My night with the unanswered strangers.


Struggle. Strife. Love. Unanswered questions knock at the back door. Still and deep like shadows they wait as I turn on the porch light and ask them to come in. My unanswered questions and I sit up late, our heels propped on the scrubbed kitchen table. Our mouths quiet, sipping ginger tea. The steam fills the kitchen and plays on the glass. The night doesn't knock on the windows because it is already inside. It is inside all of us.
I turn to my silent companion on my left and he slowly lifts his gaze to me. He wears a soft corduroy cap and his eyes are brown and deep like pools of honey. His eyes tell me many things, but I know he is waiting for me to speak.
I don't know what to say. I turn my eyes back to the mirky reflection swimming in my tea. I bite my bottom lip. The clock ticks steadily on the wall.
I turn to the woman on my right, she is older, her eyes papery blue under graying hair, but her gaze could cut steel. She regards me quietly. I go back to my tea. The wind dances around outside the house.  I can hear it in the trees. Across the table from me is my third silent companion, she is watching me with eyes that are familiar in a face that is not. But unlike her silent troop, I feel the words I want to speak to her rising to the surface, to my lips, deep from a swiftly beating sea inside my heart.
I put my warm mug on the table, it makes a subtle click as the ceramic meets the scrubbed wood.
I close my eyes and suddenly the words envelope me, as if they are speaking me.

".. What do you guys want?" My voice sounds loud after so much quiet but I continue. "I sure as hell don't know. What are you doing here. What am I doing here? Why tonight? I mean, God, these days are so damn full of decisions and questions. Every morning I wake up and am greeted by you guys. Sitting on my bedside table as if you freakin belonged there; your in my coffee cup. Your in my mirrors. Your in my car. Your on my freakin facebook! And your eyes are all so infuriatingly insistent and I don't know what to say. What the hell do all of you want?!" My voice comes out raspy from the hours of silence. But for some reason I don't feel like my words are cutting the feeling of the room. I look up and see that the woman across the table is still watching me, but her eyes almost sparkle with encouragement rather than reproach at my lude cussing, at her and her companions. I start in again, the words taking me over once more.

"What in the hell do you want from me?! Answers?? Well I don't have them, if I do, I don't know them, and if I did, I would just tell you them so  you could leaI could have some peace. Just leave me alone! I just want some peace okay?! Fucking leave me alone! Everything in my life is one of you. A question. I go to sleep and my bed is full of you, arms and legs and elbows and the heavy breathing and the bad breath, you've left hair on my pillows and saliva on my sheets. And that's not even the dreams I escape into, because your there too. What do you want from me? This is not peace to me!" My voice is rising and it breaks, childlike, at the summit of my pitch. I realize I am standing. My chair scraping against my calves and the kitchen floor. I look around and see that all eyes are on me, even the eyes of the new dark one sitting in the corner on my counter top, his hair is dark and his coat is damp. It must be raining outside.
I feel myself coming back to the room, I feel the embarrassment of all those questioning, listening eyes on me, but somehow I am not stopped; I find I am actually more inclined to speak.
"Who are you?" I ask the man on my countertop. His brown leather shoes are damp on the soles. I can see where he stepped in a puddle with his left foot, the damp mark of splashes mottling the leather. I look at him directly in the eyes. They are both, piercing and soft, blue and gray.
"Who the fuck, are you?" I demand, the curse word tasted satisfying on my tongue, something to spit at him, but the look in his eyes looking back on my hot face, makes me blush. I feel childish.
I look down.
My toenails are painted red, but the've chipped.
I can feel my blood boiling. All these unanswered questions here, wanting to be answered. These bodies, these needs, all overtaking my space. It's not that their begging to be heard, shouting down each other, no, they want to hear me speak and that's what drives me crazy. This pull, this wanting of me, of my words, of my answers as if they will solve these ghost like peoples existence, it's crap. It's shit. I just want peace. Damn it! I move around my kitchen, as if I have something important to do. I don't. I pull the tea pot off the stove and ram it under the faucet, turning the brass handle for the water with more force than necessary. But it feels good. Something to take it out on. Once the water is full I slam the pot back on the stove and as I light the match and turn the knob, I take ultimate satisfaction from seeing the blue flame grow large before it gets small and is tamed. I can still feel all the eyes in the room on me. All that expectation. All the weight. I curse them silently underneath my breath as I turn away. Fuck them and their broken hearts too. But I know I don't mean that. And I can feel that the blood that boils just underneath my skin is cooling. I know I don't deserve to take all the peace, all the truth. I take a steadying breath. I am good at cooling that blood, good at not mouthing off and losing my red headed temper for the sake of my pride. I feel my anger flair up at that thought. Damn that fucking skill. But, I bite it back and instead take another deep, steadying breath.
My back is to them still, my eyes against the dark wash of window pane but my words find a home in the pregnant air.
"I understand you all want peace. That's what I want too. But it's driving me insane not knowing what to say to you all. I really feel like I am losing my mind. I mean you are unanswered questions, but your people. Your drinking my tea. I don't know what to say on so many levels." I turn around then, facing them. Somehow, their presence and their silence didn't feel so terrifying. They just seemed human. I could see it in each pair of eyes. I looked to the table to the woman who had sat across from me, and who I had felt so compelled to speak my words to. But her chair was empty. She had gone. I turned to see if the dark man on my counter was still there. He was. He watched me from under his curtain of dark curls.
I reached for the dish rag and wiped my hands.
"Lets all, just have peace, alright?" I said.

