The Difference Between Landmines and Time Bombs
Written March 28, 2007.
For Lauren:
May you be the substitute for no one.
I.
Reese Ryan was one of those girls. You know; One of them. She was the mere embodiment of the word “captivating.” She was infatuated with wearing skirts, scrounging for money, chance happenings, stargazing, the smell of coffee shops and baseball diamonds, moving mountains, awkward conversation and God. She danced around her bedroom in her underwear: one of those much talked about rituals that everyone says they practice but no one (outside of movies and television at least) does. She had never been fond of writing and didn’t, but if she’d recorded her thoughts – if only for a day – those thoughts would have been seized immediately for printing, translated into multiple languages, and sold millions – to say that least of her sapience. They called her the “time bomb,” a testament to her explosive personality, and reckless nature. Though she, being more of a landmine than anything, knew it simply wasn’t true. She was like beams of light: translucent and beautiful, but never tangible. Indeed, many a man had tried to catch her, but their attempts were in vain. You would sooner build a tower to the Heavens than catch Reese Ryan. Such was the nature of the girl. You know; One of them.
II.
Sebastian Kellogg, of course, was not one of those guys; He, by default, was one of us. One of those people who are good, but never attains true greatness. He tended to stagger toward phrases such as “barely breaking even” or “just scraping by.” He jumped from one low paying job to the next, functioned on beer and Monday Night Football, wove in and out of relationships indifferently, one desperate, intoxicated tramp after another. And this tragically mediocre heap of a man had the nerve and the gall to define himself as such: a hopeless romantic (who had, in all actuality, never experienced love), a travel enthusiast (who had, to be completely honest, never left the confines of his house); and an adamant lover of life (who was, in fact, all but dead.) Would we go as far as to accuse Sebastian Kellogg of living a lie? Naturally no, him being one of our own. People like us see themselves as skewed delusions of dreams: Who We Are and Who We Dream of Being is never the same person. Sebastian Kellogg’s dreams were no different than our own – he’d just fallen into that all too familiar trap of being, well, human. You know; one of us.
III.
Sebastian’s discovery of Reese was a miraculous thing in itself. A cool, clear Thursday night found Sebastian outside the house he lived in with his parents (being the unemployed college burnout he was), lighting a cigarette and staring into the blackness. From it, Reese emerged, along with the proverbial beams of light that followed her, ricocheting every which way. And there stood our poor Sebastian, puffing on his cigarette, completely incapable of tearing his eyes from her. He heard himself call out to her, but she and her clamorous beams of light walked on. After a moment’s hesitation, he stumbled down the steps of his porch and called out again. But the elusive Reese Ryan would not slow down.
So he mindlessly ran after her, flicking the cigarette butt onto the pavement and bellowing, “Hey, lady!” The author will note Sebastian’s inconsideration for the other members of the urban community in which he’d lived, who were stirred from their troubled slumbers as he galloped beneath their bedroom windows, shouting after Reese. The chase continued on for some time – how long, Sebastian didn’t know, just as he couldn’t pin a reason to his out-of-character scramble after the woman. The Sebastian we’d known prior to tonight would not leave the couch to change the channel, let alone dash through his neighborhood at four AM – and what can be said to rationalize these actions? Had there been something suspicious rolled into his cigarette? Had burning sense of adventure suddenly aroused in our lovable oaf? One couldn’t be entirely certain, but for whatever reason, an alarm was sounding in Sebastian: starting in his unfit legs, working through his gangly frame to his inebriated brain, every molecule within him was aching to catch this woman.
Reese eventually did halt – beneath the awning of a filthy and decrepit bus stop. The panting Sebastian gaped for the duration of a minute, shocked that she’d halted at all, before inventing an excuse to casually approach her. And she stood there and studied the stars, so he lit a cigarette and nonchalantly sauntered by. “You know,” he attempted, “you’re going to get yourself killed walking around out here.”
It was as if Sebastian’s words had been deflected from her ears by those radiant beams. She hadn’t heard him at all; Her eyes remained fastened upon the stars.
Frustrated that he and his nicotine fix were so casually brushed aside, Sebastian shoved himself into her immediate field of vision and said: “Hey, listen, lady. I worked as a security guard two blocks away a couple of months back – and there are a lot of creeps and weirdos around here, okay? What’re you thinking, walking around here at four in the morning?”
Reese gave him a hard, level stare (you know, one of those stares, the ones that just about knock you sideways), and when she parted her lips to say “Who are you?” he felt his insides convulse.
“Sebastian,” Sebastian said weakly.
“Sebastian,” she repeated, laughing. (And her laughter was music.) “I love that name. Do you love it?”
“Not particularly, no,” Sebastian puffed.
“I’m Reese,” she said, extending her hand to him. Sebastian grasped it dumbly, his handshake feeble and irresolute.
“Listen, Sebastian,” she said. “I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate your concern – because, truly, I do – but I’m entirely capable of taking care of myself.” And of course, she was right. “Give me a cigarette.”
“What?”
