flowerpot

Everything must occupy a position in space. My time here has taught me that. But where is here? You’ll know soon. First, I need to lay some groundwork. Give you some context. Because this is more than a round peg in a round hole situation.

Two cars can’t be parked in the same parking spot. Two birds can’t perch in the same place on the same wire. No more than twenty cigarettes can fit in a pack. I think I miss those the most. I can still taste the last one I had, smell it from the concrete, smoldering just outside a door I only passed through once.

I’m getting off track, and I don’t have much time. I don’t think so, anyway, but time doesn’t mean what it used to.

Here’s the thing that’s going to make me sound crazy: What if I told you that some spaces require certain objects? Seek them out, in fact. Would you believe me? Of course you wouldn’t. Spaces have no will. They have no mind. No sentience. But I hope to sway you, to crack your mind open just enough. All I ask is that you stay with me until the end. Hear me out. And I know you can hear me, because I know I figured it out.

All right. Story time.

It was a Wednesday. I picked up Jerry’s shift because his old lady found out about the other woman, who was a five-figure debt he romanced and fucked, thereby fucking himself, and her, because they had a kid on the way and what government assistance they did get wouldn’t be enough to cover the birth or the diapers and whatever else kids need at that age. He said he needed some time to figure things out, which probably meant digging himself deeper, but who am I to judge?

It was a long shift, but aren’t they all? The joint I work at is a small diner off Highway 61, nothing but pastureland fifty miles in either direction. A greasy spoon, as they call it, though Craig would take offense to that since he does the dishes most of the time. Not that Wednesday, though.

We were shorthanded that night. Just me in the kitchen, Craig running the counter and register, and Darla working the tables. Craig had to take off earlier, during rush-hour, the bastard, although that meant I could flirt with Darla without him giving me shit. Not that I had time to, that shift. We were swamped. A fleet of truckers plus a horde of families packing in tight, ordering and ordering and ordering. I thought I might be stuck in a nightmare like that black-and-white show I used to watch as a kid. Why can’t I remember the name?

Anyway, Darla’s eyes told me this was no nightmare, from across the dining area to the kitchen, through that slim window where I put plates of food to be picked up. Her eyes told me she had things under control, and that I could too, if I trusted her.

I did trust her the rest of the night, and that trust turned out to be true.

“Thanks,” I told her after she lit up in the parking lot outside. She was wearing her old leather bomber jacket, which always made me laugh, with its faux-wool collar hiked up to stave off the cold.

“For what?” she asked.

I waved my hand at the diner to signify everything. The truth was, I was too much of a coward to tell her. Words and pretty ladies don’t mix well for me. But I tried anyway. Sort of. The first and only semblance of a word came out in a puff of smoke that devolved into violent coughing.

“Those things are known to kill people, you know?” she said, sucking her own cigarette down to the filter.

I might have nodded, or I might have just stood there looking stupid. She shook her head and giggled, crinkling those sky-blue eyes of hers, caught in a flash of light.

“See you tomorrow,” she said, one hand on the door handle of her dented-up, lime-green VW Beetle. A seventy-something. Not one of those later abominations that had a built-in vase for flowers. Oh, sweet irony.

I told her I would see her tomorrow, too, and to be safe on the drive home, and to mind the roadwork when the highway splits because they always forget to put out the cones. Watch for glass because hobos like to toss bottles onto the road when no one gives them a ride.

“Thanks, Dad,” she said, which hit me in the gut.

I told you words and pretty women didn’t mix well for me.

After Darla drove off and her taillights winked out, I stood in the parking lot for a long time, listening to the distant traffic because Highway 61 was mostly dead. I enjoyed looking at the moon, but it didn’t show tonight. Just some gray-blue haze lit by something I couldn’t see.

Tomorrow, I told myself. I’d have the balls to ask her out tomorrow.

I finished three cigarettes before I got into my primered Ranger, the look of which had grown on me. The engine turned over, and I sat there, putting on layers I had stashed where the passenger seat should have been. The heater didn’t work, and somehow, it was colder in the truck than outside. I joked aloud about ghosts and cold spots. Darla was into supernatural stuff, and she liked to tell me about it. I liked to listen. She would have laughed at my joke about the ghost so desperate it took up residence inside my shitty truck. Maybe she wouldn’t. I miss her.

