“Like the other day I put some margarine on a
nothing. I have no desire to be connected, no
piece of toast and then dropped the toast and
regret, nothing. I have no opinion, no feeling. Or
then I felt weird . . . like I had no idea why that set
the feelings I have don’t ever reach me. They are
of circumstances would be happening at that sec-
there, but I never . . . feel them.” She paused, gazed
ond, or what relationship I had with this piece of
out the window at clouds of black smoke puffing
toast, piece of bread, the margarine, or how the
from a dirty chimney on the roof of the hospital’s
margarine had gotten out of the container or how
other wing.
the container had gotten from the store, or why
“So many details all the time . . . and none of
my mother had bought that particular tub of mar-
them seem to matter. I can see them all, but there
garine and not a different but identical one? And
is nothing to hold them together, nothing to dis-
why wasn’t she still driving with it from the store,
tinguish them. There is no focus.” She turned her
why was it back in the refrigerator opened, not
head to the side, with the intention of looking him
unopened? Why had I picked up the toast now,
in the eye, but turned away again instead, glancing
picked it up at all, been near it ever? Why was now
between the television screen and the clock on
now? What is now?” She stopped and breathed. There was a relative silence in which Leeann calmly waited for Richard to judge her or leave or ask more questions. She felt she
“Things happen, and I
the wall. 4:45. Not that the time really mattered. In about fifteen
watch them. And I don’t
minutes someone would bring in
know why I keep watching
a tray of food that she probably
them. And it doesn’t matter
wouldn’t touch. It was a dilemma. Her doctor had told her they
had done her part or had done as
that they happen. They
would start feeding her through a
much as she could do and thought
have . . . nothing to do
tube again if she didn’t gain
that the two might be different things. And that they might, on the
weight. The idea of eating sick-
with me . . . ”
ened her, all that tearing of tissue,
other hand, be the same. A purple sky was framed
the swallowing of whole cells. It was a ghastly and
by the window and cut into pieces by mini-blinds
ugly process. So much death to sustain such tem-
that no one had raised that day.
porary life. She could barely stand it.
“So you don’t know why you do things?” Richard asked.
And although she didn’t mind receiving her nutrition intravenously, she knew it made it seem
“No, not exactly. It’s that I don’t do things at all.”
as if she had given up. And people might start
She cocked her head to the side, meeting his eyes.
believing that she had and then they might let her
“Things happen, and I watch them. And I don’t
drift away. She was only eighty pounds; there was
know why I keep watching them. And it doesn’t
very little to anchor her.
matter that they happen. They have . . . nothing to
Richard coughed.
do with me . . . or at least nothing more than any-
Leeann flipped through the television chan-
thing else does . . . so it feels like nothing.”
nels—words and faces, faces and words, distin-
“So you feel disconnected,” Richard said, but
guishable by configuration, color, and meaning
the word was too common, and she could almost
that floated ghostlike and uncertain, especially of
hear the flipping open of a category that she
itself—waiting for a polite time to turn the sound
didn’t want to be inside, as she was already stuck
back on.
somewhere else. “No.” Leeann was firm. “It isn’t like that. I don’t feel anything. There is no disconnection because there is no connection to compare it to. There is
Jamie Frank ’04 wrote the novel Starfish for her senior project and also gave the Student Perspective talk at graduation. Currently, she is working and writing in Portland, Maine.
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