playing fetch and victim

By Allison Lee Cheng Jie

“playing fetch and victim” 

by Allison Lee 

playing fetch 

To be a writer is to play an eternal game of fetch. You throw something you think you know  out into the open and wait for it to return in a slightly different form. You repeat this process  (with utmost enthusiasm, of course—any hint of dread and all progress will be nullified) until  the thing that returns no longer resembles the thing that you initially cast out, you mourn, and  you move on to the next thing. 

Playing fetch sounds easy, repetitive even, but that is rarely the case. To begin with, you  first need a good grasp of the initial thing—not who you are playing fetch with (it’s always  yourself), but what you are playing fetch with. This inaugural description is almost always  factual, objective, and simple. You will never fail to find the right words to call it what it is.  Then comes the throwing. Summon all the might in your non-dominant arm as you hold the  thing carelessly; there is no need for much care when you expect it to come back. The reason  for using your non-dominant arm is that you should not be the sole dictator of how far you cast  the thing out. Sometimes, the strength comes not from yourself but from the elements that  surround you. And so the force with which you swing dictates the time that needs to pass before  the thing comes back to you between the jaws of the canine of your subconscious. In the  meantime, you roll around the meadow in a dress shirt you do not mind muddying, put little  words to paper, pick a spring bouquet, and accidentally nurse a whole bottle while you ponder  how you’ve managed to compartmentalize three and twenty years of life. You hang the laundry  and do the dishes, and by the time you come back to the sycamore tree, a canine flings itself  your way, but you no longer recall the initial pitch you made. The canine drops the thing from  its mouth, and you feel the need to sink onto the soft ground to decipher the thing. But now, the factualness, the objectiveness, the easy words that came to you before—they’re all gone.  You threw them out, remember? So you let your emotions take over and taint the thing with  sentiment—an error on the part of every writer, but one that is more welcome than a misprint.  The cycle repeats: You try to describe the thing anew, you throw it, you forget about it, it comes  back to you. 

So we have the method down to a tee—what, then, do we make of the reason? Many  writers, including myself, develop methods and put lines to paper without much reason; we do  it because we can and we want to, and the writer is someone who does not get paid enough to turn her pain into art—she does so of her own volition. The writer’s job is also to make the  reader complicit in her crimes: If I can tie you to my sorrows, make you feel something, lead  you to read the same sentence twice like it is your birthright, then I’m not in this alone. No  weapons, only nibs. No coercion, only some foolish empathy. And to make you an accomplice,  I need to give you reason. 

So, I ask, am I playing fetch to keep the memory in my life like some kind of eulogy  renewal? Or am I trying to dissect it until it is no longer the initial memory?—Gnaw at it to the  point where it no longer carries its original form, then give it a different name. It’s how  friendship becomes disappointment, how love becomes blind infatuation, how a goodbye at a  train station becomes abandonment. I run after what I want the memory to be while my past  runs after me; between the three of us, I am the slowest, so what-should-have-been moves out  of sight as I lose my momentum and get tagged. And, what is it: The further away I move from  a memory, do I gain or lose my sense of self? Should I weigh heavier what others know about  me or what I know about myself? Which side comes with more bias? Which side comes with  more truth? Which narrative will be the one to get my papers into heaven? 

I don’t know the answers (all I know is to write), but maybe you do. And if you do, you  know to find me in the depths of the metaphorical meadow, where I’m throwing sticks with a  dog that no longer resembles a dog. And if you do, but you spare no desire to free me from my  inked chains, I will find some way to forgive you. 

playing victim 

My oldest friend used to live thirty minutes away from me on a good day without traffic; now,  she lives four hours away from me. We see each other once a year on average, and, without  fail, a key agenda of our reunion is the regurgitation of my life story. Playing a decade worth  of fetch on steroids, all in two hours. I talk about the un/fortunate circumstances that have  befallen respective chapters of my life and justify why it is unfair, why I deserve different.  Amelia does not exert bias just because she’s known me the longest—she tells it like it is every  time. She asks if I have considered that I am the common denominator in a series of similar  issues. She questions if my self-destructive tendencies originate from a need to control  outcomes. I try to wrestle my way through with a series of ‘yes, but’s. She brings up an  indisputable list of evidence and witnesses, shines the lamp in the interrogation room brighter  into my eyes. The job of a best friend is to be a mirror, and Amelia does this exceedingly well.

So I look in my bathroom mirror at three in the afternoon and it takes everything in me  to convince anyone who will listen that your new girl is better. Not better than me—please  never commit such a blunder—simply better for you. My tongue turns rancid after surrendering  my statement and I wonder if it’s because the truth had gone stale in my mouth or if my  resentment had bittered. Can you tell the truth without resentment? Without longing for a  version of the story that had been embellished in your favor? 

I have since spring last lost the privilege to think about the fact that it ended. I still think  about how it ended, and it’s important to differentiate the two. Because I’m not trying to find  my way back to you (I grew up on an island and I know how to burn bridges). I’m trying to  claw my way back to the memory that has been buried so deep that the canine of my  subconscious cannot even sniff out its location. I ran too fast from the scene of the crime and  forgot to investigate how it all ended. I ran because to stay would be to admit that I was part  villain. I ran because to protect the young girl in me who only ever wanted to be fed love on a  silver spoon, your name had to appear next to the villain’s name when the credits rolled.  Otherwise, who would be willing to forge that spoon and pour out the love and peel open my  mouth when the sequel comes around? 

I am not a lover, I don’t need closure, but I am a writer, which means I need to get my  story straight. Not the story, my story. And if you’d like to know where I learned to modify the  narrative, I’ll give you this one truth: Instead of asking to be loved the way I want, I have  always taken the love I’ve received and changed the narrative in my head to self-persuade that  the form and volume of the love is enough. I’d rather burden myself with the intricacies of  words and dance with the devil in the details than bother someone—than beg someone—to  love me the right way. Nothing worse than a misprint than to lick the dog bowl for remnants of  love. Again and again. 

But I should have known better as a writer—and I know now—that in a story, the victim  can also be—and almost always is also—the villain. 

playing dead 

In the middle of the meadow, where the grass grows tall and the sun barely meets the soil, the  young girl who was never loved the way she wanted to be loved lies still. There is no headstone,  for there are no mourners here. I have made a habit of poking her for some minor reaction,  some pitiful moan, some desperate digging her nails into the soil to carve out the name of her  assailant, but I’ve recently stopped. I’ve recently come to know peace.

The wind unleashes itself past the green and sends her hair fluttering. Her lips remain slightly parted as if some words never made it out; her fingers resume a writing stance, though  there is no longer a pen for her to grip. There is only a faint, distant barking and the protrusion  of blooms out of thawed earth. 

All her life, she has only ever had three responses to her writing: 

One, the kind that takes her letters for granted. 

Two, the kind that keeps her letters a secret. 

Three, the kind who, without prompting, will repeatedly tell others ‘she’s a writer’ like it’s a shinier occupation than a lover. 

I think the last one finally laid her to rest. I think when she knew her words would be  read and believed and framed and caressed by at least one from here on out, the need to play  fetch or victim ceased. 

The canine of my subconscious comes back with a thing in its mouth. I learn to let the earth yawn for burial and save my arm a swing.