Seattle Press on Line - Something Original, Something Never Lost

Something Original, Something Never Lost

By Nathan Vonk

Apr 13, 2001 -- From her eyes came the answers to everything that I had previously thought beyond my comprehension. I found my answers in a world where we can never discover anything universal. I found out how the most fundamental part of my being reacted to a particular emotion and situation. By putting no thought into my actions I had discovered an instinctual response that was completely involuntary but absolutely mine and as perfect as anything can be perfect.

I knew the joy of giving a rib to God.

1.

I was nervous to say the least as I walked off the plane and into the arms of a woman I had known for such a short time. I could only hope that my hand-me-down Oshkosh jeans and generic white t-shirt were doing as good of a job as her bell-bottoms and black tank top. And the way her hair curled around the stems of the tortoise-shell sunglasses upon her head. "If you cover your eyes how I can see you?"

Gorgeous blue, brown, gray-green traveling outward from the black pupils of her eyes.

Even the weather was perfect as we walked upon the great red rocks jutting up out of the earth, perpendicular to the horizon, in opposition to any normal expectations. Not that I had any—expectations that is, only hopes. I had not yet learned to expect anything the way I would in the months to come. In between now and then would be my first love—but I'm getting ahead of myself.

As we walked around those great rocks I was already hoping to hold her hand and we both knew it, but only in hindsight. Well, maybe she knew right then, the way the woman I love would know—I seemed so much younger than she at the time despite my year's advantage. Wisdom and beauty. Exactly what someone—or something—had taught me to find most attractive in a person. Or maybe she had taught me what to find attractive while I was sleeping, before I got on the plane with my carry-on hopes. She taught me plenty after I got back on that plane with my carry-on expectations.

Blue, brown, gray-green—from the sky to the ground where we sat, hoped to hold hands, and laughed until it was dark. The lights of the city below us lit her face just enough so that I could be pretty sure she wasn't an angel. But then it was way past time for bed and I had become pretty sure I couldn't discern anything at all by that light.

We wrestled around after our first day together, there, near the rusted-brown ground and the red rocks still jutting up in the night.

And then I was in her room with her eyes in bed with me.

She kissed me first. I think she was tired of waiting for me. Or maybe when it happened or how was just right—Green. Gray. Brown. Gorgeous Blue. Outside in. Black within... "I love you,…." Just like that. I had not meant the sound only the thought, I think, but then I thought I understood what I saw in the light from the city, or was that the sunrise? I was no longer thinking. Instincts and eyes just close enough to stop and act—and then still not close enough.

It was my first time. We wouldn't get our clothes off before the sun came up but she reminded us to try. She was not as new to this as I was (no longer thinking; feeling nothing but her lips and my fingertips just above her navel, on her stomach, on her cheek and back, not close enough).

Something exhibited itself as the all-powerful supreme existence, commanding my body directly and I disappeared. Black within. I could see her, without her sunglasses, as projected from the reflection just left of the pupil where even the sun was blue, brown or gray-green—as it is in the happiest of memories from a happy life, when it is always sunrise.

Near the red rocks, on rusted-brown ground, under ocean's unborn reflection, I discovered something original that would teach me what to love: gorgeous blue sky over the brown earth and the gray-green grass where she could command the universe from behind tortoise-shell sunglasses.

Subtract one rib.

2.

It has been some time now since I lost her to those expectations of some kind of forever. And there are many more of us living there now; in the universe adjacent to the one she commands. We all crowd at the edge and stare in to see what we once had. We're all afraid to turn away. We're all afraid she might not be there when we turn back around.

There is a difference between being out of control and having a lack of control. But she doesn't know that. For those of us pathetically afraid to look away, she is still in control, but she doesn't know that either. If she is not in control, there is no control.

No control anywhere.

And I loved her for it.

Knowledge always seems to come with a greater or lesser loss of innocence, and my knowledge fell on the greater side of that loss—so I thought. I'll trade you my rib for your apple. Why? Because you're worth it.

Would it be chivalric just be happy to serve such a beautiful person—devoted to her above all others? Above myself? Above God? Or is it just pathetic? Could anything good come of finding a way to justify such a devotion? Could the extremity of such a devotion make it anything but pathetic? Isn't that how we got here?

