this is narrative, right?

The truth is, I don’t care anymore, she said, pulling her jeans up over her ass. I closed my eyes and lay back on the bed. I imagined how it would feel to buy a revolver. I pictured myself handing over a stack of bills and taking the gun in my hands for the first time. When I opened my eyes, she was gone.

I got up. I walked around. I looked at my apartment with the eyes of a stranger, and I realized that I hated it. It wasn’t where I had wanted to live. I tried calling her, but she didn’t pick up, which was a relief. I didn’t know what I would say to her, anyway.

My phone rang. I picked it up, thinking it might be her, but it wasn’t. It was Dave, inviting me to a party. I said, Yes, I’ll be there. He said, Good. I haven’t seen you in weeks.

I lay back down on my bed, on top of the comforter, not between the sheets- because, between the sheets it smelled too much like her, and that scent made me embarrassed. I imagined myself shooting the revolver. I imagined the sound, and the heat on my hand. I stared at the ceiling and breathed. For a long time, I took air in to my lungs, and then I let it out, slowly, again and again.

When I got up, I put on my clothes, and jacket, and shoes. I went out, to the store on the corner of my street, and bought a fifth of whiskey. When I got home, I poured myself a tumblerful, and sat on the floor at the foot of my bed, drinking. The phone rang, and I let it go.

When the sun had gone down, I filled an empty water bottle with the whiskey and went outside. I walked to the bus stop and, after a short wait, got on the bus. I sat, I drank, and I waited to arrive.

When I got the party, I felt lonely. Dave started to introduce me to everyone- I knew no one there. It seemed as though Dave had made all these new friends since I had last seen him. I didn’t understand why he had invited me. I said stupid things to these people. I hated them, and I let them know it. I threatened to break bottles over their heads. I took of my jacket and rolled up my sleeves. They laughed and talked among themselves. Dave stopped introducing me to people, and I felt superior.

When I had finished what was in my water bottle, I walked home. It was a long walk, and when I got home my feet hurt. I took off my shoes and lay on the bed. I imagined the feeling of metal against my temple. I stared at the ceiling and remembered what an asshole I had been.

I’d told her I wasn’t feeling so good. I said, I don’t want to talk about it, but I have not been feeling so good. She pressed- she is always pressing- and I barked. She took off her clothes and climbed under the covers with me. She put her hands on me. I didn’t want them near me, I said, Don’t. She said, What am I supposed to do? I told her to fuck off. She said, I miss you, in a quiet voice. I’m right fucking here, I said. How can you miss me?

She got up, deliberately, and put on her shirt and socks and underwear. The truth is, I really don’t care anymore, she said, pulling her jeans up over her ass. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, she was gone.

The truth wasn’t that she didn’t care anymore. The truth was, she was tired of working so hard. I knew that. But the way I saw it, she was the one pressing. I hadn’t incited her exertion. She put herself through it.

I didn’t really believe that, though. I knew I’d been making her work since day one.

I fell asleep thinking about these things. When I woke, I drank water and left the apartment. I looked like shit. I got on a bus going downtown. I wandered there awhile. I found the place I was looking for. I went in. I browsed. When saw it, I knew it was right. Grey barrel, white enamel butt. Embossed on its underside with the American flag.

I put my money on the counter and the shopkeeper put my choice in my hands. I took hold of, and it was heavier than I wanted it to be.

I buried it in the inside pocket of my jacket, and I took it home.

I sat cross-legged on the bed. I put it up to my skull, just to know. I pulled the trigger, and it clicked in my ear, like a cracked knuckle. Then, I put it down on the sheets in front of me. I stared at it.

I got up and retrieved my toolbox from the back of the closet. I brought it back to the bed.

I opened the toolbox and took out everything that looked like it might be useful. I unscrewed screws, chiseled away at welded joints. I deconstructed the gun completely. I laid each piece of it out in front of me on the bed. I stared at it and I breathed.

These need work. I want Celia to decline, slowly, over the course.
I think my writing teacher will hate it.
But I hate her, so whatever.

Julian,

I waited as long as I could before writing. I don’t know if you remember how to read, but I hope you do, because I recently remembered how to write.

I woke up the morning you left. It was too cold to get out of bed, so I stayed there.

