"Relief will come in a month or so.
Then we'll finally be apart."
Borsct Annemecka Hamm thumbed the coasters on the bar and very slowly sipped the mug of beer she never asked for. Everyone seemed to be looking at her, reading her anger, and failing to look away long enough to allow her to cry. She wasn't hungry. She didn't even know how to think of food as anything other than an obscure concept.
"We're going to be separating in about a month or so.
Then maybe I'll be able to sleep.
Its been a bloody hell since we decided.
Men love to make you miserable.
I think its some kind of rite of passage for them."
Borsct Annemecka Hamm was the kind of woman who could light up a Christmas tree just by turning the switch into the "on" position. Three different men had asked her to the prom, so many years ago, and only one had been serious. He had been the one she turned down. As a result she had a miserable time. She was trying to impress someone, and the only way she could think of to impress people was to appear at the prom with someone other girls wanted to be with. He barely spoke to her all night. All he wanted was to make his ex-girlfriend jealous by appearing at the prom with Borsct Annemecka Hamm on his arm. Thus began a spiral of disappointment that followed Borsct Annemecka Hamm throughout her life.
"He pushes me.
Then he pushes me again.
Then I break and react the wrong way.
He tells me to grow up and I feel like a soggy terrycloth rag."
Borsct Annemecka Hamm had three pieces of paper in her pocket. One had a telephone number on it. The second was her grocery shopping list. The third was a crudely drawn picture of a cat being tortured with electrical shocks from a live 220 volt cable. Someone at the mall had handed her the picture and told her to "please watch out for your kitty." Borsct Annemecka Hamm had crumpled it up and put it in her pocket, never even looking at it until this moment.
"Nowhere to go.
Nowhere to hide.
I read a book quietly and he appears.
I play checkers with the old man in the park and he shows up."
Borsct Annemecka Hamm's companion wondered aloud why Borsct Annemecka Hamm kept putting herself through this. There weren't any children that the couple had together and no family concerns kept them under the same roof. For months, even years, their relationship had been disintegrating. Anna had indicated in the past she didn't think anyone better would ever come along, and even if they did, why not just wait until then before dumping Mister Hamm? The excuses were the fuel of the continued collapse. Borsct Annemecka Hamm had allowed it to go this far. Self-condemnation and the inability to trust her dreams caused evaporation of the pool of life. There wasn't enough swiss cheese on the planet to make Mister Hamm palatable to Borsct Annemecka Hamm ever again. Still, it was like a slow death instead of a quick release of the anchor.
"I'm chillin' in the lounge area over at Arby's the other day.
He walks in with her on his arm,
the woman he says he would rather be with,
even though he says they aren't sleeping together.
They're out all night half the time and he doesn't even try to explain any more."
Borsct Annemecka Hamm continued to tell her companion that she shared in the blame for the desolate plain upon which her marriage had drifted. She had maintained the status quo. She had hurt him with indifference. She failed to walk away soon enough. Now there were bandages to be handed out and ice cream that would never taste as swell. There was a diversion, but Borsct Annemecka Hamm had never been able to escape the tunnel vision of doom long enough to see the diversion. There was something else there. Only by finally letting go could she find the next path in life, the one that might take her through the rose garden of her dreams, at least for a short period of time. Unfortunately, her companion was a sixty-eight year old deaf man without any shoes. She would have to discover these things on her own.