Dispatch from the Future (5 page)

invites us to buy diaries where our hearts may speak

freely. She quotes Meggy Wang (not her real name),

who once made perfume out of rose petals

with her brother in their backyard and when

they gave some to their mother, she said,

“Mei you shi ching bu neng jie jue,” which

the author was unable to translate, but if you ask

Meggy she will tell you. My diary says things like

“I doubt he could even keep a goldfish alive,” and,

“if I was alone on a deserted island and could only bring

one book it would not be yours, Katherine. It would not

be yours.” In response to, “Describe a childhood trauma

that you believe is preventing you from finding the one,”

I wrote, “When I was four I wanted to name our kitten

She-Ra and my mom wouldn’t let me.” And then I felt

uncertain, a little ashamed, so I ripped out the page

and burned it and put the ashes in an envelope and

mailed them to the address of the house I grew up in.

There is an entire chapter devoted to what we remember

of our first house. When Meggy Wang thinks of hers

she thinks of her first girlfriend and stalkers. Aaron

thinks, “Oh my God why did they paint it like that.”

Katherine tells us that our feelings about this house

are the same sad feelings we feel about our low

relationship IQ. We leave, new people move in,

and yet we drive by in the middle of the night,

hoping they’ll have the blinds open so we can see

inside and feel worse about ourselves. Dear Katherine,

I wrote in my diary today, I asked him if I should

have surgery so my ears don’t stick out so far and

he said no, and it was the most romantic thing

anyone has ever said to me. Is he “The One”?

What should I do? Write back soon.

In two weeks we leave the country.

The way you say pianist reminds me of a love story.

You can face the wall until you can make a better face

than that one. Anyway, we went to see the abortion movie

everyone was talking about, and we went to the Pink Pony,

which is really yellow and sans any small gentle horses, and I

ordered a peanut butter and banana sandwich because I was too

upset

to look at meat and imagine it inside me. He ordered steak.

The February darkness was forgotten outside as we swallowed

in the lamplight, staring at each other’s hands, wishing they

would do

tricks. As I thought about my uterus, he told me about his

wristwatch.

I love my wristwatch, he said, I love it. You are probably

thinking

it’s inappropriate to roll up your sleeves at the table just to show

you have something to hide and I shouldn’t have cried then,

as I stared at the dark hairs below his shirtcuff. I didn’t cry.

Let me tell you what I used to do with scissors, I said, and I told

him. And then he waited for someone to come refill our glasses,

I waited for someone to bring a scalpel set. I wanted violence,

someone to fight in the dirty slushed gutters of Ludlow Street.

He was too small to fight, though; I had to wear flats. What are you

thinking? I said. Right now? Nothing. Nothing? Nothing.

I was thinking of being plundered by a Viking. The least

he could have done was put his hands on me in the dark.

You know how cold that winter was. You know what I mean

when I say whaling harpoon. You’ve seen pictures of what I want.

I can’t go to the east village anymore

because it is like going on a tour

of my worst dates. I get older, my heart

leaps at the sight of children

who don’t belong to me, I pronounce

everything like an Italian opera title.

I used to listen to songs and have someone

in mind for the you parts, now I just want

to be where the light is intense, I want

the kind of heat that kills you

if you drive into it unprepared. This

isn’t a metaphor for anything else.

When I speak of the light, I mean the light.

I go to church and sing along and feel

just as moved as if my faith were blind.

When I speak of the blind, I mean

the light. Truly the only things Lindsey Lohan and I

have in common are our preoccupations

with fame and weight loss, and yet I recognize

a kinship there, as if those two things mattered

more than anything. When I speak of

the darkness, I mean this living.

In a restaurant called Caracas,

I once spent fifteen minutes arguing

about an Ayn Rand book because

every time he said
Anthem
I thought

he meant
We the Living
and I said

what dystopia, what about the woman,

and he said what about the Home

of the Infants and I said what

Home of the Infants? What about

loving a man so much you’ll sleep

with another man in order to finance

the first man’s tuberculosis treatment?

Welcome to Russia, I said, and we

were looking at each other and then

not. I tried to picture Caracas, tried

to leave him for elsewhere, a fever.

In response to your nice message, yes, no, no, no,

only when I’m drinking, I’d love to, and
Anna Karenina
.

