I don't think we'll ever dig to the center of the Earth. But I think, someday, we might drown there.
***
Spoon wanted to make real art. They wanted a play that felt like real life because it was real life. Spoon wanted to put the audience in the middle of something. Spoon wanted... fuck.
"The more I put this into words, the stupider it fucking sounds."
"No no, keep talking. I wanna know where you're going with this." Celeste was open to this stuff. Celeste was just open in general; everything from quantum mechanics to healing rocks to MK Ultra she believed in it as long as believing in it made her life more interesting. She believed in Spoon and they knew it. They didn't know what to make of that.
"So, it's people talking through real problems on a stage. Their words have real consequences, and they don't know what they'll be. You're not acting, you're literally doing something, making things happen."
"So people get on stage and hash out their family drama? Like Dr. Phil, but for trans beat poets?”
"Not like Dr. Phil." Spoon had thought a lot about this. About whether their idea was commodifying people's fucked-up-ness. On Dr. Phil there's a production — the audience knows what they're getting into. Dr. Phil is a character. This was nothing like that. Right? "No Celeste, Dr. Phil's an act. It might have consequences, but not right there, not on stage. And when it does, that's not what it's about. It's about the spectacle. My thing is about—"
"Wait. Let me guess. Your thing is about realness." Celeste sniggered. Spoon slumped dramatically further into their seat.
"I shouldn't have talked to you about this."
"No, sorry, I was just messing with you. It sounds funny when you put it into words, but I think there's something there. I believe in this." "Here we go again," Spoon thought to themselves.
***
As a kid I used to take pens and bend them back and forth. It was hard the first time. You would have to cantilever them over the edge of a desk, holding them on one side and pushing with your whole weight on the other. When you’re 7, a lot of things demand your whole weight. After you bent it once, though, it got easier. Every time you bent it, the opaque colors got paler. I didn't know why it happened — I still don't really get it. I imagine it's something about adding stresses and cracks to the plastic. Little microscopic tears that change the way the light reflects off of its surface.
When you keep bending it back and forth, the plastic starts to warm up. Bending one way, then the other, getting easier each time. The plastic heats up until it's too hot to touch. You keep bending and suddenly the pen comes apart. No crack, no pop, nothing dramatic; you just get two pieces of pen with weird smooshed ends.
***
"Alex, I just don't understand what this is about." Hearing her call him them that, even through the phone, made Spoon’s shoulders tense up.
"Why do you have to call me that, Mom?"
"Because you're not a piece of cutlery." Deep breaths, deeeeep fucking breaths. "Besides, you know how your father feels about that name. It's all he has left of your grandfather." Spoon had to change the conversation ASAP.
"Look mom, I don't want to do this right now. Are you interested in participating in it or not?"
"I don't know Alex, I'm not much of a performer..."
"See Mom, that's the thing. It's not a performance... Look, it'll make more sense once you're doing it. Just trust me? This is really important." Spoon had put a lot of fucking money into this thing. They needed someone to show up.
"Alright. I'll do it. I want what's best for you, and I don't think that your 'bohemian lifestyle' is it, but I suppose I have to compromise." Alex Spoon hated when she called it that. Their mom was convinced that they were doing art just to feel special. To feel like some artiste while working at the restaurant. Their mom wanted them "to do something more with his life," as if they weren't really living right now. She wanted them to "apply himself." "As if I don't work my ass off everyday," Spoon thought. At least she wasn't sending them more listings for soulless desk jobs. "Do I look like I want to be a sales associate for Epson one day?" Spoon scoffed at the idea because it fucking terrified them.
***
I broke pens partly to watch them change, watch them get white and hot, but mostly it was for the ink inside. Ink is all around you as a kid, but it's use is always directed by something else. By a little roller bead at the bottom of your pen, by a little piece of felt at the bottom of your marker, by the little line next to "Name:" at the top of your homework. When you broke the pen in half, the ink didn't just run out right away. You would tip the end over, waiting for it to rush out, and nothing would happen. Maybe the ink is too thick, so you wait. Nothing. Eventually I learned that if you bent a paperclip into a straight line and stuck your wire inside the pen, you could get a glob of ink out. You could smear it on a page, or try to write with it. It was harder to write with than a pen, but for some reason, I did it anyway.
Once you had stuck the paper clip in once, the ink ran freely. The first time I did this, I ended up with a pool of blue-black shimmering goop in the pencil tray of my desk. I was more careful with them afterwards, but sometimes I let the ink pool out. I would leave the broken pen in the pencil tray and pretend I didn't know what was going to happen. I would lie and tell myself that I forgot that the ink runs freely after you stick it once. I would look away, pretend not to notice it, and only look down later once there was a lake of shining red to ogle. I never did anything with the ink. I could have used it to draw or paint or do something. I always ended up wiping it up with a tissue and throwing it out along with the broken pen. I would do it again some other time to some other pen. I didn't do it to do anything with the ink, I just did it for the ink. To know that it wasn't something that only existed on roller balls or felt tips or lines next to "Name:." To know that it could run freely along my pencil tray if someone accidentally let it out.
