WHERE MEMORY FADES TO SEA

A Collection of Short Stories,

Poems and Essays by Alexis Christopherson

 

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Table of Contents

Poems

The Edge of the World…………...4

Only in Dreams……………………5

Short Stories

Old Man and Mama Kaiser………7

Where It Starts and Ends…………8

A Life Between Storms……….......9

Standing in the Shrapnel………….10

Essays

Humanity’s Greatest Strength…..12

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The Edge of the World Where the sun meets the horizon

Where the clouds fade to castles in the sky The edge of the world is where I find you

Where the soul meets the mind Where memory fades to the sea The edge of the world is where You lead me

This much I know

That You know the plans You have for me This much I trust, I will follow May I tread in the steps of your bloodstained feet

Lead me where I should go I’ll venture forth to wherever you call me

To the edge of the world and back Where can You lead me that I will not go?

Where do You call that I will no respond? If I am to stay where I am or to leave all I know? Will I not follow?

I will lead to many wondrous places

But places have wonder in all sorts of ways What is wondrous to me may not be wondrous to you Keep learning to look through my eyes

The edge of the world is where I will guide

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Only in Dreams

Perhaps if we had spoken more

Or garnered more respect

If the distance we didn’t come to abhor

Perhaps this dream could redirect

Only in sleep do we dream

And out of time we live

What once was a strong gleam

Our memories we relive

But now our sleep is ending

And out of our stupor we wake

Despite the desire to stay unending

This dream world was nothing less than fake

For that with which this reality arrest

To you my heart I did bequest

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Old Man and Mama Kaiser

It was a cold, rainy, bleak mid-day as the citizens of the little town of Bear’s Bluff walked

down Main Street towards the graveyard in the church yard. Old Man Kaiser, who had been known around town as being a burly man, with brown hair and a big temper, had finally kicked

the bucket. His wife, lovingly known throughout the small town as Mama Kaiser and was Old Man Kaiser’s complete opposite, followed solemnly, dressed in clothes black as the tornados of

the US Midwest, which almost made her blend into the rainy day. The only color she bore was that of her golden wedding ring. Two women clung to her arms, as if meaning to support her, but indeed it was she who was supporting them. The two spidery women were Nigella and

Mora, the dead and his wife’s daughters. Both had been born into the dead of night, much like their father and would probably leave in the same manner their father did: at midnight, the

darkest part of the night. Perhaps it was because of this impact that night had on Old Man Kaiser that he fell in love

with Mama Kaiser. She had been born in the middle of the day, with blond hair, pale skin and

blue eyes as clear as crystals. While Old Man was more quiet and introverted, Mama was a bubbling, bouncing particle of walking sunshine. The saying goes that opposites attract and this

statement was never truer than with the Kaiser couple, who were so very much in love that one often wondered if they weren’t of some other mythical race of legend.

It was of this love that the townsfolk were thinking of as the small parade made its way

through the graveyard gate. They stood around the gravesite, Mama stepping away from her daughters to gently place a hand on the top of the coffin, as if to bid her beloved husband one last goodbye. Then in the blink of an eye, she was lying on the fresh grass, her husband’s heavy

coffin crushing her. The front right pole bearer glanced around anxiously, glancing at his sweaty hands and wondering what in the world he had just done.

It was at that moment that Mora and Nigella glanced up, realizing that they no longer felt the pitter-patter of rain on their shoulders. The sun broke through the clouds, smiling its rays of light onto the stunned populace of Bear’s Bluff. Nigella glanced back down at her mother,

whose face did not bear any semblance of pain, and saw a tiny twinkle of light beckoning her eye. It was her mother’s wedding ring, completely intact, as if somehow it had made itself void

of the wreckage of her mother’s death. Mora picked up the ring and both sisters were content with their parents’ death. For what darkness hides, light illuminates and one cannot exist without the other.

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Where it Starts and Ends The place where it started was the place where it ended. The same beach where I had

met him was the same place where he had walked out of my life forever. I always thought that

beach was magical. There was something about it. Maybe it was the way the waves crashed against the rocks that bordered the marina just next to the driftwood littered, sandy beach.