So, why am I telling you all this? I won’t lie. Selfish reasons. It’s the only way I can remember her, remember that shitty job I love so much. Remember those quiet moments in the parking lot with a lungful of smoke, the gravel crunching under my feet while I wait for the moon to show itself, or some other simple, comforting thing to happen.

It’s the only way I can delay the inevitable, which is telling you how you can save me. It’s the hardest part, really, asking to be saved. And I don’t mean it in some kind of emasculating way. It’s worse than that. Don’t worry, we’ll get there soon enough.

Fifteen minutes down the highway is when I saw it. Or thought I did. I was cruising at about fifty-five because I’m never in much of a hurry to get home, and it’s beautiful at night. Peaceful. The drone of the tires. The moan of the wind through the missing chunk of weatherstripping in the driver-side window. The blur of the road under headlights. These things put me in a meditative state.

That’s why I thought it was a trick of the eye. Some hallucination flashing in the corner, plucked from a daydream even though the day was long gone. The sight, the thought, the feeling, caused me to slam on my brakes. The seat belt burned into my chest, and I could have kissed the steering wheel, that close to losing my front teeth. My heart punched my insides, and my left arm went numb. I’d heard once that was a symptom of a heart attack, but I was too young for that sort of thing, so positivity or reality faded the pain. I sat there awhile before daring to look around, even though what I thought I saw wasn’t frightening.

It looked like a goddamn giant flowerpot. Funny, right? Fucked up, even. This flowerpot was just off the side of the highway in front of a blur of distant lights, with a light of its own shining on what I swore was an entrance. Yes, this giant flowerpot had a door.

I laughed so hard, tears flowing, drumming my hands on the steering wheel before grabbing it and wringing it like I could squeeze water from it. I had to get a better look.

The window squeaked the entire way down, and I gulped in the cold air, which scorched my throat, which made me want a cigarette, so that’s what I did.

Two cigarettes later, I put the truck in reverse and rolled it back on the shoulder for at least a half mile. Not another car in sight. Not even a goddamn giant flowerpot. I wasn’t tired, but I was losing my shit. I looked out the rear window in case it had been farther on. Saw nothing but a dark road and a dark sky.

I flicked my third cigarette out the window before pulling back onto the road. I kept the window down this time, hoping it would clear my head. All it did was make my face go numb and dry my eyes, so I rolled it up.

I switched on the radio. Wasn’t sure if it would work at all because I’d never once turned it on. To my surprise, it came on fine, hissing something between static and mariachi music. The numbers on the tiny orange screen ticked up and down as I fiddled with the knob, looking for anything else.

I wish I remembered the frequency, but I guess you found it if you’re hearing this.

Right then, the entire cab went quiet. I looked up to make sure I was still driving. I was. It seemed like instead of playing sounds, the radio was absorbing them. I could get used to that, I thought, right before the idea registered as insane. Was it an elevation shift? Something with the truck?

I could hear my heartbeat. You know, like when you’re in one of those rooms with all the sound proofing? An old buddy of mine used to want to be a singer, so he had one of those setups in his closet at home. Packed enough foam in there to where it felt like you were in the womb again. Not that I remember what that was like, but it sounded right at the time. He’d agreed. Fuck, why can’t I remember his name?

I’ll try to explain it better. Or do you feel it now? In case you do, I don’t want to take any more of your time, and in case you don’t, a little mystery never hurt anyone.

I heard another heartbeat then. Beating slower than mine. More relaxed. I decided it was time to pull the truck over and take a few laps around it, slap myself silly, whatever it took, because I must be in some near-sleep state that would end me up dead in a ditch.

I found a spot off the road near an old cow fence, where a beer bottle was sitting on a post. I thought of those hobos I’d told Darla about, and I felt bad seeing an intact bottle with a little left at the bottom.

The truck was off, but the radio was still on, the numbers in its little orange window gone completely. I tapped it with my finger. That’s when I heard the voice. If you could call it that. No words, just sounds. Something between weeping and humming. I almost recognized the song. Almost recognized the voice. And it made all the terrible things I’d done in my life clump together into a big ball of regret, and I knew, I just knew, the only way to wipe it from my mind was to help that person, because she—I could tell it was a woman—needed me more than she’d ever needed anyone else, and I was the only one within a hundred miles that could do it.

I should have just started the truck up again, slapped myself whenever I drifted, and never thought about what I heard until my head hit the pillow back home. It’s never that easy, though, is it?

