incendiarystory (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} incendiarystory) wrote,@ 2004-12-09 01:35:00 |
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Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream - CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Riding Above The City And Below The Sky
The train rumbled above the ground. Emily's head had come to rest on his shoulder in a silent show of pacifism sometime just after the S9 had cleared them of Zoo Station as they passed over the large green space on Berlin's elevated train. "It's just like the El at home," Scott had said, "you can really see the city. Look down at Tiergarten Park."
Emily had stared out the window for a few seconds and then had put her head on his shoulder, in her hands she held that Play-Doh that they had just bought in Zoo Station, there was no modeling clay to be found.
"I mean, Emily, it's huge. Did you know that it stretches all the way past the Brandenburg Gate?" he said trying to break the silence.
She hadn't said a word since they had left the Zoo. The transaction inside the station had consisted of a lot of head nods, head shakes, and pointing. It was as if he no longer speak her language, but he was trying to make a breakthrough in the translation.
Emily wiped her eyes on his shirt. He took her silence as a positive at first but eventually he started to worry. "Are you alright?"
"Scott," Emily asked as he looked down at her head resting on his shoulder, "why do you put up with me?"
"What do you mean put up with you, Emily?"
"I mean, don't you ever think that you'd be better off without me? All I do is weigh you down with my problems. You could have any girl you want, really. You know that right?"
"And you could have any boy you want, Emily. That's why I was so possessive and that's why I broke up with you in the first place. I don't put up with you at all. If anything, I wonder why you put up with me. I'm nothing more than a cynical bastard old before his time. Truth be told, you energize me, you make me feel young. I don't put up with you at all. I learn from you, I bask in your talent, I love your creativity, I definitely don't 'put up with you.'"
"Yeah, but you don't need me. You make it on your own. You're out there in the world with a job in advertising and what do I do? I'm just some underemployed perpetual college student. I'm 26 too you know and I still don't know what I want to do with my life."
"You're going to be something Emily. You're going to be someone. You're a really talented artist - and I'm not just saying that because I want free sculptures for my apartment for years to come. I'm saying that because I believe in you."
"You believe in me because I don't think you know me. Remember what I said about telling the truth? Well, I don't know if the person that you think you know is really me."
"What do you mean by that?" Scott asked.
"That picture you drew of The Little Insurgent," she said, "which by the way is amazing. I didn't even know you drew."
"I used to, back in high school, before I ever met you," he said.
"See, that's what I mean, I go away for a while and you're able to create something like that."
"Emily, it's just lines on a piece of paper."
"But they're your lines," Emily said, "they're lines you never created while I was around. And, that picture you drew, it doesn't really represent me, it doesn't represent my personality."
"Yes it does, Emily. When I saw that statue, you were all that I could think about. Do you knew what drew me to that statue in the first place?"
"What?" Emily asked, looking straight into his eyes with a glow.
"One of the first things that I thought of when I saw it was that anti-war protest we went to earlier this year. How you were my 'little insurgent' and how nothing could stop you from fighting for what you believed in. And there I was, doing nothing much more than being there to support you. I still don't understand half of what you hold so dear. And that's what really worries me still. That you're looking for someone who understands and shares every viewpoint you agree with and a so gung-ho about. I realized a lot of things in Poland and one was that politics do matter. And I felt so much closer to you at the moment I had that realization than I ever had before."
"That's what I mean too," Emily said, "you were able to discover yourself so much more when I wasn't around. Reading your e-mails from Warsaw, I saw that you were really experiencing life there. You'd never be able to do that with me around."
"I wasn't miserable by any means in Warsaw, that's true. Everywhere I went, though, all I could think about was how much it would be better to be there with you and to hear your views on whatever it was I was looking at. Warsaw would have been better with you there. It's like I was viewing it through your eyes and I enjoyed it more," Scott said.
"Scott, thank you for all the compliments, but I look at myself now and I would have held you back. You're idealizing me and I don't think I can live up to that."
"Emily, don't you understand? You already do live up to that. I've built this impression of you over a number of years. It just took being away from you and having everything remind me of you to make me congeal it into one distinct thought."
"But what if that Emily isn't around anymore?" Emily said breaking away from Scott's glance.
"What do you mean?"
"It's weird, you know," Emily said, "when I was in Paris, it felt like I was seeing it through your eyes. The cynicism and the toughness that you judge things with. And, I'm not saying that's bad, but I didn't enjoy it coming from myself."
"It doesn't have to Emily. I realize now that all of the cynicism I had was just a shell. It came from not being able to trust people, thinking that people were always going to stab me in the back. And that's what I think that's where you're coming from right now. And, I think I've said this a lot already, you have every right to feel that. You did get stabbed in the back by both a stranger and someone who you considered your friend."
