Perserverance

My lungs empty of air and rattle against my ribs, my throat opens like a tunnel, and my jaw stretches down to my collar as I scream across the neighborhood. I collapse on my knees into the mud, hurling my fists at the sky clutching a clump of hair torn from my head. Every fiber of my being releases its fury, hate, and agony upon the sound waves. The scream carries on until my body is about to cave inward and vanish. Then I fall silent.
    All along the street lights began to turn on in windows and dogs started barking. A lady in slippers, a bathrobe and hair curlers steps outside curiously. A siren wails somewhere downtown. But I am numb. I catch my breath then go back inside and make coffee.
    My study is a threadbare closet upstairs. A half-inflated mattress sits beneath a window which lights the room only dimly during the day. It’s a luxurious bachelor’s pad considering what welfare earns someone. I cannot sleep. I sit at my desk and read the little pink slip beneath a lamp on the desk. “Thank you for submitting your short story A Place to Call Home,” it states in diminutive print, “but it didn’t catch our interest.” I adjust my glasses and read it again. I rub the whiskers on my chin and read it another time. I inspect every corner, turn it upside-down, flip it over and inspect the back. I read the slip in the mirror. I drip lemon juice on the paper and light a match beneath it. Absolutely nothing.
    Those fools obviously can’t recognize a brilliant meta-fictional allegory when they read one.
    I crumple the slip and chuck it over my shoulder. It arcs across the room and lands among more crumpled pink slips overflowing from the trash bin and spreading out onto the floor. I groan and rub my temples, then put my face in my hands and glare down at the floor, receding into a dark stupor. The house settles. Through the window the last azure strand of dusk recedes behind the housetops. My eyes begin to flicker and the room grows fuzzy around the edges. I close my eyes. The clock on the wall chimes but the sound is distant.
    I am startled awake by the sound of my type writer sliding and the keys clicking and plugging faster than I’d ever pressed them in my life. Then all I can do is stare agape, because the typewriter has been turned around and a tall man hunched over on the other side of my desk, typing, immersed. His nose his small and in the lamplight I can see his hair graying. If I’m not mistaken, I think he’s Stephen King.
    I dare not speak. I just watch his fingers. They punch the keys, and every letter is given such care, yet he keeps a rapid momentum. It’s like watching a musician.
    Suddenly he pulls his hands off the keys and reclines back in a chair I hadn’t known was there before. An hour must have passed. He glances towards me through wide-rimmed glasses, the first time I think he’s acknowledged me.
    “I see you’re having trouble,” he says. His voice has a nasally edge to it.
    I confess that I am. I even ask if he can help.
    “Nope,” he says. “Already wrote a book about that.”
    He stands up with a groan, his hand against his hip; he’s slow, yet every movement he makes seems abrupt, a small shock. He walks towards the window with a small gimp in his step, mumbling something about a fucking blue van that nearly killed him. All is calm as he watches the night through the window.
    “Do you have talent?” he asks.
    “Of course I have talent,” I reply, “I earned fifth place in my fourth grade poetry contest. I was born to write!”
    He heaves a sigh, as if remembering the good old days long passed, brooding and contemplating. “Kid, I don’t know what else to tell you,” he says. Then he turns towards me. “You just need to have perseverance.”
    The clock chimes again and I wake up. I’m in my chair, alone in my study once again. I look back at my desk. Heat rises from my coffee in faint wisps and the typewriter is still where it should be. My manuscript is still in front of me.
    I feel like writing.
    I push the chair close to the desk and set my fingers on the keys. I remember Stephen’s fingers, his performance. I am on the edge of imagining something. Something beautiful and grand.
    I wait.
    Absolutely nothing comes to me.
    I pull my hands away, thinking that perhaps the story isn’t ripe yet. With nothing else to do, I decide to file the rejected manuscript, so I stick a paper clip on one corner and head across the room towards a blue file cabinet on the opposite wall. The first drawer contains taxes I haven’t paid. I open the second drawer, chock full of manuscripts, and I can’t fit this one in. I open the third drawer and that one is full, too. There is a cardboard box in the corner and I go there, only to find that it too is filled to the brim with my rejected manuscripts.
