Awake

Here's a story I wrote a while back, last story I've written. Dunno why the last paragraph is formated different here... don't know how to change it. Hope you enjoy.
               

As Michael lay prone on the edge of the decomposing wood dock and lazily swung his arms left to right and back again so that his ten soft fingertips glided across the top of the placid lake, he contemplated how little an impact he was making on the body of water. He liked the thought that he could cause change. He turned to a supine position, which he felt was better for thinking on account of the feeble and few distractions provided by any given sky, but found his view of this particular grey sky clouded by the apple tree his father had planted seventeen years earlier when he learned he would have a child and which now hung over the dock and lake. Michael shifted his position to remove the apple tree from his field of vision and his mind resumed thinking about the lake. Had any fish noticed the ripples he had created? Had any fish felt them? Had an underwater plant swayed because of them or had any lily pad been rocked gently as they passed underneath it? Had the tongue-eye coordination of any hungry frog been thrown off by the gentle rock of the lily pad on which it sat? This train of thought was halted by the realization that his thoughts were taking a morose turn. Michael attributed his sullen mood to the dark grey clouds overhead and the similarly coloured lake which made him the middle of a gloomy sandwich indeed. He became hungry and quickly became aware he had forgotten to eat lunch. He lifted his head and craned his neck uncomfortably towards his chest to look down the length of the dock. For a moment he stared forlornly at the small bungalow of a cottage his parents owned where he knew there was food for him to ear. He slowly let his head fall back onto the dock and laid his interlocked hands upon his chest.

When he awoke, the lake had changed. For a moment he thought he was staring at a demon hovering over a boiling lake of pitch before looking for a more logical answer. He realized it was raining and that the surface was being peppered by countless raindrops each one creating a small splash as it landed and turned from rainwater to lake water. The demon was a heron he was seeing from behind with its large flapping wings outstretched to contend with the rain and long skinny legs dangling below. It must have flown too far from home and been caught in the storm on the way home. The clouds were much darker now, nearing black, and Michael was unsure if that meant that darker clouds had replaced the earlier ones or that he had slept longer than he intended to.  He looked at his watch before getting up and heading for shelter from the storm.

“Where have you been Michael?”
“I fell asleep on the dock, Mom”

“It’s nearly suppertime already! What happened to doing your homework Saturday afternoon?”
“I already did mine! I already did mine!”
“Shut up, Lilly”

            Lilly squealed as her brother gave her a soft push and she ran into the kitchen, tossing her long, wavy, blond hair, to join her mother and take an apple from the fridge.
“Mommy, Michael told me to shut up.” she said somewhat distracted but loud enough for Michael to hear, all the while searching the fruit drawer.

            Janet O’Connell, a stout hearted, petite, redheaded woman, poked her head into the doorway between the kitchen and the living room where her son now lay sprawled on the old plaid couch with his eyes closed.

“Michael… try and get some work done before supper.”

“When’s Dad getting here?”
“He should be here in any minute. He said he’d be here for supper. He had some work to finish before he could leave. Now you work too!”

            He lifted himself off the couch and slowly meandered to his bedroom making stops at the bathroom and the bookcase where took nothing out. He’d once asked his father how many of the books in the bookcase he’d read.
“Most”

He’d wondered how. He still did, really.

            When he got to his bedroom, Michael shut the door. He opened his copy of Hamlet and positioned it on the floor, turned on the lamp on his bedside table, climbed into bed, lay on his stomach and buried his face into the crook of his bent left arm. He tried to think about something about Hamlet. Before long, he was thinking only about ham and he began salivating as his hunger returned. An unwelcomed creak startled him out of his train of thought. His mother was there, red in the face and talking. He had dozed off.
“Get up and get dressed, Michael. We’re going to the hospital. Your father has been in an accident.”

            He’d been found alive. His car was in the ditch, having hit a pothole filled with water and then slidding out of control on the wet pavement. The next driver to come through the road had phoned the emergency services but there was already nothing to be done to save his life by the time the paramedics had arrived. By the time they’d arrived at the hospital, his father had been pronounced dead from his injuries in the crash. It was final.

The following days, Michael thought a lot but remembered little. Between seeing his mother completely fall apart and the convergence of his extended family at his grand-parent’s house; the adults talking in hushed voices and each speaking to him with a faulty reassuring tone, Michael did know whether he felt like crying or simply going to sleep until things went back to normal. The days went by, and eventually years would, and things didn’t go back to normal.

