The Writer’s Corner features poetry, essays, short stories, satire and various fiction and non-fiction from SCAD Atlanta students. To submit your own work for the Writer’s Corner, email features@scadconnector.com.
‘In The Dirt’ by Christen Spehr
On the rare occasion that people actually stop and get to know me, they will notice two things. The first is that I am not entirely there. My head is not in the clouds it’s in the dirt. Typically because I wasn’t watching where I was going and tripped. The second is that I like it there. Sure it might be a little hard to breathe when your head is stuck in the ground but you tend to get a new perspective on life.
People always associate being stuck in their heads with daydreaming. It is always depicted as looking up in wonder. Why is it never looking down? Looking down at all the cracks in the pavement and the natural patterns they make. Picking weeds as if they are flowers.
That’s another thing I don’t really understand. What makes a weed a weed? Why should it be plucked from the ground, its home, and determined it is no good? Come to think of it, I am a weed myself. I don’t fit in with the pretty flowers that our society is made up of. I am the stubborn thing you wish you could get rid of but can’t. I am the thing that for some ridiculous reason grew through concrete and still refuses to die.
“Are you okay?”
I blinked. I turned my head to see a strange man looking down at me. He had round glasses that made his eyes look bigger like he was an owl looking down at me from his perch. I opened my mouth to respond but then I realized I didn’t really have a response. What was I doing?
I was sitting in a crouch position in the middle of the sidewalk, a very unladylike thing to be doing in a skirt. But in front of me was this beautiful dandelion. I reached to pluck it but then stopped myself. If I plucked it, it would die, and then it would no longer be beautiful.
“Miss?”
I jerked back making the man jump as I stood straight. “How did you know my name?”
The stranger held out a hand, keeping his distance. “I don’t … ”
“Why would you call me Miss?”
“I … ” The man looked behind him as if wishing he could escape but I kept my eyes firmly on him. “Isn’t that what you call women?”
“Oh.” I blushed as I pushed back hair away from my face. Why do I always forget that? “Sorry, it’s a little bit of a funny story. I am Missy.”
The man nodded then hurried past me in a not-so-hidden attempt to flee. I sighed looking down at the dandelion. “I really don’t understand why people try so desperately to get rid of you. I mean … ” I sat down on the sidewalk, crossing my legs into a more ladylike position. “You try so hard to live and all they try to do is tear you down. Everyone wants roses but roses are on a suicide mission. They have one reason for living and if they don’t get it they die. But you … ”
I reached out and touched the tip of its petal. “You appreciate everything life has to offer for you even when it’s determined you don’t deserve to live.”
I sighed as I looked up. I have somewhere to be but I don’t remember where it is. It must be something important, something that will likely have consequences for not showing up but I can’t seem to make myself care. I wasn’t depressed but the world didn’t seem to shine as bright today.
“One day,” I whispered ever so softly to the dandelion. “One day I will have everything figured out.”
I pulled myself up and started to walk, crossing into the street and into the direction of home. A blaring horn shook my core. I turned just in time to see a red SUV come at me. There wasn’t enough time to move. I closed my eyes and braced for impact.
The horn cut off abruptly. I opened one eye, just enough to see that the car had stopped. I opened my eyes fully to see that it wasn’t just that car. The woman inside was frozen mid-scream as she held onto the steering wheel.
I twirled around. It wasn’t that noticeable, it was still a quiet side street but now the trees didn’t move. And there were no sounds of nature. Everything was frozen.
I looked down at my hand. “Did I just … ?”
“No.” I looked up to see a man with stark black dressed in a fine white suit, far too nice to be walking around the neighborhood. “Every day like clockwork you show up on my list of souls to collect.”
“Excuse me?”
The man didn’t seem amused. He seemed annoyed. In the way, I would normally associate taking out the garbage. I hate it but it has to be done every day otherwise the house will start to stink.
“Am I your garbage?”
The man didn’t frown in confusion as most do. Even my family who has grown used to me still use that confused face that I have grown to hate so much. Instead, his lips turned upward, not quite a smile but something close. “In a sense, I suppose you are. I am the garbage man cleaning the world of lost souls before they start to wreak havoc. I am necessary, but just like in your world, highly unappreciated.”
“Are you an angel?”
“Don’t focus too much on what I am.” He snapped his fingers and a table appeared in the middle of the road with a game of chess. I was sitting at one end, the side with the whites while he sat with the blacks.
I looked down at the game. It seemed exactly like the kind of thing you would do with an … well whatever he might be. “I don’t know how to play.”
“I don’t either.” He picked up a piece, twirling it around his finger. “This death is so easily avoidable.”
I follow his gaze to the car. “Lots of people get hit by cars.”
“But did you even look before you cross?” I lowered my gaze, not wanting to see the intensity in his face. “I keep trying to give you a dignified death but every day it is a reckless mistake because your head is in the clouds.”