Emily took her head off Scott's shoulders and looked down at the floor of the elevated train. Scott's eyes followed and he watched as she ran her left foot along the tiles. "Scott, it's not you," she said, "I'm just not enjoying life right now. You've been amazing."
"Are you going to break up with me?" Scott asked, his gaze joining hers down at floor level.
"No, that's not what I meant at all," Emily said, "I'm just worried that eventually you're going to realize that I'm not good enough for you. That I'm destructive, that I lie. Yeah, I lie a lot. Did you know that I buy Starbuck's every morning and pour it into a thermos to hide it? I bet you didn't until now. Aren't I a terrible person?"
"You're not terrible at all Emily," Scott said, "you set such a high standard for yourself that you can't always live up to it. But, you do live up to it. You exceed it every day, at least in my eyes."
"In your eyes, maybe," she said, "but not in my own. And not in the eyes of so many others. I saw how they look at me then, and I really see how they look at me now."
The train pulled into Friedrichstrasse Station and Emily and Scott climbed the stairs down to street level. Scott looked around at all the construction being down in the area and all the closed roads that it caused. He looked at Emily and said, "you're a lot like Berlin."
Now it seemed to be Emily's turn to give his metaphor a quizzical look.
"You're under construction right now. Before you had two sides, one hidden behind a wall. Now those sides are coming together and there are some struggles to come to grips with the new city."
Emily suddenly looked brighter. "I thought the same thing when I first came to Berlin. The first day that I was here, I visited the TV tower. I talked to this man and all he could say was how much he still hated the East Germans for having put up that tower. The East Germans don't even exist anymore and yet here he was not being able to reconcile two halfs of the same whole."
"Exactly," Scott said back excited to see a brief glimpse of the old Emily shining through finally, "see a lot of people think the former East Berlin was ugly but there's a beauty to it that West Berlin can't match in some ways for all its outer aesthetic pleasure."
Emily's face downturned again. "Scott," she said, "East Berlin is ugly. It's suddenly like you're able to find beauty in everything. From what I've heard, Warsaw is an absolutely horrible city. But, you enjoyed it so much. How am I supposed to take your opinion of me. I look at how the rest of the world looks at me, and they see the truth about East Berlin. You only see that it's now coming into its own again. But it's still a broken city. And I'm still a broken person."
Scott began to get angry at how much Emily was beating herself up. He couldn't even understand why she was doing it because he had never seen anybody give her anything less than an admiring look, sometimes much to his jealousy, in the entire time that he had known her, even now.
"What are you talking about, Emily? Everybody loves you. You walk into a room and people gravitate to you. You're like a beacon of light."
"But don't you see Scott, I feel like that light has gone out. Do you know what I did this morning? I went to confessional."
"You haven't been to church in years Emily."
"I know, and that's something that I need to remedy because it was the first time I've felt at peace in such a long time to be in that sanctuary. But, the priest who gave me confession, I could hear it in his voice. He worried about me, he worried I would do something drastic. And he told me, 'you need to let love back into your heart.' But I don't know Scott, I don't know if I can."
"Of course you can Emily, you're one of the most loving people I know. You just need to learn how to love yourself again."
Before he even realized what was happening, Emily had her arms wrapped around his west, rubbing her forehead on his chest. She looked up at him again and said, "I want to Scott, really I do, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to again. Will you accept me if I can't?"
"Of course, Emily," Scott said kissing the top of her forehead.
She broke away from him and started to walk down the street. Even from the distance they were at, Scott could see the street vendors. As the sun would peek from behind the clouds, its light would glint off the various buttons and pins that they were selling.
Emily turned around as Scott caught up. She lifted her arms up, holding the Play Doh in her left hand. She repeated her earlier claim, "Scott, I really think you're better off without me and for that matter so is Sandra. I mean, I went away and she found a great guy, a sex fiend, but so is she, so it's perfect. And, if I had been around that never would have happened. And my poor mother and all my friends. Their lives could be better too if they didn't have to worry about me. Maybe the world is just better off without Emily."
Now Scott understood what she had meant on the train and it scared him. Emily was in the midst of a depression like he had never seen in anybody before. He had never in his life hear anybody allude to suicide in more than a joking manner.
Something seemed ethereal about Emily's movements as he watched he hold her arms out and walk backwards. They seemed too fluid, too detached from her own brain. It was like Emily was already dead and yet the brain still functioned. But how could that be when she was still alive. Emily was still alive and he was going to make sure that she stayed that way.
He obviously hadn't convinced her that her life was worth living on the train but he would now make it his mission to convince her that life was worth living in general.
