Anatomy of Regret (2013 Revision)
The chicken lays stretched out on the cool grey morning
pavement of the turnpike. Its white ribs are exposed to the new sun, and its
still eyes uselessly stare at the violet and azure sky filled with multi-tiered
clouds. Five minutes from now Willie will drive past the chicken. He will
slightly jerk his steering wheel to the right to avoid the chicken because he
a) doesn't want his wheel to touch dead flesh and spatter remains onto his
undercarriage. . . b) someone somewhere told him that santeros (or is it brujeros)
leave chickens on the road to transfer the sins of a client onto the person who
touches it.
If Willie would have been
paying more attention, he would have recalled that someone somewhere
specifically mentioned that the dead chickens are always left at intersections
or crossroads. He would have also recalled the importance that crossroads have
been given.
It is on the crossroads
that you decide where you will go with your life. It is there that, when you
were Oedipus, you met with a stranger that was really your father. And as
Oepidus, you fought your father and murdered him and casually continued on your
way to Thebes to marry a stranger who was really your mother and have children
with her. And years later, as Oedipus, you learned the truth of the path you'd
chosen and gouge out your eyes as the audience looks on in horror.
Willie will not think of the
chicken and the crossroads. He will try to really picture this someone
somewhere more clearly because it has been years since he has seen her. The
chicken will be vanishing in his rear-view window when he will insert his
favorite 10,000 Maniacs CD and select Track 5. This song has always reminded
him of her, and listening to it serves as a sort of masochistic meditative
ritual. He will hear the song, think of her, and try to piece together what
happened to them. His mind will uselessly try to pry at events, stretching out
memories of times spent together. On the shimmering asphalt, he searches his
lifeless heart in hopes of at least some sort of transfiguration (at best some
sort of resurrection).
Was it August or September? Not that
it mattered. Facts are only hanging ornaments on the Christmas trees of our
past, waiting to be boxed up after the season passes. He remembers wanting borders,
something solid and square and distinctly early 20th century. Someone somewhere
wanted their love to be open like grazing pastures, growing green in April.
Willie will think about how this need for definition is really a manifestation
of his desire to control his life, and hers in turn. Years from now and from
the chicken he will believe that her ultimate goal might have been to allow
their love to grow without restrictions, making it ever-changing so that it
would endure. He will blame this contrast in ideologies for the casual, slow
disintegration of their relationship.
The truth was that she simply did
not love him. The chicken knew it; the glistening asphalt knew it; even Track 5
knew it. He had spent (and would continue to spend) years alone trying to
dissect and comprehend why someone somewhere was with someone else somewhere
else so far away. He would wonder if he should have called again, or maybe he
should have written a letter. He would contemplate what he could have done to
keep someone somewhere close to him. None of which would have actually changed
anything. Ultimately, he would construct dreams of a fictional life together.
And as his love for her would logically fade, his love for the fictional
construct of her would grow.
Years from now he will accidentally
run into her in line for coffee. They will chat a little about their careers
and friends who've passed away. In the spaces between the seconds he will try
to muster up the courage to invite her to dinner, but he will fail. His fear
will convert itself into silence and ultimately inaction. After their brief
chat, she will pick up her chai latte, give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek,
and tell him that it was good seeing him. As she walks out of the cafe (and his
life), Willie will carefully watch her leave. For some unknown, Willie will
remember the Cumean Sibyl's Greek answer in the epigraph of T.S. Elliot's
"The Waste Land."
At 7:33 AM on this warm Thursday
morning, a white Honda Accord abruptly swerves a bit to the right to miss the
carcass of a decomposing chicken. Its opaque eyes beg the question: Sybulla ti
theleis?
Comments
Post a Comment