The Garden of Cobwebs and Nebraska Callow.
Her face left vapour trails every time I think of her, eyes shut, then out of the darkness comes her. I’m in love. The closest to love I’ve felt in years, the love people say is a myth out of countless attempts at trying and failing. I swear if I had her in my arms right now I’m squeeze her so damn hard that she’d have no other choice but to kiss me. It’s a painful love. The love that grips you and tells you your life has been wrong up to this point, love that alters your perception and all your better inhabitations. I’m wrong and I’m so happy to be wrong.
The worst part is? I’ve never even met her. It started out when I was walking home, looking at my feet crossing each other, seeing the yellows of the streetlights take over the street. The moon three times its normal size. It was a night. I walk down this garden and it goes on forever, it must’ve been trespassing I swear. Anyway, there are cobwebs all over the place and each one seems ot be lit with blue light from the moon or something. Only reason I notice is cause in one of the webs laid this envelope. I pull away the cobwebs and blow them to the stars.
It was her. The stranger I never knew I wanted- Nebraska Callow. A name I’d familiarise myself to. The envelope was cheap but the paper was expensive, it had substance in my fingers. Like this was going to mean something. And it did. The girl spoke about the loves I had, the hates I had, the bores I have, the haves and have nots I have.
I got home and I pulled out an old pencil that I had chewed away on through exams that were more stressful than they were worth. The kind of exams you wish you didn’t have to take but did. So I wrote her a letter on some fairly cheap paper- not everyone has nice paper. And I wrote. I didn’t write to her at the time, not really. It didn’t feel personal. I just imitated. I put out my thoughts and hoped someone would read my letter and think the same as I thought of her. So I wrote them all down- every rant and every deep dark thought my soul had. Not the good thoughts either, the bad ones; the ones that I hated about myself and then I signed it ‘Boy Underground’, as that’s who I am.
I left it back in the garden, the cobwebs still thick and heavy. And I made sure it was after ten in the evening, I wanted it to be dark, I didn’t want to be seen and I didn’t want it to be taken by anyone. So that’s what I did, I wanted to leave it up to fate as fate seems to be my maker lately.
So I go back the next day and it’s still not been opened, and no one’s taken it, which was one half of a good thing. I don’t despair too quickly and I go back the next night and low and behold the letters gone and in its place a shape- it looked like a rectangle protruding from a mountain, I put one and one together and think Nebraska Callow. She’d seen my letter, she had been waiting for a reply. I get home and I wonder what she’d write back, if she would write back, or if she had reason to. I became a bit self aware, I always get self aware when I worry. I notice that my thoughts get irrational and uncontrolled. A bit how I write.
So days later, and I’m talking days here. I dreaded going outside the house. Took me that whole time to pluck up the courage from somewhere to see if she wrote me back, don’t ask me why I was so nervous I couldn’t tell you. All I know is that this girl had been plaguing my mind for a while. So I go to the webbed garden and there it was. The same kind of envelope, the same kind paper and you know how sometimes you think you can remember something but not sure if it’s real memory? Well there was a smell on it, and I was sure that it was there before but I don’t know why I wouldn’t think about that smell over and over as it was gorgeous. And I don’t use that word lightly. Something has to be gorgeous to call it gorgeous. This smell was just that.
So I open it and in this almost unillegible squibbles were her message, not any old message. This message was to me, man. Like gold from a falling could, this sort of shit just doesn’t exist. So I’m sat there in my bedroom with this glass of milk. And this milk was just not a beer- but I wasn’t drinking- but that was a whole other story. So I’m sat there and I’m reading what’s she’s wrote and she’s got this picture attached. And it was just the sort of picture where you stop believing they exist because they’re so beautiful. Anyway, paraphrased, she wrote something along the lines of ‘hey you’re funny, what’s your life story? Your phobias? Your reason for being?’
And well honestly, I hadn’t given it much thought. I thought she was funny. I mean some stuff she wrote actually made me laugh, and they were people starring at me when I laughed, it looked a bit weird. But I didn’t want to just say yeah you’re funny too, I mean where do you go from there? So I ignored it.
