I tossed the envelope in the shelf space cut into the side of the slab. It reads #4 on the envelope over my name and SID number. Pod 4. I started to think about it, and my brain snapped open, a part of it that has been shut off, the thinking part, really, and I started jotting down things that ran across my mind with 4:

  4 legs to a dog.

4 quarts to a gallon.

4 body systems.

4 primary body tissues.

4 gospels.

4 rivers from Eden.

4 pecks to a bushel.

4 oceans.

4 elements.

4 seasons.

4 business quarters.

4 quadrants to a circle.

4 suits in a deck of cards.

4 limbs.

4 horsemen.

4H clubs.

4th dimension, the coordinate dimension to the existing three dimensions, related as time, to describe any event. Einstein derived that there is an extra 43 seconds of arc per century relative to Mercury’s orbit.

4 Rushmore heads.

4 food groups.

4 directions.

4 faces of God, or rather Ezekiel’s vision of God: 

4 living creatures.

4 is the last description of basic grouping: 2 is a couple, 3 is a few, 4 is several or more.

4 to an ideal family.

4 outer spheres.

4 layers of earth.

4 colors of race.

4 phases of life: youth, adult, middle-age, elderly.

4 main principles of evolution: embryology, morphology, biogeography, paleontology.

4 sub-sections of evolution: population genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, and genomics, which is basically machine-driven genetic sequencing.

4 rows of checkers/back row of chess.

***

Impatient today, languid, angry, a man unkind. I would seriously not wish this upon my worst enemy. I want to be whole again, to feel the air pulsing around me, the beat of the city, the warmth of life. All this dead time, though it occurs to me that I’ve spent a great deal of my life in a small room writing, and it also occurs to me that being able to leave that room was part of the glue that held me to it, because what was on the other side of the door was the enemy. The jobs, the faces, the human race going on mechanically, all of it was the enemy in my youth. It’s reversed in here, like how obesity once meant wealth. And nothing is more mechanical than jail. Shit, all those hours I thought I was beating the rap, all the time I saw the general public as something to avoid. I was a young fool in love with the word, and that’s all there was to it. Knowing that now hardly lessens the grip I have on that time. It calls me back to it, actually, but there is nothing further from the romance of life than jail. Nothing. Even death is a release, a peace, or it must be.

What I wouldn’t give to be in a bookstore again, to have a selection of true literature from which to pull, to see a novel of mine perched upon their shelves like a trophy. I have to beat this case, Helena, I have to see the impossible through. Let their evidence tower over me, but let three jurors see the burning truth, see through the contrivance of the state, the bullshit of the state and the corrupt police work, the lies from the midget whore, with her freakish, little hands holding a tissue to her nose. Let the state throw me at the wall. I have to be heard.  

Small disgusts are luxuries now. Boredom, a day trapped in the house due to weather, a shitty job, bills, one beer until payday, a flat tire, a bad driver in front of me, a parking ticket. Luxuries.   Hardwood floors, and the carpet of a staircase. Closing the door behind me in the bathroom, a toilet seat, hot water. A living room past a kitchen, a cup of coffee on the table by the couch, the sweet taste of music, the idea of drinking whiskey after the Sun falls. All of it, and so mad am I with love for the world in this cell that it breaks me to tears.

the curtains are now open

but the stage is empty

light could never penetrate

the shroud you maintain

we are taking in this

vacant space

edges are unclear and none can say

where the real world ends

"we are actors

we are the opposite of people"

there is a microphone

amplifying the silence

there is a crowd

blocking the entrance

I've never seen such quiet

as when her heart

flew down from the ceiling

broken in her own expectation

of the separation of herself

drawbridges are difficult to build

and the easy ones

are hot to burn

"for all the world's compasses there is only one direction"

down

the curtains are now open...

and blood stained my

palms like paint,

a fortune-telling

gone wrong.

black, starless eyes

scurry across my

bloodied sheer dress

over and

over and

over again.

betrayal snapped my eyelids shut,

deception licked my lips,

anger drummed along with my heartbeat,

and they still think this is a joke.

after you,

I replaced my heart

with a seed,

hoping someone would come along one day

and tend to my soul.

after you,

I cleaned my knife

with her tongue

wondering if she

liked the taste of your blood.

the curtains are now open,

and you're gone but

I'm

still

here.

The curtains are open

A velvet red with holes where the mice chewed through

A thick coat of dust blanketing the stage showing the years of abandonment

The paint peeling bowing from the walls like actors that once graced the stage

Props and costumes strewn about in a creepy display of times now gone

Empty seats harken to the audience of the past

Architectural elements that no longer survive

What a waste

For our cultural heritage to crumble and fall away

Beauty demolished by a wrecking ball to make way for another strip mall

A crisis of money well spent

The curtains open...

