Beasts and Violins

Beasts and Violins

74 Beasts and Violins I wandered the house looking for a blank notebook today, until I found one of the small spiral ones I prefer. It had tacky shots of mountain climbers on the cover, and read Dig In! with bright letters. I don’t prefer the styling, but appreciate the portability. And though it was in my house, the notebook wasn’t mine, and wasn’t empty. Inside it had lists. Lists of bands, places, problems —with notes detailing why my ex-girlfriend was unhappy. My name appeared on most pages. It was hers, left on a bookshelf for over one year. She always kept lists, as if her life could be categorized into columns of good and bad, written repeatedly like an incantation, banishment spell, or scale. There was a section detailing which albums were best of the year, another with her all-time favorite movies. One more with the pros and cons of her parents, and a paragraph on how I was controlling and didn’t care. There was a travelogue of notable locations in the desert southwest, filled out with names of people we had known in a little town. I even found some suggestions that, by now, she was only with me for the dogs. Still, it was only a quarter full of this shit, and I wanted the notebook. So I ripped out her pages, stuck them in the winter fire. The flames made me happy. Filled me up, like I was drunk in a train car lounge, and every time I checked my wallet, I would find another twenty. Maybe there 75 would be weeper country music playing and I’d be hoping the fiddle would take the melody, and in the last thirty seconds, it would. The suspense would all be worth it. The heartache would become transcendent. I’d jump off my stool and dance right there on the train. The snow would be too high for the wolves to give chase. Their eyes would cut tree limbs as they raised their heads to howl. ...