What else? Oh right my phobias- and by the way she said her phobia was spinning chairs, the kind on wheels. I thought this was hilarious. But I didn’t want to risk thinking it wasn’t a joke, but I made fun anyway. It’s what’s right. I said mine was slugs. They freak me out. Actually send me shivers. The way they sneak into your house. Damn terrifying.
Reason for being? Well shit, if I knew my reason for being I’d sell it to the red tops and tell everyone you don’t need religion cause I found out the answer to it all. Only thing I could put to write was that I was just a guy who could manage a conversation if she was lucky enough.
So I send it back to her, in another letter, in another envelope, and I seal it. And I do this gay thing where I kiss the seal. Thinking it might make her love me. And I’m realising this whole time I’m falling in love hard and quick like a bullet between the eyes. One minute it’s all light, then it’s pitch fucking black.
Now here’s where it gets painful.
You see she writes me back and I write her back. And this goes on for a while, a good fucking while. And my heart. Holy fuck my heart. It beats so fast when I think of her, and I look and I look and I’m hoping that when I finally see her I’ll just be the happiest I’ve ever been. We’d joked about our perfection, cause it was laughable, it was perfection. And it goes to hell. Why? Cause I’m in love and if a smart man wants to be a smart man he doesn’t fall in love. And if a man wants to be with a woman for the rest of his life, he shouldn’t fall in love. Because when you fall in love everything’s exposed. Every stupid insecurity and all honesty is out and open in its disgusting flesh.
Let me tell my disgusting flesh, that’s figuratively speaking here guys, has the sort of moles and warts you’d think would never find a woman to kiss them. And there I was getting comfortable and showing her every single one of them at once. Rookies mistake.
So she calms down, begins to write me less, and I write her more. And I’m aware of what I’m doing but there’s this thing inside me that screams ‘if only you just calmed the hell down she might come back.’ And I take this deep breath and I notice in the cobwebs my letters have all been removed, and Nebraska had been- the same rectangle protruded mountain hung from the webs like a slaughtered kill of a black widow.
I wait, and I wait some more. And this whole time I wait I can’t help but think of her. And I’m dying inside, I’d not even met the love of my life and I was acting like I’d just seen my wife leave before me in to the hot flames of the sun to burn alive and never return. And all it was, was a girl I’d liked. But it just didn’t feel like that. It felt real. We’d been talking daily. The letters were more frequent. I’d stopped hiding myself in the night and I’d even let the damn whoever the fuck it was who owened the property see me, I stopped caring. I just wanted to get my messages to her.
And the thing that really killed me was that I never got to see her once, we never crossed paths. And you’d think you would with someone like that. But every day, a new letter, and we never crossed paths.
So four weeks pass. And I go back and I return to the garden, and I sneak into the part where the moon lights the webs. And a letter was there. It was different this time. The envelope was pink, expensive, and the smell, that gorgeous smell lingered back to me. It was something that just caressed my body whole. And I opened it and it said it. She wanted to finally meet me.
It was every hope I boy could have. And I wasn’t illucinating, at least I don’t think I was. So I go back the next day when she asked me to meet her, and there was no one there. And the person who owned the house finally called me out on the fact I was on private property. The bitch.
... Then I realised, the woman who owned it was Nebraska. She was old. Her eyes looked like they had seen so much, and then I felt so stupid. All this time she was giving me hope and I never realised I was giving her hope. As if I could be selfish enough to take and never give.
She needn’t even say a word but she did.
“You’re more handsome than your words let out.”
“You’re Nebraska Callow?”
“Well I was when I was younger. They just call me Chloe now. Secret names aren’t really a thing once you get to a certain age.”
“Well cleary they can be.”
“I’m sorry, it was nice to see you come into my garden every day looking so hopeful, it filled me with hope and joy knowing I could make someone love me again, being as old as I am. It was selfish of me.”
“No, it’s okay. I’d do the same I guess. If I felt the world wouldn’t accept me.”
“I don’t suppose you want to come in do you?”
