skonen_blades

The simple act of catching a fish brought us back together.

We had left for a weekend away from the pressures of everyday work life and social expectations. We had been having major issues at home, Devorah and I, and we were dangerously close to broaching the subject of divorce.

It was my idea to dust off the tent and go camping. We met on a camping trip all those years ago.

It’s odd to look back on a relationship and see the gradual parabola of intimacy keep dipping. It was predictable and stoppable but also somehow inevitable, even in the face of a large amount of affection. It was like one of those time travel stories where the hero goes back in time to try to fix things but ends up contributing to the events that he was trying to stop. Or worsening them.

Maybe part of the problem was that I tried to describe the erosion of our relationship like it was an algebra graph or a movie.

She was in the tent. We had just had a fight. She was fuming. We had sex and like an idiot, I took that post-coital moment to open up to her instead of just holding her. The emotional revelations destroyed the moment for her and afterwards, always afterwards, I could see that I had just done something stupid again.

She squatted by the fire pit, wearing nothing but my shirt, trying to start a fire. This weekend was becoming a test of patience and we both knew it.

I had taken the fishing rod down to the river. It wasn’t that far away. It took me a few tries for my body to remember the act of casting the line out.

I stood there, looking at the scalloped light twitter on the surface of the stream. It was beautiful out here, regardless of our problems. I could almost feel peaceful. Hesitantly, I started to actually plan a life without Devorah. I had only imagined it before. Now I turned it around in my head without fear. I examined it realistically and found it lonely but plausible.

My line went taut. I stumbled forward over the slippery rocks. I got my footing and held on tight.

For two minutes, I thought of nothing else except staying upright and reeling in the fish.

I got him. Not huge but a decent size. Rainbow trout. Gorgeous.

I brought it back to the tent.

That night, cuddling by the fire with out bellies full of fish, I could tell that something had changed between us for the better. I knew that I wasn’t the only one who had started to think about a single future as a path of action to take instead of a fearful worst option.

Devorah said that seeing me walking towards her, food in my hand and the light playing on the water behind me, moved her in a way she never thought she could feel about me anymore. She couldn’t see my face because of the light. In that moment, she said, I became an image of men. I was a man bringing her food that I had killed.

She said that it unlocked something primal inside of her.

We’re back in the city now. That weekend was two weeks ago. Things are starting to look better.





tags

She was a Las Vegas superhero. I was an ice sculpture.

Our marriage was attended by both presidents. Several hundred formal capes were in the cloakroom. Our marriage started the Grey Area.

I had always used my powers for good and she had used hers for personal gain. Our marriage was profitable.

After the wedding, she donated most of her huge savings to charity. We lived large but gave a lot of money to worthy causes. She’d save people when the opportunity arose.

Which wasn’t often in Beverly Hills.

I’d come home late after a hard day of fighting crime and I didn’t feel like I was coming home. The mansion felt like a movie set and god knows I’d seen enough of those.

The back of my invulnerable crystal throat was cut by the sharp words I said that drove her away.

Our divorce felt like an operation that ended in ‘-otomy’ or ‘-ectomy’.

The tabloids had a field day. Good became good again and bad became bad. The ‘Grand Experiment’ of a union between the two had failed, the newsrags proclaimed.

And maybe there were right about that.

I don’t talk much anymore. It’s all I can do to breathe through the small hole that such large promises use to come out of.

I’ve been making restaurant pancakes in this small Nevada town for weeks now. Almost time to move on. My disguise doesn’t really hold up to close inspection.

Already I can see sidelong glances and people putting two and two together. Old newspapers are starting to occur to the old people and they’re telling the young ones.

Won’t be long now before someone asks me a seemingly innocent question about my past. I’ll pack up and hitch-hike out of here tonight.


tags