Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Super fence

"Dammit! I am not an illegal Mexican immigrant! I'm your wife!"

He looked down at his belly.

"You're not on duty! Stop guarding your heart like you're guarding the border to the country! You need to let me in!"

The off-duty patrolman lay in bed in his pillow, trying to fight his own eyeballs to swivel over towards his wives', which he could tell where already shaped like two sad little crescent moons.

"I know, Caroline," he answered, trying to reconcile the pain in his heart. "It's just... I'm scared."

"Of course you're scared to let me in. Throughout our whole lives you've kept me out! Dr. Katzger says that the problem with our marriage is largely due to the fact that you've trained yourself to keep your heart and mind guarded by a super-fence! I need you to let down your fence!"

"But I don't know what'll happen," he said at last. His fingers tickled with nerves. It was the first time he'd ever admitted that it was true.

"Of course you don't know," she said. "No one ever knows until they've taken that first step. Either you'll be hurt, or you won't. Please, let me take that first step into the land of your mind. Let me be free with you."

Tears of pure frustration welled up in his gray little eyes. Pushing down the emotion wasn't working. The dam was breaking. The pain was coming.

"It's all I've ever known."

"Let the wall down. What's the worst that could happen?"

"I'll be vulnerable! Vulnerable for attack!"

"There's always that risk. But meanwhile the wall backfires against you. The metal spokes, the iron wiring, the long hard poles start to poke into your ribcage. They start to sink into your flesh. It's cold. It slowly stabs you. And then you become a part of it. And you learn to live with it. You've trapped yourself in the very barrier that you're using to protect yourself. It's hurting you anyway."

He gasped. He wiped away the tears, trying to erase their existence.

"Let up the wall! Let up the wall! Open the gate! Open the gate!"

"I can't." And with that, he whipped himself out of the bed and ran into the bathroom and shut the door. She got out of bed and pounded on the door.

"I've infiltrated your super-fence! I read all your texts, I've listened to all your phone calls!" He opened the bathroom door and looks at her, an invader. "There's an app I installed on your phone. I know where you are with GPS. I know that you've been stressed at work because O'Brien's forced to make cut-backs. I know that you've started calling 978 numbers after work. I know that you've been ignoring calls from your brother. I know that you've been reading the obituaries every day. That you're growing worried about death. That you've been looking for meaning."

His mouth hung open.

"No matter what. We'll find a way in. Me, the immigrants, the world. You can't fight nature, you fool. We'll always find a way."

He stands in the doorway and watches a floor tile doing nothing for a solid twenty seconds.

That wasn't so bad, afterall.