    Perseverance…
    I leave my study and head downstairs. The table in the dining room has not an inch of space, it is so cluttered with stacks of paper. I look under the couch and find papers there as well. I make my way into the kitchen; there are stacks of paper on the kitchen table, papers littered across counters, piles sitting in the pantry, bundles in the refrigerator. I have no choice but to move into the basement. I turn and descend the stairs, flick a switch and push open the door.
    A beam of light pours into the basement. The room is dank, dilapidated, and utterly filled with boxes of manuscripts. I wade through the mess. There is still one place I have.
    Perseverance…
    I reach the other wall and brush myself off. There is a small electric dial on the brick wall. I enter a code and stand back. Air pressure is released, lines form in the wall, and a hidden door dilates open and I step through.
    Sharps lights turn on one at a time across the chamber. It is a colossal vault expanding seemingly beyond sight. I am surrounded on both sides by mighty towers of paper, rising up to harrowing heights, disappearing into the shadows of an unseen ceiling. I make my way through the chamber.
    Perseverance!
    At long last, the other end of the chamber is in sight. I approach a bare spot on the floor which had not seen the weight of paper. I blew the dust away and gingerly, with ardor and compassion, I set my manuscript down.
    “One day they will see you,” I coo, “one day the world will discover your magic.”
    I turn to leave and walk down the narrow aisle, double-track, and then walk out of site. The manuscript remains on the floor, hidden, alone. The light shuts off and the paper disappears in a shroud of darkness.

A New Driver

Bobby stood at the end of the driveway, his Godzilla book bag on his shoulders and a blue tin lunch box on hand. He was loaded down with the weight of ten pencils, two boxes of crayons, and as many hankies he could find in the house, because he’d heard first grade was going to be the toughest year of his life.
    After a half hour of waiting, the bus emerged from the street corner and sped down the road so fast Bobby thought the driver would miss him. The bus came to a clumsy halt, red and yellow lights blinked and the bus waited, rumbling. Bobby glanced back. His mother watched from the kitchen window and blew him another kiss. Bobby marched across the street and boarded.
    The steps wound up into the bus and he labored over them, his feet hardly long enough to clear each one. There was laughing and shrieking everywhere, and Bobby peered up to find a new bus driver in the seat where old Randy used to sit in kindergarten. Old Randy, corpulent and jolly, would always beam beneath his bushy mustache and say, “Howdy, Bobby! You ready to find the fun in the world?” But today, a gaunt old man sat in Randy’s place. The skin on his neck hung down like a rooster and his eyes were sunken, crusty, and bloodshot. He scowled at Bobby.
    “Find a seat already, kid,” he barked. “No standing in the aisle when we’re moving.”
    Bobby made his way down the corridor, wading through book bags and stray feet. Two girls played a hand game as he crossed by. He passed by a brute in a hat and a black shirt who never stopped pointing and laughing and calling at him. The bus driver yelled that he’d write everyone up if they didn’t shut up. At last Bobby found a seat in the back of the bus. The bus jolted and began to move. Bobby settled by the window and watched the broad faces of houses pass by.
    The bus stopped again to pick up somebody else. They waited two whole minutes, and they nearly pulled away, when the front slammed open and a mother dragged her son out the door. She marched down to the sidewalk, picked him up in a strangle hold, kicking and biting and writhing and squealing, and hurled him into the bus.
    Bobby peered above the back of his seat. The boy tried to escape but the door slid closed. He pounded and kicked it until the driver howled, and the boy stomped down the aisle and threw himself into the seat across Bobby’s. He hugged his body and hid himself and wept. Bobby looked back out the window.
    “I don’t wanna go to school!” the boy shouted and kicked the back of the seat.
     “My mom always says to live your day like it was the last one God was giving you,” said Bobby.     “What’s your name?”
    The boy sniffed. “Kaleb.”
