THE SECRET EATERS
September 19th 2008 04:52
(a fiction)
Strangers tell me their secrets.
It must be my face – it’s nondescript. An every person’s face.
People are always telling me they know me. ``I know your face… aren’t you…’’
I could be standing in line at the post office and the woman in front will turn to me to ask a banality. Ask the time. And then, it’s like a flower opening or the dam walls bursting or a cup running over.
Their secrets spill out, splash my every person’s face wash over me like a muddy tide, a bloody tide. Her daughter, the parcel, baby clothes, no return address, old wounds. She sniffs, a tear breaks the spell. She smiles, a little, wipes, and moves on.
Me, I’m left with all that emotional energy splattered all over my nondescript, tear stained face. No one notices. I am nondescript, after all.
So it comes as no surprise to me that I tell no one my secrets. I tried a few times, felt too much like a victim - too much like them. A drama queen. My problems aren’t as… real, nor colourful, as the secret dumpers.
And I know what it feels like to be left with someone else’s hidden burden, so I carry my own.
Surprising, then, was the day I met my vessel. It was across a crowded room, at some flash party with meats on toothpicks. There was dipping sauce.
People were taking to him, and he was nodding and smiling, a veil over himself. Why couldn’t anyone else see him brace, the tightening of the shoulders, the intake of breath, clenching of fists? Someone was handing their burden over, splattering his far-from-nondescript face with a hidden truth. His head turns slightly, chin out, deep eyes of unending understanding.
I wondered if he every just filled up from the outside in, like me. Did his insides turn concrete with all that shared knowledge? What did he do with it?
That’s when he saw me. My nondescription became irrelevant. My quizzical pose suddenly intriguing.
Like the turtle I am, I veiled my face, smiled so slightly, and looked into my wine glass, raised a toothpick-sacrificed meat to my lips. Where was the dipping sauce?
This was not a normal feeling for me, being someone. I am not used to being someone else, a memory elusive.
No, he saw me. Of course I left immediately. My insides were just too concrete. It had been a busy day. I had too many secrets to eat to endure friendly fire.
I ditched the glass, empty wood, and grabbed my coat. Red, buttons, my favourite, a beautiful extravagance wasted on the unnoticed. All the same, I loved it. Alone, down shiny stone steps, through the white door, on to shiny streets. My streets. Safe again.
``It was a marriage break-up, three weeks ago,’’ he, with his noticing, whispered behind me, into my hair.
I, once nondescript, whipped around to take in the green-eyed inquisitor. There was something about the shape of his nose, the outside line above the eyebrows. I knew him… from somewhere…
``No, you don’t know me,’’ he actually drawled.
``The break-up secret: He likes older women. Scandalous. At least it wasn’t border collies and latex panties. Yep, had that one just last week. Do you get the sex stories or just the family troubles? Yes, you look too much like someone’s sister to get the smutty ones. I think it’s my lips – people will tell me anything as long as it’s a bodily function or physical persuasion.’’
Such a speech, such a man.
``Come on cough up,’’ he stared.
I talk, quietly, but he still seems to hear me.
``I have six toes on my left foot. I hate ice cream. I love sex. My grandma died when I was six and I didn’t cry about it until last year. And you see me. Two of those things are lies but which ones?’’
We secret eaters are born lie detectors, you see.
``Three are lies,’’ he counters, directly. ``You love ice cream but can’t eat it. It makes your stomach hurt. You don’t have an extra toe. You only think you love sex, as you know it now.’’
I smiled and my red coat hugged me. We walked and we didn’t talk. It was lovely.
Eventually, I wasn’t concrete any more.
I ventured: ``Do you share the secrets? What do you do with them?’’
``That depends on the secret,’’ his voice was velvet. ``And of course - who is telling it. Sometimes I share to people, to empty space, to apple cores. Some you can’t carry with you. Others, I immediately forget. That’s lovely. But I hang on to the big ones, and use them.’’
I was mortified. Horrified. Fascinated. ``No, you can’t do that. They belong to someone else. That’d be like stealing someone’s breath.’’
He was, of course, indignant. That told me he cared what I thought. I was amazed.
