July 21, 2023; Balboa Island, Newport Beach, CA; Bill 128
I discovered the author Kazuo Ishiguro (thank you, Madeline Hope Stephenson), and am reading NEVER LET ME GO (winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature). Madeline warned me about the triggering effects this book may have. I made note and purchased the book anyway. She knows me. She didn’t encourage me to put it back.
In my mind, as I read the book, I have this long, worn, finely crafted leather strap tightly wound around my fists, holding my arms high, akimbo; holding it out wide and taut, so taut that my arms shake. I’m prepared. My head lobs making an involuntary lunge forward, directly toward the center of the strap - my mouth open wide, bared teeth, prepared to bite down hard and squeeze my eyes shut, hoping this ritual will mitigate the ache. It doesn’t. It’s a placebo effect. I do this when I think my heart will explode from heartache and loss. But it hasn’t yet.
Like losing Bill…watching that slow bullet traveling toward him, toward all of us, and then, it struck. With or without “the-biting-the-leather-strap ritual” - there is pain. It’s supposed to hurt. These moments. It’s the deepest love, causing the deepest wound. But I realize, as I peel my eyes open to witness Bill dying, witness the words on this page scream to be read and stroked that they are understood, my heart aches and presses hard against my chest. The leather strap is just an essence object that has perfect, deep, permanent dental impressions.