Picture a kamikaze plane called "Self-esteem" diving into the side of a friendly battleship, sinking the ship and killing its entire crew.

Sorry, God.

Anyway, I saw her just last night. At a trashy Karaoke bar with some friends. It was my first time to actually get up and sing—a David Bowie song. One nobody would know. If I'm dreaming my life….I have always been afraid to do shit like that, but I was thinking about her when I finished my fifth drink and the lights were beating down on us all in an orange and red blend.

The sunrise?

The first two lines were pretty weak, but I hid behind a pair of tortoise-shell sunglasses—no blue or brown, or gray-green, just black so nobody could see me. Two big black pupils projecting orange-red rusted friends. Was it air she breathed, at the wrong time…was she never here…was she ever….

I stopped trying to sing the song and I felt it come without forethought. An instinctual response. Then she was there and I remembered the first time and "I love you…."

This was the second time.

I was no longer thinking. Again. If I'm dreaming all my life…was she never here? All the lights are fading now. I heard a voice scream "Louder, Louder!!" and I wondered if everyone else was as drunk as I was.

Was it her voice in my ears? I wanted to forget everything that was not the song. I wanted to forget about destroying everything in me and around me and everything else—everywhere she stood in everything I did. I wanted to finally turn away. But the song was the only thing I forgot to think about.

At the wrong time, on the wrong day. All the lights are fading now…. I was jumping up and down with the music. People were clapping, screaming at me. Little rusted people in my alien-black, tortoise-shell pupils. And there I was on my knees with some strange voice coming from the speakers. I didn't sound like that, did I?

Was she never here….

"Stop. Close your eyes." Just like, "I love you…."

.…dreaming my life away.

The song ended. People screamed at me as though I were a messiah who had been ignorant of the power everyone else knew he had—no gorgeous blue, no brown, and certainly no gray-green; just black traveling outward from pupils reflecting rusted friends—without any hopes or expectations.

Not only drunk people scream at an ignorant messiah.

The microphone fell on the floor next to my knee but I was breathing too hard to pay much attention. With each breath something grew inside and something else fell. Was I really that drunk? Was I dreaming?

Was she never here?

"Wake up."

"…I love you."

The torpedo bomber "Self-esteem" dove into the deck of the USS Wegiveafuck, killing 318 but the pilot walked away unharmed. Falling in an orange-red trail from the gorgeous blue sky, I walked unharmed out of the black smoke that remained of my battleship and felt no remorse. I was no longer afraid.

I took a step back from my place at the edge of her universe and turned away.

Let there be light. An orange and red blend.

As Satan wandered through Eden desperately looking for revenge, God sat passively. And I sang an encore with one less rib: Take me down to the Paradise City.…

My perspective took a seat near God and my friends to watch the show that followed. This was a song everyone would know. I could feel her next to me. Next to God. Encased within two $6.99 plastic frames as if we were the orange-red sun: too bright to look at without black lenses to hide behind.

Where the grass is green… Gray-green. And the girls are pretty….

She realized she was naked but was not ashamed and refused to hide. Why should she? God sat on her left screaming "Louder, Louder!" He had lost power to command the crowd long ago. He never sang Karaoke.

I remember the song like a dream that gets mistaken for reality. I remember being no longer afraid to turn away from her, and that she was gone when I turned back around. And I remember finding something I never lost but would have never found if I had kept looking for it.

No blue.

No brown.

No gray-green.

No one can see me.

No control anywhere.

No I wouldn't take the rib back.

Let there be light. Let it be sunrise.

Oh won't you please take me home….

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Josh Rife	Apr 26, 2001	Birmingham, AL	Americorps member
I just so happen to know the writer of this particular article and I was very impressed by what I think may be his first published piece of work. Showed a depth to his thinking and feeling that I didn't know before that he was able to express on paper or in words. Way to go Nate.


Ken Madson	Oct 18, 2002	Los Angeles, CA	Brillstien-Grey Entertainment
I believe I know the writer of this piece as well (think I also know Rife- Alabama!!? Nice). I really liked the structure of this piece and hope that Nate continues to write.