FlamingText

Everything's Fine

  I've heard it said that the human need for a place to call home is so strong that soldiers engaged in trench warfare will actually resist moving out of a familiar foxhole. It's not that this foxhole is any nicer than another one, the thought process goes, it's just that this is my foxhole.

  Which is not to say that this is a foxhole. It's a perfectly nice place, especially since I painted it last month and put up the new curtains. Once the kitchen's finished this house will be perfect! There's just so much natural light. And when the kitchen's done you'll be able to sit in the breakfast nook and look out the picture window -- look, you can see all the way out to the trestle from here! There is not a thing wrong with this place that a little bit of creativity and elbow grease can't fix. But for some reason, certain people just can't seem to get past the location. Or the "location issue", as James called it.

   Now, there are those who may tell you that it isn't a good idea to build a house right across the train tracks. And I respect their right to that point of view, I just don't happen to share it. The simple fact is that in all the months I've been living here, not one train has come through. I'm pretty sure that this track isn't connected to anything. If it were, I'd know, right? I mean it would be pretty obvious. So why keep bringing it up?

   My supposed "friend" James told me it only takes once having a train run roughshod through the middle of your home to pretty much ruin your whole day, but I'm not speaking to James anymore because he is a pessimist. He's always been a glass-half-empty type and right now I just don't have the patience for that. The way I see it, if no trains have come through till now then that's a pretty good reason to believe that none ever will come through in the future. Even so, it's very upsetting to have to listen to my so-called friends' negativity. You know what shortens people's lives and ruins their health? Stress, that's what. And you know what causes stress? Negative thinking. It's been proven! So why would people who claim to be my closest friends put so much stress on me with all their doom-and-gloom talk? Are they trying to shorten my life? Why don't they just poison my food or cut my brake lines if that's what they're after! I tell you, with friends like these....

  I'm sure that's the reason I've been feeling anxious lately. That last time talking to James, before I told him that he wasn't welcome in my home anymore, left me in such a state that I still don't think I've fully recovered. I keep waking up in the middle of the night, imagining I hear train whistles in the distance. And when I think about all the hurtful things that he and my other "friends" have said to me, sometimes I get so mad that I start to shake. To actually, physically shake! That's how mad it makes me! And once or twice, when that's happened, I've caught myself wondering if it really was me shaking and not the floorboards underneath my feet -- did I just feel them, I don't know, vibrate a little? Which of course is crazy. But this is what stress does to a person. Like, just then. I was looking at the place setting on the table, and it seemed to me that maybe the fork was a little out of whack. Like not quite square, you know? And I find myself wondering, was I just in a hurry when I set the table, or did I set it like I always do and somehow it... shifted. A little. Almost imperceptibly.

  Anyway, I refuse to move now on principle. I come from a proud family. My father used to always say that our family crest should be a stick shift with no reverse because we don't back down. We're from frontier stock.

Still, sometimes I can't help but wonder --wait, did you hear that?

Posted by flamingbanjo at February 14, 2005 09:42 PM