A. J. Jacono
The water is cold against my bellybutton and I’m afraid a waterborne parasite will swim up my urethra. I cup a hand over my crotch. I’d never have thought a pond could feel threatening, but Bruce, Olivia, and Belle aren’t fazed—they’re grinning at the few hundred yards of water rolling beyond their naked forms and talking about the universe. A. J. Jacono
“The Big Bang,” Olivia says to the sky, “is literally magic. Nothing in existence except this infinitely small singularity, then—BOOM! Everything’s here. Makes you feel tiny, doesn’t it?”
Bruce giggles, so he must be in the mood to entertain Olivia’s philosophizing. Belle is even more enthusiastic, chiming, “Yes, it does!” and leaning over to bear-hug Olivia.
I haven’t said anything in a few minutes; the others have probably noticed. If you just stand here looking like an antisocial schlep, I think to myself, they’ll stop being friends with you. So I look around and try to summon up a witty remark. Above, the moon is silver and looks round enough to be full, though Belle classified it earlier as a “waning gibbous,” a term that reminds me of expired gelatin. Around that same moon is the usual New England canopy of stars, the constellations I used to be able to name but of which I can now only identify the Big and Little Dippers. A. J. Jacono
I point upward, turn to the others and say, “You know, if you look just hard enough at the stars, you can just make out the shape of a dick.”
They laugh. My ploy seems to have worked, and for a moment, I’m lifted out of my head and immersed into this wind-blown forest—I can smell Olivia’s lavender shampoo, can hear the caws of a bird somewhere in the night. But much sooner than I expect, I retreat back into my head; meanwhile, the others keep talking.
“Do you guys ever feel older than you actually are?” sighs Belle.
Bruce and Olivia murmur in agreement. I want to say something, because I identify with Belle’s current sentiment far more than with her thoughts on a fourteen-billion-year-old particle explosion, but I can’t give much more than a grunt of solidarity. How the hell are you supposed to condense the abyss of human feeling into words that have already been said?
I’m back to staring at things. There are hundreds of bare November trees around us, their leaves glowing in a gentle astral light I could never find in New York. This reminds me of when I first moved to Connecticut and was shocked to see a sky unmarred by light pollution. A. J. Jacono
“You can’t even see that many stars here,” Tom, a Mainer friend of mine, explained. “If you ever come visit me, you won’t believe how many there really are out there. You’re basically getting a cross-sectional shot of the Milky Way.”
I always thought his description funny and perhaps exaggerated, but now, it almost depresses me. Are other people’s experiences better than mine, or is it all truly relative?
“You okay, Richie?” Bruce asks.
I look over. They’re all staring at me.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
“You look like you’re thinking hard.”
I open my mouth, shrug.
“What about?” Belle presses. A. J. Jacono
I try to pull together some kind of meaning from my internal ramblings. It isn’t long, however, before I realize that I don’t have an answer, and I start to feel guilty that I’ve been ignoring my friends. But they don’t have to know that. All they need to know is that I care enough about them to respond, even meekly.
“Nothing important,” I say, and try to smile.
They nod. Because they, like I do, know when it’s time to stop talking.
We all look out over the water. The sky’s reflection skims across the pond’s windy ripples, and when I close my eyes, I can feel the squelch of mud below me. I’m not sure why, but it’s all very comforting.
