Incomplete

I wrote this one immeditaely after "The Color Orange".

***

When does something feel complete? That felt almost complete, but there were definitely gaps. Maybe the feeling of completeness is one and the same with having gaps because maybe in order to be complete, there MUST be room for improvement.

If every hole was filled and every empty space eradicated, the work would feel packed—like a teenage girl’s suitcase on the way to a beach resort an hour from her upper-middle-class, white stuccoed home.

The empty places in her suitcase are now full of make-up and thong underwear and packets of condoms to use with the young golf course attendees. Before they were filled she felt naked, left in the open for others to squawk at, but now she feels whole, covered and protected by little plastic bottles and little plastic bags and little pieces of plastic on her little cloth underwear.

And on the road to the beach resort, she thinks of everything she could have brought and everything she would have brought, but her suit case now has no more empty spaces and she realizes she’s forgotten her toothbrush

… so she wails to return, but they’re already at the front gates and her family can see yellow sand and green grass and bright, bright blue water beyond the white and beige and light brown and light blue building where the guests stay…

… and somebody assures her that she does not need a toothbrush: they can buy one here and she sniffles a little and calms as they drive through the gates and she turns her head to brood and look out the window as she’s seen almost-celebrities do on reality TV as they drive up in their sleek, black stretch limos.

and she sees the grass and the water and the sand and the place where the guests stay and she can do nothing but think of her packed suit case and somehow feel

incomplete.