Filler Update-What happens when a quote gets the creative juices flowing

"She thinks, Perhaps I've been forsaken. It's an outworn word, forsaken, but it describes her plight exactly. Forsaking her is something he might be imagined as doing. On impulse he might die for her, but living for her would be quite different. He has no talent for monotony."

-Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

1.

Why is it that all my childhood memories are sunny? I close my eyes and the images replay in my mind, but everything is so much brighter than it could have possibly been in real life. Everything in the scene gives off light, everything glows. People shine like angels, gods, bright pillars of flame. The little things I loved- my toys, the zinnias in my garden, my first book- all of them radiate, drown out the sun.

Comparing then and now, all my days seem darker. I feel like I’ve lost the source of that light. Life crept in, stole the wonder, stole the coal (like in the old Greek myth), and I am left without my warmth, my light to remember by. Everything I see now is grey and unremarkable. Used.

I must be an adult.

2.

I wasn’t always like this. I don’t remember when I realized what I had lost. If I had felt it go I would have fought with tooth and nail to hold it back, clutch it to me. Was it a slow process? Was it a single event?

I remember…my eyes drift shut. In my mind’s eye I see my eyelids glowing red like a hand when it stifles the beam from a flashlight. Glowing blood.

My mother spreads a worn blanket down on the grass. I flop down on it immediately, ignoring her gentle chiding to remove my shoes.

They’re not on the blanket.

You’re going to forget and get it all grassy.

I shake my head and flip over to stare up. A twig digs into my back and I shift, causing a quiet crack as it gives up and breaks beneath my weight. The sky is blue. I can see it through the leaves of the poplars above me, shimmering in the dry heat. Soon it will be too hot to walk down here for lunch. I imagine the high summer days where my friends and I wake up early so we can play outside and be in by eleven to wait out the heat wave. Even the pets nap in my zinnias during the hottest parts of the day when the butterflies refuse to visit. I wonder if the heat scorches the feathery powder off their soft, gorgeous wings.

Here. Before it gets warm. I take the Coke and sip it hungrily. I am allowed one a day. The sugar always makes me giddy.

Mom?

Yes? She lies down on the blanket by me.

I suddenly get shy. She waits patiently. She always knows.

Randy asked me out today. I stare fixedly at the leaves above me. They burn green, and I know if I shut my eyes I’ll be able to see every one outlined, etched into my eyes in acid emerald.

He has all the horses, doesn’t he?

Yes. He said he’d take me riding.

He’s cute.

I blush and sigh happily. Everything is perfect now. The boy I’ve liked for a whole two weeks likes me back. I feel like I could burst, but I can’t find a way to tell my mom exactly how it feels. I look over at her and she smiles at me with her mouth, and her eyes shine gently. I feel like she understands. After all, she has Dad. So she has to feel the same way I do right now.

Perfect. Life can go on forever and I’ll never get sick of it.

My mother shuts her eyes and breathes against the heat of the day.

3.

My eyes open, and I recall the rest of the memory in rapid-fire mind replay. It’s amazing how much time goes by in a single second in my mind. Randy dumped me two days later, and I felt like the world was crashing down. I was in fifth grade, and already life was over. He’d left me for my best friend. He hadn’t even kissed me yet.

My first taste of treachery.

4.

I go to the mirror and play with my hair absent-mindedly. I feel pretty today. I have a new dress, and the weather outside is warm and breezy. It smells like spring, but there are no flowers yet. Washed-out life. Half here. No leaves on the trees, no flowers yet. Just the grass, turning back from grey, living vividly again.

I envy the grass its ability to regenerate.

My eyes drift shut as I smooth my dress down over my hips and gather up my purse. My mind drifts back to another time, years ago. Another dress, the same feeling.

Hey, girl!

I hear the voice, but I keep walking. Class is over, and there are approximately thirty girls all around me. And anyway, I don’t recognize the guy’s voice, so he’s not one of my friends, so he’s not looking for me.

Hey, pretty girl!

Now I’m curious, and vaguely jealous. Who is he talking to? I want to know which of the girls around me has been singled out with such a label. Pretty. We tell each other we are, but we never mean it, we never believe it. We are petty.

Footsteps advance behind me, and I feel someone’s hand on my shoulder. I turn and come face-to-face with a guy I’ve never spoken to. He’s an eighth-grader. They’re all too old for us. At least that’s what they say. When I’m that old, I won’t look down my nose like that.

Do you know James?

I shake my head and wonder why my cheeks are flushing. My dress is strapless, and his hand had touched my bare skin.

Football team? #48?

It doesn’t ring a bell, and I tell him so.

Well, he wants to talk to you. Give me your number.

For some reason, I do. I’m not used to this kind of attention.

Later that night, my mom hands me the phone with her eyebrow raised. I know she wants to know who this boy is, since I always tell her who I like. Recently though, I have given up. I don’t care about boys. At least that’s what I say. As I reach for the phone, adrenaline surges through my body. My voice is going to sound so dumb.

5.

He asked me out three days later. I was fascinated because he was older than me, and he said he smoked. I had never met someone that did something dangerous. We dated for two weeks before he sent his ex-girlfriend to break up with me in the girl’s bathroom.

