Curiosity ~ Lucidity ~ Humanity
After Odilon Redon, Guardian of the Waters, 1878
My name is Mark Raskin, or it was when I was alive. Or it still is. I'm not sure how that works. My dad died before I was born. A plane crashed, which wasn’t the problem. The problem was he was in it.
One day, while walking me to school, I was probably in first grade, my mom told me that there was more to people than met the eye. No elaboration. Met the eye? How? By introduction or chance.
I imagined eyes at eye level, after meeting someone, however it was arranged, after the hi, how do you do, sizing them up, thinking, is that it, is that all they are? It made no sense. I figured it was one of those things I’d understand when I got older.
And I did.
Too late to do any good.
When I was 27, I came into money. Crazy money from grandpa. Grandpa's dying wasn’t the most satisfying way to come into money, but that’s the way I came into mine. Since then, some people saw me as an opportunity. I knew people lied—didn't know it, but had heard about it—but I never considered whether they were doing it to me. Didn't matter at the time, at least not that I knew. So, when Monica said, after our first date, "You’re the one, Mark," I believed her. What reason would she have to lie?
We met on a blind date arranged by our Phil, our bookie. I bet on football; nothing big, a thousand here, a thousand there, money I could afford to lose. Sometime after we met, I suspected Monica was heavily in debt, and Phil saw me as his opportunity to be repaid.
We spent our first getting-to-know-you dates at Mario’s, where new couples go to eat, drink, and linger. We learned we were only children; Monica outgrew the status. I never did. On our next dates, we toured art museums—the kind cities are famous for, tourists visit, and locals visit on an elementary school trip, and haven’t returned since. She favored abstract art. When I said I didn't see the point, she explained.
"It's the shape, the colors, darling, they're so imaginative, they're meant to be experienced, not thought about. It's like love. Thinking about it doesn't enhance the experience."
While I could appreciate her preference for romantic comedies, I preferred indie films. As to music, each generation has its own; I'll leave it at that. Politics, a favorite subject of mine, bored her. Whatever she wanted—and most often, it was jewelry I bought.
"Could you take out that tray, please. The earrings in the center—how much?" $10,000.00. After seeing them against her ears in a mirror, “Hmm, they seem small. Let's see those in the back, no, one over. Yes those. That's more like it. How much? $35,000.00?"
“Per earing, miss.”
“Well, I do have two ears.”
"Darling?"
I never saw her wear anything I bought, so I eventually assumed she sold it or returned it, giving Phil his due. Despite what others might see as shortcomings in our relationship, entering a restaurant with her arm in arm (never hand in hand; Monica frowned on public intimacy) made me feel good about myself, and when I feel something, I don't wonder if the feeling is real. For the first time in a long time, I had something to look forward to. The anticipation of our next date was its own source of pleasure, and days before I tried on shirt after shirt without knowing what look I was going for. It was a waste of time. I always wore a light blue. It went with my eyes.
One morning, about four months after we met, I had showered, shaved, and dressed, and was nearly out the door when a headache hit me, like neighbors arguing through paper-thin walls inside my head. Moments later, my eyes broke free from their sockets as effortlessly as some folks have fought their way out of a paper bag. They hung onto the stringy things they were attached to and landed on my chest. When I moved, they moved, and each saw different things. I placed one at the back of my head to see what that would be like. Turns out, I didn't see anything I hadn't seen before.
At that point, others may have gone to the doctor. Good for them. Yes, of course, I knew something was wrong—horribly wrong—but, in my defense, I felt nothing was as bad as it seemed until a doctor told me it was.
I described my problem to Monica. When she saw it for herself, I was lying in bed, blanket up to my neck, my head resting on my knees. I felt hopeful for the first time since my “condition” arose. I told her, "I need you more than ever, baby." She wished me well before saying "Goodbye."
Phil called once or twice; he probably heard the news from Monica. He never came over. I wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t the nurturing type, and even making the calls was probably more effort than he usually made. He said it was better to have loved and lost, but he made money when people lost, so I suppose he believed it. As for me, I thought it better not to be ill than to be cured.