``Depends on how you rationalise it,’’ says he, peering out the corner of his face. ``These secrets once told, shared, are owned by the receiver. There’s no receipt, no refund. You own them and they are yours to do what you will. Take yesterday. Class Four knucklehead jock tells me he is gay, has been for his whole life, knows it like he knows his own face. He won’t come out, too much pressure. He’s a nice guy, but misguided. So I set him up with my cousin Charlie. They are in the loos right now.’’
``Noooo,’’ I am in a disbelief, of sorts.
``Yes,’’ says he. ``People tell us these things because if they don’t they will be consumed by them. It’s a cry for help. Who in their right mind trusts a perfect stranger what that sort of information? It’s ridiculous.’’
I give some ground, but only a little. ``I used to think people told me that stuff because I am an empty vessel,’’ says I. ``Because I am non- threatening, benign. Safe. Now I just think people have no one else to talk to. So they look for a friendly face, a familiar brow line, their sister’s neckline. And they spill.’’
He pauses. ``Yes and no. All that and more, more or less.’’
Then, we slipped into a comfortable, contemplative silence. It’s the quiet space left after secrets delivered.
``Tell me one of yours,’’ says he, breaking the spell.
``OK. Um. This lady at the post office…,’’ I am interrupted.
``No, one of yours,’’ says he, gently. His hand on my red coat burns. His finger brushes hair from my face.
We’ve reached the river.
I stare into the water. Look up. I try honesty.
``No room left, I’m afraid. A hollow shell, my only secret,’’ says I.
Lips on lips.
Water laps the banks. A ferry slips by, as does my mind.
My feeble voice breaks: ``That was my first kiss in a long time.’’
``There you go, secret told. And gratefully received,’’ says he. But his confidence has waned, voice fades.
I challenge: ``Now you.’’ His lips won’t break me. Hollow, not shallow.
``I do know you,’’ he whispers.
He sees my disbelief.
He counters: ``No, I do. I’m the man in the coffee line who doesn’t talk to you. I stand two behind, catching them before they burden you. At least you can have that. Standing in line, waiting for coffee. Space for yourself. A haven.’’
I am kissing him, drinking in this lovely man responsible for my sanity.
Burdens shared. Concrete dissolved.
But not empty. Never again, empty.
Strangers tell me their secrets.
It must be my face – it’s nondescript. An every person’s face.
People are always telling me they know me. ``I know your face… aren’t you…’’
I could be standing in line at the post office and the woman in front will turn to me to ask a banality. Ask the time. And then, it’s like a flower opening or the dam walls bursting or a cup running over.
Their secrets spill out, splash my every person’s face wash over me like a muddy tide, a bloody tide. Her daughter, the parcel, baby clothes, no return address, old wounds. She sniffs, a tear breaks the spell. She smiles, a little, wipes, and moves on.
So it comes as no surprise to me that I tell no one my secrets. I tried a few times, felt too much like a victim - too much like them. A drama queen. My problems aren’t as… real, nor colourful, as the secret dumpers.
And I know what it feels like to be left with someone else’s hidden burden, so I carry my own.
Surprising, then, was the day I met my vessel. It was across a crowded room, at some flash party with meats on toothpicks. There was dipping sauce.
People were taking to him, and he was nodding and smiling, a veil over himself. Why couldn’t anyone else see him brace, the tightening of the shoulders, the intake of breath, clenching of fists? Someone was handing their burden over, splattering his far-from-nondescript face with a hidden truth. His head turns slightly, chin out, deep eyes of unending understanding.
I wondered if he every just filled up from the outside in, like me. Did his insides turn concrete with all that shared knowledge? What did he do with it?
Like the turtle I am, I veiled my face, smiled so slightly, and looked into my wine glass, raised a toothpick-sacrificed meat to my lips. Where was the dipping sauce?
This was not a normal feeling for me, being someone. I am not used to being someone else, a memory elusive.
No, he saw me. Of course I left immediately. My insides were just too concrete. It had been a busy day. I had too many secrets to eat to endure friendly fire.
I ditched the glass, empty wood, and grabbed my coat. Red, buttons, my favourite, a beautiful extravagance wasted on the unnoticed. All the same, I loved it. Alone, down shiny stone steps, through the white door, on to shiny streets. My streets. Safe again.