Just then I heard something scrape against my eastern wall, I turned to look and in the corner, where I usually keep my broom, stood the shabby figure of a new stranger. A man standing listlessly. He's dressed like a soldier, but in his best clothes, braid and buckle, but I can tell from the mud on his black shoes and the dust on his hands and in his hair that he's been running for a long time.
His eyes are clouded and I can tell they don't see any of us. He moves as if he's sleep walking and I would be scared, but somehow I know his danger is not for us. It is a much more acute and costly thing when your trapped inside yourself.
His voice is low and gravely, but it is filled with a lifetime of emotion.

"I just want to go run around in the rain, play with the dogs, fire up the grill, ride my four wheeler, walk around the woods, shoot things. Kick an ant mound, build something. I'm not afraid to work." His chin jutted out as he spoke this last word, but he kept on going, as if it didn't really matter.
"I wanna sleep under the stars, I wanna feel small." His eyes had drifted to the floor, but I could tell there would be more. 
"I just wanna get some land in Arkansas with some cows, horses, two dogs, and a garden for the wife. If I ever find her. Just open space to call our own. It could be 10 years, could be 20. But in all this shit, that's what I look forward to." He said the word 'shit' as if he was spitting bile. "We'd move around for 10-20 years... see the world, raise the kids, make memories, then I'll quit the army and just get a small regular job somewhere, enough to keep a little farm going. That's my dream, you know?" He spoke with the desires of a young man but the grizzle on his wrinkled war-torn face and his eyes told the story of a much older soldier keeping the last strings of hope alive for a life he had probably already lost. My heart went out to him and his quiet dream. I leaned back against the counter and closed my eyes. It felt late, or really early. No matter the capacity my kitchen had for holding the drifting, unanswered soul. The clock ticked steadily on the wall. I thought of my own dreams, behind my eyes lids. I thought of what it means to live a life shrouded in regret, constantly shrugging the weight of that coat from my shoulders, the way this solitary soldier hadn't done. I opened my eyes to look back at him, in his grizzled coat, and sad eyes, but he was gone. 

I don't know why I did it, but it felt important. I spoke aloud to the room, to the place where he was a few moments before. "That sounds like a good dream, Jerry." 
My voice echoed against the wall, but it was stronger somehow, giving my own conviction for this strange soldiers dream. I lent him my hope. Even if my voice was all I could give. I felt the air shift. I knew he was gone, for real. Maybe he would wake up in Arkansas, laying in the grass. 

