Short Story Day

January 27, 2014 Jodi Sharp

Marshmallow

Jodi Sharp
December 2013

These are things I see in us; When you are inside me, you are the forest, giving birth to everything. You move with the grace of dragons. You disappear through the trees. You, the strongest thing in sight. You will not let me call it sex. You make me say "making love." You are right.

The panda bears were my favourite. Even though there were so many things, so many wonderful things I could never have imagined. Somewhere, there was a wonderful place where men and women thought up every imaginable kind of candy: small ice cream cones that could be filled with whip cream-like candy, gummies in the shape of sandwich fixings that could be stacked to make full lunches, sticks that had been dipped in chocolate, flat things that unrolled into pictures, plastic shapes of fruit filled with flavoured sugar, candy that could be assembled to make toys before biting them in two. Every shape, thought and feeling existed on the shelf before me. I stood wide eyed, feeling everything that the candy could offer me. Still the panda bears were my favourite.

I loved the little bears, their soft shapes and happy faces looking up at me from the shelf like lost dogs that just found their owner. They weren't just something to eat, they were also my friends. Each tiny pastry-like shape had a different picture of a cute little bear. The bears were so active and happy playing tennis, being a ninja, shopping for groceries, or going swimming. I would sit them down and we would all play, until that horrible moment when I would finally come to terms with the fact that I had to bite off their heads to get at the creamy, chocolaty goodness inside. I was teaching myself to be tougher.

I sat there in the store, a box of candies in my hands, my eyes fixed on my potential new friends. I imagined the lives we could live together and all of the fun we would have. I pictured them on the carpet in my room with the sun streaming in through the big windows. I would tell them all of the things I needed to tell them. We would be so close. So close to being able to make each other happy.

I could hear my mother doing that whistle she always did when she wanted to find us in the store. My parents always joked how easy it was to find each other in Japanese stores, my abnormally tall father towering above the tiny shelves. They told me this was true, but I could not not see it. I was too little.

I heard the whistle. I knew that I should go. But my friends! I knew they would not be coming home with me; we rarely had money for such things. The longing and loss I felt was unbearable to a five year old child. I felt physically nauseous at the idea that some other child would rip off their tiny heads before giving them each a name and a good life and letting them know they were loved. I heard my mother whistle again, set the box back down on the shelf, and left.

A child in a country where no friends existed, I often played alone. I liked it, and the alternatives were much worse. First, there was my sister. I'm fairly certain that at this age my sister hated me, as older sisters often did, and playing with her was like willingly offering myself up to a torture chamber just for fun. Our games when something like this:

Game 1) I sit at the bottom of the stairs, my sister at the top. She ties a paper fish onto the end of a string, saying that we are going to play fishing. She dangles the fish above my head, watching me jump and jump for it, laughing hysterically as I am never able to catch it. The game goes on until I am exhausted and don't want to play anymore.

Game 2) We play store, my sister sitting behind the cardboard box as the shopkeeper. Behind her are all manner of my sister's wonderful things, things that she will never let me touch. I desperately want to touch them. She tells me that if I trade in enough of my toys to the store, I might be able to buy one of her things. All of my toys come out, and I hand them over one by one, waiting for the moment when she says I have paid enough. It is never enough. I never get to touch her things. I do not have any more toys.

Game 3) My sister repeatedly pulls down my skirt in front of other people. She thinks this is the funnest game. I seriously consider starting to wear pants.

The alternative to my sister the playmate, are the other small children on the street. We met because they kept "accidentally" kicking their soccer ball into the yard, all of them running to come get it, standing behind each other as they open-mouth gawk at the white blond child in the back yard. Every time I would give the ball back, there it would come again, flying into the yard, disrupting our garden. My mother decided that it was important that I be affected by some of the "local color", and sent me down the hill to infiltrate the resident houses.

We couldn't actually say anything to each other. I felt uncomfortable and a little scared, like an animal at the zoo, being started at by an onslaught of faces. Every time I would attempt to be polite, as I knew I should be, they would all turn and look at me again. I fell silent.

