Cosmos

an excerpt

When I was nineteen, my whole world was on fire. It really was. At the same time I tried, on the surface, to be cool as water, a creature made of bone, a bloodless thing devoid of needing. Now I think, what was the point? To feel that way, to be burning up in silence, so that nobody ever knew. Does anyone want to know, though, what state a person’s really in? We ask how are you, but we only want one answer. Sadness snags our day. I’m fine, thank you. And how are you?

***

He didn’t consider himself an arsonist or a pyromaniac. Maybe once he did, at first, but now he knew better. Those were impulse disorders, or dirty work you did for cash, or sordid acts of revenge. What Charlie did, he said, was beautiful, and under his control, and out of love, always.

***

“Seen your boyfriend Charlie in the paper today,” Alice, our boss, passing by Maria’s table, waiting. Maria was steady, in everything she did; serene as the surface of a small pool. Alice tried tossing words at her like shiny coins, hoping to see a ripple, some rise and fall.

Maria’s face so still, like she hadn’t heard at first, not looking up from her crossword puzzle. You should do them too, she said to me as we washed dishes, it keeps your mind sharp, like she suspected how hazy my own was – like she knew the inside of my head was some cranial version of the Winchester Mystery House, all dead ends and staircases going nowhere. Maria could look at you like that, tally your deficits neatly. Like an accountant giving you a moral audit. I can smell the liquor from last night seeping through your skin, she whispered to me one morning as we began our shift. Gold ring on her trigger finger, dark lipstick the shade of red velvet cake, blue eyes like the heart of a flame. “He made the front page,” Maria says, finally, pencil pushing letters into soft newsprint. “Everybody saw him.”

“He looked good,” Alice says.

“He always looks good,” Maria says. “That’s the problem.”