Spending summer evenings watching the waves, or sailboats racing up and down the Sound from our perfect vantage point, or just a sunset with the pure colors of the Pacific Northwest lights reflecting off the water added to the magic. The air never failed to smell fresh and I could

almost taste the distant saltiness of the far off ocean. We met the summer right after my senior year. I was eighteen, he was twenty. The beach

had played a part in our relationship, being the place where many of our most precious memories had happened. It was on this beach that we had our first kiss, first talked of spending the rest of our lives together and where he told me that he knew I was the one he wanted to

marry. Each time, the same sun sank over the same sandy beach and reflected off of the same Puget Sound. Each summer when he would come up to visit, we would spend as much time

together as possible. Most of it was spent near the water, at Pike Place Market or traipsing through the San Juan Islands. But that beach, that small beach hidden from the rest of the land by a marina and back roads, was our special place. Roasting marshmallows in a fire surrounded

by my friends, whom he spent so much time getting to know, playing with the dog he helped me adopt from a local shelter and making promises of our future life together after we were out of college made our love seem real and tangible.

But all that is gone. This same beach is where my heart still lies, shattered into pieces, spread out over the multicolored sail boats of the marina, the driftwood formed into houses

and forts and the sand with millions of footprints of lost lovers buried within its depths so deep that no one will ever find them. Mine are there, alongside his, but ours have been washed away by those gentle waves that used to lap at our feet as we sat watching the sun sink behind that

horizon of Seattle’s lights. That sun will never rise again on me walking on this beach. This beach is sacred to me and causes too much pain. Maybe someday I will visit again, but for now I will

find a different beach, one without the memories, without the secrets of a first true love hidden within it. Someday, I will come back for my heart.

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A Life Between Storms

He was born in the eye of a storm; a hurricane in New Orleans to be exact. The tense wait for the coming storm in the calmness of the eye would come to define his life as would the colorful flutter of his hometown. He arrived in the world with a brain already full of ideas

storming around and a wild personality to match. He was nicknamed McStorm by the time he was six months old.

He grew up as wild as a hurricane and as destructive as a tornado, his mother often finding his bedroom walls covered in paint or crayon or marker from when an idea struck at just the moment when he was without paper. His father found him in the backyard once, covered in

dirt but proudly looking down at a rock structure that looked remarkably similar to ancient Rome, complete with small people sprinkled throughout the dirt streets.

By the time he was in high school he had figured out how to channel his energetic spirit and creativity to other things, particularly directing movies. He went to college, majored in directing and cinematography, moved to LA and married to an actress. Wherever he went, the

storms followed. He bounced from project to project, pumping out blockbuster hits like Zeus’s lightning factory, each more stunning and powerful than the next. In between Academy Awards

and Grammy nominations he still pumped out ideas, barely pausing before plunging into his next movie.

He watched his four kids, who were all born within a year of each other, grow up, none

of whom had careers in the entertainment business and had more grandchildren than he knew what to do with. Well, except for Ricky, the youngest grandkid. Ricky was exactly like McStorm, stormy and grey and creative. Ricky followed his grandfather’s footsteps.

McStorm never did stop making movies. He was visiting New Orleans for ideas for a movie and was waiting out a hurricane very similar to the one in which he had been born. He

was busy writing down ideas, on paper this time, when his stormy heart finally gave way, and in the eye of the storm his pen stopped moving and his soul flew out to join the storm. Ricky took his grandfather’s last three ideas and on the night of each movie’s premier, storms blew all

around the theaters as audiences around the globe watched McStorm’s last legacy. Ricky took this as a symbol of his grandfather’s approval.

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Standing in the Shrapnul

There’s a bomb on this plane. It’s the elephant in the room. This small room in the sky is

carrying me to a town; a town whose name I cannot remember. All I remember about that town is the person there, perhaps waiting for me, perhaps not. I look out the window, watching as the ground comes closer and closer to my view, details of trees and roads and houses becoming

clearer. I glance at the other people on the plane, wishing I had their oblivious existence. I wonder what their lives are like, what their passions are, where they work, who they love. If they

ever were close to losing those they cherished most. The bomb is ticking. It’s not easy to say when our friendship went astray, whose fault it is,

why it took a turn for the worse. I can however, say that I’ve been scrambling, drowning, flailing,

trying to reach out for something to hold us steady. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells and the more steps I take closer the more shells I break. I’m losing my footing. Was it because I went

and did something for myself for a change? Because I had the guts and the gall to step out into this big open world and start exploring it? Did I change? Did I make you uncomfortable? Did I push you into the background? The plane starts its landing gear.

One minute. I would never intentionally hurt you. I wouldn’t change our friendship for anything in the world. I wanted adventures, but I wanted you to come with me on those

adventures. That’s what I’m doing on this plane. The reason I’m coming back, not to home, but to a place I lived is so we can adventure together. Who else am I to share it with than you?

Thirty seconds. The plane hits the runway and gently lands like a crane gliding along the

surface of a river. There is calm, order, direction in the scene around me. I stand up, gather my carryon baggage and file off the plane. I walk through the terminal to baggage claim, hearing the talking, the laughter, the joyful reunions going on all around me.

