THAT’S WHERE THE MONSTER IS

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1. Blink

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The biggest lie we’re ever told is that perfect love drives away all fear.

A little 6x4 summer meadow and my first life lesson, taped above the oven. Cardboard, steam-bent edges, faded colours among the postcards and life quotes my mother used to make her nest. Dirty little rectangles where the yellowing tape had peeled off and had to be replaced.

Perfect love drives away all fear. A sentence of six words in curly letters that became a voice of constant comfort every time I walked into the kitchen. Sometimes I’d get close up just to hear its voice:

Listen, kid. I know you’re confused and in pain but know this: the worst the world has to offer will one day be eclipsed. All of your panic and anxiety will soon be swallowed up in some aching euphoria and you’ll forget what it’s like to be afraid.

Here’s the problem. Nobody who has ever been in love would ever decide to print that on a meadow. Once I left home and lived in the wide open world, love created the most perfect fear. The fear of endings. The fear of this person I found. This wonderful being who patched my imperfections. That they will one day be gone. That if it was this good, then I had to face what it would be like when it was all taken away.

Perfect love drives away all fear. I’m sure it’s true somewhere. Maybe there’s another universe, or a planet buried among the distant stars. Maybe people live there too. Maybe around every corner you find endless fields of simmering embers and tall beacons of light just waiting to overcome the darkness. Maybe that exists, but it’s a different world to mine.

My simple, broken world. I’ve heard it said that we’re nothing but the sum of our experiences, and if that’s true I’m just a bundle of sorrow and broken hearts.

Sorrow, broken hearts and perfectly cooked toaster waffles.

• • •

Back then, being out in the world filled me to the brim. I’ll always remember the long walks after work, balancing on tired feet, trying not to overflow until I got home. Home with the green door, home with the arch of jasmine. Home where you knew how to unplug me from the day. From every exhausting minute out in the big wide world that filled me up like a bathtub.

The man with the ragged fingernails who reached for the elevator button just as I did. The woman holding her husband’s car keys telling me I didn’t work hard enough. It all spiralled down the plughole when I was with you.

When the 17:03 arrived at 17:05 and I missed the next connection. When the electric meter needed a dollar and all we had were dimes and matches. When the neighbours bickered and blared and we had to close the living room windows in the middle of summer. All of it drained away when I was with you.

But I always knew my handmade fear was waiting. I could see it. It was crafted together over years of laughing at your funny faces and missing you when you brushed your teeth. It was hiding inside a tiny wooden box, maybe crossed with a yellow ribbon, waiting for the right moment. An intricately designed, masterfully created heartbreak.

I learned all this in the café on Fifth when you got your test results, when my hips wrestled the seat and I couldn’t decide if I should chase you out the door. Even when you came back and I was allowed close enough to hold you.

When you sang half a second out of sync to a song you didn’t know, or made up your own lyrics to Mahler’s Symphony Number 5 on late night radio. Even during those nights under the sheets where we became a whirlwind of paper hearts, still I’d be waiting for the knock on the door. I’d be handed a tiny wooden box with a note inside telling me it’s over. Telling me I was right all along.

To my lost love.

My hair is your favourite colour.

You used to say my eyes were pocket bonfires and my freckles were flickers of ash. I used to say if I could choose to live anywhere, I’d build a pillow fort under your collar and fall asleep to the sound of your voice.

But recently I haven’t been able to sleep at all.

We used to tell each other of our vivid, world-saving dreams, but during the heaviness of my new real-life I can’t even breathe without a soundtrack. When the music comes on, I know what to tell you.

Mahler, and I love you.

Let me tell you a story, because I can’t deal with the silence. I’m going to talk to you and if you can hear me, blink that star over there. The one that looks a little blue.

I’m going to talk until you blink.

Complete story available to agents and publishers. Contact Russell James at russelljamesauthor@gmail.com