``It was a marriage break-up, three weeks ago,’’ he, with his noticing, whispered behind me, into my hair.
I, once nondescript, whipped around to take in the green-eyed inquisitor. There was something about the shape of his nose, the outside line above the eyebrows. I knew him… from somewhere…
``No, you don’t know me,’’ he actually drawled.
``The break-up secret: He likes older women. Scandalous. At least it wasn’t border collies and latex panties. Yep, had that one just last week. Do you get the sex stories or just the family troubles? Yes, you look too much like someone’s sister to get the smutty ones. I think it’s my lips – people will tell me anything as long as it’s a bodily function or physical persuasion.’’
Such a speech, such a man.
``Come on cough up,’’ he stared.
I talk, quietly, but he still seems to hear me.
``I have six toes on my left foot. I hate ice cream. I love sex. My grandma died when I was six and I didn’t cry about it until last year. And you see me. Two of those things are lies but which ones?’’
We secret eaters are born lie detectors, you see.
``Three are lies,’’ he counters, directly. ``You love ice cream but can’t eat it. It makes your stomach hurt. You don’t have an extra toe. You only think you love sex, as you know it now.’’
I smiled and my red coat hugged me. We walked and we didn’t talk. It was lovely.
Eventually, I wasn’t concrete any more.
I ventured: ``Do you share the secrets? What do you do with them?’’
``That depends on the secret,’’ his voice was velvet. ``And of course - who is telling it. Sometimes I share to people, to empty space, to apple cores. Some you can’t carry with you. Others, I immediately forget. That’s lovely. But I hang on to the big ones, and use them.’’
I was mortified. Horrified. Fascinated. ``No, you can’t do that. They belong to someone else. That’d be like stealing someone’s breath.’’
He was, of course, indignant. That told me he cared what I thought. I was amazed.
``Depends on how you rationalise it,’’ says he, peering out the corner of his face. ``These secrets once told, shared, are owned by the receiver. There’s no receipt, no refund. You own them and they are yours to do what you will. Take yesterday. Class Four knucklehead jock tells me he is gay, has been for his whole life, knows it like he knows his own face. He won’t come out, too much pressure. He’s a nice guy, but misguided. So I set him up with my cousin Charlie. They are in the loos right now.’’
``Noooo,’’ I am in a disbelief, of sorts.
``Yes,’’ says he. ``People tell us these things because if they don’t they will be consumed by them. It’s a cry for help. Who in their right mind trusts a perfect stranger what that sort of information? It’s ridiculous.’’
I give some ground, but only a little. ``I used to think people told me that stuff because I am an empty vessel,’’ says I. ``Because I am non- threatening, benign. Safe. Now I just think people have no one else to talk to. So they look for a friendly face, a familiar brow line, their sister’s neckline. And they spill.’’
He pauses. ``Yes and no. All that and more, more or less.’’
Then, we slipped into a comfortable, contemplative silence. It’s the quiet space left after secrets delivered.
``Tell me one of yours,’’ says he, breaking the spell.
``OK. Um. This lady at the post office…,’’ I am interrupted.
``No, one of yours,’’ says he, gently. His hand on my red coat burns. His finger brushes hair from my face.
We’ve reached the river.
I stare into the water. Look up. I try honesty.
``No room left, I’m afraid. A hollow shell, my only secret,’’ says I.
Lips on lips.
Water laps the banks. A ferry slips by, as does my mind.
My feeble voice breaks: ``That was my first kiss in a long time.’’
``There you go, secret told. And gratefully received,’’ says he. But his confidence has waned, voice fades.
I challenge: ``Now you.’’ His lips won’t break me. Hollow, not shallow.
``I do know you,’’ he whispers.
He sees my disbelief.
He counters: ``No, I do. I’m the man in the coffee line who doesn’t talk to you. I stand two behind, catching them before they burden you. At least you can have that. Standing in line, waiting for coffee. Space for yourself. A haven.’’
I am kissing him, drinking in this lovely man responsible for my sanity.
Burdens shared. Concrete dissolved.
But not empty. Never again, empty.
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