An elegant allegory, The Land of Magical Thinking asks the question, "What would America be like if the Great Depression never ended? "

The Land of Magical Thinking

A FableBy Gregory Blecha

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Gregory Blecha
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-6623-0

Contents

Dedication............................................................viiPreface...............................................................xiAcknowledgments.......................................................xiiiChapter 1—Monster or Prince.....................................1Chapter 2—Paradise..............................................5Chapter 3—The Soup District.....................................40Chapter 4—The Hierarchy of Assoles..............................67Chapter 5—Be Happy with Those Who Are Happy.....................90Chapter 6—The Road..............................................118Chapter 7—Jubilamentations......................................134Chapter 8—`Mazin' Grace.........................................155Chapter 9—The Slough of Despond.................................193Chapter 10—Dullard..............................................204Chapter 11—Loony Tunes..........................................212Chapter 12—Blessing and a Curse.................................240Chapter 13—The Grand Egress.....................................256About This Type.......................................................268

Chapter One

Monster or Prince

Each amber strand of hair on her arm reflects the sun. I close my eyes, and still I can trace the path of each hair—its arc, its hue, its airy weight. When I feel the gentle stir of ocean breeze, I know how each strand will shimmer, where it will lie, as if the breeze were as methodic as a woman making a bed. My love, I archive you with my eyes, that I may ... that I may ... that I may cherish each brushstroke in the moments that I must suffer your absence ...

"Honey, what are you thinking?"

The question, like a magnifying glass held up to a unicorn, scatters my reflections. "Ya—your hair," I stammer, a lovesick man's bedtime story.

She opens her eyes and studies me over the rims of her sunglasses. What will her eyes see in mine? Will she see my impurities and imperfections? My sins and felonies? Will she see the depth and intensity of my craving for her? 'Gainst her eyes (what a handy Elizabethan term, like "'gainst death and all-oblivious enmity."), 'gainst her unblinking purity, I feel vile and loathsome, like the contorted incubus riding astride the ravaged maiden in that painting from art history class. I must not hide from her gaze; she must know me, monster or prince, and love what her eyes discover.

She: What about my hair?

"This is a trap. You're not thinking only of my hair," she is averring. "Surely there must be something weightier on your mind." But I am, and there isn't ... I am a slave to primitive stimuli when I am near her. I respond to her instinctually, like a bee in a hive.

I: How your hair glistens in the sun ...

"Hmmm ..." she placidly hums, a cappella. She does not challenge my vacuous confession.

We are both languid beneath the sun; a conversation of a dozen words can last minutes.

She sweeps her hand in a slow arc, like the second hand of a clock, until the tip of her finger rests on my lower lip. With the tip of her finger she gently draws the shape of my mouth, and I tentatively moisten the whorls of her finger with my tongue. Was this too intimate an act for public consumption? It doesn't matter—she has seen me cry, has heard me cry out, and has seen me gnaw the bony hinges of my knuckles in a surfeit of passion.

Is it madness to know the placement of each lash that feathers her eyes, to know where her foot will fall with each step she takes, to know the cadence of her breath? It is madness, but in my defense I do not see her with my five senses. I am extrasensory; my organs are a coral reef with a million electric endpoints.

I was a child and she was a child in that kingdom by the sea ...

Her hand falls from my lips and settles, with less downward motion than a leaf parting a branch, to the sand, where it sways metronomically. The tip of her finger, moist from my mouth, attracts tiny particles of sand. Slowly the lids of her eyes descend, and her chest rises with the ingress of air. She basks, but I cannot rest. I am overcharged; I feel currents surging through my body, and sparks emanate from my fingers. We have spent so many hours in conversation that I end up repeating the same sentences she uttered an hour earlier, until my words are hers, uttered simultaneously in mixed breath. We have spent so many hours holding our fingers close, like a pair of starfish, as the tips touch tremulously, with the tiny vibrations a butterfly makes tiptoeing across a leaf. I am no transistor, with on-off switches; I cannot deaden myself. I still can feel the touch of her finger on my lips. Her touch, her scent, lingers on me like an image on a photographic plate.

Yes, it's madness; I answer my own question. It is madness to watch her lift her hand to her face to brush away a strand of hair. With each instant the hand rises more slowly, yet I envision it in greater detail. Its progress becomes infinitesimal, yet the contours of her hand, the buttery glow of her hair, the weave of each strand, become infinite in detail. Her hand never reaches her hair; an asymptote, like Zeno's paradox.

This is more than I can absorb.

She: What's the matter, honey?

I: Nothing.

She: You seem restless ...

Of course I am restless. I am likeTesla, a placid figure surrounded by countless striations of electricity.

I: I think I'll go for a swim.

She: Good idea!

She settles, satisfied, into her chair.

Yes, hie me to the ocean; I can discharge my restive energies the way a thunderstorm disgorges its bolts at radio towers and church steeples. I walk along the saline shore until my foot enters the Atlantic. The water is as warm as my own blood. As I slowly immerse myself, I can feel the liquids inside my body reach equilibrium with the gelatinous sea.

I need to snap myself out of this torpor. When you're overcome with bliss, I think, you attract catastrophe. You attract death, and all-oblivious enmity.

I am so inattentive that I can't even swim. Concentrate on your stroke. Concentrate on the spices that waft from her skin as she lies in my arms at sunrise; concentrate on the words she whispers in my ear, the sound of her sigh, her nimbus of breath.

What happens to people when they swim so far to the horizon that their limbs cannot return them? You always have to budget for twice the distance when you swim in the ocean—once for the departure and once again for the return. But what if you swim past your half-way point, until there is no more energy in your shoulders to lift your arms, and no more energy in your legs to kick your feet? I envision, in my final stroke, that my arms become flippers and my legs become flukes, and in the center of my spine a dorsal fin protrudes, and I metamorphose into a dolphin.

I have paddled my budgeted distance, and so I turn around and return to shore, for I have much to return to.

We loved with a love that was more than love; I and my Annabel Lee ...

She: Did you have a nice swim?

I: It was fantastic. I feel great.

She: You always feel great after a swim.

As I steer myself to my chair, she takes my arm and redirects me, dripping...