Paralyzed

The cigarette in my fingers draws a beautiful line of smoke into the air. The television flashes its lights, soundless mouths moving and heads nodding. Paper piled high around my house ceases to remind me of my job, of my boss that will be angry, of everyone who depends on me to get them columns for their paper. That doesn't really seem to matter right now.

I've wiped the window down so I can see outside. Everything seems still and silenced, and I imagine that the hills are red and brown with the blood that I know has been spilled.

The match bites my finger and I throw it down.

For awhile, it is amusement enough to try to read the lips of the muted politicians on the air. Folks talk about disaster far more than they ever try to do anything about it. I think they get tired of it. They think the public wants to hear about something else.

Anger floods through my blood, the blood that I have unfairly kept inside of me, and I go outside. I need to do something. I need to stop sitting around and watching noiseless faces talk about something they haven't publicized enough. I need to get up, clear my head, stop smoking for a little bit...

The air is thick and hard to breathe. I keep my head down, refusing to look out over the fields, refusing to meet anybody's eyes. I feel as if I have failed them. Somehow I have let them down. I should be cold and lifeless on the very bottom of the heap of bodies we haven't had time to bury yet. I shouldn't be walking here. I shouldn't be getting calls, demanding me to turn in my papers. I shouldn't be alive at all.

The radio has been calling me. They want me to record another song.

I have somehow lost my cigarette when I get back to my house. I don't have any more. I sit down at my table, pull the papers closer to me. Remember when this used to hold comfort? Remember when writing was the only thing that kept me from going slowly insane?

I have avoided my papers of late. They remind me of too many things.

The phone rings. I don't answer it.

I don't want to write them a three minute song so they can help people forget about things for another three minutes. They could play my song on repeat and just my song, and everyone would get sick of it and then they would never want another one of my songs. That would be better. But they won't do it, because everything they do is controlled by the people.

This doesn't seem right.

I put my head down, but I know I won't fall asleep. The phone rings again.

"Hello?"

"Ms. Gregory Talls?"

"This is she."

I am silent and let the man on the other end of the line speak. I know what he will say. I can tell by that dead, emotionless voice. I know. I already know.

I don't cry because I don't cry anymore.

My car starts after I throw up just outside the door. The office is still dark, but everything that anyone thought was valuable has already been taken. The door broken. It reminds me of so many black things, but they tell me to put them behind and move on. They tell me to forget that I should be the faceless, decaying body at the bottom of the pile.

I pack up his things. He was a nice man. I think it would be better if I told the wife in person.

Her belly is full.

My voice is no less dead and emotionless than the man on the other end on the line. I catch her as she falls, and imagine the baby inside her shedding a tear.

I buy more cigarettes on the way home.

The phone rings, and I  answer simply out of terror.

It's my boss, and I tell him I'll come in tomorrow with all the work he needs.

The politians on the television are still talking silently to one another. I hate them more than I have ever hated anything before, and I imagine the guns blowing up and the blood that I will never be able to stop seeing on the ground. So helpless. So small. I should be that body.

I don't cry anymore, but that's just fine. There's others who will cry for me. I still have hope for them.