            Tuesday afternoon, everyone put on their Sunday best to host the wake. Lilly looked very pretty in her dress but Michael didn’t tell her as they were leaving their grandparent’s house. Everyone sat silent as the car unhurriedly transported them to the funeral home. Michael simply admired his sister’s beauty. She wore a black, knee length dress and dainty shoes of matching colour. She did not smile, and yet, her reddish cheeks against her fair skin gave her a lively appearance. The bags under her vivid green eyes were barely visible. He never would have guessed she had spent the whole night crying if he had not heard her over his own sobs. The afternoon passed into evening and Michael had never seen so many people and so few smiles. It seemed the funeral home was bare of any life at all. The walls were painted “peaceful” beige and there were numerous paintings of flowers in bloom. His mother and grand-mother were occupied receiving condolences and all of the adults spoke inaudibly. But it wasn’t a library and, no one was reading, though Michael thought everyone could do with a little distraction. His father could have cheered everyone up he found himself thinking. He could have told a joke or something. He felt tired as the evening wore on and he saw Lilly was sleeping on her chair. To wake himself up, Michael left his seat and headed for the balcony for some air. As Michael stepped into the threshold of the door, he smacked his face into the clear glass door and stumbled back. For a moment Michael was filled with dread but the next, the whole funeral parlour burst into a sustained laugh and at once, as though an esoteric vow had been broken, the arthritic atmosphere of the room was soothed for a short time. As they rode home, Michael told Lilly, who had missed the laugh, that she looked pretty and she tucked her chin and smiled.

            
After the funeral, on Friday, Michael, his Mother, Lilly and their grand-parents went to the country
 house up north. Michael sat on the dock watching the rain pour into the surface of the lake with tired but alert grey eyes. He wore a red raincoat but it barely helped him keep dry. He cast his line into the water and began slowly to reel it in again slightly flicking it left and right absentmindedly. When he cast his line again he caught sight of a dove effortlessly flying through the rain. It was as though the heron he’d seen had been transfigured into a different bird and had returned. He barely heard the splash over the rain but turned his head to see an apple floating in the middle of a series of growing and quickly disappearing circles. He rapidly finished reeling his line a second time, reached out over the water and fished the apple out and then brought it inside for his sister. Things would never go back to normal. But they might become normal again. And on the day of his father’s funeral, he caught himself smiling weakly.

FORSAKEN ON VALENTINES DAY

A Poem for Tabia by Marta, Robyn, and Andrea

Your love is like a black eye
And from it tears of blood I cry
They fall like rain from hopeless clouds
And I'm drowning in them.
Where once was flame, has now turned ash
The memory of you leaves such a rash
On my wrist the long red gash
More to the floor, red droplets splash
One more for every day your gone
I fell the sun will never dawn
I live in eternal night. No one understands
What its like to live in forsaken lands
The frosted windows hide your face
I live inside an empty place
Is this how angels feel fall'n from space??
My heart is made of leather, not lace

Spleen, or How Bad You're Not

Here is me reading a terrible poem. I don't have anything to submit of my own at the moment, though if it counts as producing work of any kind, I did in fact draw the picture on the video just for this. Anyway, I just wanted to share this with you as a (re)commencement post! Long live HeartRape!

Spleen by Ernest Dowson
for Arthur Symons

I was not sorrowful, I could not weep,
And all my memories were put to sleep.

I watched the river grow more white and strange,
All day till evening I watched it change.

All day till evening I watched the rain
Beat wearily upon the window pane.

I was not sorrowful, but only tired
Of everything that ever I desired.

Her lips, her eyes, all day became to me
The shadow of a shadow utterly.

All day mine hunger for her heart became
Oblivion, until the evening came,

And left me sorrowful, inclined to weep,
With all my memories that could not sleep.

[1896]

A Spooky Tale (Title Suggestions?) - Part 1

            For hours Nelson had driven bent over the steering wheel, eyes darting frantically at the mirror, searching for pursuing light. Though it had been many miles since headlights last shone their incriminate gaze upon him, he felt hunched and oppressed, as if a large hand were pressing him deep into the cabin of the automobile, and smothering him. Beside him sat Clint, his partner in crime, with the revolver dangling loosely in his hand; he glanced now and again over his shoulder at Nelson's frantic urging.

"No one's coming for us; we left 'em in the dust," said Clint, crossing his arms and sitting back in his seat.

"Maybe they've set up a alarm at the next town. They'll catch us, I know!"

