Jim says, “I am doing my best to express the inner loss I experienced. A death occurred, but it was the death of an emotion, and not a pleasing emotion. I had felt those before, felt love, felt joy, felt hope, felt lust, felt the sweet burn of challenge. This was not any of those. This was a sorrow and worse than a sorrow. It was an anger and worse than an anger. It was seeded inside of me somehow and there it grew and there, eventually, it died, and for a moment its death buoyed me, but I sank back down when I sensed that inside me it remained, immobile, immovable, unable to be expelled, dissolved, erased. It was a hard presence, a stone of suffering, and over the months, the years, that it did not pass I became more like it. I now must myself die to take away its power. I know that. I need for that day to come, and quickly.” Jim looks up. The waitress is there, pad out, pen up. “Can I take your order?” she says. Jim pushes out a sigh. “I just gave my order,” he says. Emily hurriedly asks for an omelet to move things along, and wonders aloud about the Soup of the Day as if she’s inquiring on Jim’s behalf, tilting her head in his direction. It is split pea.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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