who didn’t die out there, my guts sewn back into my belly, they pinned a medal on me, and there were a bunch of parades that I saw from my hospital bed, and I still don’t know why the hell anyone cared that two armies decided they’d kill each other tomorrow instead of that afternoon, and I never asked.
“My CO’s CO’s CO came to me with all his gold stars on his collar and asked me what I wanted to do with the rest of my career, to name my posting.”
I pause and think back to that day. To that old man. His beaming face. The pride he had in the injured soldier his army had made.
“And what did you ask for?” Rocky said.
“I told him I wanted to be alone.”
I remember the old man’s smile fading, how the scars across his lips came back together, which let me know that he hadn’t been smiling when whatever caused those scars happened to him. He walked away, but he granted me my wish.
“NASA is where the best of the best pilots end up,” I tell Rocky. “The very best fliers, with all their shit together, they end up in NASA. It’s always been like that. Until me.”
We sit in silence a while.
“I think you’re doing just fine,” Rocky says. “You rescued me, right?”
I lean forward and put my face in my palms. I don’t say it, but I’m thinking it, wondering who rescued whom.
It feels good, talking about this stuff. Not for the first time, I regret that I didn’t continue on with the shrink. I just wasn’t ready. Was too scared to face myself. It was too early to be seen.
“Hey, Rocky?”
I lift my head from my palms. Scoot over toward the box. Rocky is sitting in his little puddle, which looks about the same size as when I first made it.
“Rock?”
He looks up at me, I guess wondering what I’m about to say.
I toy with one of the splinters from his box, bending it back and forth until it comes free. Bringing it up to my nose, I breathe in the scent of wood, admire how moist and green and fresh the wood is, like it just came out of the forest, this thing that was so recently alive. It smells like my childhood on Earth. It smells like the outdoors. Like crisp air and atmosphere.
Rocky has fallen silent. I think I know why.
“You made this hole, didn’t you?” I ask him.
He stares at me guiltily.
“You’re like . . . like a bullet in an abdomen.”
Rocky looks slightly away.
“You hurt this box, and it was still a little bit alive out there, and it was going to Professor Bockman at SAU on Oxford, and it was empty, just a box, and the wood died the rest of the way when you struck it, didn’t it?”
Rocky says nothing.
“I’m losing my fucking mind, aren’t I?”
I think Rocky nods. I think he does. I wish he would say something. I wish he would talk to me. But he’s just a rock.
A rock with a dark line that I wish was a mouth.
A rock with spots that I wish were little blinking eyes.
My OCD roommate looks up from the sofa in my mind with this sad expression, like he knew all along, like he’s the sane one.
Yeah, he’s the sane one, who has to touch his tongue to one side of his mouth twenty times, and then the other side twenty times, and then the top twenty times, and this keeps the mortars away. This makes the mortars hit further down the trench. Kills someone else.
Yeah, he’s the sane one.
I’m the one talking to a rock.
This is the problem with illusions: They form easy enough, but once they fall apart, they’re impossible to put back together. They’re like humans in that way.
Hard enough to know if a thing is alive or dead. So hard sometimes.
I smell that splinter of wood again, which still smells vaguely of the living, and I don’t know why, but my mind drifts to Alice Waters, whom I loved in high school, and whom I used to write in the army because I didn’t know whom else to write, and I wonder what she thought of all those batshit letters I sent, and if those letters smelled of someone who was alive and breathing and scared out of his
“My CO’s CO’s CO came to me with all his gold stars on his collar and asked me what I wanted to do with the rest of my career, to name my posting.”
I pause and think back to that day. To that old man. His beaming face. The pride he had in the injured soldier his army had made.
“And what did you ask for?” Rocky said.
“I told him I wanted to be alone.”
I remember the old man’s smile fading, how the scars across his lips came back together, which let me know that he hadn’t been smiling when whatever caused those scars happened to him. He walked away, but he granted me my wish.
“NASA is where the best of the best pilots end up,” I tell Rocky. “The very best fliers, with all their shit together, they end up in NASA. It’s always been like that. Until me.”
We sit in silence a while.
“I think you’re doing just fine,” Rocky says. “You rescued me, right?”
I lean forward and put my face in my palms. I don’t say it, but I’m thinking it, wondering who rescued whom.
It feels good, talking about this stuff. Not for the first time, I regret that I didn’t continue on with the shrink. I just wasn’t ready. Was too scared to face myself. It was too early to be seen.
“Hey, Rocky?”
I lift my head from my palms. Scoot over toward the box. Rocky is sitting in his little puddle, which looks about the same size as when I first made it.
“Rock?”
He looks up at me, I guess wondering what I’m about to say.
I toy with one of the splinters from his box, bending it back and forth until it comes free. Bringing it up to my nose, I breathe in the scent of wood, admire how moist and green and fresh the wood is, like it just came out of the forest, this thing that was so recently alive. It smells like my childhood on Earth. It smells like the outdoors. Like crisp air and atmosphere.
Rocky has fallen silent. I think I know why.
“You made this hole, didn’t you?” I ask him.
He stares at me guiltily.
“You’re like . . . like a bullet in an abdomen.”
Rocky looks slightly away.
“You hurt this box, and it was still a little bit alive out there, and it was going to Professor Bockman at SAU on Oxford, and it was empty, just a box, and the wood died the rest of the way when you struck it, didn’t it?”
Rocky says nothing.
“I’m losing my fucking mind, aren’t I?”
I think Rocky nods. I think he does. I wish he would say something. I wish he would talk to me. But he’s just a rock.
A rock with a dark line that I wish was a mouth.
A rock with spots that I wish were little blinking eyes.
My OCD roommate looks up from the sofa in my mind with this sad expression, like he knew all along, like he’s the sane one.
Yeah, he’s the sane one, who has to touch his tongue to one side of his mouth twenty times, and then the other side twenty times, and then the top twenty times, and this keeps the mortars away. This makes the mortars hit further down the trench. Kills someone else.
Yeah, he’s the sane one.
I’m the one talking to a rock.
This is the problem with illusions: They form easy enough, but once they fall apart, they’re impossible to put back together. They’re like humans in that way.
Hard enough to know if a thing is alive or dead. So hard sometimes.
I smell that splinter of wood again, which still smells vaguely of the living, and I don’t know why, but my mind drifts to Alice Waters, whom I loved in high school, and whom I used to write in the army because I didn’t know whom else to write, and I wonder what she thought of all those batshit letters I sent, and if those letters smelled of someone who was alive and breathing and scared out of his
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