, the signs, the road. We sense each other. The world, right now, is only us. We continue to sing along. And we sing with the same abandon, not worrying too much if our voices hit the right notes or the right words. We look at each other while we're singing; these aren't two solos, this is a duet that isn't taking itself at all seriously. It is its own form of conversation- you can learn a lot about people from the stories they tell, but you can also know them from the way they sing along, whether they like the windows up or down, if they live by the map or by the world, if they feel the pull of the ocean.