A week later, shaving out of habit rather than need, my face was fully lathered, the razor in my right hand headed toward my neck, when my head spun like a carousel horse. Slowly at first, as if laboring under the weight of a short fat man in a black suit. Then, it picked up speed. I don’t know where it got the strength, galloping as fast as it could, until that rider, a man of unbearable weight, his stomach jiggling like the bellows of an accordion, could no longer hold on.
After ten or twelve turns, my head flew through the open bathroom window.
I could still see, hear, and think. Of course, eating would be a problem.
It flew a block or two before reaching a sixth-floor fire escape. The occupant, outdoors to escape the heat of his apartment, was watching two scantily clad girls chillin’ on the front steps. They escaped the heat by creating it for male passersby. As my head approached, he bent over the railing, trying to catch it. Instead, he caught himself before going over.
Well, he almost did.
Moments later, my head fell to Earth. That my nose was flattened like Lincoln's on a penny was the least of my problems. Rolling along Orchard Beach, it collapsed a sandcastle built by twin girls of kindergarten age. They did not stick around to complain.
By then, I knew what had happened. I was sure I did. Monica's compliments (I love you, you're my honey, there's no one else), phony as they were, led to a textbook case of swelled head disease. I had all the classic symptoms.
Enhanced sense of self. Check.
Body part enlargement. Check.
Body part detachment. Check.
Once the disease kicked in, my head swelled to accommodate my inflated sense of self. That's it in a nutshell. I studied psychology in college and understood the problem. I was not familiar with the cure, but I had faith there was one.
Donna, my single next-door neighbor, saw my head in flight and had the presence of mind to call 911. Then she came over, grabbed my hand, and ran to the beach. We were on a critical mission, but I took a moment to realize the sexual aspect of holding hands.
So, this is what love is.
Turns out Donna knew me better than I thought.
"Snap out of it, Mark. We've got serious work ahead."
I wondered if she intended the pun.
We covered what seemed like miles of beach before she said, "It's there. There it is. It's right there on the shoreline. Maybe a hundred yards away." I heard a siren in the background, undoubtedly that of the ambulance with techs knowledgeable in head-attachment procedures. It was all coming together. I was going to be saved. All I had to do was hang in there. A bad experience, no doubt about it, but I would survive.
Just as Donna and I approached, waves hitting the shoreline flung my head into the Atlantic, as if it were gum at the bottom of a shoe. Donna, dear sweet Donna, stripped down to the essentials required for modesty, dashed across the sand, ran into the ocean as if her life depended upon it. She swam like a woman in love.
She is so sweet. Why didn't I think of her before? Could I have been that blind? What was wrong with me? Okay, a lot, but she looked past that. She could not have possibly needed all the sugar she borrowed. Wait a minute! When she said she needed sugar, was that one of those remarks with a double meaning?
She was closing in on it when a surfer approached. Teenaged, long blond hair tied in a ponytail, blue-tinted shades, and oddly unaffected by the sight of a head floating in the Atlantic. Maybe naturally uncurious, or school beat the curiosity out of him.
He nudged it with his bare foot.
"Don’t, I said. “Please, don’t."
He looked around, wondering where the sound came from.
"Dude, it came outta my lips."
He studied my head, seemed like he was figuring out how to kick the shot that would have schoolers from finals. All I could do was close my eyes; if I didn't see it coming, it wouldn't hurt. My head and I would forever remain apart. I knew my time was over. I would die for my crime. What crime? Ignorance of the ways of the world.
"Any final words?" asks the warden; at least, that's how it's done in the movies.
And I think final words? I have a few.
Everything written here's just how it happened; leastwise, that's how I asked Donna to write it.
"Other men have romanced the girl of their dreams, not that I dreamed of Monica, but you know what I mean. It's nothing new. It started with Adam. If you happened to be in that kind of relationship, good for you, but it doesn't mean you're all that. Trust me. I know. Get over yourself. Make sure you know what you're getting into.
I wish I had.
One last thing, they say it's never too late to learn.
But right before you die is not the time.
It only brings regret."
Bio-Fragment: Michael Drezinis a lawyer who once wrote a Please excuse my child from school note for a client’s son. He felt he was onto something, kept his day job, and then, in an unanticipated reaction to the whereas and wherefores of his profession, began writing stories at night. The Drowning of a Swelled Head is one of them.