Their houses though, their houses were like nothing I had even seen. Filled with things to the point of bursting, objects of wonder and magic that I could never have comprehended. Small scary statues and beautiful wall hangings, things in glass cases, and small lit sticks that gave off a funny smell.

I remember vividly a giant egg inside of a glass case. I can see it, in it's full glory. It was painted in such intricate detail that I could've stared at it for hours. Flowers and gold lines, green patterns like scales. A egg that could give birth to the divine. The thing made me feel more alive than I had ever felt, I needed to be around it, I wanted hopelessly to hold it in my arms. I knew that if I could touch it, it would be warm. It would make me feel safe. One of the children signalled to me that I wasn't allowed that near to the case. I reluctantly left the room.

I ran home to tell my mother all about the wonderful things I had seen. I am excited, I am impassioned, I feel relief for the first time since we've been here. My mother sits me down to explain what all those things were. I learn the word "shrine". I learn that these are things we should not have. I learn that all of those things are there for gods who need things in order to be happy. Not like our God. Our God is better. Our God doesn't like those gods, and that is exactly why we are here in Japan. To teach those people that our God is better. She tells me that because of this, all of those things are bad. Those things are bad and I should not play with them. She tells me this is true. She tells me, but I do not feel it. I guess I'm still too little.

I woke up this morning wrapped tightly in your arms again. It's like during the course of the night our bodies have absolved all of our differences and just decided to be together, needing each other while our brains slept.

I am groggy when I wake. Dreams, disjointed, partial. Images of trees and flowers, scary faces and painted eggs. Feelings of loss and separation accompany me, as if my dreams know something I don't. I try to haze out of them, to come back to my body. My centre, my feet, my fingertips, my nose. Each part waking in turn until the grogginess recedes. Physically trying to remember who I am out of dreamland. Unless this is just another dream.

It all returns, bit by bit. Those words you said to me, over the course of hours, days. Little by little they trickle in and surround me again, and I wish more fervently that I could go back to my dreams. As bad as they were, this daylight is worse.

I sit with you then. Quietly. I can't bare to leave this space yet. Everything is okay right now, you hold me close. The silence is wonderful, and I breathe it in. You shift a little in your sleep, snuggle me harder. I almost cry. The world is so easy right now. Our bodies know what our brains don't; how easy it is to be together, how simple it is to be in love.

The light coming in from the skylight looks like the eye of a dragon. Watching us, an impartial god. A better god. I want to wake you up, so you will see what I see, but I don't. Today it will be too difficult to get you to see what I see.

I remember this parade once, that went by our house. I was out, running around by myself, our neighbourhood was safe enough for that. I hear these sounds, strange, disjointed, beautiful. I sneak around the corner and press myself against the wall. I see them then. They are so bright, so colourful, so happy. Everything is gold, and there are so many of them. Dancing, beating drums, the spectacle of it all.

In the middle there is something being carried on the shoulders of brilliantly dressed men. Like a tiny house, my size, covered in gold shingles. It is so mesmerizing I cannot breathe. Every piece of it shimmers, it is more alive than any person I have ever seen. A house for a god. I know this now. The procession is buoyant, ecstatic. I feel paper thin, like I do not exist, like I will blow away. They know truth. I do not.

I do not move, a piece of the wall, until they have all passed. Their absence makes my heart ache. I run home. I don't not tell my mother.

These are the things I see when I look at you (when you are happy with me.)

1) You are the most beautiful creature I've ever seen. When you relax you open like a flower and I can feel all the intricacies of you. I run my fingers along the edges of your petals, seeing how you see the world. You are an alien plant I want to feel the essence of, hoping you don't close too soon.

2) How can I love you this much? I can never answer this question. All of the blood vessels in my body feel full to bursting, I am overwhelmed with the sight of you, scent of you, feel of you. You shine through me like a star.

3) Everything in the world is going to be okay.

These are the things I see when I look at you (when you are angry with me.)

1) Where am I in your eyes? Normally I am so present in them, I can see myself reflected like a mirror on glass. But when you are mad they are like cold steel that has been grated. Dull, and unseeing.

