Simulacra

We stumbled outside the bar, tripping over our falling skirts and garbled words, laughing at soon to be forgotten jovialities. And I didn’t even remember your name, until yesterday; Charlotte, hiding deep in my contact list. Oh, we tried; we really tried to find each other again, to find some time, some place, where we could smile like we did that night.

And what about all those other characters which inhabited these text exchanges; all the others who’ve slowly drifted into the past—I wonder where they are now; I wonder if they’d respond, if I asked. Jonas, Sandra, Clara, Thomas...extinguished flames, or can I still smell the smoke of a fire which used to rage so bright?

Charlie

Oh, but that name, because they all knew me by the other one. I can never quite remember which is which…

“Charlie”

If only I’d been honest with one. I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up.

“What’s up?” I said, looking into Barbara’s eyes.

“What are we doing for dinner?” She said.

“Uhhh…” Sometimes I forgot—because when we were out now, we spent so much time on our phones—that we had things to talk about.

“Because we forgot to go grocery shopping, so…”

How could she be so blind; while looking right at me? She asked why I shaved my legs, my chest. I like it smooth, I said. Seriously. She found my lipstick, and what, of course it was one of her friends’.

“I don’t know, Barbara. Let’s just grab a chicken or something on the way home.”

I think she said we were meeting here? But there were two addresses listed when I looked up the restaurant. She wasn’t super clear about exactly where we were meeting. I was too busy flittering away on my phone to notice her approach.

“Charlotte? I love your earrings!”

“Thank you so much!” I replied.

She was actually prettier in this lighting.

Barbara looked at me every so often with a kind of interrogative glare. And I always looked back and smiled. Like she knew, like she had any idea. Why couldn’t I just say it, am I guilty, Barbara; am I a victim, a prisoner in your prison? She looked away into her phone, staring at some message behind a metal wall, bars which I couldn’t break.

I took a sip of my coffee and stared out the window into the distance; the neighbourhood streets were cleared and slushed, the sun-bleached tar nearly blended with the smooth white snow, frozen dunes slowly solidifying into crunchy ice-caps, half-decimated and piled up by the side of the road.

I took another sip of my coffee, idly observing as the first victims of pale winters were being gradually pushed out the door, forced into the biting cold. And these little ones, for them this must be the greatest suffering. To be awoken far before they aught, and thrown into the wastes; thrown into the calamitous school buses, thrown into the great deluge of the schoolhouses—if only the suffering ended here. But, like all suffering, it only grows and grows; even happiness is only the state of suffering in ignorance. Suffering elided from its course.

I thought that, maybe, Barbara and I should have kids. And maybe, we should have them soon; because, if not, we may never get the chance—the treatments are brutal on the reproductive system.

And maybe, those kids will one day experience the same suffering; and so the cycle of torture continues, with each generation experiencing new colors, new forms, new permutations of suffering.

“Barbara.” I said, without looking away.

“Yes?” She said, now sharing my perspective, seeing the little ones trip on the ice, fall in the snow, tormenting each other with cold miseries.

“We should have kids.” I said.

Barbara thought for a moment.

“Sure, why not.” She replied.

I took another sip of my coffee

In the springtime, flowers blossomed effortlessly. In the springtime, the cherry trees spread their pink scent across the azure skies. In the springtime, Barbara finally learned what I’d been up to; because, in the springtime, Barbara tested positive for pregnancy.

“Yeah.” I said.

“Are you sure about this?” She asked.

Am I sure; what’s it mean to be sure? One can spend their entire life stumbling, their entire life falling into new calamities and triumphs, without ever being assured of anything. Perhaps to be sure is its own tragedy; to be sure means to abandon the unknown.

“You know I love you, Charlie-”

“Charlotte.” I corrected her.

“I’m sorry, honey. You know I love you, and you know that I will always love you, no matter what you choose to do with your life or your body. I love you for you.” She said, honestly.

“You love me for who I was, but who I was was a lie.” I said.

“I can learn to love you again.” She pleaded.

“I know honey, I know.” I held her head tight to my chest, and wished I believed what I said.

In the quiet repose of the evening, with the muddled sounds pitter-patter of raindrops against cool city streets rumbling softly through the window, Clarice and I layed together and forgot the rest of the world. We were shrouded by the night, under the covers of the whole world, alone from everyone but ourselves.

“Don’t cry for me, sweetie, don’t cry.”

But I was already weeping.

“We can’t keep-” I was beginning to say.

“Forget about it tonight.” She said, playfully putting her finger against my lips.

And I did.

I think there was a time prior to all this confusion, when I used to know something about myself, or where I was going. Sometimes, I imagine what it would’ve been like to stay there, to keep knowing things. But confusion is the only way down; confusion is inevitable. There was a time before I first saw myself in a dress, before I first realized how easy it was to alter my appearance, alter my behavior, alter my interactions with others. There was a time before I knew I didn’t have to be a man. Curse that epiphany and its foul intentions. Because where I am now...not even anywhere. I wish I had that security of wanting to be something; wanting to be a woman, wanting to be dignified and recognized and made something of in some wider, grander social sense. Fighting, being a revolutionary on the margins, defying the world with every step I take; no, that’s not anywhere near me. That’s so far away, here in the arms of a lover; there, holding the hands of my wife as she goes into labour; going to work everyday hoping that I can keep my job, keep my life, keep making these lies that I can’t seem to stymie. I used to hope for something, for some meaning beyond myself. I used to struggle everyday for some idea, some notion of love, or success, or eternal gratification. It’s all washed away, swept into the drain, into the whirlpool, the swamp, the ever-shifting tides of confusion. There’s no way out.

Clarice gently ran her hand through my hair.

“Oh my poor, poor baby.”