Bear

Bear – The Antlers (listen in new tab)
K walked into a record store. He needed to get out of the snow. He’d left his apartment suddenly. Stood up, slipped on his coat and boats. Grabbed his toque and his mitts, and out the door. It is now probably 9:30. The store was empty except for the two staff by the cash. They eyed him as he passed. He had his hood up. He didn’t want anyone to see his face.

The song playing over the speakers is apt. Folds too neatly into his life. It had become popular, somewhat. K wants to scream at it. Order it to silence. Shove the sound back into the speakers.

Half an hour ago. Maybe an hour. He had been sitting at the laminated wooden table Shannon had bought when she moved in with him. Hands folded, arms out in front of him.

Two days ago, he’d laid on the bed, listening to Shannon cry. That was the morning after the party. He had woken up on the floor of G.T.’s bathroom. He didn’t know how he got there. Stumbled home. Shannon didn’t speak to him. She cried, and when she stopped crying, she vomited. She was always sick now. K had decided he knew why, was mad at himself for not figuring it out right away.

That night, he slept on the couch. The next day. Silence grew in the rooms. It was solid. It pushed furniture aside, knocked cups off of the coffee table, made it harder to move around it without touching each other. They didn’t touch, not once since she pushed K at the party. So, K stayed as still as possible.

And then, the next night after, half an hour ago. Or an hour. K sat across from her. They never sat at that table together, not since they moved in, not once. It was something else she had brought that filled the space that he could have done without.

He watched her talk to him. Her lips formed the words carefully, like she’d practiced it for months in the mirror. Slowly enunciating each word, the syllables were sharp and clean. Wet from incubation. In the air, they floated limply on the currents of air.

She told him a story. About Paris. About one night. About too much wine. About how she’d been lonely before she left. About how Paris was a warm kiss, and kind words, and wine. And about a man. A man who talked to her the way K had, once. About one night, and a moment of confusion. She didn’t know if she didn’t want it to happen. But once he was done, she’d lain there. She wasn’t remorseful, not about that.

K listened. Trying to keep track of the words as they floated in the space in front of her mouth. It was hard. there was too much. He remembers his hands folded neatly in front of him and how he didn’t want to let go of them because he wanted so desperately to push her words back into her mouth, down her throat and into her stomach where they’d been safe.

K flipped through the used CDs. Looking for something. Anything. But his mind was still outside in the snow. Snow falls off his hood and shoulders, making snow piles on the CD jewel cases. K tries to wipe them away. But his hand leaves cold streaks and droplets. It couldn’t be done.

The second story Shannon told him wasn’t over. It was still growing in her. She figured out a month or so later that she was pregnant, and in a foreign country. And alone. She had come home because she was scared, lost with a life in her. And she knew she couldn’t get an abortion in France. Had no idea how to.

When she was done, she seemed reduced. She didn’t cry. Her face was obscured. From behind the flurry of all she said, it looked like it was collapsing.

K didn’t move. He shook. All of him was a deep tremor. A useless, sanctimonious part of him wanted to say he’d help her raise the baby. But, he knew as her words piled on the table, that they wouldn’t wipe away. That she’d already decided.

He had stood up. “I. I. Ok. I’m going to go.” He remembers her face.

“Mister. We’re gonna close. Man, it’s a mess outside.”

If the voice came from anywhere outside his head, K doesn’t hear it. He props himself up on the CD display. His back heaving. Tears fall out of his hood, mixing with the streaks of melted snow. And, he lets it out. He collapses onto the floor. His hood falls back when he lands. The clerk, a young woman, steps back.

“Sir?”

“I. I. Ok.” He tries to stop sobbing. Pulls himself up. Wipes his nose with his sleeve. “Sorry.”

“Sir?”

Back out into the blizzard.