"No, they won't, Nelson. Calm yer horses. All we gotta focus on is drivin' to the next town, finding us a place to duck down for a few days, and then we'll drive straight on down to Mexico. They'll never catch us there."

"We shot a girl, Clint," cried Nelson, his eyes near tears. The roadster jerked, tipping slightly on its narrow wheels. "She--She's dead!"

"She ain't dead," snapped Clint, "ya don't know that. 'Sides, you helped her up yourself. She was breathin'."

"Barely," thought Nelson with dismay. On his palms he could feel the tackiness of dried blood moistened with sweat. His hands clung to the wheel, bound to his inexorable fate. "What if she didn't make it - then we'll really hang! We shouldn'ta shot that girl, Clint. That's not what I signed up for."

"Well, it happened," said Clint, "Sides, she had it comin'."

Nelson peeled his right hand off the wheel. It stung, his knuckles stiff and sore, clenched in a death grip. With his dusty sleeve he wiped his nose roughly. "I'm no murderer Clint. I'm not."

"Ok, Nelson. You're not."

"I'm just a thief - thievin's not so bad, right? Man's gotta live."

"The only way we're gonna live through this heist is if you quit cryin' get us to some cover! We got twenty grand in the backseat, enough to buy us a ranch out in Mexico. Don't let her sacrifice go to waste." Clint slapped a firm hand on Nelson's shoulder. "Cheer up," he said, "Soon there'll be Senorita's aplenty, an' you'll forget all about the blondie at the bank."

"Yeah," said Nelson in a wavering voice. "You're right. I gotta keep my head straight. Can't start panicking now."

"Atta boy," said Clint. "Whereabouts are we?"

"Not sure," said Nelson, peering into the coming darkness. One either side of the muddy highway, trees began to grow closer and darker. On their long, swaying limbs hung tendrils of moss, which reached out toward the men, grazing their faces like little ghostly fingers. "I think we're comin' in close to Shreveport."

"Don't get too close to town. Let's stay out a ways in the country," said Clint, tension rising slightly in his throat. He regretted his unfamiliarity with the county; wherever they drove now was at Nelson's discretion. This was the one job Clint had kept him for, but as he watched Nelson's exhausted face and the manic fear in his eyes, Clint began to wonder if he had made the wrong choice. Perhaps he would have been better off on his own.

"I'll turn off here," said Nelson. "We'll find somethin', or we can park out in the woods."

The car veered off to the right, down a narrow lane through the trees. Night had fallen now, and only the dim headlights flashed on the tree trunks as the jalopy jumped and rattled over branches and stones. Exhaustion was settling over Nelson, now that the sun had gone away; the dark hung on him, whispering unpleasant thoughts in his ear. It seemed the deeper into the woods he drove, the more dread he felt in his heart, and though he swallowed deep and hard, thoughts of the dying girl came to mind. As he pondered miserably her pale, flickering face, Clint cried out, "There! Over there!" and pointed vigorously through the trees. There, in the headlights, was a small, overgrown driveway, invisible to eyes less desperate. With a sharp turn Nelson bolted down the driveway. They had found sanctuary at last! He could ease his pounding head and find peace, perhaps, in the merciful fog of sleep.

The lane was dense with saplings which snapped and scraped against the car, claw-like branches clinging. Soon the men emerged into a clearing. A half-moon shone dimly on the blue-green grass, which waved in a night-time breeze. On either side stood gnarled, black trees, like sentinels who, standing guard for many years, grew bent and wicked. They leered at Nelson as they drove past, and he shrank under their gaze; Clint, however, was giddy with relief.

"I knew I could count on you!" he laughed. Already in his mind he was gleefully counting his money, there were not trees but cacti, and women beat their silken fans over him, swishing their skirts.

Still the trees leered at Nelson, the knots in their trunks like unblinking eyes. Something about the place creeped upon his mind. Maybe it was the glint of moonlight through the branches, or the manic laughter he felt brushing just behind his teeth, the breathy fear he struggled to contain. Or maybe it was the bank teller's dimming eyes...

Suddenly, in the corner of his eye Nelson saw a pale shape peering in the window. He jumped with such fear that the car rocked, and he stepped hard on the pedal, throwing Clint against his seat.

"Jesus!" cried Nelson, shaking all over. Tears stung in his eyes. "D'you see that?"

"I sure do!" said Clint with enthusiasm. "She's perfect! Dammit, Nelson, you really are one surprise after another!"