“In the dirt,” I said sharply. He raised an eyebrow. “I decided I don’t like the term ‘in the clouds’. I am rarely ever looking in the clouds.”
“Missy,” his voice was very solemn. “Do you want to die?”
I opened my mouth. I am not sure if it was shock or if I was trying to respond but nothing came out.
“You have only asked me one question and you accepted my deflection of a response. I have been vague and have spoken of your life and yet you still don’t ask questions. Do you not wonder if you are still alive? Do you not want to know if heaven and hell are real? Don’t you want to know the meaning of life?”
I leaned forward in my chair. “If I ask you any of those questions will you answer honestly?”
“No.”
I nodded leaning back. “Then why would I?”
“Human curiosity.”
I shrugged. “I will find the answer one way or another.”
“Not if you don’t answer my question. Do you want to die?”
I looked around at the world. At the car that nearly hit me. At the dandelion fighting so hard to survive. “It doesn’t matter what I want. I don’t get to choose when I die.”
The man leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “Now you are being vague.”
“Not on purpose I just … well do I look like the kind of person that has answers?”
“Well if you are not going to answer then I am going to tell you.” He set the chest piece back on the board and folded his hands. “I met you the day you were born. You were not in the world five minutes before you attracted death. Your parents, they begged God to let you live. I am no God but that day I was theirs. I showed you mercy and I let your soul slip through the cracks.
Fortunately for you, you didn’t attract death for a couple of years. If I knew what I know now I probably would’ve taken you out of mercy. You were three the second time I came for you. You had climbed onto the shelf looking for peanut butter and when I arrived you had just started to fall. Children are stupid. They don’t know danger. They don’t know the consequences. It wasn’t your fault. I had already broken the rules and let you live once. What was the harm of doing it one more time? After that, the amount of times you’ve summoned death has only grown.
For the last two years, I have been here every day. Each time I break the rules and let you live. I don’t know why but I can’t seem to bring myself to take you. But I can’t continue to let you slip. So I need to know. Do you want to die?”
I stared at him, processing his words. I struggled to find words of my own. Maybe I did want to die on some unconscious level. Why else would I keep getting into near-death experiences? Maybe ever since that first day, I have been chasing this feeling. The feeling of sitting here with the world frozen completely at peace.
“Did you ever think that maybe it’s your fault?” I asked, not quite sure where the thought came from. “That the reason I am so screwed up is because you didn’t take me. Maybe each time you refuse, it leaves me wanting it more. Like a drug addict.”
The man in the white suit leaned back, considering. He rested his head on his elegantly long fingers. If he wasn’t an angel, was he death? No, he called himself a garbage man. Or more accurately he didn’t argue when I called him that. A grim reaper perhaps?
“You surprise me.”
“What?” I looked up at his dark eyes, trying to focus my frizzled mind. What was it we were talking about?
“You surprise me.” He stood up. He was tall, not like a mountain but like a slender tree. “You never say or do the expected. You are an open book filled with empty pages. You are easy to read but your thoughts, your actions are never predictable.”
I smiled at that. It was a good metaphor. He leaned against his chair. “Now somehow you have redirected the mystery that is you towards me. Is it somehow my fault for your constant need to feel death? Is this the result of my mercy?” He shook his head. “I wanted answers, not more questions.”
“Maybe,” I said softly, the words coming out before I could think them. “Maybe I am stuck. Maybe part of me is wherever the dead go. It could explain why my head is scattered. Why sometimes I am numb to the world.”
The Not Quite Angel clicked his tongue. “I think it is time.”
I glanced at the dandelion growing out of the concrete. It was so desperately trying to cling to life so that it could soak in the sun. Shouldn’t I be fighting just as hard? “Do you know why weeds are considered bad?”
“Because they steal the life around them. They take the nutrients from the soil, the water. They smother plants for their own chance at the sun. They are selfish and because of that they are able to grow and take more away.”
“Is that what I am doing? Every time you spare me am I taking away from someone else?” He tilted his head down but he said nothing. “Am I robbing someone of their second chance?”
“You can not understand the workings of the world beyond.”
I nodded my head. His avoidance was enough of a response. “Maybe I will be whole.” I looked up at him. “Will there be peace?”
“For you, there will be.”
He held out his hand. I glanced at it. It would put me right back in the car’s path. I thought about asking if it would hurt but I knew that it would. I would feel the full force of that car as it ran through me. My bones will break and my lungs collapse. I would struggle for my last breath like that dandelion struggled to break through concrete but the only difference is that I would not win.
I will crumble to the ground. The asphalt against my face, the last thing I will feel. Then I will be buried in the dirt …
I smiled.
“I said I wanted my head to be in the dirt.” The Garbage Man of life lips curved into a not-quite smile.
And I grabbed his hand.