Tenacious Concentration and Total Control
By Clay Allen

There’s no great insight in saying the Midwestern winter is a long and difficult stretch of time. It’s a soul wrenching process, vicious gauntlet for the thin and pale. As a protective measure, I lock my positive life-forces deep inside myself; I fear if I didn’t, they’d be devoured by the cold and gray. It’s a goofy thing, I suppose, New Age-y and "spiritual." In November, though, it smacks only of good planning.

The recovery of these forces is tricky. It takes a tenacious concentration. Meditation won’t do it and neither will yoga. It’s a raw and clumsy affair, the kind that requires physical pain. That’s why I drank myself stupid last Sunday night. Nine beers and six rum and cokes. Offah. Astronomically speaking, spring was still a week off, but I heard the temps might hit 50 and a good shaking out is just what I needed. And so I became extremely drunk on sugary beer and syrupy booze. When I lay down to sleep, I tried not to think of the fiery horror that would await me in the next 12 hours. I tried instead to remain positive and smile for that soon I would be reunited with very good things.

A white, new morning made it’s way through my windows. My body shook with the pain of the hangover. Every muscle squeezed furiously within my body, expelling poisons left over from the old days to my already thin blood. The situation was perfect. I lay in bed next to an unwelcome spot of sun, groping my way through deep, murky bile. My brightness wasn’t where I thought I had left it.

The space behind the memory of grinding a molar to dust after a bad, high school break-up has come to be the safest spot in my being. It’s both embarrassing and vile to me, but bonky and insignificant to an outsider (whoever that might be). I trust it like I trust my pin-numbers and bike locks. But my brightness wasn’t there. There was only emptiness and the sharp ache I felt when the decayed tooth crumbled in my mouth. The rage and panic would have been more gripping were it not for relentless pounding of booze withdrawal. A cat meowed from the other side of the bedroom door and I threw my glasses at it. That was stupid. I rolled over again and looked out the window. The blue sky from before was replaced with patches of gray and wind was kicking up. Great. The temperature, now at 39 degrees, dropped to an even 30 by noon. Maybe it was for the better my brightness remain hidden. It couldn’t handle this kind of shit. I called work and told them I’d be in at 2.

That night, I had a great sleep. The hangover had left me about noon with a note on the door that said, "Try it again, cocksucker" in comically bad handwriting. Two cheeseburgers later and I was dead asleep on the kitchen floor, curled in front of the gas heater. Were I to know that these would be my last peaceful feelings, I might have made a point to enjoy them more. Instead, I told the cat I’d sell his stinking carcass to Mr. Wong if he didn’t stop biting my toes.

A week went by. A week of cold, pissing rains, whipping winds and low, grim skies. The worst part was the weather forecasts were always the same. "Today’s the day it’s gonna break," they’d say. "55 degrees and sunny." The weather remained below forty degrees and shitty. It’s times like these when you’re extra glad the misery can’t get to the brightness. This is why we hide it away, and being lost, at least mine was still safe. But I wasn’t sleeping, and the worry wore like wet wool on my face. My nightly searches were ineffective. My brightness was somewhere where I didn’t know where it was. And I didn’t like it.

After six consecutive days of feeling terrible in terrible weather, I had to take action. I took the day off work and attended four different yoga classes and sat in a Russian hot room for nearly two hours. I must be prepared.

That night, I ran a deep, hot bath. I lowered myself into it and closed my eyes. I felt very even and incredibly relaxed. I desperately wanted to sleep. I drew my hand from the water and held it over the candle on the edge of the tub until I heard the skin crackle. I dunked it in the hot bath water, a source of little relief. I repeated this process again and again as I sifted through terrible memories for hours.

When I uncovered my brightness tucked under a mental list titled "Girls I Went Down On Whom Never Came," I felt little more than wary relief. I blew out the candle and pressed my brightness hard against my breastbone. Soon, I thought. Soon it’ll be you and me against the world.

I woke up freezing cold and horrifically pruned. It was almost four a.m. After a hot shower, I put the kettle on and slipped into house clothes. There was a faint tapping on the roof, barely there, like hundreds of raisons dropped from a high balcony to a marble floor. I looked and saw drops of rains streaking down the window. I cracked it open and to my surprise the air that shot through was warm and heavy. It must have been fifteen degrees warmer than it was that day. I turned off the kettle and crept into bed.

What had just happened was not a coincidence. The weight and gravity created by the tugging of my soul has effected the weather. There’s no doubt about it. I know that my connection to the universe is no stronger than anyone else’s, but is it impossible that through these strange the attachment has become physical? It’s not only possible, it’s certain.

I should be sleeping. The four hours I clocked in the bathtub is the most consistent sleep I’ve had in the past nine days. I’m confused and scared. And even now, as I sit at the computer feeling confused and scared, the weather is responding accordingly. A cold draft is slipping through the crack in the window. I must have brought it down from Canada. I wish I could laugh, I wish this all seemed funny. Maybe we’d see an early summer. But in this huge understanding and arrangement of my soul, I’ve lost all control of it. My brightness is at my eyes, now, and I’m sad. Soon it will be gone.