    “What’s your favorite color?”
    “Blue.”
    “How old are you?”
    “Five.”
    “Your mom and dad live together?”
    “Do anybody’s?”
    Kaleb stopped crying. They sat and listened to the noise of the children and the whir of the motor picking up. The driver soared down the country road. They took a sharp turn that pushed Bobby up against the window. It made him nauseous and he groaned. “I don’t like this new bus driver.”
    “Who was the old one?” asked Kaleb. His tears were dry and he actually appeared rather inquisitive when he wasn’t in a tantrum. “I’ve never been on this bus before.”
    “Randy. He was big and nice and gave us all candy on Fridays. I don’t even know who this guy is.”
    They peered up over their seats. The driver’s scowling reflection appeared on the wide rearview mirror, glaring out at the road. Then his eyes rolled and he swayed in the seat. Was he also getting sick?
    “What’s he doin’?” Kaleb whined. “I can’t see him!”
    Bobby kept watching, an alarm growing within that he couldn’t explain. The driver shook his head, his droopy cheeks flapping back and forth, and he reached into his pocket. The bus meandered closer to the yellow line until he retrieved an orange capsule and snapped his hands to the wheel. Then the bully’s head reared from his seat and blocked the mirror. “Hey pussy!”
    Bobby didn’t wait: he knew something was wrong. He opened his lunchbox and hurled an apple at the bully. It knocked his hat off and threw him into the seat. “Bobby’s throwing things!” the bully sobbed.
    The driver glared up into the mirror, his face redder than that apple on the floor. “Knock it off, ya little ass-hole!” he bellowed, “or I’m writin’ you up!” Then the driver settled back down in the seat and pulled the bus straight before it ran off the road. Bobby ducked back down and whispered to Kaleb:
    “We gotta get out of here.”
    “You think I didn’t try already?” said Kaleb.
    “No, I mean what’s gunna happen is bad! The new driver doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
    Kaleb stared at Bobby, incredulous. “But we can’t just leave, can we?”
    Bobby was about to speak when they took a sharp turn that threw Bobby towards the aisle. He looked up in surprise towards the front, at the rearview mirror again. The racket of squealing children was beginning fall into a murmur. Even from all the way in the back of the bus, Bobby could see that the driver’s face had gone deathly pale. His lips were moving, muttering to himself that he’d forgotten his meds that morning. He opened the capsule and threw the pills towards his mouth, but instead they bounced from his face and scattered into the aisle. The driver looked down at them, blinking, tottering. “Oh… no…” and then he fainted onto the steering wheel and the horn blared.
    The bus had fallen quiet, save for some kindergartners towards the front who were laughing at a Yo-Momma joke, and their heads turned like meercats towards the front. The motor accelerated, the unconscious driver’s foot resting upon it, and the world of forest and rural cottages became a blur on either side. The bus jostled and rocked. Bobby saw that up ahead the road banked sharply left and beyond that a wooded slope trailed down to a stream. Nothing was going to stop them, until a white minivan suddenly appeared from the curve and came towards them. Bobby saw a father at the wheel and a pregnant mother in the passenger seat. Everyone screamed.
    Bobby broke free of his trance and ducked under the seat. “Get down!” he shouted at Kaleb.
    But Kaleb was frozen in a horrified stupor, staring ahead. He began shaking, and then slowly turned his head.
    “Why didn’t I say goodbye--”
    Instantly Kaleb’s body was snapped and flung over the seat and out of sight as the bus lurched with impact. The thunderous roar of metal grinding and tearing surrounded Bobby until he thought it would split his ears. Bobby caught a faint glimpse of the minivan ripping through the driver’s side, obliterating the unconscious man, and tearing the bus open half its length. The bus careened and swerved but the collision had not stopped it.
