Under Construction

I suppose I am. Downstairs I hear drilling, the sound of smooth round holes making their way into the ceiling of what will one day be my living room. Inside the holes, the electricians will run wiring for lights. From these holes will beam hallogen streams that will look like smoke and bounce off of paintings. Photographs. Stuff. "That's our family room," we will say. "That's our Den."

The holes, I suppose there are holes that have been drilled into my sober little soul. By the man who put a cigarette out on my knee, for example, though the hole later became a nub, a growth, something my finger soothed over. My father's holes ran deeper and what seeped out felt more like sewage than light, and led me to believe that my innards were far from light, far from clean.

One time, one of those drill holes will come into the sub-floor. And you know what? I am worried about the subfloor, because that's all we've got. We polished up the flooring and called it good. Called it final. And it is good. People walk upstairs and say, "Wow, those floors are beautiful" and they are. And if you look right through the boards, you see light. And then you see the downstairs. And that's not so good.

I have no subfloor on days like this. Or rather, I feel as though I am walking along it, looking through the cracks to the downstairs, where the bile runs, in a thick pulsing frenzy. The reason is that I asked a favour of a friend, who said she would, and got my kids all psyched up and then said she still would, really, only four hours later and with a bunch of other kids (and the names and circumstances have all been changed, which all but ruins the story).

A sister let me down. One of the floor boards broke. My foot went through. I'll pull it back up. I'll keep on walking. It's the subfloor, though. It's the last line. And blood stains.

Ah, the beauty of high drama. My sister let me down. This is an old story. Sit down, and I'll tell you the story of a ship wreck. Of a survivor. Of a man overboard, and a ship-shod raft.