The teapot is whistling at me, and I move to remove it from the burner. I make a new cup of tea, tearing open the packet and pulling out the tea bag, gingerly. I pour in the hot water, watch it spit against the steel of the spout. I pick up the mug, it's the big red one and I turn towards the wet stranger sitting on my counter. I offer it to him, setting the mug down next to him on the counter. He nods his gratitude to me and I move to go back to my chair at the table but instead I feel him move behind me and I stop and turn, watching the way his hands grip the counter as he unseats himself and walks the six steps towards me, his eyes uncannily focused on mine, but I keep watching his hands. They reach out for me, palms up. I stare at them for a moment, his fingers are long and sturdy. I can see a dark moon of dirt under the index nail. His outstretched palm is large and strong and I find a suddenly surprisingly strong compulsion, to feel those palms on my bare skin, holding my body, cupping my curves and drinking me in. I swallow, shocked. Pushing the images away. Who is this man, and why at the simple sight of him am I weak kneed and short of breath. I don't understand. Isn't he a question. I ask him again: "Who are you?" This time looking up into his eyes. He holds my gaze. Gray-blue on gray-green.
"I believe, sweet one, that you already know." His lips barely moved. I didn't know if they could.

I stare at his outstretched hands. He is obviously asking me something. I'm not sure what to do. But then slowly, I lift my own small and freckled hand towards his. I place it on his palm and he closes his fingers around it. He looks me in the eye.

"Dance with me." His voice is deep with a hint of a rasp, at the end.

The words. Those three words. I feel the room dissolve around me. My eyes close. Suddenly, I can smell sweet smelling cologne mixed with the heady smell of sweat. I can feel the tingle and fire of good whiskey, sliding down my throat, as if I had just taken a swig from the bottle, the glass cold against my lips. I can feel hardwood beneath my bare feet.  The unmistakable sound of Miss Etta James envelopes me.

     'The skies above are blue. my heart was wrapped up in clover. The night I, looked at you. I found a dream that I could speak to, a dream that I can call my own.."

I feel my body moving, swaying in time. Arching and slumping to a melody that feels so real inside my skin.

 "..I found a thrill to press my cheek to, a thrill that I have never known.. oh yeah, yeah you smile. You smile oh and then the spell was cast and here we are in heaven, for you are mine. At last' 

As the last note fades from the air, I open my eyes. I am still in my kitchen. The dark interior of my memory seems to have over taken the light of my reality. But I am being dipped in my kitchen, held as a woman. I am in the rain wet strangers arms. I can see the dish towel where I left it to dry, hanging over the sink. He smells of the outdoors, like leafs and wind and sun, but mixed together with this purely human scent. I breath it in, deep into my lungs. He looks down at me, his eyes are kind.

"I like this song." I hear an unfamiliar voice say behind me. I turn my head towards the sound and it is the man in the cap with the brown eyes. He looks across the table at the woman with the papery blue eyes and raises an eye brow. A not so subtle question. I was astounded to see her pale skin actually begin to color. She was blushing. My unanswered question was blushing at being asked to dance in my tiny kitchen in the wee hours of some morning. The man with the brown eyes, reached out a hand, so very like the dark stranger who's arms I was still enwrapped in, towards the lady. And suddenly my kitchen was filled with music. It was Billy Holiday this time, but my kitchen was filled with the dancing shapes of my questions. Their faces losing the blank insistent look they had worn on my stoop, under the glare of my yellow porch light.
I nestled closer into my stranger, feeling more at home than I had in years. Feeling the gentle grip of his arms holding me so tenderly, so sturdily, against his chest, the beating of his mighty heart, next to my own, inspiring a beat in my own organ like that of a kick drum. I inhaled the smell of tea and rain and strangers in my house. I closed my eyes. Let myself be swayed, let myself be danced around my cutting board. I let my hand, the one resting on his shoulder, to feel his muscles flex underneath the thin material of his shirt. Felt the stir and pull underneath my skin. I breathed out so I could breath him in.

