Susan Steinberg - Hydroplane: Fictions

The start. There were fits. Then fitful thoughts. But first there were stars. They flashed past my face. And I watched them flash. And I felt my pulse. And the speed. I need not say.

I was at school. We were critiquing. We stood to look at the paintings. They were green and brown, I recall. Of course. They were trees and trees are green and brown. Whether or not the paintings were good. No matter. The teacher was saying words on them. The girl whose paintings they were said words. I can't recall what either said. Something of harmony. Or something of truth. Nothing significant. I should know. I too was a painter who painted trees. I painted faces. And I painted because I was good at painting. I could make a tree look like a tree. A face look like a face. The teachers often looked over my shoulders. Often they said, nice tree. But what of a tree looking facelike in life. As often they did. We were driving when I caught the trees looking at me. My boyfriend drove. He said, you need help. But the trees had ancient faces. Like mine would become. Made of bark and lined. So help me, I said. Ha ha. He laughed too.

How the fits started I can't say. There was a trigger-point perhaps. Some trigger-point I can't recall. A spark. I can't recall. I listened close to the words of the girl. I listened too to the teacher's. I stood for a closer look at the paintings. The teacher said, a break. And as I took a step to the door I stopped. A piece of time must have passed. A beat. Then there were stars by my head. There were stars too inside. My head that is. And more time passed. And the room thinned quickly to a tube. I was looking through one end of the tube. And everyone else was stuck inside it. They were trying to crawl through its other side. There was light on that side. And inside light shot past like stars. My pulse was speeding with the light. I can't explain it better. I turned to the person nearest me. It was the teacher curved as a letter S. He would help, I knew. I said, I don't feel well. He shrugged or laughed or said, what can I do. I said, help me. I clutched his arm. He said, what's wrong. I said, I don't know, and he said, well, what's wrong. Well, my pulse was speeding. And light shot past like stars.

Everything of course shifted at that point as things shift. Meaning once it shifted it stayed as such. I saw everything through the narrow tube. This isn't symbolic, this weightless invisible tube. Through it were the trees, my hands, the clouds. And through it things near blurred from recognition. Things far loomed and shadowed. I really can't explain it better. How the fits swam under my skin. I could feel them as the swimmer would. I felt them too as water.

I saw no good reason to leave the house. My boyfriend tried to make me laugh. I took pills when I had to leave. I only left to get the mail. I took pills too in the house. They made me feel like a rain-soaked shirt. And the tube went limp. Slack. It disintegrated into. You know. Nothing. The teachers called when I missed those weeks. My boyfriend answered the phone for me. He talked to the teachers in whispers. I heard my boyfriend laughing. I don't know what he told them. I think that I was sick. I talked into the sheets when he wasn't looking. Sometimes words of no significance. Like those. At some point I stopped taking the pills. They were making me hateful and I didn't want to hate. My boyfriend danced to make me laugh. My mother said to take the pills damn it. She said, get some sleep. My boyfriend took the pills away. He said, you need to eat. But the food on my plate had turned too lifelike. The green and brown were the same as life, all landing on the floor when I threw the plate.

The teacher said, what's wrong. Well, for one he was S-shaped. For two he was curved inside the tube. And my pulse. My God. He said, well, what's wrong. It must sound like nothing how I explain it. But trust me it was frantic. I clutched his shirt front. Then his arm. It was hotter than you'd think. I can't recall what he said or did then. But I know he didn't help. I ran from the classroom to the basement. In the basement I found nothing. Then a light. A phone. The tube thinned. I called my mother. She rushed to get me. I waited outside under a car. Imagine her face when I crawled out from under. She wore diamond rings. My face was smudged. She drove me to the doctor. She never liked my boyfriend. Inside her car was freezing. The doctor said, hold still. I was hiding under the paper sheet shaking. My boyfriend couldn't be bothered that day. And my mother, how she carried on.

Needless to say, I had fitful thoughts. Nothing significant. Thoughts on truth as we have and we have them. How you strike a match and the fire goes out. But first the cigarette lights. Life, you think and you have this thought. One thing rubs against another. Something else gains a spark. Then the cigarette is crushed under a heel. Like that.

And there were thoughts on trees. They often looked too vegetal. Like overgrown broccoli stalks. I could see no difference between trees and broccoli. Except the size. And except their ancient faces, the trees. They often looked so animal.

I lied to you. It wasn't my mother who picked me up when I ran to the basement. It was my boyfriend. I called my mother first. She answered the phone. But she couldn't talk long that day, I recall. She had things in her life. Significant things. So my boyfriend came to get me. I waited under a car. He laughed when I crawled out from under. My face was smudged. He drove me to the doctor. He hated my mother. He said she was always pushing. I was sweating sitting in his car. The trees were looking at me funny. The clouds as well. And they never stay still, the clouds. Even when it seems they are. The trees were looking through ancient eyes. And mine would one day too turn ancient. Slits in folds of hardened fat. My boyfriend said, I can't drive any faster. I left my boyfriend in his car. He drove beside me. He told me, get in. I ran and my pulse went faster. I ran up an alley where he couldn't drive. I pressed my pulse to slow the speed. I sat near a pile of dirty leaves. My mother wanted things for me. Marriage. Money. Only the best. My boyfriend's car went past. It was rusted at the bottom. He didn't see me in the gutter. The leaves made a sound. Like what. Like static. And the light changed. Meaning the sun set. It was pink at first, the light. Divine. The traffic thinned to nothing.

I recall late one night I left the house. I couldn't sleep so thought to paint at school. The girl from class was painting too. I hadn't been to class in weeks. She never asked me why. I should say there was a wall between us. This isn't symbolic. There was a literal wall. And from her wall side she talked and I talked back. And we were having a pretty good talk. We talked about painting and school and the teacher. Really nothing significant. But we got to laughing hard. Then she came to my space on my wall side. And this was friendship, I decided. Laughing hard over nothing and talking. And half a beat after I decided friendship was in fact a fixed thing. So for half a beat after my decision I felt fit. I wanted to squeeze this girl on my wall side. But then I recalled friendship wasn't fixed. How could it be when trees were far bigger and rooted in dirt and yet trees weren't fixed. And how when diamonds were hard and sharp enough to cut glass and yet not fixed. I knew about clouds. I knew they were over you one second and over someone else the next. I knew they too were often dark and swollen with rain. And I knew all our laughing and talking would be caught in the clouds and taken somewhere at cloud speed.