《37 Stories》


 Introduction to Me

    I¡¯m writing. I¡¯ve decided to spend my endless hours of utter uselessness on something productive rather than keep wasting them on mindless match-three games, which is what I¡¯ve found myself doing lately. Losing a year of my life to illness wasn¡¯t on my bingo card, but here I am, and something¡¯s gotta give. That year isn¡¯t over yet, so here goes.


    Fiction is tricky. Concocting stories, characters, plot arcs; crafting something from the slivers of near-nothingness that experience has wrought in consciousness. Tim would call that alchemy. But I¡¯m not an alchemist, aspirations be damned, so I¡¯ll write what I know better than anything in this world or any other: me.


    ¡®Me¡¯, 37 years in, thick miasma of memories, mistakes, joys and heartaches, is a broad concept I¡¯m not quite sure how to pin down, and searching this soul to try sets my teeth on edge. When I do, I¡¯m gripped by a cold mist of dread and nauseating regret: wanting to be more, and worse, knowing that I could have been.


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    This idea¡¯s been burbling around in my head though, a mechanism for telling the stories that are myself. A way to contrive a sideways peek into the mess and mayhem that I am and make some sense of it; gut reconnaissance disguised as an innocuous surface inspection. A canvas of flesh painted over by memories to be sifted and searched.


    Here it is: my body.


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    On the inside of my wrist is a bitty scar, like a grain of white rice. Years ago in the old farmhouse on Sydney Road, I was prying with a kitchen utensil at the top burger in a frozen stack of twelve patties. My grip slipped, and the dull blade stabbed into my other arm just below its hand.


    I felt stupid as fuck, staring at the line I¡¯d split open in my skin. It didn¡¯t bleed, but it stared right back at me, deep and purple at its center, as thin and wide as the tip of the tableware piece. I¡¯d just slit open my wrist with a butter knife.


    Back then, ideations of harming myself weren¡¯t part of my life.