Oilslick

Or, a world where the space is smaller between some things

I was on the curb looking both ways. It had just rained quick and heavy. A big truck barreled past. I stepped off the curb and right by the dividing line I saw an oil slick, shiny and smudgy like they always are. There was another car coming but I took a second to myself and jumped in it just for kicks. It was kind of a close call. I sat for a second when I got into my car. I wanted to call you, ask how you are, tell you how I’ve been doing, talk about anything. But I sat a while longer and thought better of it. I don’t know you so well anyhow. I looked again at the oil slick.

I pictured the word. It was compound in my mind, spelled like an Irish girl’s name. Aisling, Naimh, and Oislick walk into a bar. For some reason the word stayed there as I drove, bouncing around freely like the old DVD standby screen, breaking off in different ways each time it hit a wall. I imagined the “s” connecting the two words like an electron connects two atoms, attached to neither and both at the same time, if that’s the way that works. I should have put music on but I was enjoying the sound of rainy car tires and oilslick / oils lick / oil s lick, over and over. That might make me sound like a real nutcase but I know I’m not the only person to ever drive on autopilot and eavesdrop on my neurons having a cocktail party up there. I just found out when I sat at my computer, though, that it’s not a compound word at all. It wouldn’t surprise me if you said atoms also work in a much different way than I imagined them to. But I guess up until today when that urgent red dotted line appeared I had existed in a world where oilslick was one word, where the space between those syllables, at least on the page, was a touch smaller. This really should make no difference and be inconsequential to my life. But it feels strange to learn that I am in a new world where oil slick is two words, because that means more space exists between some things than I had imagined. It has me wondering: what other things are farther apart in this world than I had imagined? I sat down to write this story, and now I realize it must exist halfway between my imaginary world and this “real” one.

But as I was saying. I was on the curb looking both ways. It had just rained quick and heavy. A big truck barreled past. I stepped off the curb and right by the dividing line I saw an oil slick, shiny and smudgy like they always are. Like a portal to another universe. A sedan was coming down fast, and my keys were already in my hand. But something came over me, and without thinking, I jumped. Both feet first. And suddenly I found myself inside the earth. My heart was caught in my throat. It had not been a mirage, or another kind of light trick. This was it, I realized, as the sky above zipped me up. The sounds of the street were becoming more and more distant, but still I could hear their echoes. The waxing roll of someone’s tires on wet tarmac, the waning drone of the semi, the gentle click unlocking my own car doors, the flickering tree leaves in the wind after the rain. But soon I could not hear anything over the rushing of blood or wind in my eardrums, and before long there was no sign of North Kedzie, and still I kept on falling, down inside this long humid mystery. This gave me time to wonder, where was I falling to? What was my fate there? But by then it was all dark, and still I kept on falling.

Suddenly I remembered something that had happened at the doctor’s office the other day. The nurse taking my vitals asked about any vices I had, and I stretched the truth as you gotta do, but then she asked, Have you been feeling down? Depressed? And I was happy to report, No, honestly, I’m doing just fine. She raised her eyebrows and smiled and seemed pleased to click, “NO.” I hoped she was well, and got to click that box for many other people. And I kept on falling, which gave me time to remember other things in my life, which would now be going on without me.

My life, without me. On Tuesday my beloved car would be parked on the wrong side of the street for cleaning and would be booted then towed then gather dust ad infinitum in Auto Lot #6 off of Sacramento and Grand, and on Wednesday they’d be playing jazz, and they wouldn’t miss me, of course not, but I would miss them, wherever I was by then, and on Thursday my coworkers would haw and hem that I didn’t show to my shift at 6pm but someone else would come in and be secretly happy to make an extra hundred bucks or two if it was busy, but on Friday I had a flight I would miss, and my mom would think I slept in, at least until I wasn’t answering her phone calls or returning her messages, and then that would be when they’d start looking. Meanwhile, my laundry would remain in the dryer until it was someone else’s problem, and my automatic payments would keep on adding up until my credit card maxed out, and the lights in my apartment would turn off but that would be fine since there’d be no one there to read by them, and eventually, after I was nowhere to be found, maybe some people would start to mourn, but hopefully I would be able to give them signs that I was still alive, somewhere else in space and time, somewhere in another part of the universe, in the past and the future inside memories and dreams, in shapes in the clouds that look like things that remind them of me, and they would be okay and their world would keep on turning. So it goes.

It was shocking to think about my life in this way. I had never thought I loved the earthly things I obviously seemed to love. The laundry, the parking tickets, my coworkers, my neighbors, strangers who play music just because they need to, and you, who I suddenly realized I wanted to be there falling, too.

Before I knew it, the darkness unzipped and I landed, both feet first, not in another universe but on the other side of the street, on an earth which looked just like the one that had swallowed me up moments before. The sedan was still coming down, and this time I made it to the other side alright. I got in my car and thought about what had just happened. And then I called you, and you picked up, and we talked about nothing and everything, and I knew in my bones there was less space between us than I had imagined there to be.