How would God respond to making a mistake? Would planets collide or mountains slide into the sea? Or would the ledger of all life simply remain out kilter until a series of small events forced that ledger back into balance again? It's probably the l...
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today, April 1st
(April Fool's Day)
Believe me when I say that I didn't want to tell you this particular story (at least not now), but I feel like I have to because it's the other side of the teeter totter. Me on one side and Ril on the other. And it probably seems to you that the world should look exactly the same regardless of where you sit on a teeter totter. After all, it's just a plank of wood with a post in the middle. But really, what do I know?
And yet, in a way it makes sense because Ril's story is like that. It's on the other side. With another view. It's like seeing an accident from the inside instead of from the outside. And trust me, that's completely different.
My own story with Ril started on a warm April day. March mud had dried into smooth plaques like awards honoring nature herself. I saw Ril on the street near where I lived. I had never seen her before but there was something about her eyes that made it hard to look away. Finally, I asked her about her name. I wasn't really expecting an answer but the question itself was reasonable because Ril was wearing a nametag that was written in Korean.
"Is your name Charon?" I asked.
"It can be...if you like the name, I can be anything you want."
Later, as the day got warmer (almost hot as I recall), cotton sheets acted like ocean waves rippling across her sand-colored skin. An oasis of sorts. We barely talked after those first few sentences. Her cats circled the bed and eventually came to rest when our silence stretched through the afternoon. As it did, I watched tiny puddles of sweat trickle between her ribs and then merge into a flat lake resting on top of her navel. I felt myself shrinking as my hand reached out to trace the lines of sweat and then I felt myself disappear completely inside the lines hoping never to reappear again. Sweat spilled over the edge of the lake and then nestled in the curls of hair that few will ever see. Passion can never be the same after a day like that.
From then on, we were never silent again. Or maybe it was only Ril who was talking. I just remember listening to all her stories about growing up in Korea and then coming to Baltimore when she was twelve. Those stories were terrifying and magical at the same time. Rose petals, dragonflies, rabid horses, stone soup. Even stories of Korean generals washing rice in a river to fool the enemy. You see, rice has a starchy film that washes away in water. If you're an enemy soldier and you see the river turn cloudy for hour on hour, you have to worry that there's a massive army nearby. It can be a frightening thought. And that's just one possible view from the other side.
Someone once said that we are all armies of one, but it doesn't work that way with Ril. At least not with me. Ril could cloud my water for hours and hours and make it seem like she was an army of a thousand. Or maybe even more. A thousand voices interrupting my thoughts.
(We all have our beginnings, my dear Charon, and this is Ril's.)
***Finally, forgive me for all the mistakes in this story. I am not Korean and I've never even visited the country. So really, what do I know? As a result, these stories are surely filled with more mistakes than usual, but I will try to tell them to you as they were first told to me. Just think of me as the temporary caretaker of someone else's life. S
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