Inhabitation
Got a babysitter so J and I could go out to lunch for Valentine’s Day, despite the rain. Went well, except for her inhabitation.
Just after we were seated, and by all indications in earnest, she asked, “This is your last semester in the program at the college, isn’t it?”
I looked at her askance, as if to say, You gotta be fucking kidding me?
Because we have been married almost ten years now and she knows damn well that this is my last semester in the program at the college. She is, let’s say, not unfamiliar with the trajectory of our lives, and knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that in May my course at the college will be complete. She continued to look at me, though, expecting me to take her question seriously.
So I said, “You’re kidding, right?”
And she said, “Well it is, isn’t it?”
I sat back in my chair and the waiter came.
We ordered, but I was miffed, embarrassed, and even concerned.
The waiter left, and I leaned forward and whispered, “I’m going to assume that it’s because we haven’t been out to lunch together, alone, without the Eej, for so long that you have slipped into a sort of reverie, or fugue state, because that’s the only way I can explain your question to myself.”
She looked at me, a little hurt, maybe, and confused.
I sat back again.
“You’re inhabited,” I added.
There was a pause then she said, “Don’t be mean, G.”
But there is no way she didn’t know it was true.
“I’m not trying to be mean but I don’t know what you want me to do when you throw a zinger at me like that. But look, still, you know, I get it. It’s understandable. People, people are inhabited by other people all the time. I mean, you can’t expect to just be you twenty-four-seven, you know? With all these other people in the world, and in your life, it’s bound to happen, that under certain circumstances, like these, or maybe even all the time, evidence of inhabitation by others will leak out of you into the environment. And, of course, usually no one will notice, because everyone is sufficiently like everyone else, that most behaviors could apply to anybody. What was that Kundera book about borrowed gestures? Immortality? Anyway, but because you and I are so close, we’ll actually notice the more subtle moments of inhabitation leakage in one another, and – although that one was not so subtle – that is what I think just happened.”
Then the waiter swung over with our wine.
“Here we are,” he sang.
Graham Guest is currently doing my PhD in creative writing at The University of Glasgow (expected 2011-2012). He is working on an experimental novel called Winter Park which operates at the intersection of fiction and philosophy. Graham has published in fiction, philosophy, and music; but most importantly, he is the proud father of Edie Jane Guest and the proud husband of Jennifer Guest.
