Kalyn Raphael

Spinning Wheels

(short story about crossroads & probabilites)

She looked at him sadly. He had saved her, in his own way by proposing marriage, allowing her to stay in the country and have a place to belong, which she’d never truly had.

He looked up at her, with a deepness that hurt. She had saved him, in her own way, by bringing a special love he had never known into his life.

And yet now, when she looked at him all she saw were the deep gashes left behind by a tiger that had shred him apart. Or was she the one who had been shredded up? She couldn’t tell. Her heart was so heavy and felt each of those gashes so deeply that she couldn’t see the physical state of either of them, but the pain… the pain she felt ran through every valley and crevice of those deep wounds.

She focused on him, forcing her eyes to see what was right before her instead of pain. He was blank, numb and only half alive. He processed the scene slowly because it cost him so much just to stay present in his experience. He couldn’t take the pain and the truth of what their lives had become anymore.

The years passed. Nothing changed, yet everything was lost. They had worked through their destructive fighting and had found a way to stay out of each others way. They had found a way not to rip each other up, making the reoccurring arguments half as intense. He thought this meant that things had smoothed out. As he walked down the alley a man sitting up against a dumpster caught his eye. Then he saw the needle on the ground.

Like a flash of lighting recognition struck him. Looking at this heroine addict strung out, he saw himself sitting there. He recognized the numb look on his face that came from checking out. He recognized the betrayal to himself of his addiction to her approval. He recognized the punished feeling bestowed upon him by a cruel god who would allow such misery, shame and humiliation. For the first time in a long time he felt the pain of knowing that he had brought this on himself by allowing himself to become addicted to this dysfunctional love. He had left his easy-going, joyful and creative self behind. Far behind.

It was too late to look back, he thought to himself. Looking at the drug addict he now recognized the same desire to have a quick death instead of drawing out this hell he called life.

Death? Death? The thought shook him. It brought him back to the room where she was yelling at him, again, saying that he never listens to her. This had to be an exaggerated daydream, he said to himself with hope. Just because we fight it can’t lead me to praying for my own death- his thought was interrupted by her escalating anger. She was beginning to hit the pillows. She is not a violent person, and yet she’s going from screaming to physically expressing her anger again. I’m not a drug addict, but I’m getting numb again. Is this really what I want for my life? Is this who I want to be?

Suddenly she stopped, frozen, as if a ghost had walked in the room. It was as though he had been possessed because his glossed-over eyes recovered their color. His limp body stood up straight and looked larger. And, he looked straight at her. Was he going to begin disparaging her and calling her names? No. He was calm, rather calm.

He spoke “For the first time in a long time,” he began, “I can see that we are not coming from love. We are not taking love into account. We haven’t had love present in ourselves or in our marriage for more time than I care to recall.

“For the first time in my life, I want to do something for myself out of love. I want to do something for you out of love. We tried saving each other, thinking it was loving, but we hadn’t saved ourselves. We began fighting to be loved by the other without loving ourselves or the other. We began fighting more and more. We have both left our beautiful, joyous and divine selves behind in those fights. In those moments when we chose to demand that we be loved instead of being loving.

For a moment his voice quieted with the wave of sadness that his own words brought to him. For a moment he looked down, wondering what he would say now, wondering what he needed to do.

He raised his head and looked in her eyes again. “I now choose love. We have been fighting for so long that I feel as though that is the only way we know to relate. Even when we try to change things we can’t seem to. It feels the way it did the other day when we drove through the mud and got stuck. The more I tried to drive on through, the more the wheels would spin and the more stuck we became. We couldn’t change the fact that we were stuck and we had to get towed to another road without mud. We need to have lives without mud.

“It is time to get out of the stuck car.” He spoke with sadness and yet, a sense of relief came over him that he was doing the loving thing.

“I know. My heart is so heavy and I love you so much,” she replied, “but I feel like all there is between us is pain and hurt. That is not who I am. I can’t imagine not being with you, and the thought of it hurts. But you are right. We have not had love in our hearts for some time. We have only had anger at not feeling loved by the other. I choose love too. I choose another road in which I am the free spirit I used to feel inside my happy heart.”

The years passed. He came out of a bar after meeting a client on a business trip. To his right he noticed an empty alley. His spirits were high because he enjoyed his work and was finding a new friend in the client. Finding new friends was nothing new to this jovial man. Life was good. On his left something caught his eye. A young man stopped at a red light on his motorcycle with a beautiful young lady holding on behind him. The couple looked like they were having a wonderful time, and he recognized that feeling, that love.

Then he was struck. He had to squeeze his eyes and lean his head forward again to be certain. Was that the drug addict he had seen in that daydream all those years ago? No. It couldn’t be, could it?

That reminded him, he had received an email from his ex-wife. It was great that they had been able to develop a friendship after everything. He would reply to her message and tell her that he was doing very well. Life is good, he thought. And I’m in love. He headed down the street to meet his dinner date, the love of his life.