    Bobby searched everywhere for a safe place, and then threw himself and hugged the seat with every muscle in his small body. He held on, dug his fingers into the fabric, squeezing his eyes shut, deliriously mumbling a lullaby. But the force proved too much and tore him away. For a single, eternal moment, Bobby floated amongst all the book bags and the children and pencils and papers and toys and glasses. He felt the strangest impulse of his life, even before he knew what sex was: he wanted to swim through the air, to push his legs off the surface and soar over the seats. He experienced freedom.
    Nobody ever told Bobby that first grade was going to be this tough.

Frog

It was the most important day of his life and he had to wake up with a frog in his throat. He got out of bed, avoiding his sleeping wife, and traveled down to the kitchen. He guzzled the frog down first with water then hot coffee thicker than concrete. When he couldn’t say goodbye to his wife, she threw a fit and kicked him out the door. He lugged his suitcase towards the car and spotted the neighbor’s dog tearing up the linoleums, but when he opened his mouth to shout at it, it came out hardly a whistle.
    Twenty-three minutes later he slipped into the conference room and took a seat. A shaft of light poured from the windows onto the dark polished surface of the table. He was brimming with excitement. He’d finally organized the budget and was prepared for his report. When the chief executive called on him, he jumped from his seat and eagerly went up to the front.
    “Our budget crisis is solved at last!” he wanted to open up with, but instead he croaked.
    The men in suits, filled with a staunchly air of professionalism, looked around and murmured impatiently. He sipped his water, cleared his throat and tried again. But he couldn’t speak at all. He was standing in a nightmare.
    Someone leaned in close and whispered, “Why don’t you let someone else handle this?”
    He surrendered his papers and fled the room flushing. He spent his break lingering by water cooler.
    Morning and afternoon passed, and that night he went to dinner, a date he’d planned three months ahead of time, an occasion he’d spent every morning rehearsing in front of the mirror. Martha was a grad student and interning with a marine biologist. If he was going to prove himself, this date had to be flawless. Without his voice, he sent his wife a text: “traffic jam, b home late.” Then he sauntered over to his reserved table and sat before his blonde dream, and Martha immediately burst into chatter.
    Fifteen minutes into dinner he thought he was listening quite well; he fixed his eyes on her running mouth instead of letting them lingering down her collar, and even after her seventh digression about sea turtles he kept himself looking enthralled. She bought it and continued rambling. But when she explained the danger the baby sea turtles faced upon hatching, his breath ran suddenly into a wall of phlegm. He resisted the urge to cough – he couldn’t afford to interrupt her now, at the heat of her ramble, so he reserved himself to shallow breaths and frequented to the wine glass. Minutes passed and her words spilled, clear and unhindered, while the phlegm clotted inside his gullet.
    At last he couldn’t endure anymore, so he cleared his throat as modestly as he could. As he had feared, she shot an irritated glare. She didn’t enjoy being interrupted. There followed an awkward silence, and then she continued right where she’d left off. Unfortunately, that frog stayed lodged in his throat.
    This went on for the next hour. He let her talk, but that only made each interruption that much more painful as he turned aside to cough and spit. He played odd games to divert his attention, from counting the times she batted her lashes to figuring out the true color of her fingernails. Nothing helped: he sat struggling to breath behind a pleasantly engaging smile. This frog had ruined his career and his marriage, but he wouldn’t let it ruin tonight.
    She mentioned the Pacific current and then, without warning, he lurched into a raking cough. He snatched the napkin and wiped his mouth, tried to apologize, but then coughed again, and then he heaved. He needed to flee to the bathroom. He stood up and knocked his chair behind me and it clattered to the floor. Martha’s hand touched her lips in shock. Now he couldn’t even walk, helplessly hacking, wheezing, and croaking until a rubbery wet body pushed up into his mouth and propelled itself from his lips. He heard her scream and there was commotion as he looked back up on the table.
    A massive frog sat on his plate. Its fat, slimy belly bulged as if it were too large to move at all. He gaped in horror until the frog’s head turned and its eyes met his. Its eyes glowered at him, pale and unblinking, and its lips frowned upon him with an elderly disapproval. Its neck swelled up and belched. Man and frog stared.
    He realized that he would never be the same again.