THE FIRE INSIDE

THE FIRE INSIDE

THE FIRE.

Crackling. The fire was...spitting and crackling, as I sat across the room from the fireplace...staring at it as if it would run away if I didn't.

Warmed by the fire outside, but inside I felt and was cold as ice. I sat and wept inside, while nothing outside showed of the turmoil and the chaos I felt deep down to my core.

I wanted to cry, to beat my fists against the....the...ahhh...

But I couldn't. All I could do is merely sit here like some endarkened stone exploring my surroundings and wondering what now. Is there a way for me out of this morass or MORE ASS PLEASE, waiter...or whatever. Under other circumstances or under the covers or something like that, I might have been tempted to giggle, but not at the moment.

It has been just over a year, and yet it seems like minutes or hours or a few weeks perhaps. Time seems so relative anymore, and I hate my relatives.

BUT WHY?
The eternal question asked by God knows how many others over the aeons of time and one might be tempted to think that there should be an answer SURELY yes or maybe Shirley or perhaps a Margaret by now, but one never seems to come. I don't even hear any heavy breathing.

Then suddenly...and I damn near jumped a foot or would have if I had not been so under the influence of something of a liquid persuasion or another.

DING DONG DING DONG, and I listened as the graceful grandfather clock across the room intoned the time, almost as if Big Ben himself had made the transatlantic crossing for the express purpose of telling me it was growing late. Yeh, I already knew that. 11pm. As if it mattered anymore.

I kept wondering how in the hell things could have come to this, could have left me like this, left me alone to cry and hate the fire in the fireplace and then there are the snowflakes beginning to fall as I can attest to by looking over at the windows and seeing their slow moist cascading progress from heaven to the ground as if just for me to see...and OH MY GOD how I hoped this would all be soon over and Spring and Summer would return to buoy my spirits. As if anything could now or even by then.

It always seems to be better in the Spring I swear and I am not sure why, but it is like a rebirth of sorts. Spring and butterflies and grass burgeoning and flowers budding and it is a happy time, although not for me I knew. Not this time. Not last year.  Maybe not ever. I can't tell.

YEH, BUT NOT THIS TIME.

For me it might as well be endless winter and the deadness that it always seems to bring and be and all those gray gloomy days followed by dark as Hell itself nights with no crickets and bats and critters lurking outside beckoning me to come play. In the spring and summer my patron saints the squirrels who are ALSO nuts...come to play and be all squirrelly and stuff.

The clock finally and suddenly stopped its tolling bringing me back to myself...and the fire kept crackling inside, the snow kept falling outside, and I wanted to die all over. I really did and wondered if I had the courage to carry through on it. Being a devout wimp I suppose does have its drawbacks.

I wondered...as the night lay before me, the endless sleepless night of nights after another one by one until...what?

I didn't know.

I reached over and grabbed my drink from its perch on the table beside me, taking a healthy swig before returning it to its place next to my chair within easy reach of course. Vodka and more Vodka and more with a sprinkle of lime and a dollop of tonic and more Vodka and please call Russia and tell them to step up production.

Vodka. I am convinced it is what is keeping me sane, or insane, or alive or maybe not.

All was eerily quiet again in this big house. Amazing since it used to be so loud and noisy and...vibrant.

I miss vibrant. Just like I miss...
and the eyes began to mist and...

Then, I heard the phone in my office start to ring but decided to ignore it. Just probably some telemarketer or OH YES... a church lady fearful for my soul (although I never take it personal) and I decided I would start telling these cretins of the faith...fullofit I didn't have one and hadn't since my husband left to join the merchant Purene. That would get them. By the time they figured out there wasn't any such thing I would be in heaven or hell or Bismarck..OH GOD no. Too cold, but Miami is sooooo pathetic anymore and Phoenix YUCK, and California is too expensive and too busy and too full of disasters as if I needed any more of those, and...