My first taste of humiliation.

6.

Mom and Dad got a divorce, and I moved out with her. We left the state and the house I’d been in all my life. I was confused, because mom had always told me that love lasts forever. When I asked her about it, tears welled up in her eyes.

Sometimes one person only thinks they’re in love because they haven’t found anyone better yet. Her voice was thick and bitter.

How do you know, then, when you’re in love?

You don’t, honey. It’s life. Sometimes you make bad choices.

I didn’t understand how it was possible to love someone who didn’t love you back.

7.

I started dating a lot after this. My next boyfriend and I pawed at each other incessantly, and once I felt his erection against my leg when we were making out. It sent a surge through my body that I didn’t really understand. I spent the next year feeling so wise and knowing about sex. Well, making out, at least. Twelve-year-olds don’t have sex.

I turned fourteen and met a senior when I was a freshman in high school. In less than two weeks he taught me that I didn’t know much at all. I felt at his mercy, swept away. He was so much older, so much more experienced. He pushed me to try new things.

I drew the line at sex. I’d let him tie me down, make me come. I’d even said okay when he asked me to reciprocate. Despite all of this I just couldn’t see myself sleeping with him. I told him that, and he dumped me and asked someone out the next day.

That week at school I told everyone what he did, and how he just wanted sex and didn’t care about the girls he was dating, or licking, I’d add bitterly in my mind. I was well-liked by a lot of people. Soon everyone stopped talking to him and his girlfriend. They only had each other-- and his bed.

My first taste of revenge.

8.

I swore off guys after that. I no longer trusted them. After all, I was in high school, and isn’t that all the boys wanted? I remember my mom telling me that some of the meaner boys like taking virgins. It’s like a notch on their bedpost.

I’ve always hated being treated like a trophy.

9.

A boy from my neighborhood started walking home with me. We’d talk about school, make jokes, discuss books, and keep each other company the two miles home. He was having problems with his girlfriend. She was moving too fast, and didn’t seem to like him for him. He said she made him feel bad. We’d talk about it, I’d cheer him up. I assumed that she had to be a decent person because he was dating her. This was before I knew people dated to keep from feeling alone.

I’d go home at night, lie down in bed, shut my eyes, and be greeted with a curious light. When I was thinking about school everything was fresh and bright, but the walks home always shone. Everything was lit from within, shining out at me, catching my attention.

These walks home make me happy, I’d realize.

And then, three months after his previous relationship had crumbled into dust:

He makes me happy.

The next two years glowed. My friends, my teachers, and oddly enough, my locker- all of it. He and I would spend the mornings, the lunches, and the walks home together, and we’d go on dates three times a week. He got along well with my mother. On holidays he’d come over and we’d all celebrate together, and it felt like he belonged as a member of the family.

He was the first guy I told I loved him. I remember the first time I said the words. I was terrified. Saying them meant there was no going back. Was I ready for such an intense emotion? Such commitment? I’d had guys tell me they loved me, but I was never able to say it back. Wanting to, meaning it, was a terrifying thing. The memory washes over me as I shut my eyes.

The room is silent, comfortable. My family is asleep downstairs, probably keeping a watchful ear on us. I'm leaning against him, heart pounding, head on his shoulder. I wonder if he can tell that I'm nervous. I really want to tell him. Tonight. I hear my voice say his name, and he responds. I have to, now.

I love you.

There is a pause as these words sink in. I feel his body quivering slighty, hear a sharp intake of breath. Then suddenly his arms are around me, holding me tightly. I was enveloped in his warmth, and I felt safe. I belonged with someone.

My eyes open again. That memory is so bright it burns.

10.

After our third year anniversary I told him I had gone on birth control. We both had sex for the first time two weeks later. A month before our fourth-year, the relationship was officially over.

11.

I haven’t had a serious relationship since. Guys are friends unless they make some sort of advance. Then I see them as threats, and they eventually fade away into the blackness. I’m content with this, because it is safe. I don’t want to risk having to go through the feeling of something being ripped out of me again. When you’re with someone for that long, they take something with you when you go. After a while there’s not enough left inside you to light up anything at all.

I do feel kind of empty, though. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to refill what he took from me when he left. It wasn’t just him, either. Everyone I’ve ever cared about has taken some and left me like an empty shell. I feel delicate now. I feel unsafe.

12.

He’s tall, and he won’t let me ignore him. I’m worried about this, because every time he’s around, I notice later that the memory is much more vivid in my mind. Do I try this thing again, and hope that this time it works, that we’ll both be each other’s light? My mind flashes back to my mother. Do I have enough left in me to make another mistake? Is love too boring for him? Am I enough to keep him enthralled every day for as long as we both shall live?

He puts his arms around me, and I feel safe and warm. What little light is left in me seems sheltered from whatever else could make it flitter out. But will these arms always protect, or will they strangle the rest of it and choke me out completely?

I push away. I’m scared.

What? What's wrong?
Nothing.

13.

Looking back, he’s the last thing that ever glowed. He fought with tooth and nail to hold me to him, to keep me safe, but I hurt him enough to make him let me go.

How do you know, then, when you’re in love?

You don’t, honey. It’s life. Sometimes you make bad choices.