Ten seconds. I see you by the baggage claim. We meet at Claim Number six. We say hello, how are you. You ask why I came back. I hold up the two tickets I have. I tell you the

world isn’t worth exploring unless it’s explored with a friend. The bomb explodes. We stand in the shrapnel for a moment, stunned by how quickly the

conversation turned and by where our friendship has led. You smile, take the ticket out of my

hand and ask if I happened to have a second suitcase. I smile, and pull two suitcases off the claim, handing one to you. We head back in the direction of check in. You glance in my

direction. You have time to change your life.

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Humanity’s Greatest Strength

My hands have changed. I see the way my fingers move, the long phalanges of my hands with

their languid, piano-playing rhythm, brushing, petting, fixing, playing in a new way. A way unlike the hands

of my girlhood. The small hands that always seemed so awkward to me, the uncertain and untimed

motions that always seemed to get me into certain trouble are now replaced by a confidence and

certainty that is both strange and intimate. They reflect the turbulent growing-up time within my heart and

mind and the changes within my soul.

And there it is. The elephant in the room of my mind. The hole in my heart. The terror of my nights

and the sweat of my days. It’s not even my past loves that still hang my mind in a cloud of thoughts

relentlessly trying to get out despite myself being unwilling to share them with anyone whatsoever. It’s

the fact that everything I knew was wrong.

Well, maybe not wrong. Just that the ideals that I was set up with ended up not being the fairytale

ending or happy ever after that I had thought. It wasn’t the whirlwind romance, the patient love that I had

so longed for. I had banked on my first relationship…my first real guy being the one…I trusted myself and

God to make that decision to guide me so that I would save myself the heartbreak and pain of living with

my decision, of living with the fact that I had misguided myself into a relationship that, yes I learned from,

but ultimately shook my foundations so deep that I became unrecognizable to myself at the end of it. But

that’s exactly what happened.

And I became jaded. Because love was not everything marvelous and beautiful that I thought it

was. It was selfish and unkind and spoke without thinking of the impact the words had on the hearer. It

wasn’t without effort…indeed, my second ex-boyfriend said that our relationship would be work…no more

happy feelings…no more fun emotions. Just work. Like a 9-5 gig that we would never be rid of. We would

go to the ministry together and lead our lives. Or at least, he would lead our lives. I would follow with no

opinion, just the eager need to please a man who could not be pleased by me.

For wasn’t that it? Love doesn’t set us free, it binds us! It ties us down and prevents us from

fulfilling our dreams. What good are our passions and talents if we don’t use them for the greater good?

Being in love wasn’t a fun, free, passion-led time of life. It runs you ragged, ties you down, tears you up

and beats you beyond recognition. Who in the world would want something like that? Why would we

bother doing what everyone else in the world has done; this endless cycle of growing up, getting a job,

getting married, having children and raising them to follow in our footsteps. What is it worth? How will it

change the world we live in, the people we are or the lives we live? What is the point of just doing what

everyone else has done?

Don’t they see? How can we be so blind to the world that is out there? How can we see the other

peoples, religions, beliefs, cultures, foods, languages and not be overcome with a desire to know and see

more? Why were we put on this world with such variety to only see our little corner of it? To come and

go completely unchanged by the lives led by everyone else on the planet.

How can one person be worth trading all that in? How can one supposedly special, completes-you,

bosom buddy, friend and lover be worth giving up the world?

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Because I still see relationships that confuse me. Women and men bound together by love that

radiates, sparkles, envelopes the perceivers by that divine act of selflessly giving yourself up to another

person for always. Christine and Willy, for instance had a wedding that was out of this world. It was too

pure, too genuine to be an earthly thing. I still see relationships that are based on mutual respect and love,

relationships bent on preserving who they are as individuals to better the team that they make better

together. Bethany and Donald, who dove in head first to their first loves with a surer footing than I had.

They were not blind to the half truths given to women and men striving for that one special person. Leslie

and Evan who learn from one another and share their lives and families.

So maybe love doesn’t bind. Maybe there are relationships out there that prove the beauty of the

world even in one relationship. Maybe it’s ok that I don’t do all I say I will. Maybe it’s ok to give it all up for

someone who I really do love and who loves me in return. God is always good right? And maybe there is

more to love than I thought, more to life than I expected. Maybe people don’t think so harshly of me as I

do myself.

My hands are no longer those of a child. They are the hands of a woman. Capable, confident and

strong. I am not weak, but falling in love is not a sign of weakness. Maybe protecting myself from love is

in fact the weakness. Perhaps allowing ourselves to fall in love is humanity’s greatest strength.

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