House of Leaves, as Autumn becomes February
James Bowden
It goes so fast. One second, you’re feeling. The next, you can hardly remember. It just was. You know that
much. Maybe a second is a year, maybe two, maybe a few minutes. For a second, I was back in that room with
Juan, at my desk. For a second, I’m back in the courtyard with Rachel, with Val, late at night. For a second, I’m
watching everyone else get out of the car before we drive off to Michael’s to buy friendship bracelet string I’m
still not close to exhausting. Walking to Wing Stop, cruising to Golden Deli, waking up at that intersection and
the car getting hit. Trying to walk through that garden and retain some semblance of things being normal,
okay. Knowing that they weren’t, that I couldn’t love someone enough to die in a car crash with them. Sitting
on the bench anyway, fingering those slips of paper. Coming back from hikes and whatever the hell we did,
tired and a little dirty, falling into bed, but probably showering first. Showers more necessity than affection,
spare playfulness now and then. Where did it go? How did it lose us? When did we stop the whispered
words?
That winter, me overly excited about machine learning, or learning, or future, and failing to see what I had in
front of me. Beginning the transition to god, studying and focusing like no mere mortal because I couldn’t be
that when I could be much more. Slipping through her eagerly releasing fingers, pushing me along. The only
passion, passion for self.
My logic has been too susceptible. That is maturing, growing, I suppose. I’ve not been secure. Sure, call it
insecure if you’d like. I’ve not been grounded, tethered. Just floating off myself and trying to see where I could
go.
For a second, walking down Lake, laughing in the car on our way to the beach at some dumb joke I remember
not, but I remember the curve of the freeway offramp and the barrenness surrounding us and the gist of it.
You know.
I thought WSOC joined us at the beach one of those times. I forget if Rachel was there. I forget everything, I
just know I felt something. Wet. Damp. Free. What will I feel now, later?
I exit, I think. The Archduke Trio.
I wrote this while I was buried in Danielewski’s House of Leaves, and I think it was in part inspired by an excerpt from the book (try the fourth quote down here, “This much I’m certain of…”). At least the tone in my head in large part mirrors that passage.
The ending reminds me of a poem I wrote about Matthew, “God damn it.” I suppose we love and lose in similar ways. Until we don’t?