Snow Globe Graveyards | by Sean Staudacher

I’ve had the car packed since 1:00 and, even though she doesn’t get off work until 3:30, Mindy will not be ready until 6:00. It’s something I’ve noticed, and tried my best to ignore since we’ve been together. Mindy operates on a distinctly different level than I. She avoids situations that involve hardship, confrontation, or any sort of adversity. I have always welcomed them. If not because her evading such situations ultimately leads her to them, then because I believe that this dynamic works well for us is why I have never addressed it directly. I used to appreciate the sparkle in her large, glass-blown eyes when we were at a healthy level of disagreement. It’s what I loved most about her. That sparkle has diminished over time, however, and I’ve noticed a familiar buzzing about her that has haunted their once glossy shimmer. Lately, coming home after work has seemed to find its place on her list of situations to avoid. It seems now as though I live alone, in a house haunted by her hardship, confrontation, and adversity.

As a child, my family took this trip north for two weeks every summer. It is a peaceful place, a two-hour drive, located on Sutton’s Bay in Northern Michigan. Most days, the beach is buzzing with teenagers and twenty-somethings running after one another, playing volleyball, or diving out of boats in the bay as Mindy and I have done in years passed. It was that buzzing that captured me, captivated me, as a youth. It was that same buzzing that drew me to Mindy years later. Recently, that buzzing has evolved into something unavoidable. It has been haunting me with increased frequency.

As a teen, it was when the buzzing became less obtrusive that I really connected with the place. Those quiet hours each evening, when being discreet meant nothing more than walking without a flashlight and keeping the conversations between me and myself, were my favorite. There was a haunting quality to the coastline at night that spoke truths to me through splashes and sparks as waves moved in and out as effortlessly as the campfires that appeared in quarter-mile intervals. It was as if each wave carried a message and whispered them to me like secrets from distant winds that had started the swells. I listened carefully, sending some away with the skip of a stone, and accepting others, storing them inside of me as they soaked into the soles of my feet.

** 

Mindy and I met at a point in my life when I wasn’t concerned with career goals or long-term relationships. At that point, my largest concerns usually operated around two things: which one was I taking home that night and when was she going to leave? We were in college, at a typical college party, when I first saw her. Her eyes drew me in, hypnotized me. I was immediately infatuated with them. They were like snow globes, and we were dancing and making love in them both.

Sometime during the dancing or lovemaking, or as a result of my drunken state, I must have become too distracted to notice that I was approaching her. It wasn’t until the words had already forced their way out of my mouth that I had noticed.

“You’re the prettiest girl I have ever seen,” is something similar to what I shouted through the chaotic cluster and conversation of our fellow partygoers. There was a familiar buzz about the room that hung audibly over the commotion and took precedence over my better judgment as I stood beside her.

“I have a boyfriend,” she shouted. Her response was passionate, almost violent, and felt like a slap to the face. She sounded as if I knew her status, as if I were daring her to staple a red “A” to her chest and take me right there. The image made me think that maybe I should, which I enjoyed, and her reaction did nothing to deter my efforts.

“Sorry, you looked lonely over here,” I said, commenting on the innocence displayed in her snow globe eyes. It was like they held the history of an entire world, a world separate from our own. I imagined her deconstructing and reconstructing entire civilizations for pleasure. I found myself asking if it was snow or ash that saw in her eyes. She must have noticed me staring and was quick in response.

“I don’t really know anyone. I came with my roommate, but haven’t seen her in a while,” She responded comfortably. In contrast to how the conversation started, I should have been wary. It was the promise of safety in her eyes that forced my hand at negligence.

Her calmed demeanor reeked of vulnerability. As I struggled to keep my composure, the buzzing returned. I saw the birthplace of utopia in her eyes, and wanted a closer look.  With temptation and instinct at odds, I ignored instinct and continued to press.

“I’m Eric,” I said with Solo cup in mouth, trying to retrieve cigarettes and lighter from my pockets. As I pulled pack from pocket and removed the red, plastic cup from my mouth, my look went back to her eyes, hoping to get a name and make an attempt at reviving what traces of life our conversation had left. “I can’t find my lighter. You have one?”

“I think so,” she responded. I was still waiting for a name as she dug through her purse at a peculiarly frantic pace. She didn’t tell me her name but, with a hopeful look in her eyes, said, “I have a lighter for you, if you have a cigarette for me.”

Of course I had a cigarette for her. I would have had a cigarette for her even if I didn’t smoke. I was unsure if she had asked for a cigarette in an attempt to keep talking to me, or if she actually wanted to smoke. I wasn’t concerned with which was true, but I assumed she was at least interested in something about me. As we made our way to the patio door, I noticed an expectedly large amount of people outside and decided to think fast and make a move.

“It’s nice out, and we can smoke on the roof upstairs,” I said, careful not to mention the roof was only accessible from my bedroom window. “If you’re alright with roof shenanigans.”

“I like shenanigans,” she said, and that was the last anyone saw of us. 

**

Mindy had been home for ninety minutes and in the bathroom for sixty before we made our 6:30 departure. It’s just after 8:00 now and she hasn’t said anything beyond a one-word response to my attempts at a conversation.

“Can we stop at the next rest area?”