Mexico City. Maybe I could offer to live in one of the piles of rubble that used to be a building, or even worse... Pooh AirToe Reee-koh. No worry about the electric bill being too high. No electric. But where do I plug in my electric vibrator and my juicer and my toothbrush, or my gas-fired turbine TURBO ice cream maker. They wouldn't be amused I am sure but I am WAY BEYOND that caring thingy. Great place to lose weight, as if I needed to...Being tall and absolutely weightless. Makes it easier to float above it all.

Ok, USUALLY. Not now. Drat.
I hate the strong of spirit who lose it at the first sign of mayhem. Fuck those sissies, and the woosies and wimpsies and oopsadaisies...and speaking of sissies, maybe that call was from...

SHIT!
 The curiousity of the ages was getting the better of me and so I got up and not unsteadily (so proud of my...burp...sel..hic...f) and headed to my office and the phone. Pressing the message thingy, I heard my friend Jake asking for me or about me or something to do with me and as I listened I wondered if this was a mercy call or genuWHINE (or wine) sincere artificial faux-synthetic concern. Probably so. But then he did seem to be a bit overwrought about my absence, and then I remembered I was supposed to be at his house for dinner and IMMEDIATELY I became just oh so overwrought with grief (albeit temporarily) and I wept inconsolably albeit really well-controlled if I do say so myself  FOR...oh maybe a fraction of a second just feeling so bad, doncha know. AND if not for the 2 gallons of Vodka I had consumed since lunch, I might have been able to do even better at totally sincere regret or apologizing profewseely or fuselage or whatever. GOD I need another dwink but the bar is ALLL THE WAYYY ACROSS THAH RHUUM...bah and down the haul. SOB.

CRAP.
Now what?

Ok sanity time. FUCK...and I picked up the phone but then set it right back down. What in the HELL will I say is my lame excuse this time? Sigh. My mother (sadly now deceased) was called to help a neighbor, and accidentally fell out of the window from the third floor and I of course had to go help her into the back of an SUV for transpo....nah, that isn't up to my usual EXTRAORDINARY roster of excuses.

So, ok. Maybe the truth? But what was that?

Ring...ding...ring...
Jeez. Seems I had dialed him back without even realizing it. DAMN GOOD VODKY.

"Hello?" It was Jake.
He answered so fast I was still struggling with my excuse but no time now.
"Haroooo?."
"Dylan?"
"Last I looked, which wasn't recently. Makes me sad or something, you know."
"Are you ok?"
"Yes. No. Yes. Ok, I shall have to work on that one."
"What's up?"
Pause, and almost pregnant.
"I fucked up."
"Yeh I know. Ok, what was it this time?"
"I was supposed to be there for dinner."
"Yesterday."
"What?"
"Yesterday. Our dinner date was yesterday."
"FUCK."
"Yeh...and if I wasn't straight, so what's up?"
Normally I would have giggled until I choked on that one. Not tonight. I had been afraid he would ask that what's up question thingy and sadly this time I had no answer.

"I am fixated by the fire in the fireplace and lost track of time?"...which I repeated for his amusement but he didn't buy it.
"Dylan. I am really worried about you. I'm coming over."
"Snowing. BLIZZARD even."
"Yeh right. I'll manage. Be there in a bit," and with that he was gone.

BULLGUIDO! Or whatever it is they say in Italy at times like this and I immediately wondered if they even HAVE times like this in Italy. I then decided I REALLY NEEDED to know and it shouldn't take more than a couple of years and Jake will understand and...

NOT LIKELY...DRAT.

All I need is a hot as hell Italian stallion with a hellatious hot package the size of Denver...feeling all sad about my preDICKa...mint FUDGE, coming over in my hour (or month or century) of KNEAD, and...

Straight? Really?
But what about that time...
NM.

Sigh. Why me?
Lucky for me I have friends. Then again, I am sure even Adolph did too, and who knows. They may be the same bunch and have probably aged really crankily too.

CLICK HERE FOR:  CHAPTER II