Friday, September 21, 2018

Heading out his front door, James wears a snug lime-green T-shirt with the words Similes Are Like Metaphors emblazoned on the front. Lucinda had backed herself out of his garage and his life only 15 minutes before. The shirt is a good luck charm for James, something he could use today. It tends to get compliments. 

A few weeks ago, a woman came up to James at a local hotel pool he occasionally visits and told him that his shirt was funny. When he smiled and said thanks, she looked him up and down and noted that the shirt was a good fit on him. She reached up and felt his sleeve, gently touching his bicep, holding her hotel key card in the other hand. James liked the attention. But he was involved with Lucinda at the time, so he simply returned a compliment and jumped in the pool headfirst as if he were dodging a boulder. When he came up for air, she stood on the edge of the pool with an “aww” look on her face. Funny how that look goes both ways.

But James is not involved anymore. Today is a new day. It’s not the day he wanted, but still, it’s a new day.

James had briefly considered calling in heartbroken. He could make a case for being physically sick. His gut is nauseous. His bones hurt. His ears are ringing. 

But luckily today is a remote Friday. He can walk between coffee shops all day and code over cold brew without having to face his office peers and risk a meltdown. 

How can you be sad while you’re moving? How can you worry about some girl while you’re working?

Plus, the movement and caffeine should keep him awake after his late night last night. He can spend his day among the café-goers of South Austin and not talking to anyone sounds perfect, unless of course someone just really likes his shirt again.

As James heads right on foot towards the main road, he tells himself not to look left to where Lucinda had just driven off. Not even a glance.

James brings up the audiobook of Robinson Crusoe on his headphones, another good luck charm of sorts.

The centuries-old story had calmed James many times on his sofa late at night while married. He had found the tale of a man shipwrecked and isolated on his own Island of Despair to be quite relatable. It had lulled him to sleep countless times on the sofa. It might steady his nerves now too. 

A man with a historical-sounding English accent speaks into James’ headphones as he walks.

If ever the story of any private man’s adventures in the world were worth making public, and were acceptable when published, the Editor of this account thinks this will be so.

James smiles at the mock seriousness of the preface, framing the story like the beginning of some Wes Anderson movie.

The wonders of this man’s life exceed all that (he thinks) is to be found extant; the life of one man being scarce capable of a greater variety.

Extant? Such a funny word.

James always wanted to write a book himself. Maybe he would have time now, if only he had something good to write about besides his kids, gaming with his friends, or getting dumped. 

A reminder of James’ morning standup pops up on his phone. 

He pauses Robinson Crusoe and pulls out his headphones to check his backpack. He has everything he needs to stay out all day and work: his old company laptop, his new company laptop (same model), a developer phone, a developer tablet, his personal phone, chargers and cables, and two office badges, although he won’t need those today. His backpack also holds a pair of spare socks, a flashlight, some pens, and scratchpad. His looks is topped of with a straw-colored cowboy hat to keep him from getting burned in the late-summer sun.

James heads up the street a couple of blocks then ducks off the sidewalk, past a wooden sign that reads “Private Property” and into a small forest of live oaks. He sees a groundskeeper in the distance and waves to him. This is James’ usual shortcut to the coffee shop.

As James’ walks along a narrow path, a white clapboard building reveals itself to his right. The building is old and very American Gothic. Two stained-glass windows stare at him through the tress like curious eyes. A wooden sign has an arrow to the left for Bridal Party and to the right for Reception and Events. Straight ahead must be for what the hell does my life look like now?.

James takes a deep breath and pushes steadily forward. 

The path opens to a clearing, or glade of sorts. Several aisles of white folding chairs are arranged in two sections with a row down the middle. A small wooden sign post at the entrance reads, “Sit. Or sit not. There are no sides. – Yoda.” 

Apparently, they’re getting ready for a wedding here tonight.

Fuck. He takes another, deeper breath.

This is where James had planned to marry Lucinda. In this exact spot. He was just waiting for her to finalize her divorce and sort through whatever she was dealing with before proposing.

But he never even got to ask her.

Fuck.

On a little stage past the chairs, James was going to play and sing All I Want Is You, the only U2 song that Lucinda really liked, for their wedding.

Every day for months, James had been secretly practicing that song on guitar and singing it too – a new skill for him and quite difficult, almost as hard as learning to play the guitar in the first place as a teenager. The song starts out simple enough, but the bridge is a beast; there are some notes that James may never hit. Still, James loves a good challenge and was enjoying finding ways to make it work.

Plus, that song was something he could actually do while he waited for Lucinda to sort things out.

Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck. His nausea kicks in.

Now he might as well smash his guitar into a thousand pieces and put them all in the trash when he gets home.

The wedding isn’t going to happen. At least not any time soon.

James fights off a tear, exhales, and heads down a path to the right, back into the woods and out of his Glade of Lament. 

He puts his headphones back in and resumes Robinson Crusoe. He finds the rambling old English framing quite amusing.

The editor believes this narrative to be a just history of fact; neither is their any appearance of fiction in it: and though he is well aware there are many, who on account of the very singular preservations the author met with, will give it the name of romance; yet in which ever of these lights it shall be viewed, he imagines, that the improvement of it, as well as the diversion, as to the instruction of the reader, will be the same…

So it’s a practical survival guide disguised as an adventure story. James had figured that out on the sofa only after listening that section many times.

But he reminds himself to cut Daniel Defoe some slack. How did anyone ever draft, much less revise, a full-length novel with a quill pen by candlelight? And no cloud backups. Holy hell.

The preface continues on James’ headphones.

..and as such, he thinks, without farther compliment to the world, he does them a great service in the publication.

Indeed he does.

As James walks towards the coffee shop, his nausea starts to settle into numbness. His legs move on autopilot. In the next clearing in the woods, he passes a rustic rope swing hanging from a large oak for newlyweds. 

He tries to forget Lucinda. 

And yet the live oaks all around him only remind him of how it all started.

⬅️ Valens-time