Pass the Salt

“How did you find out?”

“It wasn’t that I found out. It was more that I came to understand.”

“When was that, did you tell anyone?”

“A few days ago, I guess. It wasn’t easy for me; there was so much. So much for me to process. I had to talk it through with someone, you know? You would have done the same.”

“I don’t think so, I don’t think something like that should ever be talked about. I don’t think you and I are the same. I think we are very different.”

“Easy to say, maybe you’re right, maybe we’re just very different people. But I had to talk.”

“I think that’s becoming obvious now, isn’t it? See, I’ve been doing these things for many years, and no one knows about it, because I remain quiet, that’s how I get away with it. It’s because I don’t talk to anyone, not my mother, not my sister or even the fucking priest. It’s because I keep my mouth shut that my secrets have remained secrets.”

“How? How do you do it? How do you keep everything locked up inside and not get caught up in the lies and the chaos of it all?”

“How do I keep my mouth shut? How do I keep quiet?”

“Yeah”

“I just don’t talk about it, about anything. I talk about the weather and how the baseball season is coming along. You learn to stop asking questions. And then you start to listen more. Just listen. People love to talk about themselves. I let them. When they’re talking my mouth is shut. That’s how it starts. It’s a process, it starts organically, a little bit at a time. A learned behavior I suppose. Fortunately, I learned at a young age that the tongue delivers both blessings and curses. It can heal and destroy. But it always reveals. My truth is hidden, years of hidden secrets beneath the surface. It’s gotta stay that way.”

“I’m still struggling to understand-to understand you. I just don’t get it. Years? So multiple? This, this isn’t a onetime thing?”

“Nah, it’s kinda a way of life.”

“How can that be? A way of life? Jesus! Its’ anything but a way of life. It’s the opposite. I can’t accept that. I can’t accept that you, of all people could do this. Do that, gawd it so awful to think about. I can’t get passed it. It’s like all I can think about now. Whatever. I guess eventually I’ll learn to live with it. I’ll have to, right? You do; you live with it? You just move along as though nothing bothers you, like you’re just part of the solution to everything, but not talking about it, right? I just don’t understand how you can do it. I still don’t see how you manage to move through your day like nothing happened.”

“And yet, I do. I did and I do. It’s become a part of who I am.”

“So why did you do it?”

“Why are you still talking about it?”

“I need to understand.”

“No. No you don’t. You have a desire to control the narrative. There is no understanding of what I have done. Pass the salt, will you?”

“It scares me, fear is what initiated the desire to talk about it. How can you not see that? Is it so foreign to you that something so dark would terrify me?”

“I understand that. I have struggled with fears at times. I always have. I don’t allow it to control me though. Not the way you do.”

“How? How can you put fear into a box?”

“The same way I put shame away, or disgust, humility, sadness or even joy-not that I experience much of that.”

“I still don’t understand the ability to box up emotion. And I cannot grasp the gravity of burying what you have done.”

“Like I said. We are different people. We all make different choices. Maybe you like pink and I prefer purple. What I choose to do with the stuff in my life, is only my business. You might not agree, but reality is that we have free will, and humanity is full of surprises. You might think that guy over there is conjuring up something sweet for his wife’s birthday, maybe though he’s planning a rendezvous with his mistress. That woman there, you perhaps think she’s getting ready to go home to the family, make dinner, watch Netflix, but maybe; maybe she’s planning how to silently extract funds from her employers account into her own; espionage I think we would call that right? Oh, and over there, see that older gent, the one with the cane, and the brown cardigan? You were probably thinking nice old man, sad that he’s alone, but he could be a pedophile here pretending to get coffee, scoping out his next victim. Don’t look so shocked. Everyone has secrets. Everyone has their own skeletons. You make presumptions that people are good, most, are not. They just don’t talk about it.”

“I guess I’m just too honest.”

“Honest? No. Nieve. You see what you want and believe what your mind tells you to. You make those presumptions like I said. You have to ability to alter that. It’s like turning a light on, a simple switch. But it starts with the decision to keep the mouth shut. Success begins with not talking. My survival is dependent on absolute silence.”

“Yeah, I heard you. So, you know that I have talked to someone. What happens now?”

“You must know by now that whatever it is, I won’t be talking about it.”