I found myself outside, hugging myself against the wind, thinking of Darla’s bomber jacket, which I could use right about now, and how the voice might have been hers.

I walked to the beer bottle on the post. I sniffed the top, then looked through the glass at the flat surface of the liquid to see a shape disturbing it. I thought it might be a cork floating there until everything clicked in my head so hard I nearly fell over.

That flowerpot building, warped by old beer and cheap glass. Larger than life when I straightened and looked beyond the bottle, across the pasture on the other side of the fence. A couple hundred feet away at most. The light on above the door. The blur of lines in the distance, though I wasn’t in a moving truck anymore. It was like a snapshot but three-dimensional.

Then I heard her again. Different from the radio. Sadder this time. Coming from that flowerpot building.

I told myself it must be some entrance into an underground water line or a hub for the power company because that’s the only thing that made sense. I heard her louder then. It hit me again. That feeling of desperation that I had to save her. It was the only thing that mattered. Do you feel it now?

She must have locked herself inside by accident. Some kind of fail-safe lock to prevent vandalism. A key card reader not working. I didn’t know anything about stuff like that, but it was enough to coax me over the fence and run to the door.

I reached it sooner than I would have liked. I’d hoped during the run I’d come to my senses, realize it was all in my head, and I’d stop hearing sounds that weren’t there to begin with. None of that happened. They were louder than ever. My eyes even began to water, that ball of regret growing in my head again.

I banged on the door. “Hello?”

Only that weeping-humming sound. The saddest thing I’d ever heard.

I looked up to see if there was a security camera. Maybe she could see me from the inside. All I found was a simple dome light full of dead mayflies.

No door handle to try, either. No rust or chipped paint. No hinges. Just a perfectly flat metal door. I knelt, thinking whoever was inside might try to slip something under the door. A note. A clue to help me get her out. I checked my pockets and wallet for a scrap of paper because nothing was happening other than the sounds that kept driving me to tears. I don’t consider myself an emotional person, and haven’t cried since my mother died ten years ago, but man, the waterworks were in full force.

I put my ear to the door, hoping to hear actual words. I thought she might be scared to say anything to a random guy outside, so I told her my name. I told her it was going to be okay. I told her she was safe. That I’d get her out. She just needed to stay calm. Hell, I needed to stay calm. I was shaking like crazy. Shivering, really. It was cold, but not that cold.

Then the weeping stopped, and I knew I’d made some progress. I laughed, excited. I’d never saved someone before, and those feelings of guilt started to fade away.

I fumbled a cigarette from my pocket, because I deserved it, at the very least to calm my nerves so I could finish the job. The last thing she needed to see first was what a mess I was. My truck would be enough of a deterrent once we got that far, if she’d even get in.

That’s when, halfway through my cigarette, I remembered my truck didn’t have a passenger seat. I couldn’t make her crouch down there like an animal. I couldn’t make her ride in the bed. Hell, I couldn’t even picture her there at all. I looked back to my truck to orient myself, to figure something out.

My truck was invisible in the dark except for a glint of light on the side mirror. Maybe reflecting traffic that would be here soon. Help. I thought about going to the road and flagging the next car down because I’d never done something like this before. No cars passed. The side mirror kept glinting. Like it was blinking. Like it was Morse code, trying to tell me something. I felt like I was going crazy, my hands and feet numb, my breath fogging the air in front of me, so dense I couldn’t see my truck anymore.

I held my breath. Let the cloud dissipate. My truck was there again. An anchor. I went back to the door to tell her I was getting her out now. To stand back because the only way I could see opening it was to kick it down. I’d seen a video once on the Internet that said you were supposed to kick near the lock where the deadbolt was. No knob on the door, I took a wild guess, taking a step back, leaning against the short railing at the edge of the concrete slab, firing myself up. The cigarette I’d left dangling from my lower lip dropped down the front of my shirt. Sparks like fireworks. Scared the shit out of me.

I didn’t bother picking it up. Didn’t bother snuffing it with my shoe. I charged to the door and planted my heel right where I imagined the lock to be. A shockwave shot up my leg and exploded like a bomb on my hip. I limped around, shaking it off, whimpering. I hope she didn’t hear. I asked her if she was all right. She didn’t say a word, which made me worry that maybe she had her ear to the door and I’d knocked her out with my kick.

