This is an old piece I just found, dusted off. I don’t know why I’m posting something so melancholy on a morning when I woke up almost giddy. But I like it. Clearly I had read some Douglas Coupland before writing it.

I woke up this morning thinking about you. It was raining hard, the kind of rain that collides with the ground more than falls onto it, the kind that snaps twigs off of the new trees they just planted in Grant Park. I stumbled into the bathroom, stared in the mirror for a second (mornings are when I most look like my father), stumbled back into the bedroom, slept some more. I heard somewhere that sleeping too much means that something’s wrong, that we have all of these built-in triggers in our bodies to alert us to what’s going on inside, but we’ve learned as a species to ignore them. If I forced myself to sleep less, would I get healthier? Could I stop thinking about that call, then?

The phone woke me up around noon, the ringtone pealing into the empty apartment, the screen animated with a cartoon of a dancing phone, furrowed, angry eyebrows on its indeterminately-ethnic face. I hate that face. That cartoon means it isn’t you calling.

My mother was on the other end, telling me about another flood was bloating the river and lapping at the foundation of the house, telling me that they weren’t leaving the house, telling me she was calling to say goodbye just in case, telling me not to worry. I smiled and nodded, then realized she couldn’t see me doing either, so I said goodbye and hung up. She doesn’t ask me about you anymore. She learned that lesson the hard way a few phone calls ago. It must feel mortifying as a parent, to hear your thirty-six year old son break down and sob over the phone. You want the best for your children. You want them to be stable, successful, and happy. They have learned to conquer life through their upbringing, and your guidance. She said nothing at the time, completely silent, until I finally realized she had hung up, maybe on purpose, maybe by accident, but she never spoke of it, on the next call or anytime after.

I did this next: I got dressed slowly, looking at my body in the full-length mirror on the door, looking at myself from the feet up, then I reached my face, scrutinized my eyes. They’re still brown. Then I thought this: Why does looking angry dogs in the eyes provoke them? That seems like a hallmark of intelligence to me, for a creature to realize your face is not like theirs, but to still look at your face when you are nearby. Other, dumber animals will just stare at your ankles or feet, but the smart ones look at your face. They know that’s where the action is, where the shit that’s important goes down.

I remembered suddenly the first time we saw each other in daylight. We had met in a bar, at night, and met a few times after that, but always in the evening (the second date was in the back room at a coffee shop, your jawline rugged and beautiful in the dim light. The third date was at the movies; I don’t even remember what we saw, but I remember disagreeing with you about it just so I could hear your voice getting more and more passionate). Our first daytime date was downtown at a museum, and as we were walking, I saw your green eyes, fully, brightly, for the first time. You were facing the sun, squinting, and I guess the courteous thing to do would have been to walk around you so the sun was at your back, but I was mesmerized by the way the light turned your eyes into green fire, so bright it made my own eyes water.

After a long search for my keys, I left my apartment on foot and walked along Clark for a bit. I passed Ann Sather. I passed the music store, I can’t even remember its name when I’m looking right at it, I passed the dry cleaners and reminded myself to stop there on the way back. I got to Foster, and then walked a few blocks east until I reached the lake. It had stopped raining, but the shoreline was still deserted. Steely-gray, choppy water foamed and frothed under the wind, and the gulls hovered above it looked drugged and lazy.

Then I did this: I started out on the path towards downtown, the runners and bikers swerving to avoid hitting me. I walked and walked, hands thrust in the pockets of my coat. I forgot my gloves. You would always remind me of things like that. You would always remember where I put things, too. I would get frustrated looking for something, and could just ask you where it was. You would put down the book you were reading, or pause while you were cooking, close your eyes, and put a finger to your temple, like Johnny Carson’s Carnac The Magnificent character. “Your phone is…on top of the bookshelf in the living room.” I know you weren’t really psychic, it was just a trick of your photographic memory, but I loved the ritual of it. I would test you sometimes, but you always knew when I was making it up, and you wouldn’t play along. You always knew when I was lying to you.