“You’re just going to stand there and smoke, and not offer me one?”
“I’m sorry – you just don’t look the type—“
“I’m not.” She smiled, white and clean.
“Well, okay.”
He gave her a light, and the two stood there, inhaling and exhaling and staring up at the endless night sky and it’s glistening gems.
IV.
“Sebastian,” she said, when she’d finished her cigarette. “Let’s run away together.”
“What?”
“Let’s run away together,” she said, laughing that melodious, sarcasm-tinged laugh of hers. “God, do you know how many men I say that to a month?”
Sebastian shook his head no.
“At least a hundred, Sebastian. And they all jump at the chance. Follow me down alleyways, stalk me into restaurants, run circles around me with their fantastic proposals. ‘A house in the countryside, you and the kids.’ Men see something pretty and they want to marry it right away, claim it as theirs. Piss on it -- mark their territory. You’re all dogs, you know that?” When Reese said this, she looked directly into his eyes, and with such fearsome condescension he wanted to run home, dive under his sheets, and hibernate for days.
“I wasn’t going to propose to you,” Sebastian whispered.
“Oh, I know,” said she. “Maybe not right away, but you’d work up to it. A phone-call here, dozen roses there, picnics in the park, walks on the beach, anything to win my heart.”
Sebastian struggled for words, but the insufferable Reese pressed on.
“People see something in me, Sebastian, and I’m just so over it. They see that my life is the one they’ve always wanted for themselves. They have a fascination with the excitement that orbits my world. They are speechless to behold my beauty. They are mesmerized by my flawless façade, and they want what I have. They think of me day and night for weeks on end, tossing and turning in their beds, racking their brainless skulls wondering what they could do to be more like me. I have what they want most, and eventually they can’t stand it anymore.”
At this point in the conversation, such flames grew in Reese’s eyes that she began pacing, firing off words every which way. A speechless Sebastian watched with unhinged jaw and frightened eyes.
“They come to me and they say, ‘Reese, how do you do it? How do you live with such passion – what is your secret?’ I tell them to go screw themselves. ‘Get away from me,’ I say. ‘You’re all losers!’ Alcohol, cigarettes—“ (And having said this, she seized Sebastian’s pack of Camels and flung it across the street.) “Drugs, lies, violence, hate -- bowing to your ipods and cell phones, building altars to yourselves, offering your ‘friends’ as sacrifices – digging your own damn graves. You’re all monsters ... all of you!”
Tears welled in Reese’s eyes, and she looked to Sebastian with a compassion stained, heartbroken face.
“I just don’t get it. College burnout, wasted on weekends -- you’re just like the rest of them, and I knew it the second you started following me.”
Reese wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her coat and awarded Sebastian a watery smile. Then, she pressed a single match into the palm of his hand. “Good luck with your life.” As if on cue, the 5:15 AM bus rolled up, and Reese stepped on. And as the bus pulled away, Sebastian swore he heard her shout, “Go ahead, light something with it.”
V.
The stars rained on Sebastian like bombs. They fell from the sky into the corroded expanse inside his chest, gutting his heart of its decay. And suddenly ... everything he’d thought to be true looked plastic and forged. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to breathe. He felt blood crashing through his veins, ripping up rotten spores that had taken root within him. He felt like dancing, weeping, screaming at the top of his lungs, he felt invincible, he felt refreshed, he felt alive. A smile stretched itself across his face.
For a moment back there, Sebastian swore he’d grasped the meaning of life. Reese had been beautiful. Now, the cold air tasted sweet. The match burned, tucked away in his pocket. And nothing else mattered but the bombs. Bombs pouring in him; bombs obliterating everything.
VI.
The reader will be distressed to discover what fate had in store for our Reese following the exchange. At 6:15 PM, exactly eleven hours after her meeting with Sebastian had taken place, Reese took the bus home from work. This bus, along with three others, was hijacked by a group of terrorists and blast to pieces. 74 commuters were killed, three severely wounded. One indirect witness who’d been on the opposite end of a cell phone conversation with another passenger recalls an altercation between one of these terrorists and a bold young woman. The witness had been struck by the woman’s audacity and conviction under the circumstances. “She led those people on the bus, and something tells me she would have bargained her very life for them,” the witness said in an interview, voice breaking, tears cascading. “But in the end, the bombs got the best of her – they got the best of everyone.”
VII.
In trying to understand the prime difference between landmines and time bombs, the reader will note that landmines are apt to destroy anything that stumbles into their path. Landmines serve a purpose similar to that of barbed wire, securing borders and providing protection from enemy attacks. This stands in great contrast with the time bomb, whose résumé includes appearances in everything from action films to cartoons. The forever-charred Wile E. Coyote will attest to their versatility: time bombs, when planted anywhere, prove lethal.
But all this analysis, the author will boldly assert, is absolute shit. The difference between landmines and time bombs is superfluous in the context of the story, in the context of our time, in the context of the world. Just as a life is a life, a bomb is a bomb, and they both, indisputably – kill.
Gender:
Points: 890
Reviews: 196