***
The stage was tiny. So was the venue. Even still, Spoon was surprised to see it full. They recognized a lot of people in the audience; Celeste had invited a lot of her friends to see the show. The type of people Spoon's mom was scared he they would turn into. They already had been since high school, their mom just didn't know it. Maybe they had been since before that, but if they were, they didn't know it then either. The lights were hot. Spoon thought that was a thing that only happened on big stages. Real stages. These little can lights were so close though, so bright, beaming down on their face. Were they sweating? Maybe you couldn't see from the audience. Spoon really hoped they didn't look gross. At least not to the audience. They sat on a black chair, the cheap kind with a little padding on the seat and back that gave the illusion of comfort. Their mom sat across from them. They each held a microphone with a big fat cord running into the cable squid taped down to the edge of the stage. The room was silent.
***
The Earth is constantly drowning. In middle school I learned about the convection currents that moved the Earth's tectonic plates. The center of the planet was so hot, it caused magma to rise up from around it, and when the magma got up here, near the crust, it cooled off and sunk back down. As it journeyed up and down in slow, millennia-long loops, it slowly pushed the cool bits around, tearing them apart and crashing them into each other.
Sometimes, when two plates get shoved into each other, they form a subduction boundary where one plate gets slowly pushed under the other, colossal slabs of rock gently melting in the magma and returning to what's below. The roiling center accidentally swallows a continent, and it melts without a word.
***
"So, you don't like my name."
"Oh my god Alex, right now?"
"Yeah, right now Mom."
"I think you're trying to find a way to be yourself."
"And you don't think I'm doing that right right now?"
"What do you mean?"
"You don't think that I'm finding myself how I should be."
"I don't know about that…" She paused for a while. "I think that you wanted a change in your life, and you’re doing that now, but you'll see later that this isn't right, and you'll move on with your life. Maybe it'll be better."
"Say my name, Mom."
"Do we have to talk about this right now? In front of all of these people? When I agreed to come, I didn't know it would be like this. What are you trying to do here anyways?"
"I don't know Mom." They didn't. They looked at the ground. They looked at the audience. Nothing but a sea of black and those blinding lights. This must be why actors can turn into someone else on stage. Why they can live out tender moments that don't belong to them for an audience. When the lights are this bright, you might as well be all alone. Spoon liked that. "I don't think you love me Mom."
"What? How could you say that? Do you realize how much I do for you?"
"You do things for Alex. That's not me. That's not who I am. God, I'm so fucked up. And it's because of you two."
"Alex."
"Don't say that." It didn't come out how they wanted it to. It came out like any other sentence and it felt so wrong. They felt like they should've screamed it. Or maybe muttered it. They didn't know what they wanted it to sound like, but they didn't like how they said it.
"What did we do Alex? What should we have done better? We raised you like we thought any kid should be raised. We loved you and listened to you. I tried so hard to get what was right for you. Your father didn't want you to go to that school, but I trusted you. And I trusted you with this. Look what you're doing to yourself Alex, you're throwing it all away. You could be working a good job right now, a real job, instead of just washing dishes all day and doing god knows what all night. But here you are, masquerading as something that would come to you in a busing tray. I love you Alex, but this isn't right. What do you think we did to you? Where did we go wrong?"
Their face was in their hands. They couldn't tell if they were crying. They didn't know what was going on any more. "I don't know..." they muttered. "IdunnoIdunnoIdunnoIdunno." It was one long groan that came out of them.
"What do you want us to do Alex? What is there that we can do for you? Your father says we need to stop helping with your rent, to just let you live, or whatever the fuck you're doing right now. Maybe he's right. Is that what you want? Is that what you need right now?"
"SHUT UP!" Their face was hot and wet. "You don't know anything about how I want to live, or how I have been living. You don't know how living the way you want me to has torn me to pieces. You could never know what this feels like. What it feels like to hate who you are, to try and be something different, something you can love. You can't love me, but I can't love Alex."
They didn't know what they were saying anymore. Was this their art piece? Were they trying to be poetic? Or was this really how they felt? They thought that, maybe, they meant it. The words just came out, all Alex Spoon could do was listen to them. "Dad's never cared about me, he just hates that I'm a faggot. He wants a little mini-me. He wants someone who can make money. He wants a big strong man with a wife and kids. That’s NOT ME. HE DOESN’T WANT ME." Spoon didn't know if they were shouting. They didn't know if they were crying.
"I'm not doing this anymore." She got up and walked off stage.
***
I don't think we'll ever dig to the center of the Earth
But I think, someday, we might drown there
We don't dig down like some do, expecting to find a new gold
We don't hopelessly flail our arms to stay afloat
We don't tread water and look for driftwood
We look down up and see that we have
For longer than we've realized
Stopped swimming
***
Celeste's couch felt rough against Spoon's face. It was rough and warm and comforting. It smelled a little mildewy, like an old book or a burlap sack. It wasn't the worst place to sleep.
"You know, Spoon? I believed it."
***
Someday, we'll all lay down and the moss will cover us over.
I don't think we'll hit the bottom and meet a fiery end. I don't think that we'll kill ourselves or each other. I don't even know if we can. I think that everyone who puts up a fight will tire themselves out. Someday they'll take a moment's rest. Some will see it coming, others will close their eyes for only a moment.
But all of them will lay down and let the moss cover them over.