And that’s what I did, and I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I wasn’t in love with her. But of the idea of her, the younger her. Then maybe I thought, if I knew her I wouldn’t love her. Maybe the love I felt was for the mature Nebraska Callow. Maybe we wouldn’t have ever met over wise. I stayed the evening with my friend then I said goodbye to see her once or twice after, until she stopped opening her door. But that first night I met her, I slept easy. Knowing I’d finally met Nebraska Callow.
The worst part is? I’ve never even met her. It started out when I was walking home, looking at my feet crossing each other, seeing the yellows of the streetlights take over the street. The moon three times its normal size. It was a night. I walk down this garden and it goes on forever, it must’ve been trespassing I swear. Anyway, there are cobwebs all over the place and each one seems ot be lit with blue light from the moon or something. Only reason I notice is cause in one of the webs laid this envelope. I pull away the cobwebs and blow them to the stars.
It was her. The stranger I never knew I wanted- Nebraska Callow. A name I’d familiarise myself to. The envelope was cheap but the paper was expensive, it had substance in my fingers. Like this was going to mean something. And it did. The girl spoke about the loves I had, the hates I had, the bores I have, the haves and have nots I have.
I got home and I pulled out an old pencil that I had chewed away on through exams that were more stressful than they were worth. The kind of exams you wish you didn’t have to take but did. So I wrote her a letter on some fairly cheap paper- not everyone has nice paper. And I wrote. I didn’t write to her at the time, not really. It didn’t feel personal. I just imitated. I put out my thoughts and hoped someone would read my letter and think the same as I thought of her. So I wrote them all down- every rant and every deep dark thought my soul had. Not the good thoughts either, the bad ones; the ones that I hated about myself and then I signed it ‘Boy Underground’, as that’s who I am.
I left it back in the garden, the cobwebs still thick and heavy. And I made sure it was after ten in the evening, I wanted it to be dark, I didn’t want to be seen and I didn’t want it to be taken by anyone. So that’s what I did, I wanted to leave it up to fate as fate seems to be my maker lately.
So I go back the next day and it’s still not been opened, and no one’s taken it, which was one half of a good thing. I don’t despair too quickly and I go back the next night and low and behold the letters gone and in its place a shape- it looked like a rectangle protruding from a mountain, I put one and one together and think Nebraska Callow. She’d seen my letter, she had been waiting for a reply. I get home and I wonder what she’d write back, if she would write back, or if she had reason to. I became a bit self aware, I always get self aware when I worry. I notice that my thoughts get irrational and uncontrolled. A bit how I write.
So days later, and I’m talking days here. I dreaded going outside the house. Took me that whole time to pluck up the courage from somewhere to see if she wrote me back, don’t ask me why I was so nervous I couldn’t tell you. All I know is that this girl had been plaguing my mind for a while. So I go to the webbed garden and there it was. The same kind of envelope, the same kind paper and you know how sometimes you think you can remember something but not sure if it’s real memory? Well there was a smell on it, and I was sure that it was there before but I don’t know why I wouldn’t think about that smell over and over as it was gorgeous. And I don’t use that word lightly. Something has to be gorgeous to call it gorgeous. This smell was just that.
So I open it and in this almost unillegible squibbles were her message, not any old message. This message was to me, man. Like gold from a falling could, this sort of shit just doesn’t exist. So I’m sat there in my bedroom with this glass of milk. And this milk was just not a beer- but I wasn’t drinking- but that was a whole other story. So I’m sat there and I’m reading what’s she’s wrote and she’s got this picture attached. And it was just the sort of picture where you stop believing they exist because they’re so beautiful. Anyway, paraphrased, she wrote something along the lines of ‘hey you’re funny, what’s your life story? Your phobias? Your reason for being?’
And well honestly, I hadn’t given it much thought. I thought she was funny. I mean some stuff she wrote actually made me laugh, and they were people starring at me when I laughed, it looked a bit weird. But I didn’t want to just say yeah you’re funny too, I mean where do you go from there? So I ignored it.
What else? Oh right my phobias- and by the way she said her phobia was spinning chairs, the kind on wheels. I thought this was hilarious. But I didn’t want to risk thinking it wasn’t a joke, but I made fun anyway. It’s what’s right. I said mine was slugs. They freak me out. Actually send me shivers. The way they sneak into your house. Damn terrifying.