Chapter Word Count: 2161
Daily Word Count: 2161
Total Word Count: 83717
The train rumbled above the ground. Emily's head had come to rest on his shoulder in a silent show of pacifism sometime just after the S9 had cleared them of Zoo Station as they passed over the large green space on Berlin's elevated train. "It's just like the El at home," Scott had said, "you can really see the city. Look down at Tiergarten Park."
Emily had stared out the window for a few seconds and then had put her head on his shoulder, in her hands she held that Play-Doh that they had just bought in Zoo Station, there was no modeling clay to be found.
"I mean, Emily, it's huge. Did you know that it stretches all the way past the Brandenburg Gate?" he said trying to break the silence.
She hadn't said a word since they had left the Zoo. The transaction inside the station had consisted of a lot of head nods, head shakes, and pointing. It was as if he no longer speak her language, but he was trying to make a breakthrough in the translation.
Emily wiped her eyes on his shirt. He took her silence as a positive at first but eventually he started to worry. "Are you alright?"
"Scott," Emily asked as he looked down at her head resting on his shoulder, "why do you put up with me?"
"What do you mean put up with you, Emily?"
"I mean, don't you ever think that you'd be better off without me? All I do is weigh you down with my problems. You could have any girl you want, really. You know that right?"
"And you could have any boy you want, Emily. That's why I was so possessive and that's why I broke up with you in the first place. I don't put up with you at all. If anything, I wonder why you put up with me. I'm nothing more than a cynical bastard old before his time. Truth be told, you energize me, you make me feel young. I don't put up with you at all. I learn from you, I bask in your talent, I love your creativity, I definitely don't 'put up with you.'"
"Yeah, but you don't need me. You make it on your own. You're out there in the world with a job in advertising and what do I do? I'm just some underemployed perpetual college student. I'm 26 too you know and I still don't know what I want to do with my life."
"You're going to be something Emily. You're going to be someone. You're a really talented artist - and I'm not just saying that because I want free sculptures for my apartment for years to come. I'm saying that because I believe in you."
"You believe in me because I don't think you know me. Remember what I said about telling the truth? Well, I don't know if the person that you think you know is really me."
"What do you mean by that?" Scott asked.
"That picture you drew of The Little Insurgent," she said, "which by the way is amazing. I didn't even know you drew."
"I used to, back in high school, before I ever met you," he said.
"See, that's what I mean, I go away for a while and you're able to create something like that."
"Emily, it's just lines on a piece of paper."
"But they're your lines," Emily said, "they're lines you never created while I was around. And, that picture you drew, it doesn't really represent me, it doesn't represent my personality."
"Yes it does, Emily. When I saw that statue, you were all that I could think about. Do you knew what drew me to that statue in the first place?"
"What?" Emily asked, looking straight into his eyes with a glow.
"One of the first things that I thought of when I saw it was that anti-war protest we went to earlier this year. How you were my 'little insurgent' and how nothing could stop you from fighting for what you believed in. And there I was, doing nothing much more than being there to support you. I still don't understand half of what you hold so dear. And that's what really worries me still. That you're looking for someone who understands and shares every viewpoint you agree with and a so gung-ho about. I realized a lot of things in Poland and one was that politics do matter. And I felt so much closer to you at the moment I had that realization than I ever had before."
"That's what I mean too," Emily said, "you were able to discover yourself so much more when I wasn't around. Reading your e-mails from Warsaw, I saw that you were really experiencing life there. You'd never be able to do that with me around."
"I wasn't miserable by any means in Warsaw, that's true. Everywhere I went, though, all I could think about was how much it would be better to be there with you and to hear your views on whatever it was I was looking at. Warsaw would have been better with you there. It's like I was viewing it through your eyes and I enjoyed it more," Scott said.
"Scott, thank you for all the compliments, but I look at myself now and I would have held you back. You're idealizing me and I don't think I can live up to that."
"Emily, don't you understand? You already do live up to that. I've built this impression of you over a number of years. It just took being away from you and having everything remind me of you to make me congeal it into one distinct thought."
"But what if that Emily isn't around anymore?" Emily said breaking away from Scott's glance.
"What do you mean?"
"It's weird, you know," Emily said, "when I was in Paris, it felt like I was seeing it through your eyes. The cynicism and the toughness that you judge things with. And, I'm not saying that's bad, but I didn't enjoy it coming from myself."
"It doesn't have to Emily. I realize now that all of the cynicism I had was just a shell. It came from not being able to trust people, thinking that people were always going to stab me in the back. And that's what I think that's where you're coming from right now. And, I think I've said this a lot already, you have every right to feel that. You did get stabbed in the back by both a stranger and someone who you considered your friend."
