Book Excerpt

Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries - Chapter Fourteen

The green digits on the alarm clock flashed: 5:30 am. Awake again! Brad kicked the covers off and wiggled his legs from side to side bumping into the wall.  A scab on his knee opened up blood dripped down his leg, marking the wall.

          His side tingled.

          Staring at the red dot on the wall, awareness came. The red hearts of valentines and of bleeding souls awake! They're both awake. One dead, one living, it was all the same, two souls bound together.

          More awareness came.

          The red dot one the wall delivered another time when insomnia and love fought for space showing the signs of a relationship. Yes, they had one!

          He recalled a conversation with Jen-Zen when he couldn't sleep. Instead of comforting words, as he paced the bedroom floor, Jen-Zen had said, "The subconscious mind knows what the conscious runs away from."

          In response, he screamed, "So, I know what I'm worrying about big deal. It's that stupid photo shoot tomorrow, it's all wrong. The client wants dogs walking on logs to show that a doggie vitamin will make a smart dog. Hello, whatever happened to roll over and fetch? Since when are dog's balancing wonders? It'd be so much better to make the dog do tricks; tricks within the normal round of a dog's capabilities like a dog jumping up to catch a Frisbee."

          Jen-Zen rubbed his shoulders, "Do you like the client?"

          He screamed, "It's not a personality contest. It doesn't matter if I like them or not. It's business."

          "They pissed you off didn't they?"

          "Yeah, and then some. I tried to make some suggestions. The client didn't want my input and told me I was a photographer, not the creative director, to know my place. The nerve of them! They wanted a photo jockey, "Do as I say."

          It's why sometimes I just hate working the corporate jobs, the callousness, the ordering me around, the cut throat business crap. Can't I just photograph what I want and get paid for it? Unfortunately, in the real freaking world I can't. The stupid bills need to get paid, so I wind up taking assignments like these."

          In response Jen-Zen said, "Let's watch the sky?"

          "Like that's going to solve anything."

          "Oh, Brad. Inspiration caresses the soul, you'll see."

She tugged at the pale mint colored sheet, pulling it off the bed, draping it over her chest and torso; looking a woman of mystery of exotic lore. Then she opened the sliding glass door with her fingers hidden in the folds of the sheet and walked outside to the koi pond. Grabbing the bedspread he joined her, closing the door behind him.

          Stretching out on the blankets in the backyard, his head bobbed up and down, fighting sleep as the pale blue dawn gave way to a whitish-gray sky.  Then the sun rose. Fiery red and blue ribbons stretched across the sky.  With the morning sky reflecting in her eyes Jen-Zen kissed his lips. Then he fell asleep.

          Hours later he woke up and found grass blades between his toes. Beside the koi pond she left a note under a round slate colored pebble.

          Jen-Zen had written, "He knows, he knows me not, he knows". Her least original work, done on purpose, mimicking the classic poem, he loves me not; he loves me. And he saw right through it; the shear arrogance, the escape. He'd paced back and forth in the grass wondering why she'd left him, and dared to imply his feelings of love, without stating her own.

          But he was so wrong.

          In the wooden fence he saw specks of white in the wood. Wadded up balls of paper stuck out from the slabs of wood; he tugged at the first one, then the second, and looked around half way expecting to see Jen-Zen watching him, crouched behind a eucalyptus tree.

          Pulling out the remaining pieces of paper, he placed them under a rock and picked a white rose and a yellow daisy and separated the petals. Then he spread the strips of paper around the edges of the koi pond, and placed a pebble and flower petal next to each sheet of paper and photographed her words, "Shared hearts know unspoken words."

          She answered him.

          Brad jumped out of bed, fumbled through desk drawers in the study looking for the photograph of Jen-Zen's words, which he'd placed in silver tinted plastic. It was missing, which was odd. It always remained in the right hand drawer. He dumped the contents of the drawer onto the floor. Jen-Zen's chapbook, which he'd rolled into a cylinder, curled towards him.

          He said out loud, "Things don't move by themselves, what are you, a ghost?"

          Uncurling the chapbook, he smelled a trace of lavender as he turned to the center page.

Words give me breath.

And if I don't wake up tomorrow

The words shall be free.

Chills ran down his spine.  He flipped the page.

The secrets lovers keep.

Some words can't be spoken.

He said out loud, "Why what was so bad, Jen-Zen?"

          The one time he dropped her off at home, Jen-Zen wore a flowing white dress. While she dabbed a wet napkin on her dress, at spots he couldn't see, she talked about the trees on her neighbors' yards, how the giant pine trees and oaks she'd longed to climb. He asked how long she lived there. She answered all her life. He couldn't believe she'd never climbed the neighbor's trees as a kid.

          She pointed at her Mother's yard. A dozen truncated pine trees adorned the lawn; bonsai style. Left to their own volition they could have soared to thirty feet or more with tall sheltering limbs, but not a one of them made it past five feet.

          He took out his camera hoping to photograph the anomaly. But, Jen-Zen stopped him.  She said, "Arrested pines have no voice."

          "That's all the more reason to photograph them."

          "No, Brad. They're ashamed tomorrow's shrunk."

          He handed her pen and paper and said, "Will you write that down?"

          She said, "If you promise to plant one without trimming it."

          "We'll plant one together."

          The white drapes in the living room window of her Mother's house shook. Jen-Zen scribbled,

Arrested pines have no voice.

Ashamed tomorrow's shrunk.

Seeing hamlets were there are doves

Visions painting the terrain

She gave the trees eyes and dreams. He kissed her; touched to the soul by the words and told her so.

Jen-Zen opened the car door and said, "Brad, I thought I was the only one feeling the tree's pain."

The lights in her Mother's house flashed on and off.  As Jen-Zen walked from the carport to the door, she brushed her hair, smoothed her dress, then she placed her hand on the doorknob. The lights turned off. The living room blinds shook and Jen-Zen ran down the opposite side of the street. He drove after her, but she ducked down an alleyway.

          An hour later he found her wading in the man made lake near her house, running muddied water through her hair. Jen-Zen's blonde hair pointed skyward. The ethereal look fitted dreams, where walls melted, where sunrises became stars, where pictures became worlds he could enter, where still life paintings became alive moving around the room, and where stairs became flat as pancakes.

          Though the weeks and months passed, he still pictured her hair pointed straight up, while she sat down in the dirt and scooped up the mud, making little balls, which she squished with her fist, then reshaped again and again. 

          Noticing the way her shoulders and head hunched over he asked what was wrong. She answered without looking at him, "Making mud pies. I never could. I always had to be neat."

          He joined in and said, "You need crust."  He gathered up a pile of leaves, twigs, and flower petals, sat them down next to her and said, "You know when I was six my sister and I added flower petals too, making pretend strawberry pies."

          He started to say, "Here let me show you how", but held back; sensing she needed to make them herself.

          He'd believed at the time that was reason enough for a grown woman to soil a white dress. But, his dreams sensed the truth. So many times he awoke feeling helpless after seeing Jen-Zen drowning in a sea of mud. He'd see her hands flailing in the muddied water, while he tried to swim out towards her.