Reason for being? Well shit, if I knew my reason for being I’d sell it to the red tops and tell everyone you don’t need religion cause I found out the answer to it all. Only thing I could put to write was that I was just a guy who could manage a conversation if she was lucky enough.
So I send it back to her, in another letter, in another envelope, and I seal it. And I do this gay thing where I kiss the seal. Thinking it might make her love me. And I’m realising this whole time I’m falling in love hard and quick like a bullet between the eyes. One minute it’s all light, then it’s pitch fucking black.
Now here’s where it gets painful.
You see she writes me back and I write her back. And this goes on for a while, a good fucking while. And my heart. Holy fuck my heart. It beats so fast when I think of her, and I look and I look and I’m hoping that when I finally see her I’ll just be the happiest I’ve ever been. We’d joked about our perfection, cause it was laughable, it was perfection. And it goes to hell. Why? Cause I’m in love and if a smart man wants to be a smart man he doesn’t fall in love. And if a man wants to be with a woman for the rest of his life, he shouldn’t fall in love. Because when you fall in love everything’s exposed. Every stupid insecurity and all honesty is out and open in its disgusting flesh.
Let me tell my disgusting flesh, that’s figuratively speaking here guys, has the sort of moles and warts you’d think would never find a woman to kiss them. And there I was getting comfortable and showing her every single one of them at once. Rookies mistake.
So she calms down, begins to write me less, and I write her more. And I’m aware of what I’m doing but there’s this thing inside me that screams ‘if only you just calmed the hell down she might come back.’ And I take this deep breath and I notice in the cobwebs my letters have all been removed, and Nebraska had been- the same rectangle protruded mountain hung from the webs like a slaughtered kill of a black widow.
I wait, and I wait some more. And this whole time I wait I can’t help but think of her. And I’m dying inside, I’d not even met the love of my life and I was acting like I’d just seen my wife leave before me in to the hot flames of the sun to burn alive and never return. And all it was, was a girl I’d liked. But it just didn’t feel like that. It felt real. We’d been talking daily. The letters were more frequent. I’d stopped hiding myself in the night and I’d even let the damn whoever the fuck it was who owened the property see me, I stopped caring. I just wanted to get my messages to her.
And the thing that really killed me was that I never got to see her once, we never crossed paths. And you’d think you would with someone like that. But every day, a new letter, and we never crossed paths.
So four weeks pass. And I go back and I return to the garden, and I sneak into the part where the moon lights the webs. And a letter was there. It was different this time. The envelope was pink, expensive, and the smell, that gorgeous smell lingered back to me. It was something that just caressed my body whole. And I opened it and it said it. She wanted to finally meet me.
It was every hope I boy could have. And I wasn’t illucinating, at least I don’t think I was. So I go back the next day when she asked me to meet her, and there was no one there. And the person who owned the house finally called me out on the fact I was on private property. The bitch.
... Then I realised, the woman who owned it was Nebraska. She was old. Her eyes looked like they had seen so much, and then I felt so stupid. All this time she was giving me hope and I never realised I was giving her hope. As if I could be selfish enough to take and never give.
She needn’t even say a word but she did.
“You’re more handsome than your words let out.”
“You’re Nebraska Callow?”
“Well I was when I was younger. They just call me Chloe now. Secret names aren’t really a thing once you get to a certain age.”
“Well cleary they can be.”
“I’m sorry, it was nice to see you come into my garden every day looking so hopeful, it filled me with hope and joy knowing I could make someone love me again, being as old as I am. It was selfish of me.”
“No, it’s okay. I’d do the same I guess. If I felt the world wouldn’t accept me.”
“I don’t suppose you want to come in do you?”
And that’s what I did, and I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I wasn’t in love with her. But of the idea of her, the younger her. Then maybe I thought, if I knew her I wouldn’t love her. Maybe the love I felt was for the mature Nebraska Callow. Maybe we wouldn’t have ever met over wise. I stayed the evening with my friend then I said goodbye to see her once or twice after, until she stopped opening her door. But that first night I met her, I slept easy. Knowing I’d finally met Nebraska Callow.
Comments
Post a Comment