The Blank Space
The only time I see you anymore is in the blank space. A white room materializes in my brain and everyone I’ve ever loved and lost congregates inside. Four white walls and a steel door, big enough to keep all of you inside it.
This is the closest I will ever get to a class reunion, because while in my nightmares you see me as you see me now, in my dreams you are the way I knew you to be. In my heart of hearts, this is the reunion I long for.
A white plastic table materializes in the center, and you all take your seats. You are as I knew you to be.
A thirteen-year-old girl in a cat T-Shirt talks animatedly about whatever musical she’s hyperfixated on this week to the college student with dyed hair who listens attentively, their matching baby faces shining in the cold white lighting.
A boy with a bowl cut and glasses confides in the teenager with the leather jacket about his first breakup. “Love is like a flower,” the teen tells the boy. “Every flower has its thorn.”
And the blonde girl in a flower crown does a better job than I ever could of giving the hopeless soul something to fight for. She is softer, and kinder, and more understanding. She is not as I knew her, but as I knew she could be. (As I hope she is now).
There are smiles at the table as people who will never meet form bonds that will last a lifetime. Past and present are paired by my paintbrush, and all I can do is sit back. If I say a word, the whole thing shatters.
Including the man and woman spitting back and forth science terms I’ll never understand to the chemistry major holding hands with their high school’s class president. The politician holds the chemist tight, and in my mind, he means it when he says he won’t let go. They are happy. If I can’t get that myself, let me paint a reality that captures the best of them. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to revert to a previously saved edit of each of them and place them in the blank space.
(Maybe there is).
Now the lights are no longer cold - twinkling fairy lights illuminate the room and make it feel like home. You all are given a plate of your favorite food, and you have each other to talk to about, well, anything. The boy with the bowl cut makes a theater reference to the girl in the cat T-Shirt, and she laughs. A girl with curly hair who sings the Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack when she’s alone in her room joins in on their conversations. The college student with dyed hair is helping a girl in leopard print leggings do her makeup for the first time. And while he’s tired of being among Red Sox fans, a sixteen-year-old in a baseball jersey admits for the first time that yes, he does deserve nice things.
It’s not real. I know it’s not. But let me have this moment. Let me have this moment where everyone I’ve loved and lost is safe, and together, and happy, connected in the interlocking web of my mind. I don’t have a place among them, among these memories I’ve collected and stitched together to create a family dinner.
So let me brush a little more joy, dab a little more laughter, blend it with community, and emphasize this highlight of happiness. Because if the only time I see you anymore is in the blank space, the least I can do is make it a home.
William Flejter (2006) is an author, musician, and UMass Boston Student. With poetry and prose, he captures the world as it is, then asks the question - how can it be better?