At that Nelson wrenched his eyes from the side window and looked in front of him. Far down the end of the lane stood a rotted house, leaning in the moonlight. Its windows were shattered and dark, the veranda crumbling in places. And at the back end of the house, facing the moonlight, was a large bay window, reaching out from the second storey. All at once his memory poured over him.

"It can't be," whispered Nelson. "The Maycott Estate!"

"You're shittin' me?" asked Clint. "As in the Maycott Murder?"

Nelson nodded dumbly in response. “Albert Maycott...”

All the while the house loomed larger and larger, oppressing Nelson utterly as the truth become impossible to deny. Some cruel fate had caused him to return here, led by the traitorous homing instinct!

To Be Continued...

Seascape

The silent, random landscape seemed
to him almost lunar: rocks,
hairy with limp seaweed, tiny shells that
shattered like dry bones as he walked,
and flat sand.
His footsteps in that place could've
been the first.

Except it wasn't dead dry. Underneath
the stillness he caught
the creeping sense of wet life and the
smell of decaying
fish flesh.

The seamud sucked at his
shoes and bubbly seaweed burst,
splattering salty juice when
he stepped on them.
He nearly tripped over a
dead octopus clamped
to the ground. It looked
up at him. Its anatomical
jelly was both soft and firm
underfoot.

On a hanging
rock formation he
saw a girl, reading,
oblivious.
He could've
imagined her there.
Perhaps she
was part of
the landscape, like
the sea,
the shells,
the octopus,
the sand.

assignment ideas?

could I make a request for a weekly assignment?
I need to write again. Drawing's all nice and dandy...but my words are getting rusty.

thanks guys. x

empty verses.

I can still feel you alive inside of me.

Even at three a.m., as I stare blankly into the bathroom mirror, the weight of your presence still cripples me. I’ve let the insomnia take over my body, so here I am, battered and drowning, a shallow breathing tribute to His latest work.

The Bible taught me what was necessary in living a full and rewarding life. It had me believing that all I needed was to fill myself with His love and I would be complete, I would never need for anything or anyone else. I would be safe. I would be happy.

I would be whole.

As a child I would sing the hymns, rewrite the passages, listen closely for the word; each chapter and verse, a comforting sound. Thin delicate pages, turned so perfectly between my little fingers.

Communion. I ingested His body like a faithful cannibal but I was still too young to drink the blood he poured. It was a moment I had anticipated for many years; everyone always spoke so highly of this special occasion. But the wafer did not fill me with the things I had been promised, nor did it make me feel any closer to God. In fact, it all seemed to slip further away.

Confirmation. I was intended to surrender a promise to Him, to ensure that I would always love him. But where I thought love should come from, I felt nothing. I spoke the words of the prayers and held the candles to the flame but I did not feel you. I wanted you. I needed you to complete me.

“Fuck.”

The blade slipped. No, I am not trying to die. I am punishing myself for the mistakes that I have made. There are better ways, they say, to repent your sins without harming yourself or anyone around you, like prayer. They always told me to pray. I spent years praying for someone to find me and fill me with the love I had longed for. I thanked God when he touched me. I felt the light inside of me flicker. I felt the electricity charge through my veins, completing the circuit in a jumble of wires in my brain. Was this what it meant to feel complete? Like an intricate machine that had finally found its source…

“Christ!”

I slam it against the counter and draw away as quickly as I can. My back against the cold door, my bloody hands against my empty belly, I realize that I cannot even cry. I’ve spent an entire lifetime falling in love with a complete stranger, begging for his attention and adoration…I spent an entire lifetime wishing I would one day meet you. A pathetic fool, that's what I am.

But now it has all been ripped away, left in a pile of dead verse from a Book written by the hopeless.

I stand here before God as his enemy,

And we will never be made whole.  

A Little Bit Bitter, Part 1

That’s an understatement. I’ll be completely honest with you: I wrote that at the top of the page because it has a nice ring to it. The alliteration with the Ls and the Bs, and the two double Ts. I wrote that because it sounds nice. But the truth is Casey wasn’t just a little bit bitter. She was furious.

It was my fault. I’m the one who told her about Mark and Sam. Now that I think about it, it was probably a mistake to tell her. It depends on how you look at it, I guess— even from my point of view. I mean, I got what I wanted out of it initially, and at the time it seemed like a good idea, in a selfish way. Even now that all of that business has died down I can’t say I regret having told her because it helped me get to know Casey, find what kind of person she really is.

Everybody thinks they know Casey really well. Spot her, and immediately you know the type. She’s always been, and always will be, that kind of girl. Some like it, some don’t, but it’s all based on that initial judgment. You’ll see what I mean.

