James Skinner II
For years prior to the incident Dr. Skinner searched the giant patchwork in the sky, looking for linguistic patterns that might elucidate her reasoning. Might explain to him why she, who was so gifted and smiled so brightly, had taken her own life. At 100 years old, he’d seen a million minds interacting uniquely with the great tapestry, manipulating language so that it represented them personally, making it their own. Using it and adding to it in new and beautiful ways as they lived and died. In all that time of study, he only once found two minds operating within identical linguistic patterns.
One Thursday evening as he sat at his cedar table, sipping tea with closed eyes, his mind flew. He could feel the tapestry underneath him, undulating inconsistently as beings everywhere pulled it down to use for every conceivable purpose. There, a sharp jerk and smoky smell indicated a scathing remark. Here, a slow-rising yellow dome represented a fond memory. He passed these routine happenings without consideration. But as he observed the patchwork in the area associated with George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, he saw something he’d never seen before.
Amidst the constantly roiling and erratic fabric sat two identically flat and unmoving purple patches immediately adjacent to one another. There was no interaction between these patches; neither person to which they belonged knew about the other’s existence. He looked more closely and saw that the patches rippled rhythmically, like heartbeats, from their respective center’s; the color lighter at the ripple’s crests than at their bases. As he peered even deeper into this mystery he found that the patches belonged to two women sitting in an Urban Crave bar, drinking beer.
. . .
Justine was going home to California after two weeks of visiting her long-distance boyfriend, Jake. She’d met Jake about a year and a half ago on Tinder and she’d loved him since their first date. When Jake picked her up at the airport two weeks ago, he’d dressed in a suit and presented a dry-erase board with her name on it. He’d taken her bags and there were flowers on his passenger seat.
When they arrived at Jake’s apartment on that first night, he’d had a plan. He’d gone to the farmer’s market for ingredients, set the table, and purchased tickets to see David Cross downtown. They never made it. For two weeks they ignored their plans, spending their days in bed except to make trips to the convenience store. Seeing nobody but each other.
But now it was over, and Justine sat in the Urban Crave waiting for her flight to board. Dr. Skinner could feel her happiness, her lightness, but underneath it rumbled a forceful concept that kept her section of the great tapestry purple and flat. As Justine flipped the pages of her mystery novel, her mind wandered. What do I do now?
She tried to imagine her life in California and nothing but a blank white room appeared in her mind. She tried to imagine filling this room, adorning it and making it comfortable, but the walls remained starkly white. It seemed to her a prison with no doors. She imagined herself in this room wearing a white shift, blonde hair falling limply and clinging to her face. She scrabbled aimlessly at the unforgiving walls. She lived a life she no longer cared about.
Dr. Skinner could feel the revelation before she could, like an animal standing stock still seconds before the earth begins to rumble. As this feeling built and gained momentum in her mind, Justine shook her head slightly and closed her eyes as if in response to a sudden pain. Dr. Skinner watched as the ripples in her purple mind increased steadily in amplitude before suddenly ceasing, laying flat and still.
Will I ever be this happy again? She thought. Were these two weeks the best in her life? Was she doomed to remember this moment as her last happy moment? She imagined herself getting up from her seat mid-flight, walking calmly down the aisle (perhaps to the bathroom) and, with a serene look that would alarm nobody, opening the emergency door and letting the pressure suck her from the cabin and into the open air.
. . .
Camille was sipping her beer nervously, using her book more as face-cover than as a source of entertainment, forcing herself not to look around. She found no comfort in this, her fourth Lagunitas IPA... No doubt Braden was looking for her right now--she touched her throat nervously--and if he found her it was over.
She had never been with anyone else. Since high school, Braden had been her entire world. Telling her what to think, how to behave, what clothes looked best on her, and how best to please him. All of her friends were Braden’s friends first. Everything she owned, Braden had given her, and in a sense she felt like another one of Braden’s toys. Possibly his most prized possession.
He’d hit her before, but she’d deserved it, she knew that. She known what would happen if she teased him in front of “their” friends. She dealt with it because she loved him and couldn’t imagine a world without him. Whenever she tried, nothing came to mind but a blank white room filled with harsh light.
He always apologized... maybe he really did love her... but two weeks ago she woke up early in the morning feeling sick to her stomach. When she left the bathroom that morning, opening the door slowly and peering from within at the life around her, she realized that it was empty and that it always had been. She realized that she had to leave.
Without education, experience, money, or family, Camille possessed nothing of value to the modern world. All her life she’d been a wife. But now she was a mother. And the only thing she knew for certain was that Braden was no father. So last night as he was sleeping it off, Camille stole enough cash to get herself to California.
What would become of her? Could she support a child? Was she doomed to remember this moment as her last stable moment? Dr. Skinner could feel her struggle with this thought, still on the edge of consciousness--trying not to be thought--while she jaggedly gulped what she told herself would be her last beer for nine months. She imagined herself getting up from her seat mid-flight, walking calmly down the aisle (perhaps to the bathroom) and, with a serene look that would alarm nobody, opening the emergency door and letting the pressure suck her from the cabin and into the open air.
. . .
As Dr. Skinner watched these thoughts descending from and reaching towards the great quilt in the sky, deadening these women’s relationship with language and reality, he marveled at life and how infinite possibility had placed them side-by-side in an airport bar in Houston. Despite their isolated histories and their trapped logic, they shared an experience. If only they knew it! If only they could understand the improbable reality of their situation! If only they had each other!
He reached into their minds, their purple patches, and cut from each a strand. Immediately the patches rippled once more, but from differing origins. Encoding in these strands the desire to turn and look, he tied them to one another, connecting their minds. As he did so Camille and Justine made eye contact, seeing something in each other.
“What are you reading,” Camille ventured.
“Oh, nothing,” responded Justine, “just trying to distract myself.”
“Same.”
There was a pause in which the two women simply looked at each other.
“I’m sorry,” Justine said, “I don’t normally ask such personal questions, but for some reason I feel like I can just talk to you, I feel like I know you. Are... are you okay?”
Dr Skinner watched as their minds turned lighter and began to inflate. As the women spoke, their minds changed size, shape, and color in the great tapestry. Their imaginations restarted, reverting to the more healthful disposition of constant change. No longer were the rooms in their heads so unadorned, no longer were there no exits. Possibility and hope returned to these two in a single connection.
The good Dr. Skinner smiled and his mind returned to the cedar table in his dining room. As it did, he finished his tea and retired to his room, the pleasant weight of a good-day’s work pulling him into bed. He closed his eyes comfortably, but at the moment before unconsciousness, glimpsed a half-formed notion in his own mind. Who would be there for the good Dr. Skinner, should he find himself imagining the open air?
