Something to tell you
Her eyes fluttered like those of a Siamese cat: little rigorous horizontal eye movements darting back and forth while she tried to hold my gaze. (It's called a nystagmous, she once told me in the boys bathroom on the fifth floor. (It was the best aerial view of West Lafayette. We stood in the dark gazing outward for hours watching the lights of combines combing the corn fields.) That seemed forever ago.) I was supposed to take her seriously. She was trying to be brave. She had plotted her approach and rehearsed the wording for hours. Her mother coached her over the phone but fell asleep before the third rehearsal was complete. Mom?
This is how you break a heart.
But how could she fixate those eyes on a single object in this world when they shuddered like a baby's jaw during his first cry? Was her perspective of the world similar to footage of a poorly handheld camcorder? If she shut her eyes did they continue to tremble? Are you listening to me? I think you should know-
I once read about a man whose brain could not stabilize the image coming from his eyeballs. This man's entire world shook with every breath. It was like he was constantly riding in a car without suspension on a gravel road. He clamped his head between two wood slates so that his head would remain still enough to be able to read. I imagined the amount of sea-sickness pills stashed in his bathroom cabinet.
It could have been different.
She knows I have retreated. She anticipated so many reactions that I could have had. From her reaction she did not anticipate this. She shifts her weight and leans in closer, light catching as the shifting irises bounce left to right. Vertigo.
Note: Happy birthday to Baby Issac! (You are my shuddering newborn baby jaw. I love you.)
Congratulations to Stefanie and Zach...
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