It all started long before that, but for me it began one night at the bar where I was working at the time. That’s when I came in, played my little part in the drama. It was a nice, quiet place, kind of shabby, corner Duluth and Saint-Denis. One of those places that’s been there for decades: once a working class taverne, now a favorite haunt for hipsters from the ghetto and the plateau looking for a gritty place to hang out and pose for faux-vintage pictures.

I’m at my best when I at work. And I say that in all humility, because most of the time I know I’m not much—or, at least, not enough to get the attention of someone like, say, Casey. But manning the bar, my crisp black shirt like a second skin, the rows of bottles behind me and the chrome taps at arm’s length, I’m an altogether different person. Cool, remarkable, I can make you whatever kind of drink you can think of, and others beside, with enough quiet authority to judge you on it, too. I know my stuff, and I know how to use it to my advantage.

I served Casey a Jack Daniel’s, straight, with a glass of ice on the side. Casey, you  should know, has an insatiable taste for hard liquor. It’s one of the things I like about her.

Another thing you should know about Casey is that she’s white trash. I mean that in the best way, but still, white trash is white trash. You hear it immediately—part of that initially judgment I mentioned. Accents don’t lie, and Casey is shameless about hers, which is Southern. Deep Southern. She says y’all, always, and pronounces her As as Es in an open-mouthed drawl. She hitchhiked her way up the US and across the border, ended up in Montreal like she could’ve ended up anywhere else: in the middle of the night, exhausted, confused, thirsty. She found a bed in a hostel, met some people, and eventually moved in with Sam and got a job as a waitress. She owns at least three different cowboy hats, and has a marked preference for short denim, and plaid on both men and women.

That evening, I told her about Mark and Sam pretty much immediately, no preamble or anything. Like, “here’s your drink Mark slept with Sam did you know?” Of course, she didn’t know. That was the point.

I was lucky to know about it myself. I’d seen Mark the day before and he dropped a hint that something had happened between Sam and him. He couldn’t hold it in, you know? Young love, that sort of thing. The truth is Mark had been in love with Sam as far as we could all remember; they used to date, when Casey lived with Sam, but then Sam went away to France for a year and that complicated things, until Mark started dating Casey.

I picked up Mark’s hint real fast and warned him: “If Casey knows she’ll murder someone.” (I was always thinking about Casey.) It turned out to be just the right thing to say to know more because it touched a nerve. “She can do whatever she wants,” he said. “I don’t care. I slept with Sam and I want to get together with her again. It’s the real deal. It’s my life and Casey has nothing to do with it.” I assumed that meant he wouldn’t mind if I told Casey.

For a second, just a second, when I did tell Casey, her face was the ugliest I’d ever seen it. “What?” she said. “What the fuck? Who tol’ ya that?”

For effect, I finished pouring a pint of Boréale Blonde and handed over to a customer before I answered. I made a show of taking the bill I was handed, getting the change at the till, counting the coins carefully before placing them on the counter.

“Mark told me,” I finally said.

“The dick.”

*

Five hours later she was sucking mine.

It was a long evening, heavy with alcohol, as you can imagine. Casey stayed at the bar until closing time, texting and fulminating. I went to chat with her between customers, feeding the fire of her anger, and made sure the glass in front of her was never empty.

What affected Casey so much is that she knew Mark and Sam made a great couple. They were from the same background, they had similar interests; if they got together again it would be for good. I didn’t even need to tell Casey what Mark had told me because she already knew that whatever there was between him and Sam was the real deal. It was nothing like what she’d had with Mark; she wasn’t deluding herself. She knew Mark had only gone out with her for the sex. Well, there was probably more to it, or else they wouldn’t have dated at all, I guess. She was a fun girl. She had a certain reputation. You were bound to impress, to get noticed, with a girl like that sitting in front of you at the restaurant and partying all over your Facebook wall. But mainly, it was obvious Mark had gone out with her mainly for the sex. Casey knew she didn’t have what Sam had. She was too authentic, too much herself. She couldn’t help it.

It was my chance, and I took it. I invited Casey over to my place for a nightcap. She accepted, of course. “I don’t wanna to be alone,” she told me sweetly. She was drunk. We cuddled on the sofa and I did nothing to hide my erection as it rose steadily between her butt cheeks.

“You wanna sleep with me, don’t cha?” She said matter-of-factly.

“Yes.”

