“Come on, girl. Let’s sneak out of this party; it’s getting boring. There’s more to life than this.”

Remember that summer just after high school when you were suddenly free? You wore snug-fitting halter tops and lacquered your legs with kelp, wore dazzling dangling earrings from foreign locales and painted with swooshing, sweeping watercolors every day. You let beautiful Irish immigrant boys take you dancing and you listened to Bjork’s ‘Debut’ album on repeat. You were free, if only for a moment. 

Yeah. Let’s do that again. 

“It’s still early morning. We could sneak down to the harbour, and jump between the boats. And see the sun come up.”

The most incredible short story I ever read was an original piece by a young man in a writer’s workshop I attended many years ago. The story was nothing short of a phenomenon, moving in and out of metacognition and subreality with an ease only comparable to the lucidity of dreams. It powered itself forward and gently landed deep in my abdomen, resonating up my spinal column and shaking tears from my eyes. The young author was a beautiful black man (one of the four black people I encountered in my entire six months in Australia) from South Africa who, for some reason, I can only remember as being shirtless [but realize that this couldn't possibly have been the case as we were in a formal academic setting where such lack of attire might've have been appreciated by the female classmates but forbidden by the higher-ups.] With a humility that drained the breaths from his classmates, he quietly, confidently asserted his motivations for his writing and gave gratitude that we’d enjoyed it. He never took a moment to boast about such an obviously astounding work, nor did he ever hint at defending such an outrageous piece of literature, and in the stillness of his eyes it was apparent that he wasn’t entirely oblivious to the genius with which his work had conquered us. 

I don’t remember this young man’s name, nor do I remember the name of the short story. In my return back to the U.S. I misplaced the draft that would undoubtedly lead the way into a new movement of literature altogether. However, to this day I still remember sitting in the presence of certain greatness and the energy of being among the first to feel such powerful creativity finally released to the unworthy audience of his peers. I remember being stunned into silence by his words for a few days and lying awake for a few nights wondering how I could possibly acquire this sort of wisdom, talent, genius. 

There are very few things I wouldn’t relinquish to relive the moment of this nameless genius’s incredible debut. 

“I could nick a boat and sneak off to this island. I could bring my little ghettoblaster. There’s more to life than this.”

Waiting for an apology from a person who will never deliver one is exactly like dropping rose petals down a well and waiting to hear the splash.

“But then we’d have to rush back to the town’s best baker to taste the first bread of the morning. There’s more to life than this.”

The most excitement I’ve had all week was tonight, when my husband and I had one of our monthly “Junk Food Nights” and blew our diets on value meals and ice cream exhorbitancies from McDonald’s. 

Goddamn. 

Something has got to fucking give here. And I’m thinking that’s me.

“There’s more to life than this.”