nothing, or what i wrote on the last page of my notebook

by Jonas David

i sat in the metal chair at the metal table outside the starbucks and i was contemplating the birdshit stain in the center of the table which had somehow splattered in the shape of a crescent moon. and while looking at the shit to which which my patternseeking brain was attempting to assign meaning, i realized that all meaning was, in fact, completely arbitrary.

i opened my notebook and wrote that down.

then i saw the perse and whirring hybrid that i'd been waiting for. i watched it park directly across the lot from me and i watched my good friend, elilia layla lelallia, who i called glossolalia, or lalia for short, exit the vehicle and then reenter the vehicle six times in stuttering succession as she forgot various items in their turn.

lalia had lived until very recently on the autonomous island of anjouan also called ndzuani or johanna or hinzuan, though when she was born there in the 80s it had been part of the state of comoros but then in 97 declared itself the independent state of anjouan until 02, that is, when it was reunified with the comoros islands, but only until 07 when it once again became independent anjouan. lalia, however, spent most of her early life away from the clamor and fire of society, living with her ornithologist parents in the secluded Important Bird Area where they studied various pigeons, harriers, and warblers. the birds whispered no such news of these dramatic shifts, and lalia remains unknowing and uncaring of such political intrigues to this day.

as i watched, lalia dropped her keys, then bent to pick them up, and her long dark hair blew into her face and so she set down the book she was holding and pushed her hair back, then took two steps toward me before turning back to grab the book, took three steps toward me before turning back to grab the dropped keys and in doing so dropped several papers and envelopes that had been under her arm, set down the book in order to gather the papers up, took two steps toward me before turning back to once again reclaim the book. as this was ongoing a collection of brown and curled leafs skittered back and forth across the lot, carried by the fickle wind, and i was overcome with a sense of oneness that was almost euphoric in its sudden intensity.

i opened my notebook and made a note to describe this feeling later.

hello she said and sat opposite me but then immediately stood and placed atop the table her book and water bottle and papers and keys and cell phone and handbag and a packet of gum and three pens and a notebook and a handful of teabags and some coins and a broken hairtie and a pair of eyeglasses and an orange, and then sat herself down once more. you made it, i said. my connecting flight was delayed for weather, she said. the storm never presented itself but the flight could not be undelayed, of course. i've not slept in thirty hours. then she picked up the packet of gum and set it down, picked up the orange and set it down, opened the notebook and picked up a pen then closed the notebook and set the pen down and picked up the eyeglasses and put them on. would you like a coffee? i asked and she said what? and i said coffee? and she took off the eyeglasses and put them on the table and said certainly not! and she picked up the book and handed it to me saying i read some of this on the plane, i believe you will enjoy it.

i took the weighty brown book and saw that it was a webster's english dictionary, and i looked up to ask if she had really been reading this on the plane but her back was to me and she was walking into the starbucks and standing in line. i supposed that yes, i could easily imagine lalia passing a long flight by reading a dictionary, but to recommend that i read it? that filled me with a kind of unease, because her past recommendations had always carried symbolism or a subtle statement on my current writing projects.

lalia, of course, has read every word i've written and has been an invaluable source of feedback over the years. she reads nearly one hundred books per year, including my books and works in progress. i, in turn, read the select few novels that she believes would be useful or inspirational or even just especially enjoyable to me. because while lalia is an inveterate reader, i am an incurable writer, and i have no time to read more than perhaps five books per year, all of which are carefully selected for me by lalia.

and what then could this dictionary recommendation mean? had i been misspelling words? misusing or overusing words? or perhaps it was a comment on the content of my writings, were my plots and characters in fact rote and cliche as if prefabricated items selected from a list? and then i began to think that a dictionary itself was a rather arrogant construction, as if one could really assign meaning to every word in every context, as if such things don't change and evolve constantly. what hubris! incorrect and outdated by definition, and yet without it would we not be mumbling aimlessly in the dark? perhaps, i thought, even if our assigned meanings are arbitrary and often soon invalidated by the next arbitrarily assigned meaning, perhaps even those meanings are better than no meaning at all, better than the unguided skittering of leaves pushed by the mindless wind.

lalia set a coffee cup on top of the birdshit moon and sat down, then popped off the lid and plopped two teabags into the steaming water within. little rivulets ran down the sides as she pressed the lid back on, and when she lifted the cup the shitmoon had dissolved into some kind of spiraling shit river to nowhere. a sip, then she narrowed her eyes at me. a dictionary? a dictionary? i've never known you to need a dictionary. what are you doing with a dictionary? we stared in bafflement at one another for some seconds, then i said you just handed it to me! and she said ah, i see. i have taken the wrong book from the car. one moment.

and she took three steps toward the car then returned and took the dictionary from me, then took two steps toward the car before turning back to grab her keys from the table. as i watched her cross the lot and open the car door i wondered what book she would dig out for me, or if she'd even brought it at all. and the wind bent the trees to the right and then bent them to the left, and the dead leaves danced across the lot to the left, then back again to the right. and the the wind pushed lalia's hair into her face, and as she tried to brush it away she spilled the tea that she had, for some reason, taken with her.

i opened my notebook to quickly describe the scene, but i couldn't find the words

Photo of Jonas David

BIO: Jonas David is a writer and editor at Lucent Dreaming magazine, and lives in the Seattle area with his wife and their two cats.