Emily took her head off Scott's shoulders and looked down at the floor of the elevated train. Scott's eyes followed and he watched as she ran her left foot along the tiles. "Scott, it's not you," she said, "I'm just not enjoying life right now. You've been amazing."
"Are you going to break up with me?" Scott asked, his gaze joining hers down at floor level.
"No, that's not what I meant at all," Emily said, "I'm just worried that eventually you're going to realize that I'm not good enough for you. That I'm destructive, that I lie. Yeah, I lie a lot. Did you know that I buy Starbuck's every morning and pour it into a thermos to hide it? I bet you didn't until now. Aren't I a terrible person?"
"You're not terrible at all Emily," Scott said, "you set such a high standard for yourself that you can't always live up to it. But, you do live up to it. You exceed it every day, at least in my eyes."
"In your eyes, maybe," she said, "but not in my own. And not in the eyes of so many others. I saw how they look at me then, and I really see how they look at me now."
The train pulled into Friedrichstrasse Station and Emily and Scott climbed the stairs down to street level. Scott looked around at all the construction being down in the area and all the closed roads that it caused. He looked at Emily and said, "you're a lot like Berlin."
Now it seemed to be Emily's turn to give his metaphor a quizzical look.
"You're under construction right now. Before you had two sides, one hidden behind a wall. Now those sides are coming together and there are some struggles to come to grips with the new city."
Emily suddenly looked brighter. "I thought the same thing when I first came to Berlin. The first day that I was here, I visited the TV tower. I talked to this man and all he could say was how much he still hated the East Germans for having put up that tower. The East Germans don't even exist anymore and yet here he was not being able to reconcile two halfs of the same whole."
"Exactly," Scott said back excited to see a brief glimpse of the old Emily shining through finally, "see a lot of people think the former East Berlin was ugly but there's a beauty to it that West Berlin can't match in some ways for all its outer aesthetic pleasure."
Emily's face downturned again. "Scott," she said, "East Berlin is ugly. It's suddenly like you're able to find beauty in everything. From what I've heard, Warsaw is an absolutely horrible city. But, you enjoyed it so much. How am I supposed to take your opinion of me. I look at how the rest of the world looks at me, and they see the truth about East Berlin. You only see that it's now coming into its own again. But it's still a broken city. And I'm still a broken person."
Scott began to get angry at how much Emily was beating herself up. He couldn't even understand why she was doing it because he had never seen anybody give her anything less than an admiring look, sometimes much to his jealousy, in the entire time that he had known her, even now.
"What are you talking about, Emily? Everybody loves you. You walk into a room and people gravitate to you. You're like a beacon of light."
"But don't you see Scott, I feel like that light has gone out. Do you know what I did this morning? I went to confessional."
"You haven't been to church in years Emily."
"I know, and that's something that I need to remedy because it was the first time I've felt at peace in such a long time to be in that sanctuary. But, the priest who gave me confession, I could hear it in his voice. He worried about me, he worried I would do something drastic. And he told me, 'you need to let love back into your heart.' But I don't know Scott, I don't know if I can."
"Of course you can Emily, you're one of the most loving people I know. You just need to learn how to love yourself again."
Before he even realized what was happening, Emily had her arms wrapped around his west, rubbing her forehead on his chest. She looked up at him again and said, "I want to Scott, really I do, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to again. Will you accept me if I can't?"
"Of course, Emily," Scott said kissing the top of her forehead.
She broke away from him and started to walk down the street. Even from the distance they were at, Scott could see the street vendors. As the sun would peek from behind the clouds, its light would glint off the various buttons and pins that they were selling.
Emily turned around as Scott caught up. She lifted her arms up, holding the Play Doh in her left hand. She repeated her earlier claim, "Scott, I really think you're better off without me and for that matter so is Sandra. I mean, I went away and she found a great guy, a sex fiend, but so is she, so it's perfect. And, if I had been around that never would have happened. And my poor mother and all my friends. Their lives could be better too if they didn't have to worry about me. Maybe the world is just better off without Emily."
Now Scott understood what she had meant on the train and it scared him. Emily was in the midst of a depression like he had never seen in anybody before. He had never in his life hear anybody allude to suicide in more than a joking manner.
Something seemed ethereal about Emily's movements as he watched he hold her arms out and walk backwards. They seemed too fluid, too detached from her own brain. It was like Emily was already dead and yet the brain still functioned. But how could that be when she was still alive. Emily was still alive and he was going to make sure that she stayed that way.
He obviously hadn't convinced her that her life was worth living on the train but he would now make it his mission to convince her that life was worth living in general.
Chapter Word Count: 2161
Daily Word Count: 2161
Total Word Count: 83717
