Eric Turner

Eric Turner

Gene’s eyes were closed and his body raised and lowered in an unnatural, slanted way with each breath.  The machine that monitors his life signals beeped with every heart beat just like in the movies. The fluorescent hospital lights made his skin look even less healthy than it actually was. Michael sat on a chair beside the bed, his head propped up by his  by his folded hands. He just sat there thinking. What was going on in Gene’s mind right now? Was he dreaming? Did he know what happened to him? Michael thought about getting his attention but figured it would be better not to; Gene should get his rest because he’s going to need it if he’s going to recuperate after this.

Gene had been in a car wreck in an intersection, t-boned by a compact sedan, but the Jaws of Life came quickly. He was going to survive. He would survive and then come back to a big party with cake and ice cream, everyone hugging and smiling and Gene would just shrug it off. People have come back from much worse. Michael remembered when they were both 17 and Gene’s little sister got hit by a car when she was riding her bike. It seemed so impossible but she survived that. Gene would survive this.

Michael found the silence to be too uncomfortable. He decided he should try to say something, didn’t matter what.

“Hey Gene, you look pretty ugly right now. What are all the girls going to think, huh? I bet when you get out of this, they’re just going to be swarming all over you. You look like you could be a damn war hero. ”

Gene didn’t respond. He just moved up and down.

“Hey remember that time you put a tack on Mrs. Fanny’s seat back in poli-sci? She jumped up and down ooooh! It was a riot. She was pissed wasn’t she? Didn’t know who the hell it was who did it and you raised your hand and said ‘Mrs. Fanny, I think it was a communist ploy. Those reds are always causing trouble.’ I remember thinking, ‘this guy has the largest balls ever, you’d need a forklift to carry ‘em’ I think she would have believed it to if we hadn’t cracked up laughing.  It was too much”

Michael thought he saw a hint of a smile come up from Gene’s face so he continued.

“Yeah, those were good times Gene and there’s gonna be a lot more of them as soon as you get better. What kind of cake do you think you want? And don’t give me any of that funfetti shit, you’re a grown man.”

The heart monitor began to beep more sporadically getting faster, then slower, then it stopped. Just like in the movies. The worst fucking movies that Michael had ever seen.

freewrite prompt; page 12

In this dream I was at a beach side boardwalk except the board walk was 150 feet above the see, on top of  a rocky cliffside with a rickety wooden staircase winding down. The ocean looked monstrous, the waves were enormous, out of proportion. The water was a strange turquoise, matching the sea foam green of a crayon, which is ironic that a color named after the sea should make the sea look so bizarre. I found myself at the bottom of the cliff and there was a ladder leading all the way up with a puddle of water underneath it. A man at the top of the cliff shouted at me to climb up and I was compelled to do so. It was frightening, beyond frightening. My hands were shaking as I climbed the ladder and what’s worse was that when I reached the middle of the cliff, there was no more ladder left. I had to climb back down and after hyperventilating a bit I could do it. I was at the top of the cliff now looking down. The ocean was moving into an enormous tsunami. It was remarkable, how the waves reached so high up but they didn’t push hard. They had the same gentleness as they usually do. I was mesmerized and unable to move away from the boardwalk.

A short time after I was in  a tower overlooking the whole beach view. A man down below waved at me then jumped off the cliff, diving into a small puddle, miraculously unscathed. But I could see through the trick. It was all a mess of perspective. Doppelgangers. A man jumped off the cliff unto a small ledge right below, another waiting at the bottom of the cliff simply jumped in from the ground. It was all an illusion, obviously. It was all a dream.

I remember back in my high school psychology class how we talked about dreams and interpretation. The scientific consensus seemed to say that there was no hidden meaning in the dreams themselves but that interpretation was worthwhile. It’s through finding the meaning that’s not there in the dream that a person is able to find the real meaning hidden within themselves. If I had to take a shot at interpreting my dream I’d say I had a lot to be anxious back then. The inertia of life was compelling me to do what I did not want to do. Nature had determined to put me on a path that I didn’t choose, but deep down, I know that this control is an illusion, that I can break free from the nausea.

Eric Turner

“When I talk about pictures in my mind I am talking, quite specifically, about images that shimmer round the edges… You just lie low and let them develop” Joan Didion (13).

The tangential thoughts that lie on the brinks, the ones that are too hard to describe for want of words or the inability to confront them head on. What could one person relate to another so truly that it is communicated 100%? We are all private persons and sometimes we are private even to ourselves, holding back secret thoughts that linger moments before sleep. The image that we think of develops into a climax of emotion, a feeling of being there. Moments later that dies and the more we try to recreate it the fainter it gets like a Polaroid in reverse.

I’ve heard that the amount of times we remember an event in our lives distorts the truth of the memory. The first time you remember something, that’s when it is the purest. All things ring true: feelings, sights, thoughts. The things in life breathe and vibrate with a constant light. The image is moving, then still.

Ten years ago I was at a beach and the sand was grey and tan. It crumbled and morphed around my foot in damp clumps. There were some people with their kites tied to chairs while they read books and groups of children skipping and jumping at the edge of the surf. I was looking for seashells, hardened fans made from teeth. Toting a plastic Wal-Mart bag, I’d stop every four steps to crouch down and grab one or two, here a big one, there a shiny, black one. Every once in awhile I’d bump into somebody, an older couple in their black bathing suits and hats, who would look at me with a discerning gaze through their large sunglasses.

This scene is not accurate of a single moment or a single age. It is composed from the memories and half-memories, complete fabrications and abstract emotions.  How could I be more accurate…it is formed from a mood, directly at this moment of writing. I can’t remember what I was thinking back when I was 10. I’m only bringing these images to mind because I like them. They are not like reality, where there is always sound, always movement.

I think I’ve gone on a tangent and I haven’t even really talked about what Didion meant when she said that. The “images that shimmer round the edges”…if you took a picture of something and framed it, it’s not the subject of the picture that’s important and the physical frame isn’t really what surrounds it. Outside there are things that you ignore unless you really try to think about them. And when you finally do think of them, they start to shake with new life. When thinking about the edges of an image you might forget that, aside from a top and bottom, left and right of a photograph, there is also a front. You are always there staring at the picture; you are always a part of your experiences.

Eric Turner