Bound

I’m a soldier. Sitting in the warm dirt of a newly formed crater. The world and its mistakes vibrate through me, grabbing onto my heart and holding it like a father saying goodbye to his child. I feel the infinitesimal weight of sweat rolling over my numb lips. My body shakes like the quaking earth beneath me, trembling under the weight of blood and metal. Bullets cut the air, reducing all sound to a deafening silence. My eyes scan the dirt and barbed wire. My hands grip my rifle, the tendons pulling on my bones and ripping through my skin. The agonizing scream of distant artillery rumbles from deep within the earth. With shaky hands, I remove a scrap of paper from my pocket. Artillery shells screech above me, reaching their peak in the night sky. I write a letter.

“To my love,”

“There’s no better time to install a new pool! If you love family made and family-owned, we’re your-”

I mute the television, cutting off that shitty commercial. I hate how tv always cuts at the worst time. Whatever. Where’s my phone? I look around my trailer from the comfort of my lounge chair. Goddamnit. It’s probably in my bedroom. Well, there’s no use getting it now. I guess I’ll just sit here in silence.

Oh god, I hated that. I unmute the television and I’m brought back into the loud numbness of bullshit. I am nothing. My body is gone. I’m not sitting in a shitty trailer, wasting the back half of my life. I’m nowhere. I don’t exist and I never have. No one has ever known me. There is just this screen. Flashing images of cars and tiles and food. I feel nothing and in a way, that soothes me. I’m dead, without the pain of dying.

I kill the rest of the afternoon in nowhere until the fatigue of night brings me back to life for the brief moments before bed. The next morning, my eyes peel open and I’m revived. I lie under the blankets, using the small amount of REM energy I have left to try and project myself out of existence; but eventually, I need to eat. I sit up in bed. My body groans and my stomach rumbles. Isn’t it a shame that we have to eat? Every single day, give or take. At some point, if we don’t want to die, we have to eat. There’s no freedom from that. We are bound.

I shuffle to the kitchen and microwave a corndog. I watch it spin on its little plate. My stomach grumbles. That is a little plate, isn’t it? The corndog looks small on it too. This won’t be enough food. What was I thinking? I open my freezer and the emptiness reminds me. Not a single thing. How didn’t I notice? I quickly throw on jeans and a T-shirt, grabbing my wallet and my corn dog. I take a bite out of the batter-soaked hotdog and think about what I’ll get at the store. Something easy. Probably a lot of frozen stuff cause expiration dates scare me. That stuff can get pricey though, so I’ll have to budget a bit. I take out my wallet and find that it’s emptier than the freezer. Damn. I sit down at a small table in my kitchen. Has it really been that long? I set aside enough money for a year. My heart rate kicks up. My body heats. My chest drops into my feet. All I can hear is the sound of my breathing. I shut my eyes as tight as I possibly can.

I smell the ocean. Warmth rolls over my hand like the sun is reaching out to me. I open my eyes and learn I’m right. Lucas is sitting across from me in a boat we built together ten years ago. His hand is on mine. He looks at me and smiles. I feel like the entire world has been shoved into this boat.

“You catch anything yet?” he says.

“Nope.”

“Me neither. We should bring poles next time.”

He laughs and I smile. The sun beats down on us. Its warmth growing on my skin. Hotter and hotter. It hurts. My skin burns. I wince, closing my eyes.

I’m back in my trailer. Sitting in the same place. It’s been a year since Lucas was in this world. I stare down at the bills on the table. The ones I thought I could pay. I had no idea so much time had passed. I’m twenty thousand dollars in the hole and I have nothing. My chest pumps up and down as I try to fill my lungs with air. I can’t breathe in here. I stand up and my vision goes dark, I can barely see where I am. I fumble to the door and throw it open. I step outside and suddenly, I’m lying on the ground. My nose hurts, my lips are wet, my ears ring. I push myself off the ground and feel my nose with both hands. The flesh is tender and bent. Blood drips freely onto the ground. Goddamnit. There are only three steps how could I- My head turns to the stairs. There’s something sitting on the topmost step.

I stand up and walk back to the trailer, patting dust off my pants. There’s a small black book sitting there with a pen perfectly placed on top. Thin, like a journal. I pick it up and open it to the first page. It’s full of writing. Each line, the margins, every bit of white space on the page has been taken up by something. Yet there isn’t a single full sentence in the book. I flip through the pages and each one is the same. A million dollars. A Porsche. A mansion in Laguna Beach. Nouns, stuff, things. I skim through each page until I reach the back of the book. On the last page, there’s the tiniest bit of space. Enough for two words maybe less. That’s rich. I can see the art project now. “Look at what everyone wants!” Something, something, greed is the downfall of my ass. I take up the pen and write $20,000 leaving just enough space for the next guy. Have fun with your art project kid. I toss the book onto my steps and go back inside.

I walk over to my sink carefully, trying to keep any blood from dripping onto the floor. Water pours from the faucet, filling up the basin. When it reaches capacity, I dip my head in. The cold water hugs my skull and cools my body. I hold my breath and stay down there until oxygen pulls on my leash. My hair drapes over my face as I drag myself out of the water. I toss it over my head, pulling back the curtain on my eyes. Is that? There’s money on my table. I take the bundle of cash in my hands and count it. Five, ten, twenty. $20,000 exactly. Does that mean? My heart rises up from its resting place in the bottom of my feet. I rush outside and thank the universe that the book is still sitting where I had left it. I place it on my table and turn to the last page. There is just enough space. My hands shake. I can feel him already. I put pen to paper. Lucas.