Looking closely, there was a big dent where my heel had hit, the crack around the door a little less symmetrical. Holy shit, I’d done it. Well, I’d done something. About to get this girl out and end her misery. I never thought of myself as a hero, but I did then.

Before I kicked the door again, something drew my attention to check on my truck. Maybe to plot a safe path back. Maybe to see if anyone driving by had noticed and had come to help. Maybe just a tap on my paranoid mind.

What I saw there . . . it couldn’t have been real. Like when you wake up in the middle of the night to take a piss and a jacket slung over a chair looks like a person. It was like that, except in the middle of the night after you give yourself a moment, rub your eyes, you see what it truly is: a jacket.

I gave myself a moment. I rubbed my eyes. Rubbed the hell out of them. And saw the same thing. The same her. I swear it was Darla in my truck. Sitting there patiently in the driver’s seat because that’s all there was. She wasn’t much more than a shadow. I could tell it was her, though. The way her hair folded over her shoulder. The uneven bangs chopped above her eyebrows. That upper lip larger than the bottom. The fluff of that faux-wool collar on her bomber jacket. If she hadn’t been in profile, I guess it could have been anyone, but she gave me that side view long enough before turning to look right at me, or away. Hard to say, thinking back. No matter how many times I run the image through my head, I can never decide.

The sight of her made me stumble back, wondering how she’d gotten out here, why she was in my truck, how I’d told her to be safe less than an hour ago in the parking lot. I felt betrayed, and I didn’t know why. Maybe she’d been one of those passing cars I thought I saw, noticed my truck, thought I needed help, and . . . sat in my truck? It makes no sense. I know.

There is one good thing to come from all of this. In that split second, before my truck pulled onto the road to disappear, I saw it wasn’t Darla at all. It was her. The girl on the other side of the door. I knew it because her eyes weren’t right when she adjusted the rear-view mirror, reflecting a strip of light across her face. Deep green eyes. Mascara smeared.

The illusion, if there had ever been one, crumbled along with the feeling of betrayal. The corners of her eyes crinkled. A smile or a wince, I couldn’t tell. Did she feel sorry for me? Did she feel bad for what she had done? Leaving me where she’d been trapped, remembering just what I felt right now, the touch of the door against my back and then nothing at all.

I’ve been walking for hours, days. I don’t get tired.

I know I’m inside that flowerpot-shaped building, though. I know it because I finally found the door. I feel the dent I made with my heel. I smell the cigarette smoldering just outside. I wonder if she touched this same spot. Wept right here. Asking for help.

It makes sense that it’s shaped like a flowerpot, you know. She’d say the same thing if she were here. She’d found a way to communicate beyond the door. Far beyond. I found it, too. Because you can hear me. I know you can. I’ll tell you everything when you get here, to prove it.

I won’t be like her, though. I won’t trick you. I wouldn’t do that to you. You’ve listened to me this long. Another fact I know. Funny how the shape of this damn thing I’m trapped in gave it all away. It’s fitting, really. I’ve had enough time to appreciate the metaphor. Learn how to harness it. Maybe project it even further than she ever did. And I wonder who came before her, or if she was the first seed. I know how crazy I sound, talking about seeds and projections. But they’re both true. Seedlings turn into sprouts, which turn into plants with stems rising high into the sky. Like an antenna. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.

Let’s say this flowerpot is growing a metaphorical plant. Let’s say this plant has flowers, and flowers have pollen, which is carried away by insects to spread. To find a frequency. To find you.

It gets even better. But I’ll save it for the ride home because you’re almost here. The story will be worth it, I promise.

I hope everything I said in the beginning makes sense now. How everything must occupy a position in space. How no two objects can occupy the same space. How some spaces require certain subjects. Need certain objects. A need so deep I can’t convey it with words.

Which means don’t come alone. See, I told you I wouldn’t trick you. I told you I’d give you all the pieces. Just make sure you bring a piece of your own.

I’m sure you know someone who deserves it. To be in a place like this. Someone too stupid to figure out what I have. We all know someone like that. A shitty co-worker. A shitty friend. That asshole who double-parked and flipped you off when it wasn’t your fault. We all know someone who deserves it. Whatever this is.

My little bees must have done their work because I see you, in my own way. I hear you, in my own way. You listened. You’re not alone.

There you are.