Wanting stories to tell, I wandered away from the safe path. Trauma pushed me, but my ship was teetering and the bay was shallow. I only had the several routes available. I drifted to Chicago, where I was moored for three weeks. I learned that my anchor could never hug the sea bed long. When I returned “home” the electricity was off and the people were gone. I must have dialed the operator. I was a block away from where I was born, and at age 18, I had only the darkest water, thick, pea-soup fog, and no lamp. I did find my people again. From there the water turned into rapids, teenagers flashing uzis, people hitting other people with pipes, and the sight of a thousand boots connecting with soft flesh. Anger, drunks, blind rage; all with me, a tiny raft made of delicate satins, barely bobbing above the wake made by fascists and reactionaries. My little boat snapped in two and I fled. I moved through an eddy, a lull that made the silence scream, “Run, go, now or never!” I went home again, the house where I was raised. My fragile and paranoid yammerings prompted my mother to mention electroshock therapy, so the next day I flew south, but only a town over. I met a farm girl. She held me, but didn’t understand me. I was blowing wheat, while she was weedy corn. I treated her badly. I’m not happy about that. She, like others, held me too tight. My anchor was up. I floated to the biggest party there is, in these united states anyway. Desperately poor, I found God, or something like God. It was jumbled, it made my head spin. I found myself completely sober, but the dark loomed all around me. I had choices to make. I made them, but sometimes only by not choosing. Everything was spinning. I grabbed hold of a railing and waited for a sign. The portents were all wrong, so I fell into a sea of black. I woke up. I ached. I was broken. This was the end, and it was the beginning, a very difficult and painful lesson. I had so many more trials looming! I healed for three weeks, but once loosed from the reeds, I floated again into the unknown to discover more fear and delight, darkness edging against the light.
Mystery Doll 