She twisted her body around to face me and slipped her tongue, a little pasty from emotion and drink, into my mouth. We made out and she eventually emerged on top, straddling my hips, and let me watch as she undressed. Casey was famous for her tits, and they were something indeed. To finally see them uncovered was a kind of revelation, like at the synagogue when they pull aside the curtain of the ark to reveal the ornate torah inside. She unzipped my jeans and blew me half-heartedly for a while before I carried her to the bedroom—an armful of glowing flesh. We got into the cold sheets and finished there. It wasn’t much fun, to be honest. Even the slobbering fellatio had been better. She was too drunk and tired to move so she kind of lay there and moaned in…well, it was meant to sound like pleasure, but it sounded more like annoyance. As soon as it was over, she stuffed her face into the pillow and fell asleep.

What Could Have Been A Love Letter(You Haven't Entirely Driven Me to Full-Blown Misanthropy, But Know You've Pushed Me Quite a Ways in That Direction)

I will not dare to call you fair,
though I used to hold you dear.
Too much to bear, let's clear the air
of all these senseless cheers.
(Is it a routine?)
For my age to turn a page
in a book driven by disdain for humanity?
Or is this a hidden tourist attraction,
a guided tour to the brink of misanthropy?
Where boundaries are overstepped
and secrets we kept
(shhh)
become recorded and commonplace
through the ever-flawed system of
customer comment cards.
Is it too much to ask for
a better past for my future to
(fondly)
reminisce about,
for times of war to go ignored
to bask in the love
I've learned to live without?

After all these years,
I just want a day without
my hand curling into itself
becoming fist in a fit of rage.
If I stay here
without a doubt,
my neck wrapped in a belt,
I'll turn the page.

The Marriage Chain (Part 2)

My grandmother did some truly great detective work, especially when you consider the resources she had: Jonathan’s old papers and the city newspaper archives. At the university library I made quick work of confirming all her findings, and delving a bit deeper into the history of her husband’s previous marriages and of Mary Bradbury Stern Price’s first marriage to Mr. Stern, whose first name was Nicholas. I made other discoveries, as well: I found out that the marriage chain my grandmother had intimated was, in fact, even longer than she had thought.

From what I can tell, now, the first link in the chain was reverend Robert Hooker, from Bath, England, who was born in 1766. He married a woman called Louise Eldridge in 1815—I don’t know if either of them was married before, although I found no evidence to suggest this so it’s safe to say this is where it started. Louise was seventeen when she married Robert. They had three children, all daughters; Robert passed away when he was eighty; Louise married again, in 1840. She became the first wife of Nicholas Stern, a thirty-one year-old Bristol businessman. Louise gave birth to twins two years later and died at the age of thirty-three. Nicholas Stern’s transport business became very successful; when his daughters were older he moved to America to profit from the economic boom that followed the Civil War. In 1867 he married again, to Mary Bradbury, the daughter of a business associate and friend. Mary, who was twenty-three years old when she married, gave Nicholas a single child, a son. In 1883 Nicholas passed away; Mary married again three years later with Jonathan Price, a twenty-six year old lawyer. In the same year, Mary contracted tuberculosis; she passed away in the spring of 1888. Jonathan remarried twice: in 1891 with Angela Lawrence, who died in childbirth in the same year, and with Jane Sommers in 1903. When Jonathan died, just after the war, Jane, who was in her late thirties, was left in a difficult financial position with three sons to take care of. She married Raymond Stand, a butcher, in 1920. They had one son, my father, who was born a few years later.

Little did Robert Hooker know, when he married the young Louise Eldridge at the beginning of the 19^th century, that his union would start a familial anomaly that would join together eight people across a century and produce over 150 descendants in four different branches of surnames. I can’t help but wonder if, other than my grandmother, any later members of the marriage chain had figured out what they were part of.

*

These are the fruits of my research. I sent my sister an email with the completed family tree, but she replied only to tell me what a strange coincidence it was. “Strange,” she wrote, which implied that it was not really interesting, or life changing. I initially wanted to track down some of the other descendants of the marriage chain—our half-cousins several times removed—and get in touch with them, but I decided otherwise after reading my sister’s response. My discovery is only interesting from a historical point of view; it’s only fascinating on paper. It has nothing to do with our lives or identities.

Still.

I opened the door to my son’s room last night after he’d fallen asleep. He is my youngest child, my only son. An image struck me: I saw him as if he was the very tip of a mighty ship’s prow, propelled by the force and bulk of what came before him. He stands, supported by the past, cutting into the future.