2) You are still the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. When you are not relaxed I feel your power directed at me instead of with me. A cold tiger ready to swipe at any given moment. I want to run. I will myself to sit still.

3) How did we get here? I can never answer this question.

There were always things that I could see that others couldn't. When I was young I would indiscriminately tell people about them, before I learned that that was bad. Why are those shadows moving? There's a lion looking at me through the paper walls. Someone talks to me when I fall asleep. This was before I learned that "it was all in my head," and that I had "an active imagination."

I remember one day I was walking down the hallway of our house. I saw a black cat walking towards me. I was confused. My mother was a allergic to cats, one shouldn't be allowed in the house. The ever dutiful child, I walk towards it. It must have gotten in by itself, I need to shoo it out. I call to it. It stops and looks at me. I take one more step towards it, and then, it is gone. Not gone like ran away gone. Just, gone. Thinking I must've blinked I searched for the cat. It was nowhere.

Still the good daughter, I go to tell my mother about the cat. She listens patiently, a concerned look that an animal had gotten in the house. Until I tell her that it disappeared. "Oh, you were imagining a cat. Next time you are telling me a story like this, you need to tell me the difference between what is real and what is in your head." Confusion. It was real. There was a real cat. It just happened to be a cat that could disappear. I would not budge. I had seen a cat. It was there. I called to it. It looked at me. It wasn't a story. My mother calls my father.

For my entire childhood, the wrath of my father was the most terrifying thing in my small universe. Even into my adulthood just the idea of my father getting angry could make me start to cry and feel a strong desire to hide. I vividly remember the situation; we were sitting on my bed in my sister's room. My mother looks sad, my father looks angry. They are questioning me about the cat. They want me to say it was in my imagination. I am terrified, but I do not budge. I have been taught that lying is a sin. I cannot understand why they want me to lie. The cat was real, it was there.

I still remember the pain, but more than that, the shame. I did what was right. I told my mother what I saw, I did not lie. But they did not see what I saw. Their eyes were never enough. I just needed to learn to be tougher.

Years later my mother told me that she believed me. She thought that I was seeing demons, and though she could not see them, she believed that I could. I will never know what is truth.

"I want you to listen to me," you said. "I am listening," I said. I'm listening to the way your body moves when it's angry with me. I'm listening to the knowledge that when I make a wrong move, anger happens. I am listening to the fact that if I fuck up, I will be punished for days. Cunt, dick, cow, fuck off. I listen. I listen to all of these things. How am I supposed to understand which words actually matter?

"Listen to my intent, not my angry words" you say. You think this is supposed to be comforting. You talk for hours. You say the same things over and over. I understood the first time. You say it again. I fucked up. I wasn't supposed to act like that.

Your body is angry with me. Your words are harsh. I understand that I have done wrong. I understand that I was supposed to do something different. Now, I understand. I wasn't being who you wanted me to be. You wanted me to be someone different.

I listen. I listen to all of these things. I listen and listen and listen.

There is no space for me to speak.

Ever the educators, my parents tried to expose us to as many other religious spaces as possible. So we could know what was wrong. So we could spot it from far off and turn the other way.

I remember this temple. It was Buddhist. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. It is so solid in my mind I can still touch it.

The Buddhists believed that the spirit of Buddha had been put into a deer. Because of this there was a law against killing them, and even though Buddha only lived in one, that meant there were thousands and thousands. You could buy these cakes out of little turnstile machines, and if you held your palm out flat, you would be surrounded by the creatures, begging for food. I would hold my hand out again and again, careful to look each animal in the eye, searching for Buddha. Even then, all I wanted was to see God.

Just outside of the temple were the terrifying creatures that protected it. They saved it from fire and damage, and chased away any bad spirits. Their faces were twisted and horrifying. They had armour that could stop a tornado and stood several stories high. Although the carving and detailing on them was exquisite, I could not bear to look at them. I wondered if I was a bad spirit, I wanted to run away. I held my mother's hand. I made it past.