I in center stage, breathe in, and out deeply.

My eyes search the crowd for someone I can look at, for people who look happy or familiar, even though my family despises me.

I find a guy, tall and handsome, and I train my eyes on him.

I begin speaking. Tonight, I am not Shelby, I am not a college student, I am not ugly, I am not stupid, for tonight all I am is Mary. Mary Poppins.

I begin my lines, and I do not feel as insecure as usual. Even though I'm in front of 1,000 people. A packed house. The lines flow from my tongue by memory. I do not skip a beat, nor do I miss a line. Tonight feels perfect, until I see my parents.

They crowd in the back of the theatre, they look at me in disgrace. I finish the scene, and as the curtains close back up, I run backstage.

Intermission is good for many things. For getting drinks of water, for stretching, for practicing lines, and for getting over seeing your parents for the first time in 3 years. Ever since I started college.

See it's surprise because, they hate me. They hate I chose acting rather than nursing. They hate I'm singing rather than teaching. They hate me because rather than following the money, I followed what I love. I have five minutes, and this time when the curtains open, I'm not sure if I'll be ready.

(I want to do an entire book on this, but for the competition, I'm only doing this little bit.) :-)

Joe always gave me a big shout out, he'd stride out like it was his theatre and own that mic, and they loved him for it, he drip fed them one liners and they loved him for the relief of not having to try to understand the punch, because it was there - BOOM - and they howled.

He bigged me up and called my name, and that was my cue, and I hated it.

A few rows applauded as I smiled and stepped into the light, but it was grudgingly given.

I stuttered, coughed and I fluffed it.

Then I died.

The curtains are now open, and all is exposed. No longer are your secrets kept hidden from me. No longer are your lies being believed as truth. Now I see what your true colors are, how you bleed and how you cry. I feel angry at you. I despise your actions, yet I feel that I know you now. Nothing is between us. Nothing separates us. We are two people lost in each other, and the messes that we call life don't matter. As I watch you shed tears of sorrow and finally reveal your pain, I sincerely love you.

I opened my mouth, a crow cackled in my throat.

Janine knifed her elbow into my ribs.

"For goddsake, can't you hold it together for ONE MINUTE?!"

Sure I could. I could. But I didn't want to and that made her mad. She's always been more into herself than anyone else, even at a wake.

Thing is, I was seeing things. We stood just outside the front door with a direct view of the waiting hearse. They'd just loaded our cousin Doreen into the back and were coming around to the front when the curtains moved. It wasn't much, but I swear I saw a finger.

I told Janine.

She rolled her eyes.

We stood there, side by side, glaring straight ahead. Staring as it were, directly at the hearse. And then Janine screamed.

The curtains were definitely being pulled back.

The curtains are now open...

The bright lights are hot and I am boisterous, large, full of life.

When the music cues, I sing deep and strong and I even surprise myself at how Broadway I feel. That dream, the one of me on that stage, with the hearts of people held in my hands as fragile and innocent as eggs, that dream feels real.

But that was the last curtain. No one goes to Julliard because of Open Mike Night and Karaoke. And singing at home felt like a knife in my chest.

That dream left stasis and entered it’s afterlife when I stood in a coffee shop and couldn’t finish “Fever” due to nerves. I had siked myself up the whole ride there with my friend in my ’96 Olds. I even brought the damned sheet music and fueled my anxiety reading lyrics and humming notes. The worst part? The sort of nail in my nonperformance coffin? After I ended the song early, the owner came to our seat and told me the night was for “original pieces.” My already pounding heart flushed my cheeks hotter and I was grateful for the dim light.

“It was so good,” he said. “I would have let you finish! Please, come back.”

I did not go back, except for coffee and never on Open Mic Night.

The last stage, a raised floor in a small town church, fold up chairs and a friend with a guitar, the last stage felt like purpose. Yet, with each note, and with each quivering nerve, the stage became the grave I’d lain the coffin.

We had a love affair, the stage and I, and she showed me who I am by allowing me to be someone else. I miss her, and she is indifferent.

I keep telling myself I have to get out of bed. I'm fresh out of motivation to even consider doing the things I need to do. Giving it one last try I managed to roll myself over until my feet were set against the ground. I began to walk towards the window. Damn, it's so frustrating to think that the curtains are now open. All I could think about after was how the sun's light had stung my eyes. I close them and head back to my bed. A safe haven from all responsibility. My body wasn't ready to deal with today, and neither was I.