Yours,
Celia

___________________________________________________
Julian,

I have a stomachache and it’s getting me down. When I close my eyes I see bedbugs and dust mites. They live there, under my lids. I think they are slowly slowly traveling closer to my brain, which is full of cotton and dust.

Julian, where did you go? We have many things to teach each other. I can teach you about geometry. I know formulas that would change everything. I will draw you diagrams and label them in the correct order, clockwise from top right.

Julian, we have a lot of books to read. I would like to run into you at the library some day. I will pause and look you in the eye as you speak to me. And then I will pull a book from its place on the shelf and open it. And inside it will be nothing but dust due to the cohabitation of literate bookworms and their beloved letters.

Yours,
Celia

_______________________________________________________
Julian,

I have had an idea. We will go to the edge of the world together. We will walk until we reach the very brink. I think the place I speak of is in the arctic. It is Iceland, and it is tundra. We will set out in winter and when we get there we will wait months for the sun to come up. And in the early morning we will gaze at the clear frozen snow around us.

Julian, I’ve missed you. As the weather gets colder, it become harder and harder to drag myself out from under the warmth of my bed and into the day. But the days, when I get to them, swallow me whole. The sun doesn’t set until 6:54 tonight.

Yours,
Celia

_________________________________________
Julian,

You really do think the brain is not filled with cotton and dust. You said it was neurons and electrical wires. Yours- maybe. Yours is clinical in a way I don’t think mine is.

Clinical. What a stark word, conjuring empty, shiny hallways of tile. Is that what the recesses, the folds and overlaps of the tissues of your brain, is that what they look like? Tile? Tiles crunching against each other, breaking against their own brittle and, yes, clinical bodies. Yes, that is the sound I hear coming from your temples when you think.

Julian, are you coming home soon? I have decided that Iceland is an imperative. I have been thinking about the whales and the wolves. Tomorrow, I think, will be my new year.

Yours,
Celia

________________________________
Julian,

Everyone around me is making decisions. I have decided on some things, too. It’s been a long time, Julian, and I ache for your face.

I remembered what you said about the wolves and the whales, and I think you are right. Whale’s blood is so thick with iron and oxygen it’s almost black.

Yours,
Celia

_________________________________________________
Julian,

I looked in a forgotten cupboard this evening when I got out of bed. There was dust in it and it reminded me of you. I swept all the dust right up and put it in an envelope, which I placed on the windowsill. I like to imagine myself in a long skirt pouring you out, into the ocean from the brink of the earth, the wind whipping around me and carrying you off.

I’m just joking. But today I went to seaside and ate sandy things. I made a list of things that are salty: crackers, French fries, sweat, the base of my spine after a long day, the sea. I asked many people for directions on my way. I do not know my own way to the sea, as they say in folktales. But I have often felt that the sea has visited me at our home.

Julian, I think you should know that I have stopped waiting. Instead, I have begun to live our life together. When will join me? I have many things to whisper in your ear. For example, I might say your name, to remind you of it. But I think mostly it would be to remind myself.

Yours,
Celia

______________________________________________
Julian,

It is time you start telling me the truth.

Yours,
Celia


Julian,

I am, as you know, at my most honest in the early mornings on the tundra of Iceland. And that is, coincidentally, where I find myself now. So here is the fact. I have forgotten what you look like. And this terrifies me.

Continue to write to me. Continue to confuse and beguile me. It keeps me open and awake to the world, to have such pages to struggle for and to be always aching for your words. Do not forget that whatever we may have built, though it may not be what I would like to resemble, is in fact real, and tangible, and that it is an ocean of ink in which we float and execute the butterfly with precision.

Yours,
Celia

_______________________________
Julian,

I understand that you have left me for good. Your friend, in the uniform, told me this morning over the phone.

I would like for these letters to be cremated with you. This correspondence is something strong and formidable. Do not disregard it, do not throw it away or forget its existence- ever. To do so would be to forget possibility and excitement and longing. And poetry; because what we have built in these pages is nothing but poetry- letters on a page deftly arranged to scare and to comfort, to dissolve and inspire.

Please write back quickly, they need to know what to do with your body, and I feel that I might die if I don’t hear from you soon.

Yours,
Celia