Impacted Convergence by Karissa Kuhle

Drops of water hit the side of Marin’s face as she laid on the park bench, her torso scooped into a loose C.

Marin, a sopping towel of flesh and fabric, couldn’t wring herself out and walk home. Her rolled-up jeans allowed rain to soak into her short-topped boots and her hair looked like copper yarn that had been dipped in a bucket; a twisted pile of wetness. Red lipstick drained down the corner of her lips and black mascara pooled on the upside of her nose and ran down under her eyes, dripping steadily on the wooden park bench, accompanying an unabating torrent of tears. She looked like the Dracula bride she played in a high school play—thin, pale and frightening.

As she laid still, she watched the rain gently knock leaves from a Cottonwood. “Blow away,” she mouthed, staring blankly. Since she’d heard about Jack, Marin couldn’t bring herself to finish the novel she’d started alongside him. She knew if she did, it would somehow bring her clarity, but she couldn’t. Marin was now living in the crux of wanting to distinguish herself, and wanting to blow away.

After the moon took the day, Marin erected her noodle of a body to sit. She blinked away the memories, and began the five minute walk to the coffee house. A nestled incubator, the coffee house served as Marin’s muse—the place where her characters were birthed. Each time Marin walked through the wooden doors of the Irish pub-like place, her fictional friends greeted her mind, then found their way into her novel.

Marin grabbed a stack of napkins from the counter and dripped her way to a corner nook. She wiped the rain from her face and hung her sopping jacket and backpack from the chair across from her. To her relief, the laptop had been safely zipped away from the rain.

A young barista brought her a cup of black coffee, and Marin began her day’s—life’s—work. Swollen, red eyes focused intently on the light glowing from the laptop. Marin begrudgingly pecked down a couple of sentences, gulped her coffee, then words streamed through her and onto the page. She shifted uncomfortably in her sticky, wet jeans, and rolled her sleeves to avoid dampening her keyboard.

Her mind circled back to the day she met Jack. It was the summer before, when visiting her childhood hometown. As a freelance columnist, Marin traveled at whim, and often. She lived a couple states away, but returned home for the wedding of a family friend. It was to be a rural, but fancy ceremony, held outdoors. Marin missed this place in the summer. Conservative, antiquated characters attended church on Sundays, followed by brunch and beers at the bar. Her parents and grandparents were raised in the town, and grew roots. She could have been a nurse at the town hospital, or worked as a bank teller, or took over the only dining establishment. All of these external aspirations were underscored by her family’s ever-present woo to lure callow Marin back to the sleepy village.

Driving into the town, the memories flooded in thick, but velvet. She remembered tearing around with friends; no rules, no cares. As Marin passed the town’s lone gas station, she recognized the same rust-colored Ford sitting out front. She knew the cashier would toil at that place until his employers forced him to retire. The fact that the town never changed made Marin’s visits comfortable, but after a few days, the incessant helix of monotony made departure to her new home easy.

On the Saturday of the wedding, Marin spent the afternoon at the lake near the family farm. Her high school bandits still populated the rural lands and brought their boats and pontoons; something they did every weekend when crops didn’t need to be planted or harvested. Of course, in the winter when the lake froze over, the same friends would drive their ATVs with sleds and car hoods roped to the back; the lake, their playground. Her friends welcomed her back with a necklace of stories of their rugged pasts; stealing road signs, passing out in cornfields after nights of drinking copious amounts of free beer. Being the female version of a troublemaker, Marin found her way out of many legal situations her male friends found their way into. Punish the boys a bit—for being boys—and give the girl a verbal warning to stay away from the troublemakers. Those were the confines of rural legality. Marin knew her new friends wouldn’t recognize the girl her childhood friends spoke of, but it was a paradox that Marin, at times, enjoyed.

After too many beers, and hours of soaking in the warm, fungus-laden lake, Marin and her friends batted around the idea of skipping the wedding and staying on the lake. Marin’s ever-responsible high school friend reasoned with the group of inebriated zoo animals and convinced them to attend the wedding.

It’s a blessing and a curse Marin’s friend pulled her to the wedding; for it was there she met Jack. The one and only evening she would spend with him. An enchanted, whisky-laced night of what Marin considered a convergence with her soul mate—and the night of stimulus that prodded her writing career.

Marin adorned a long, black dress, and appeared unfit for a summer wedding. Her skin was tanned to a reddish brown and her sun-bleached hair hung in a loose ponytail, wisps shaping her face. Marin, calm, mingled with forgotten friends post-garden wedding, scanning the crowd for faces she couldn’t place. She searched for anyone more interesting than those who surrounded her at present. Celebratory champagne funneled through Marin, bringing a pink flush to her cheeks. As the night closed in, Marin heard the couple’s first dance announced. She stumbled to find her purse near the white wedding tent, with plans of departure, partly due to mosquitos biting through her skin, leaving red bumps littered down her arms.

When Marin finished swatting the bugs to their death, she saw him. Black eyes pierced through her as she passed him, prompting her halt. She turned back to look at the mysterious, dark-haired man, and met his black stare as she did. “Hey,” Jack said strongly, never blinking. Marin fidgeted with the stem of her glass and returned the ‘hello.’ After a minute of muddled first-questions, the two navigated through a trail of lavish, brimming flowerbeds to a deserted bench on the side of the family home. Champagne glass in hand, Marin quickly learned Jack was a college friend of the groom. Jack was in town for two days, after which he would return to Belgium, where he was a photographer. Marin and Jack marveled in stories of each other’s lives. Jack swept Marin into a web with details of his esoteric musings, many of which merged with Marin’s.

Hours later, and sun rising, the two agreed to keep in touch. Both creatives, they decided to write a novel alongside each other—their excuse to keep in contact. They would tell no one of their plans until they both published their books.

Months passed, and Jack and Marin kept in daily contact, revealing bits and pieces of their storylines, and comforting one another through the everyday drudgery of painting worlds on paper. In March, when Marin was closing the final chapter of her novel, she lost contact with Jack, and assumed he had moved on, distance playing the part of the stone in their path.

Two weeks later, after a number of failed attempts to get ahold of him, Marin received a letter from Jack’s mother. She opened it on March 30 at 8:30 a.m. on her way out the door to the coffee shop, where she was to work on a column. Drizzle fogged the glass apartment complex door and Marin braced herself on the stair railing near the mail center as she read. His mother’s light cursive script revealed that Jack had been killed in a plane crash. When cleaning out Jack’s Belgian home, his mother found a journal entry detailing his plan to surprise Marin in the United States for the exchange of their manuscripts. Complete with photocopied pages of journal entries, the letter served as a timestamp of Marin’s success as a writer.

Marin mechanically tucked the letter into her coat sleeve. Pushing through the door, a wave of chilled air filled her lungs, and rain cascaded down her face. Her brown, suede boots darkened with each step, collecting the sidewalk’s moisture and feeding it to her socks. Foot after foot, an aloof and blank Marin made her way to the neighborhood park bench, where she would lie in solitude for the rest of the day… and weep.