In response to the last question regarding what I like

to do for fun, basically I come home from the factory

and first I make a list on my dry erase board of each

part of my life that makes me want to give up and

then I think, which of these things do I have no

control over, and then I erase the entire list and repeat

positive affirmations in the mirror. Do you have any plans

this Saturday? There is this obscure Ethiopian documentary

I’ve been wanting to see ever since I read about it

in
Documentarian Quarterly
about a young girl

who is forced to spend two years hiding in an annex

with her father, mother, sister, another couple, their

son, and his cat. She keeps a video diary to chronicle

her hopes and dreams and posts it on YouTube.

Today I felt so alone and surrounded I built a fort

underneath my bed and that’s why I’m holding

this flashlight up to my face, you guys. I don’t

know how much longer I can take this. We are

down the last of the rice
. One entire entry

is thirteen minutes of her erasing all the answers

in her crossword puzzle book and then getting up

and going to the window to trace a heart

with an arrow in the dust. Then she prays in a language

we will never understand, and this is the last time

we see her alive because her diaries lead the police

right to the annex. After they’re all captured they’re

sent deep into the desert where no flowers bloom,

but it’s better, somehow, to realize the fragility

of your life in the desert, where the sky is open,

than in a small dark room and so even though they

kill her loved ones and rob her of her humanity she

kisses the earth. When I am overwhelmed and

double-checking the locks and the windows

and re-organizing the knife drawer again

and washing my hands because I’ve forgotten

if I’ve already washed them or not, I think

I hear her voice and she is telling me I’m not

alone. She says it’s not your fault until I sleep.

Let us go then, you and I, to where the yellow

sagebrush lights the sand. Let us go and hide

from ghosts. Make me forget my name.

Make me forget the touch of other hands.

Today I think I said why are you trying to hurt me

at least four times to a large crowd of people and

then I came home and ate vanilla frozen yogurt

and listened to my mom tell me all about

optimal heart rhythms and the application

that is supposed to help us do this, optimize

our hearts, so that we will have a higher tolerance

for emotional pain, like robots do. If a robot is sad

a robot will make cookies shaped like velociraptors

and leave work early just to mail some to his

mom. If a robot is really sad he will draw hearts

and arrows and blood on every smooth surface.

If a robot is totally devastated he will go on an online dating

site and under “Who I’m looking for” write, “Someone

to teach me how to love.” Then the robot will stare

at this, wonder if it makes him seem like he just wants

sex, and write, “Someone to hurt me. I am a robot.”

He will list his interests as parasailing, infinite regressions,

and vegetarianism, and then go change the water

in his guinea pig cage while he waits for the three thousand

eligible women to come break down the door to the house

he lives in with his mom and his guinea pig, Rumi.

Sometimes when a robot feels really sad he will

post fake emails from people who don’t exist on his blog

just to prove to all the people who don’t read his blog

that he has friends. Dear Luke, Thank you so much

for last night. It’s still hard to walk. Dear Luke, I loved

that poem you posted about staring into the hot,

white sun. Dear Luke, I have two tickets to
Faust

tonight. Are you free? Love, Me. After three minutes

of staring into the deep abyss of his inbox, Luke

will update his online profile to say he’s looking

for a relationship with a girl who signs all of the notes

she gives him “me” with a row of xo. He will change

his interests to pandas, emus, and tae kwon do. He will

post a picture of himself standing in front of a great chasm,

wearing sunglasses with blue tinted lenses. Luke will lie

about his height and religion and what he thinks is sexy.

Hi ladies, my name is Luke. I am a robot. I have leukemia.

Congratulations on Alaska, it sounds really great.

I spoke with your wife yesterday—she didn’t know

what to get you since you seem to have everything:

dried figs, firewood, sugar cookie scented candles,

and I said maybe you would like a picture of someone

who loved you, but who wasn’t with you in the cave. Like

a woman?, she said. I don’t know, I said. You know

him better than I do. I told her I bought you a book

of stories about a Thai man and his adventures

in cockfighting and love, which I hope you’ve received

because otherwise I just ruined it. I meant to ask you,

though, do you ever see things, out there in the wild,

and wish there was someone standing next to you

so you could point and say, Look? Such as bats?

Or strange lights? Do your dreams take place

in different weather? So many things happened

this year that I just didn’t have the courage to write