A few yards away the traffic on Lakeshore raced by, heading north, fleeing the city. I drive everywhere now, even to places far away. Or take the train. I can’t fly anymore. This happened a few years ago, when I had a bad flight through Denver, through the Rockies. There was typical turbulence, but then a drop so sudden and stomach-churning, that strangers spontaneously started talking to each other. I started talking to a girl next to me named Jill. She was pretty and petite. She was flying back to Denver from a work conference that had gone well for her. She loved her job and was looking forward to transferring someplace warmer at some point. We chatted easily and casually, but both aware of the undercurrent of peril that was bonding us together. The turbulence eased, the conversation continued. She mentioned her fiancee several times until I brought up my boyfriend. I get that a lot from women I talk to. It makes me uncomfortable on a level disproportionate to what it actually is. I don’t know why.

What instinct is it, I wonder, that makes us seek out others in a catastrophe, or in danger? Still walking towards downtown, I fantasized about disasters, about an asteroid streaking down and obliterating the skyline while I watched, the pyroclastic cloud choking everyone not lucky enough to die in the strike. Or a sudden and relentless plague killing most of the population, animals roaming the empty suburban streets like gangs. Maudlin thoughts. Who would I call? Who would you call? How bad would the disaster have to be to provoke you to call me? How far down on your list am I now?

I glanced over at Lakeshore Drive, looking for your car without meaning to. So many dark green jellybeans on the road these days.

This is what happened next: I finally reached the edge of downtown, and sat on a bench for a minute to stare at the water. I pulled my hands out of my pockets to cup them to my face and warm them, and realized too late that I had dragged out a slip of paper that fluttered into the lakewater before I could react. It was Laura’s number, I realized, disappointed. I had run into her at a gas station recently, and we decided to go get a drink at a dive bar nearby. We had not spoken in years. I don’t remember who stopped calling who, but I probably stopped calling her. We picked up easily where we left off, her brassy laugh silencing the other, quieter patrons. Later, when the conversation turned to relationships, Laura confided why she, single, went on so many dates.

“Ben”, she said, “when you’re single at our age, everything is at stake. This is the Olympics.” Later, she ruminated about exes of ours. “That was just their fear. They were just scared.” That made me wonder now as it did then, if it’s so easy for us to see the obvious motivation -fear- behind other people’s seemingly irrational actions, can they see ours just as easily? Is everyone’s fear that transparent from the outside looking in, but not to ourselves? We had both laughed at how the easy thing to do would be to just make “Damaged Goods” labels for ourselves to warn others right off the bat.

Neither of us having our cell phones on us, we made a joke of her giving me her number on a scrap of napkin. And now I had lost it. Would she remember us losing touch the first time, be angry? Would she even care? Anyway, you would have loved Laura.

Here is this: I reached Navy Pier. As I walked past a hot dog cart, I realized I hadn’t eaten before I left and I was ravenous. I ducked into the food court and got a burger with everything. I wolfed it down in six bites flat. I ordered another and took in outside, started eating it. As I was finishing it, walking slowly down the pier, a dog padded up alongside me. What was it doing here, this dog in the middle of downtown? It looked like a fox. It looked a little thin. He looked at my face, then down at the remnant of the second burger, then back at my face. I stopped and surprised myself by squatting down to offer the rest of my food. He could easily bite me from this position, but he did not. Instead, he inched forward and gingerly took the morsel from my outstretched hand. His eyes never left mine. He gulped it down, turned, and padded away.

I am sorry, I lied about that last part with the dog. That didn’t happen. There was no dog. I just didn’t want to tell you about the next part, I was trying to delay telling you what happened next.

There was this: I walked to the end of the pier. The flags on their flagpoles were flapping furiously, and I looked up at them, at flags I didn’t recognize. I turned towards the looming skyline, looking at the construction cranes nearby, slowly swaying. I turned back and there you were, about 30 yards away.

I felt a buzzing in my left ear. It felt as though every pore on my body closed at once. I heard the waves and wind as through a shell. You were there with her. You both looked happy, and unaware of me. You were wearing the coat I gave you. My brain roiling, I edged away. I must have not been aware of how close I was to the pier railing.

Next, this happened: I was underwater, looking up. It was darker, but warmer than you might think it would be, even this close to the surface. And then this: It was also quiet, despite the stormy weather up above. Did I tell you about this next part: Oh stupid Ben, what have you done? You have made a mess of things again. Next: Commotion up above, movement at the edge of my vision, maybe voices.

And then: Warmer, and silent, and birthday candles.