Big Dump

The Beginning

The hardest thing to find – is the correct beginning – there are dozens of good and bad ones, and it might seem that they do not matter in the overall picture, circular as it is, however a suitable one always stands out. The beginning is Thom deciding to visit the beach during the winter and jumping from one black stone to another in the face of the sea spreading before him as a great eternal giant – me watching him, and thinking about the conversation we’d had on a train six or so years prior, realizing that it was more serious than playful and, perhaps, understanding his words for the first time. But it is a bad beginning, for it is not synchronized with his, and so I live through it alone for a long moment.

I catch Thom watching my hands, concealed under the table – the way I twist my fingers and rub my palms over my knees, in the only display of my emotion. I do not freeze but look into his face, and he cranes his head a little to one side in acknowledgement, without meeting my eyes or stopping talking, slowly, and I exhale quietly.

The beginning is – remembering the first day we met, when nothing could have been predicted, but filing every action and word away for a future review. The details coming back in a rush in the middle of the night ten years later, surfacing from a deep dream with lightning speed, neck bending and mouth opening as if gulping for air.

I do not quite listen to Colin at one time, following his words idly, but slowly living through a conversation with Thom, or reconstructing the room we were in – the naked walls and papers on the floor, and light coming in from the window – or were the blinds shut? The beginning is – the Thom in my head peeling off the one in my memory and looking inquiringly at me, stopping in the middle of the sentence.

I travel between the things that remind of him, like Thom jumps from a stone to a stone, and slowly reconstruct our past. The beginning is – Thom waving at me at the winter shore, and taking my hand on the train, and meeting my eyes when I look at him; the beginning is – the light on his face in the empty room, and perhaps the rustle of the papers from an open window.

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This one was influenced by Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried."