CALVIN

thirty-six: the potato

Sitting in Otis's theatre workshop, auditorium lights turned low, stage lights illuminating the scene in an amber glow. Lotte was crying on stage. 

"The more we danced, the closer he got to me, unt... until he..."

"Sarah..."

"Tell me, John, what's the sum of eight plus two?"

"Well... that would be ten."

"That only took you one second to figure out."

"It's simple math - why do you ask?"

"Why do I ask." Sarah looked down, smiled a bit, shook her head. The lights changed to purple. "John, I ask, because life isn't like addition. The longer it goes on, the more it becomes algebra. And then further, statistics. Even further, multi-dimensional topology. And... well, you get my point."

"I'm trying to."

"Life goes on so long that you can't tell what maths subject it's become. And still we try to solve it."

"Sarah..."

"Yes, we danced. But maybe dance isn't a celebration. Maybe it's condemnation."

John stood up. "I'm trying to... y- the - scheiße, sorry, I forgot my line."

I stood up and left.

Back country street. Nighttime. Quiet. The tarmac was cracked and uneven, the farmland crumpled and barren, the cold punctured my skin and the shadows from naked spindly trees cast wreaths of black holes through the moon-ish darkness. I was trying to catch my breath, to feel my fingers, to stop crying. 

Headlights pierced through the ruralscape. The sound of a car driving through the silence. I looked behind me just as the car stopped beside me; passenger window rolled down, Ms Vecoli's silhouette. "Why'd you call me? Get in."

Me in the passenger seat, she pulled over onto the bumpy, frozen ground, in the black shadow of a cluster of trees. "Hey," she said, car still running, "hey." Either I couldn't calm down, or I didn't want to. 

"Why am I like this?" I said, sitting forward with my fingers clasping my forehead.

"Look," she pushed me up and waved a battered book in front of me, "Look at this. See how damaged it is? It's my eighth time reading it. Do you know what book it is?" I couldn't answer her. "Orlando, by Virginia Woolf. Here's a line: All extremes of feeling are allied with madness. Allied, Elias. That's a positive verb. So to think that you're mad for feeling is simply to acknowledge the fact that you exist, and that's no reason to think you're more mad than anyone else."

"I... can't explain... why I feel this way."

"You can try to."

I took a deep breath, leaning against my hand, elbow propped up on the window base. Looked out at the tangle of darkness, the stillness of the countryside at nine PM. My voice was cracked. "I have a hard time opening up, because I feel like I have nothing to be sad about."

Her voice got quiet. "Why does that prevent you from opening up?"

I couldn't look at her, I had to look out the windshield. She couldn't see the redness and puffiness of my face. "Because I'll feel like a poser if I try to explain... everything that's bullshit about my life."

"There's nothing bullshit about your life."

That's when I looked at her. "I know. That's... exactly. It's everyone else. Everything around me. It's hard to look around me and see one person who's happy, and when I do it disgusts me, and I don't know why."