diff --git a/writing/3/unknown-things/iyov/reverse/clash.md b/writing/3/unknown-things/iyov/reverse/clash.md index c05995f3..56ea10d8 100644 --- a/writing/3/unknown-things/iyov/reverse/clash.md +++ b/writing/3/unknown-things/iyov/reverse/clash.md @@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ There are so many collisions throughout a lifetime. Even through a day, we may bump into this or that, may clip a wall by taking a corner too tight, or bump hips with a partner, or even just smash ideas together to see what new thoughts come of them. -Or perhaps it's the way a car, lowered to close to the ground in order to show off at some car show, scrapes over each and every speed bump as it goes. Perhaps your truck floats gently along a slick of ice and bumps against the truck beside you on an icy February night's drive. Perhaps it's the collision of ideas, where your future husband thinks you're dating your friend, who thinks you're dating your future husband, and you think your friend is dating someone else. A collision of knowledge that leads to a tangled skein of relationships that never actually existed in the first place. +Or perhaps it's the way a car, lowered too close to the ground in order to show off at some car show, scrapes over each and every speed bump as it goes. Perhaps your truck floats gently along a slick of ice and bumps against the truck beside you on an icy February night's drive. Perhaps it's the collision of ideas, where your future husband thinks you're dating your friend, who thinks you're dating your future husband, and you think your friend is dating someone else. A collision of knowledge that leads to a tangled skein of relationships that never actually existed in the first place. And, of course, a collision may be a simple knock against a friendship that sends the entire thing toppling over. You watch as, almost in slow motion, it totters on its base and then goes crashing down, shattering into thousands of pieces that go skittering across the floor --- they never shatter on carpet, right? It's bound to be on some marble or tile. The noise is fantastic. The mess is stupendous. @@ -28,14 +28,18 @@ I like to think that it was the latter. I like to think that we settled into an That's what I mean by a simple knock. I don't know if we were under the covers. I don't know if there was noise in the other room. Perhaps Andrew was simply showering while JD was asleep — I think he was working first shift at the time, so perhaps indeed. I don't remember when this happened, though I do remember that it was this simple conversation that bumped its elbow against our friendship, sent it rocking back and forth, and eventually left it in pieces on our imagined tile. -It was this knock that led to her blocking one of my accounts on AOL Instant Messenger (which should do well to date this story) and forgetting about it, then forgetting and accusing me of blocking her. It was this blocking episode that led to her silently dropping most all contact with me. It was my wedding to JD in the interim (which should date it further; sometime in May), to which only family was invited and, pointedly not her, that sent the friendship tumbling to the floor. There was a sudden silence, only a few words exchanged and only ever in reply to something that I had said directly do her. She stopped coming over with Andrew, and soon, he stopped coming over, as well. +It was this knock that led to her blocking one of my accounts on AOL Instant Messenger (which should do well to date this story), then forgetting she had done so and accusing me of blocking her. It was this blocking episode that led to her silently dropping most all contact with me. It was my wedding to JD in the interim (which should date it further; sometime in May), to which only family was invited (and, in her mind, pointedly not her), that sent the friendship tumbling to the floor. There was a sudden silence, only a few words exchanged and only ever in reply to something that I had said directly do her. She stopped coming over with Andrew, and soon, he stopped coming over, as well. -I don't have it saved anywhere, but our final communication was a letter and a gift. I sent her a book — a comic, really, a limited edition of *Rruffurr,* along with a hand-written note apologizing for what I had done, though at that point I wasn't clear just which of these wobbles of our dynamic had been the true cause of her silence. +I don't have it saved anywhere, but our final communication was a letter and a gift. I sent her a book — a comic, really, a limited edition of *Rruffurr* — along with a hand-written note apologizing for what I had done, though at that point I wasn't clear just which of these wobbles of our dynamic had been the true cause of her silence. Her response was a request for no contact moving forward. ----- +((God comes out of the cloud and silences everyone)) + +----- + Up until that point, my interaction with gender had been the tentative pressing against a bruise. It hurt, yes, but one cannot help *but* press on bruises, yes? There it is, blue and purple, an angry discoloration that aches at the slightest touch, and yet you cannot stop touching it, defining the edges of that ache with an apophatic walk of the fingertips. This exploration began to stutter as doubt began dart around and in between the wandering feet of curiosity, tripping it up and making it hold still so that it didn't fall flat on its face. @@ -69,3 +73,7 @@ And always there was the discomfort with myself. There was JD and I on that couc The pendulum would swing, and I would promise myself that I could simply ignore that. Bodies are bodies, and sometimes they are stupid. Perhaps I could just not engage with mine whenever I began to feel bad, and focus my energy on something else. The friendship had crashed the ground and shattered, and then the shards began to crumble, themselves. Now, even my engagement with gender began to crumble, or at least the surface began to flake away. + +----- + +((Job's response, is but dust))