We must have danced like that most of the hours of dark, other couples joined us, and I could hear the creak and ache of my kitchen floor underneath the new weight of so many bare feet dancing. I closed my eyes and let myself go. I held on to the man who held me, I felt tender and sacred and special in his close embrace. I have no idea where the music came from, hell or where my question-people did either, but we danced like that through the dark moments that we all know, towards a dawn that would break the darkness for a spell. I don't know when it ended, I don't know when sleep overtook me and the arms that held me let me go. But I woke up in my bed, alone. No questions waiting for me, no one sitting on my feet, just the sun beaming through my yellow curtains. I sat up, bewildered. The sound in my house was quiet. I could hear the gentle tick of the clock on my kitchen wall. I pulled the bedcovers back and placed my feet on the hardwood floor. I stood up gingerly, walking to the door on the soft pads of my feet. I peered down the hall way, looking left and looking right, before I ventured down it towards the kitchen.
Stepping into it, I could see that my counters were dirty, empty mugs of tea lay in the sink. The floor had a shinny sheen of dancer feet and I coud still smell the rain and the sticky smell of humans sweat, although the window over the sink was now open and I could also smell the fresh air of a new day.
     I turned around surveying, the damage. No strangers lounged in my chairs. No muddy feet were propped on my table. The silence was almost deafening. I suppose my strangers had all gone.
I guess we had found our peace. They had found their answers.
I felt so astounded for a moment and then I just felt free.
I smiled to myself.
But then I remembered and my hands hugged my thighs and I felt the ghost of a whisper of my dark stranger holding me and swaying us both to Eta James. I felt a pang in my heart that I didn't know his face or his story, just his eyes and the pounding of his mighty heart and the way my heart responded. I sighed.
Fairy tales or psychosis, either way I was screwed.
I turned on the water and began to wash the mugs, dumping the used tea bags into the compost. The water was warm on my hands and welcome in the chilly february morning.
Just then I heard something behind me, I turned and saw my dark stranger. His hair wasn't wet any more and the morning light became him. He smiled those gray blue eyes at me, pausing on the threshold before he walked the six steps to where I was standing, half turned towards him, soapy mug in hand.
"Good morning." He came to stand behind me, wrapping a warm arm around my waist, while I rinsed the soap off the mug I was holding.
"Good morning." I replied. The remaining silence was tempered with the sound of the water splashing, but it didn't feel awkward, it felt ...right. Natural. I rinsed out the last mug feeling his gentle hands around my waist, protective, and kind. 
I reached and turned off the tap. The clock on the wall ticked, marking seconds of a new day.
"You didn't disappear." I stated.
"No." He replied.
"So are you, unanswered still.. ?" I asked, my voice less than hopeful.
"No." He said again.
"So, then why are you here?" I hoped the question didn't come off as rude, but my surprise was rather large.
"They, left because they have found their peace. They do not need you to validate them. They are whole now. As are you." He leaned down and placed a small kiss on my jaw bone. I could feel the press of his lips on my skin all the way to my toes. My heart beat fiercely.
"....As for me, this is where I have found my peace. Here with you." His voice was nothing more than a whisper, I could feel his breath on my cheek. "I think, I have been looking for you for a very long time. If you'll let me, I would love to stay, here, in this life, with you. " What he said felt solid, like a truth, not an assumption. I could feel the weight of it in my own body and heart. But it wasn't a burden. It was beautiful.
"Okay." My voice sounded happy, and solid.


The morning sun danced in the trees outside, gilding the bare and barren branches of February with gold. 
Incredible, I thought, how bright a morning can be, after a night so dark.

I went to take a shower, turning on the faucet and watching the water run, waiting for it to grow hot. I didn't understand my life. I didn't understand why my unanswered questions became people who came over and drank my tea and listened to me speak and went away after a night of dancing. I didn't know where my dark stranger had come from, or if he was quite real, or how long he would stay. But I didn't care. It was right, I could feel it. It didn't matter to know. I guess I had found my own peace in the unknown. I smiled as I stepped into the steaming water, I smiled for all the things, but especially because for the first time in such a long time, I was going to be showering alone.

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