Jona Fine
Dear Coffee Table
11:00 AM
They hold their breath still to see if they can hold it long enough for the light drifting in from the window to sway sideways, as it does sometimes from the just outside tree. They hold their breath, scrunching their face up—watch it turn beet red like their little boy’s does when he cries. To feel their body crinkle in the stillness. They hold their breath to see how long they can make time pass. Watch the shadows dance up the corner wall.
No one has called today.
The quiet has become a little louder. When Open Circle’s brain starts shutting down the quiet loudness comes in fuzzy, like static wall paper or white paint. It coats Open Circle’s insides then settles in their stomach. Checking off the broken days-that they have been broken and they are scared. Open Circle is scared by their own complacency. They never used to like the feeling of old carpet but now that they’ve settled in, the margin between their glasses and the old wood underbelly of their coffee table doesn’t feel like being trapped or claustrophobic anymore—it feels like home.
It is 11:00 AM
and they haven’t been out of bed for almost two months, the routine of getting out has become more effort than it’s worth.
It’s not even that Open Circle likes the dark, they have been wasting a lot of energy sleeping with all the lights on, even the little one over the stove. Maybe it’s not sleeping but staring at the dirty white walls of their tiny apartment in heavy silence.
They stopped washing their sheets-existing only in their bed but have since moved to lie down face up under their coffee table, stiff—perhaps pretending they are dead
or otherwise.
“Do you spend a lot of time thinking about death?” their therapist had asked them, yesterday over the phone. It had to be that way, over the phone, as Open Circle refused to leave where they have parked themselves- the underneath.
Perhaps, they spend more time thinking about their existence. Perhaps,
they spend more time thinking about not wanting to exist than they actually think about death. Open Circle has never thought hard on the subject of coffins in the wall versus coffins in the ground and when asked, they admitted to having no preference to the idea of becoming ashes in a bucket either. Although, by now it is something like one in the afternoon and for all intents and purposes they have been dead all morning. For all intents and purposes they have been dead for almost two months--suffocating.
The carpet has been forgotten and dust has settled underneath their back. It’s scratchy—crumbs. The same stain graces their foot at the same angle in the same spot in the same color, shape and density as it did yesterday and the day before that and the day before that and onwards. The only thing they managed to eat today are these thin rice cracker cakes, the beauty of them being that these ones come in packages of perfect squares. Today is just going to be one of those gray and sad days again.
Everything is sad.
11:00 AM
Open Circle’s body takes moments to unhinge, crooked knees knock and back bent backwards crunching. Sometimes there is this distinct crunching sound. Once someone told Open Circle that their back was so tight you couldn’t separate the skin from their spine even if you wanted to. Even if you wanted to do the pinching. Legs trying to stretch in their cavities. This is what happens when you spend too much time, in plank position or dead. One’s body forgets to connect itself. Open Circle has started growing roots into the carpet, where hours become days and weeks. Then Open Circle spent two months not getting out of bed.
11:00 AM
sits quietly
11:28 AM
still sitting quietly
11:30 AM
Lays back down under their coffee table.
This time the silence weighs in soft.
11:30 AM
Open Circle thought it was already 6:45 am but it wasn’t. Open Circle’s therapist thought that stretching too far into the future wasn’t helping but then Open Circle stopped stretching or getting out of bed at all, then went under the coffee table.
And days like these fit into boxes one after the other on the calendar all stacked with x’s checked off for nothing days and how many days checked off for being broken.
Dear Coffee table,
Sometimes you coffin me and it feels bad. Yesterday I woke too quickly from a dream I had and that’s when we really touched for the first time. My head against your stomach. Stinging sounds-you shuddered. I’m
sorry.