I know this question to be a result of her delayed arrival from work. She has been coming home in a garb of gin and tonic for some time. For months I thought she had become depressed. She began drinking at home after work, which soon progressed to coming home late, already intoxicated. This was when I noticed the grey look of ash in her eyes for the first time since we had met.

“Sure,” I say, knowing my short response and agreement will not settle well with her. Mindy’s eyes have been dormant for two months. When she does look at me, I can only see ashes floating in cloudy water, like smoke in a snowstorm.

As we pull off of M-72 somewhere between Grayling and Kalkaska, I decide to stir the fire. I can tell Mindy is growing annoyed, impatient with something. At this juncture, I’ll take any emotion she can conjure.

“Try to be a bit quicker than this afternoon, we’re already running late,” I say, as we come to a stop.

She doesn’t respond to my referencing her earlier bathroom episode, and hops out of the car as I quickly as I put it in park. As she exits, I hear her mumble something about being late.

Five minutes pass quickly as I sit, observing travelers as they come and go from the rest area. I imagine where each is traveling, and from where they began. I like to make up stories of these people as if they are characters I have been following since day one, though I am never able to determine if they reach their destinations safely or complete whatever objective their travels are taking them toward.

I imagine them as citizens in Mindy’s eyes and wonder if their only purpose is to fulfill her will. I wonder if one of them refused her the night we met and when I thought I saw ash was because she had destroyed them all and started over. I wonder how many times she has done that. I laugh to myself at the thought of it and check the time on my phone.

Three more minutes pass and I begin to notice women exiting at an increasing rate. One woman has a small boy, about four years old, by the wrist, dragging him along. The boy looks frightened and confused as tears meander down his cheeks. He shouts questions to his mother who cannot seem to find an answer appropriate for a child his age.

“Did you see what was happening?” I hear her ask another woman.

The little boy is still at his mother’s side, crying. He looks as if he has seen a ghost. I know he has seen Mindy, though thoughts of what he saw, specifically, are speeding through my mind too quickly to digest.

“All I could hear was whispering, ‘I’m sorry,’ over and over, between the sobbing,” the second woman responds. “I hope she’ll be alright.”

This doesn’t sound like Mindy, who hasn’t displayed an ounce of emotion in months. I decide to wait a couple minutes before taking any action. She may have a recent history of seclusion but none of that history has involved crying, and certainly not remorse. The woman fastens the boy into his car seat and stares back toward the restroom as Mindy exits. I watch the woman drive off until she is back in the car.

“Better?” I ask, knowing there will be no response.

**

By the time we arrived, neither of us had spoken since the rest area. Mindy took the keys to unlock the place and make a new drink, and I headed for the beach to catch the sunset. I wondered if she would ever speak again as I started down the coastline. As I walked, I thought of all the times I had taken this trip in the past. I remembered the time, I think I was fourteen, I walked so far that I had to call my dad from a stranger’s cottage to come pick me up.

I remember the first time I heard the buzzing—I was sixteen and had just finished my sophomore year of high school—it sounds the same now as it did that night. Dusk is turning to darkness and the beach is starting to look like a graveyard. The buzzing has dulled to a hum since I started my trek. Thin patches of fog have covered the ground that I topple in-and-over, creating empty graves beside crumpled sandcastles. I keep walking to an unknown destination. The air is calm and has wrapped its humid arms around me. It’s comforting, like a security blanket, and guides me past droves of darkened cottages, misplaced toys, and empty bottles. As I pass the fifth, sixth, seventh, unoccupied pile of smoking ashes, I hear the buzzing grow stronger in the distance.

The waves have been whispering warnings since the farthest fires became plumes of smoke down the coastline. I’ve failed to consider why every cottage has darkened and their tenants replaced by ghosts. I wonder if Mindy has killed them. Fallen castles, smoldering log cities, and debris are all that remain of the abandoned activities from hours passed. Maybe Mindy is angry that I have brought her back here. Didn’t she enjoy it? My negligence is growing in sound and in speed. I can no longer see much of my surroundings but know the bay is to my right from the sound advancing toward me. I think about running back, I think about sprinting through the graveyard, I think about the fires, I think about losing my balance in the darkness and somehow drowning in ankle-deep water as rain pours down and waves spill my eulogy into the uncovered graves and collapsed sandcastle cities. I think about the humid arms that have misled me with comfort to my current location. I think about the rain pouring down and flooding the bay. I think about Mindy. I think about floating facedown until I reach the cottage and the buzzing and wonder if that would make her smile. I can’t stop staring into the suffocating darkness that is deafening me from the reality that is filling my lungs and ripping me from the utopian world in Mindy’s eyes. I feel claustrophobic, and then I feel comfort. I feel warm snow falling on my back. I feel her lips touch mine and I open my eyes. She is staring back at me, licking her lips, and thanks me for the cigarette as our ashes fall like snow from the rooftop.

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Next time on The Hindsight Bridge: Next time on The Hindsight Bridge: A son shares a cold-shouldered waltz with the unanticipated outcomes and unfortunate truths of bearing witness to his father’s abrupt passing due to cancer in Justin Thomas Sayen’s “Do Not Resuscitate”. A critique of human expectation and acceptance, “Do Not Resuscitate” examines a young man’s struggle to welcome the abandonment of hope and his capacity for resilience in the wake of death. Revisit The Hindsight Bridge on July 8th for more!