Apophatica

Here is a tiny excerpt from a memoir I am working on.  It’s unedited and raw, but you get the drift.  Enjoy.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

My nose still burned as I sat on the counter trying to blow out as much of the powder as I could.  No, I wasn’t a four year-old coke addict, but apparently I had a cinnamon problem. 

Our neighbor, Joe, had brought over a small plastic margarine container full of cinnamon and sugar that he had mixed up.  This was a fairly common occurrence and I don’t recall if it was specifically for me this time, but I loved the taste of cinnamon and sugar on warm butter spread over toast.  The smell was almost as good as the taste.

I took the plastic tub down from the counter where my mom had left it and pried open the lid while she and Joe talked in the kitchen doorway that led outside our Irene Avenue apartment in Rochelle, IL.  The lid came off with a jerk and a little of the light brown mixture landed on the floor.  I looked up and made sure that nobody had noticed.  Mom and Joe were still deep in conversation.  I was safe to clean it up after I completed what I had set out to do.  I held the tub of delicious crystals up to my nose and took a deep whiff.

This time, not getting caught wasn’t an option.  The whole tub hit the floor sending its precious contents all over like a desert storm.  Brown and white granules mixed with the grey and gold flecks in the old faded linoleum.  I coughed and gagged and snorted and screamed as the cinnamon and sugar mixed with snot and got caked to the walls of my nasal passage.

My mom whipped around and took in the scene before her.  Joe ran from his spot in the doorway and picked me up setting me down on the counter.  He grabbed a tissue and my mom poured a glass of water while I tried to blow out the cinnamon-flavored snot balls.

After drinking some water and blowing out all that I could, I sat there on that countertop and cried.  My mom and Joe laughed at the cute little dummy who had snorted cinnamon.  I cried because my nose burned and so did something in my gut.  I cried because I remembered that the last time I had been on that countertop was when my dad set me there months before to look me in the eye and tell me that he was moving out.  Countertops were apparently where all the shit happened and I wanted to avoid them at all costs from there on out.

This entry was posted on December 28, 2015 at 3:04 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.