Tricks of the mind

We had a stupid argument. I couldn’t even believe we had quarreled about something so damn trivial. Perhaps there was a deeper issue that we didn’t want to admit to ourselves, but here we were. He had left shortly after the movie was over.

“That was a terrible movie,” I had ventured, knowing how much he loved it, “how could Kubrick do that to the novel?” I huffed.

“C’mon! Even if it digressed from the book, it was still pretty good. The directing, the acting… all of it!”

“Are you serious right now? I know you like this movie, but you’ve read the book! It just seems like a cartoon from the story. How did this movie garner such good critique? That’s beyond me!”

“You just don’t understand,” he’d accused, “you always do this when you don’t like something. You are incapable of seeing any other side.” I went quiet for a moment, I felt as if he’d slapped me across the face with brutal force.

“That’s not fair, and you know it. Just cos I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean I’m being close-minded. I’m just saying: the movie was long, the kid was creepy, Shelley Duval was terrible (although who can blame her with all the stress she was under during the filming?), Jack Nicholson’s face was just wrong… because he sort of looked deranged from the get-go. They missed the loving relationship between father and son, he did get a lot of writing done in the book, he spent most of the time with the kid, and he was the one doing all the work around the hotel. It just didn’t make a whole lot of sense. And the parts that they added from the book, they sort of seemed misplaced. I watched this movie years ago, and even then I didn’t love it so much, but I had forgotten and wanted to see how it would be to watch it after reading the book. Why are you so mad?”

“Because you are so damn intransigent! Because you refuse to see my point of view. Because when something doesn’t fit in one of your mental drawers, you just push it away. It’s exhausting…” I wasn’t sure we were even talking about the movie anymore. “Anyway, I gotta get up early tomorrow, so I better take off. I need to get some sleep.” He moved towards the door, grabbed his jacket, his keys, his phone, and headed out.

“Hey…” I said doubtful of what followed that little word.

“What?” He asked irritated.

“Never mind. Goodnight! Drive carefully.”

“Sure.” He opened the door, no kiss, no sweet words between us on his parting, just the coldness of unspoken words from the past lingering in the air.

I remained where I stood for a long time, long after I heard he pulled away with his motorcycle into the dark coat of the enveloping night, long after I remembered what I wanted to say to him, staring at the door as if looking for unanswered questions on it. I had a horrible feeling that that was the last time I’d ever see him again, and I didn’t even tell him I loved him. I should’ve walked up to him when he was reaching for the door, hugged him from behind, and whispered in his ear that he meant the world to me. I should’ve been less stubborn and let him have this one… how many times had he let me have mine? But I had been proud, and resentful of his words that spoke some truth. I had wanted him to say he was sorry and that he was making too big of a deal out of it. But I knew. I knew it wasn’t just the movie. I knew the coldness I felt had been steadily increasing for months and I had refused to face it. I had refused to deal with it. I had hoped things would feel like they used to, as if by magic all our problems would disappear.

As I stood there I wondered, was the movie the last straw? I hated that he had left so angry. Driving angry was never a good idea, but perhaps the ride home would help him cool down. Perhaps he’d call me when he got there. Then, that feeling. That paralyzing feeling that I would never hear his voice again, or touch him again, or speak to him. That horrible, debilitating premonition that something was about to shake my world upside down.

*****

I couldn’t sleep that night. I laid awake, going over what had been said… that night, and many times before but, most importantly, what had not been said when the time had come for the words to be spoken. I’d grabbed my phone, scrolled mindlessly through Instagram. I’d put it down again, only to pick it up five minutes later to check the time. I turned on a light and picked up a book, hoping it would take my mind off of things, but all I accomplished was to read the same page over three times before I decided to give up on the fourth attempt. My mind kept wandering. I just couldn’t focus.

I picked up my notebook of ideas that I always kept by my bed, and decided to write down my thoughts. That might help me get some facts straight and stop my imagination from going to places where it had no business going to.

I was letting it all out when my phone vibrated. ‘Finally,’ I thought, ‘it’s gotta be him.’ However, something inside me knew it wasn’t so. Something inside me told me not to pick up. I looked at the screen, it was Jean, his sister. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. My hands started shaking, but somehow I managed to press the button to speak.

“Jean?” I said in half a whisper, “what…?”

“Ohmygod, Leah… It’s Nick… he…” She was crying profusely, and had to take many breaks to let the words come out. I held to the phone so tightly the edges were digging into my skin. My heart was beating too fast, and a knot had formed in the pit of my stomach that felt more like a ticking bomb about to explode.

I waited for Jean to find the words, or the strength to speak them, patiently trying not to scream at her to fucking tell me already what the hell had happened. But I kept my cool. I had to. I had no other choice but to wait and let her get to it when she could. When she had finally calmed down (somewhat), she had told me, to my surprise, that Nick had vanished.

“Vanished? What do you mean? He’s left to go somewhere and, what? Stay away without telling anyone? I don’t understand.” And I didn’t. What did that even mean? Vanished?

She explained that the police had shown up at her house when they found his motorcycle and his backpack. It had been standing in the middle of the road. Just like that. Standing. Not on the side, not as if it had been in an accident, just standing. Nick was nowhere to be found.

When they had questioned possible witnesses, they had all agreed that a vague green light had suddenly appeared on the road, and just as quickly disappeared. That’s when they had noticed the empty bike just standing there and called the cops.

I had to hang up. I didn’t understand a thing. I told her I needed to wrap my head around what she had just told me, that I’d call her in the morning and then I’d go talk to the police myself to better understand what was happening.

*****

I went back to laying in bed, looking at the ceiling, trying to make sense of it. Everything felt so surreal. It was like that time I had traveled to Cuba for the first time in my life, and when I had gotten back home, the first morning when I woke up in my bed on my return, I felt disoriented and confused, and couldn’t figure out where I was. I felt that same disconnect from this moment and my body. As if I was watching a movie, rather than living it myself.

Although my mind was restless, and I had started developing a headache, I somehow managed to snooze (crying has that effect on you). I woke up suddenly, sitting up. A bright green light was glowing in my bedroom, and I could make out Nick’s shape as if he was made of specks of glowing green dust. I felt like I was living a sci-fi movie. I thought I must be in the process of losing my mind and all the marbles in it.

“Nick…” I muttered, “where are you, love? Please, forgive me! Come back!! Please!!” Tears started rolling down my cheeks, desperately looking for a place to fall onto. His lips moved in a reply, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Suddenly, I woke up —again?—. It was dark, my bed was empty, and there was no green light, only the reflection of the street lights stealing into my bedroom window.

I was definitely losing my mind. I hoped that I would be able to make sense of things when I woke up in the morning and talked to the police.

I dozed off again… this time traveling to a dreamless sleep, from which I awoke several hours later by the wet tongue of Rocky, my gigantic Rottweiler, who was asking for a walk and food. I turned over and told him to get away, which he interpreted as an invitation to get up on the bed and get between me and… Nick? Nick!!

“Oh, honey! I had the weirdest dream last night. Wait… did we watch The Shining last night? How much wine did I actually drink?” He grumbled something, which was something he did when he had a hangover. ‘What had we been up to last night?’ I wondered. Never mind, it’d come back to me eventually. I was just delighted, but from what part of my subconscious had the green light come from? It didn’t matter. I gave my babe a kiss on the neck, petted Rocky’s head, and got up to feed the beast.

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