7Day

This is a piece about the meanings we attach to things , how they adapt to our lives , and how they can affect the world directly.
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Sometimes she would sit here with the tree to her back and watch the yachts do a lazy dance on the waves , with jersey cop sirens and beach house party boats in the background. The jogging path was crowded with dog owners and bikers , being a real nuisance apparently to the solo joggers. The park enforcement did nothing about all this , because they were too busy dealing with a homeless man by the playground. This particular homeless man was reportedly masturbating a mere ten feet from the playground fences. She didn’t see any of this , but caught light whispers of it through the walls of dreams she fortified her vision with. The sun was just about to kiss the Hudson and melt into it in a kaleidoscope of life. Bits and pieces of dreams and pasts sparkling off the waters surface , each one a time machine. She could still feel every detail. Smell every outline and see every sound.
She read the journal entry over and over again , trying to make sense of the foreign images on the paper. The characters were all familiar , but the way they connected was alien to her. As far as she could tell , it was in some kind of Spanish , but her friends from Mexico and Cuba could only make out a few of the words. The words poked holes through her day and stared in at her while she was in class , with her friends , and even in her sleep. They slid around in streams of consciousness while she drifted away each night , recharging for the next day.
“ sic erit; haeserunt tenues in corde sagittae,
et possessa ferus pectora versat Amor.
Cedimus, an subitum luctando accendimus ignem?
cedamus! leve fit, quod bene fertur, onus. ”
They just appeared there one day. She came home from school and went to write a new entry and there it was. Where did it come from? What could it mean? Some passionate love letter from a past lover , reaching through the thin fabric of time to try and communicate with her one last time? Could it be some mystic shaman carving the answers to life’s deepest questions in this physical manifestation of her mind , just waiting for the day she can understand it? Of course , there was always the possibility that it was her older brother just playing tricks on her. She couldn’t see it though. For him to sit down and go through each word and organize them and disguise his handwriting was just so far from his idea of a joke that it was thrown from the realm of possibility the instant it tried to enter.
Eventually she put it out of her mind , or at least buried it out of sight , and moved on to complete high school and pursue a career in communications and data analysis. She got married and had two children , a boy and a girl , had a perfect little house with a perfect little fence and perfect little neighbors. Everything was just as it should be , according to the modern culture of America. She had everything she needed to be happy , the family unit complete with the pull-string dog and porcelain bonds of love. The promising career with plenty of room at the top for the ambitious younger generation she belonged to. The house with the two car garage and in-ground pool , fenced off to make it into some kind of exclusive VIP club that the neighbors are only allowed to watch. Still , she couldn’t seem to find a place for her mind to rest. She was searching for something , and thought she found it a few times.
Every step was calculated to provide her happiness and get rid of that feeling , still lingering over her , a shadow possessed , there only to haunt each move she made. It pulled her mind away from whatever she was supposed to be focused on , and drifted somewhere she had no clue. When she managed to rip it from the claws of this unknown force and drag it back to the moment , a lazy trail of torn brain tissue and cartilage stretched behind it , there was no memory left of where it went. It was as if her mind just vacated her body to run an errand somewhere else. Regardless , over the years she got so good at fighting it that she actually forgot about it all together. Twelve years passed like this.
When her daughter died , the whole family was crushed , but they all held up better than her. She felt like maybe they didn’t care as much as she did. Like maybe they were strong and she was weak. Like maybe she shouldn’t even be there anymore. After all , she was bringing them down with her weakness. It had been a year and she was still crying everyday about it. Anywhere she was. At work. In the car. At the supermarket. She started seeing a psychiatrist when it was recommended by her employer. There really was no choice in the matter. He gave her paid time off until she was ready to come back. Would she ever be ready though? Everyone around her was beginning to think not. She was in her mid 40’s , so there was still a little time left , but no one could tell if she really wanted it.
One day , under the cover of a filthy attic that needs deep attention right away , but shamelessly to herself , she looked for old photo albums or notebooks or homeworks or anything to bring her baby back , even if only for this one small moment. It reminded her of the way she used to think of the sparkles on the water as fragments of memories , projected like time machine choices displayed on a location map. The summer breeze in her hair that day was fantastic , just like the soft wet wood under her bottom , being sucked dry by the sunlight to be drank in by the air , all except the outline of where she sat the whole afternoon , with her back to the tree , staring out at New Jersey and the boats.
The journal. The letter. She jumped up and ran to the old skeletons of boxes in the corner , blanketed by dusty cobwebs propped over the chairs like a child’s home made fort. A lone spider , whom she named Zeus , about the size of a grown mans fist , was caught entirely off guard by this new species crossing into his sacred kingdom and scattered under the cracks in the wall. He was no coward though , far from it. The proof was plain. The mountain of cricket and roach carcasses under his web , the severed heads and torsos of his victims , blind to deaths cold stare in the face , just littered around his web. The web itself could probably be sold on eBay as some exotic silk sheet if you were so inclined , but she picked up a broom from beside the table and shredded it like a madman setting fire to Da Vinci’s whole collection.

The journal was still here , along with all the bookmarks she left in it for her future self one day. Notes she left herself so she wouldn’t forget who she was. Reminders about crushes and recommendations to look them up. Reasons to hate mom. And the letter. A few years had passed since the last time she looked at it , and Google had been invented , so it would be no big deal to translate it anymore. When her phone was in her hand , and Safari was open , she paused. After all these years did she really want to know what it meant? Would it just be better to keep it untouched as it was and let it exist on it’s own , forever abstract and magical? She had ruined something magic before. Love had gotten ruined this way before. Her faith had gotten ruined this way. Her purpose. Her goals.
There were good things to account for along with those though. Nothing was ever so bad that there wasn’t some good to be found in it from some angle or other. She decided to hit enter. It was a poem in Latin , and , translated , read
“Thus it will be; slender arrows are lodged in my heart,
and Love vexes the chest that it has seized
Shall I surrender or stir up the sudden flame by fighting it?
I will surrender – a burden becomes light when it is carried willingly.”
She read it a few times over , each time applying another layer of bandage over her wounds , accepting herself and the pain she felt as a part of herself , and not some outside force eating away at her. She let life be itself and stopped applying emotions she felt to events that have occurred or people she lost. The sadness became something she was far too familiar with by now and could handle , and she finally put it to sleep , closing it into the journal for now , to tuck away underneath Zeus’ next palace. After apologies to Zeus were made , she stood up , went downstairs with a smile on her face that she felt in her heart , and decided to live the rest of her life.