Inside it smelled of those small sticks that burn, thousands of them, burning all at once. It was reverently silent except for one thing. A bell. A giant bell, at least as big a me, painted gold with a scarlet rope hanging from it. Person after person would walk up to it, pull the string, then stand silently with their hands together. "Why?" I whispered to my mother. The bell was there to wake up the gods. They were sleeping and if you did not wake them first, they would not hear the prayer. I thought they must get annoyed being woken up all the time. Then I thought, "Maybe our God is better. I can just pray whenever I want."

The whole temple was so beautiful, ornately carved and brilliantly painted. I remember I felt brave enough to let go of my mother's hand and walk around by myself. Everything was beautiful. The statues, the ropes, the ceiling, even the tourist postcards. It was like someone had taken that tiny god's house, and made it big enough to fit a whole world of gods. I wanted to touch everything, I wanted to ring the bell, I wanted to light incense, and, although I would never tell my mother, I wanted to pray. Pray to these gods of beauty and confusion. These gods who wanted to sleep all the time, these gods who needed to be protected by giant angry wooden men. These gods I could almost see, and almost believe. They were not like my own angry, demanding God, who would only love me if I stopped seeing and doing the things I wasn't supposed to. These gods felt softer, safer, more forgiving.

And as I felt all of these things, I turned a corner and saw something I had to look at twice to make sure it was real. It was unlike anything in the rest of the temple. For this thing was, simple. It was not decorated or designed. It was not ornate. It was not embellished. It was not pretty. And I knew at once that this was the most powerful object in the whole temple.

All it was, was this; one giant post, as high as the temple ceiling, and as wide as a large man. And in the centre, right at about my head height, a hole. I could feel the shudder of the air as I walked towards it. It felt unlike anything, the raw energy of it ripping through me. What was this thing that drew me? What did it do? Why did I feel this way?

I stopped an adult. Of course they would help me, this blonde, wide-eyed child wanting to know about their religion. And what they told me was this; this pole is the key to your salvation. If you are able to push your body through that hole, it will wash away all of your sins. Every bad thing you have ever done or thought would be gone. If you can manage to get yourself from your head to your toes through that opening, you will never have to be punished again.

I had never before thought about that salvation. I had never for one second thought that my sins could be taken away. That the wrath of my father, of my God, could be washed away by one single action. I had found it. The key. Everything was going to be okay.

I walked up to the pole. I was shaking. I was terrified. I was ecstatic. My first thought was to look around for something to stand on so I could reach the hole. I saw nothing, so I kept walking towards it. I got to the post, I took a breath. I got up on my tiptoes and peered through it. "Please," I whispered. "Please."

My head was only slightly smaller than the hole. I felt my head's shape and size. I looked through the hole again. I felt down to my shoulders. They were bigger than my head.

It was then I knew, I would not fit.

We walk the dog. We hold hands walking down the street. We get groceries. You make me dinner while I work. We are a normal couple.

I must, you must, practice being stupid, dull, unthinking, empty. We must wear what we think is truth like a dress. It is the only way.

For you I will cut out things. Change things. I will leave things.

I am interesting, I am happy, I am funny, I am careless, I am stupid, I am smart. I flirt, I laugh, hate people, I love people. I know nothing about how the world works. I am a bad communicator, even though I work really hard at it. Everything confuses me, and I enjoy that. I can't hold onto a truth for long enough for it to be true. I am happy, I am strange. Limitations don't apply, I have to learn them as I go. I work with matter to try and understand the world. I know nothing, I see everything. I can't understand.

When I looked out the window this morning I saw snow, mush, cars, trees. I wonder all the time why we haven't flown off the face of the planet yet. We're spinning around so fast. Sometimes I hold on.

I think all the time about being made up of moving atoms. There are tiny molecules that make up my body, my brain. They are interchangeable, removable. When I stand next to you our molecules combine. There is no separation. We are some electron's universe.

I think it is true that I could close my eyes one minute and be in another dimension the next. I do not know how I exist. I can't explain the concept of a spirit. I think it is possible that the entire universe is in my head. I think it is possible that I am just someone else's story. I feel like a reed in the wind, I enjoy being blown around, I hate being blown around. I am dust, I am nothingness, I am everything. I see things you do not see.

I do not fit

I will not be absolved.

Marshmallow

April 2008