Obiter Dictum

A short story by Anne Smith


Dear Lawrence,
This is a letter of confessions and observations and here is my first.

A confession: I am thirsty.

Sometime in mid January while the chilliness of an unusually cold season was confusing the long term residents of Arizona, I was busy eating oysters on the half shell in the courtyard of Chateau Sonesta in New Orleans. I came here in the hopes of becoming unusual. Everyone here seems to be unusual but I can’t help feeling normal. I have decided, while swallowing that last of my oysters and wishing I had purchased a hard drink, that many of my mistakes lie in the avoidance of making mistakes altogether.

AL-TO-GET-HER: How my mother taught me to spell the word;
they were al(l )- [out] –to – get – her.

So in the court yard of a tritely named hotel near Iberville and Bourbon, next to the club La Chat Noir with a stunning vampyric looking piano player, I’ve decided to write you my final letter. Lawrence, I have learned certain things since my decision to leave you in the back of that pick up truck after spending an afternoon recovering apples in the orchard where you told me, Devon…I am leaving you.

An observation: I know now that the word esoteric is esoteric in itself. I figured that out today when the gentleman in the bookstore told his employee, he was being esoteric with customers.

My mother once told me never to write anything down that you wouldn’t want the world to read. I didn’t listen and began writing all the names of the men I had decided to love for whatever reason it may be, along with what I most enjoyed about their bodies. One afternoon while writing in my diary beside a pond, the wind lifted it from me and cast it into the water. To this day, I imagine overworked fathers and forelorn stay-at-home mothers, stumbling across the soaked, sun damaged pages of that diary to read comments like:

Keith had a lovely clavicle. Adam had a courageous chin. Eric had soft fingers.

A confession: There is a destination inside a woman that locks and unlocks the door to her spirit. It takes centuries to get there. Even she rarely makes the trip.

My feet are sore and bleeding from walking this dark city so many times. I empathize with Anderson and think, at one point in life, does not everyone’s feet bleed from taking too many steps in the same direction? I am infused with you now. I try to sleep but you pulsate against my throat. You bend me in half, creasing me with your innocent wisdom and laughter. I wonder if those apples tasted good now. I wonder if you even bothered eating them. To understand the heart is too difficult so I diffuse you with science. We are limbic, Lawrence. Limbic.

Last night I tossed beads from the balconies at obnoxious men and grandmothers revising their plan of action in their older years. And beads are tossed at me despite my refusal for immodest actions. Then I think of when you told me, you have such lovely breasts. I remember thinking, all breasts are lovely for the fundamental purpose they serve to off spring—I hate how sexualized they are now. They should be comforting, calming and respected, not groped and slobbered on in anticipation of screwing.

I recall the messages:

1. Do you miss me?
2. Because I miss you.
3. Call?
4. What do you want?
5. Stay.

Today I met a man in a golden dress who bowed to me, but never spoke. He wore a mask and stared at me for a long time, then cackled and walked away. It was then I decided to write you a letter full of dissent and digression…regression too…and all those words that you mimic at two in the afternoon on a Wednesday when you are lying awake with the sun spilling across the floor of your home.

Lawrence, I still swim with your against me, hoping the tides of chlorine will wash you away. The memory is like the sound of two metallic surfaces meeting, jarring and edgy. Devon, I am leaving you and going in search of my soul. I think I lost it as a child. Why is it that those words bothered me so much? I thought for all those years, I held your soul in my hands and you knew that which is why you stayed. You trusted me with it, and knew you couldn’t manage it well enough on your own. When you told me you were still missing it, I felt void of purpose and point. Tonight I will walk the streets again, limping no doubt and looking for the perfect place to sip wine and smoke cigarettes. The two things you hated me doing the most. I will be the girl reaching towards the stratosphere, trying to dip my hands into it and find the satellites to beckon you home.

A confession: Apple seeds have cyanide.

Devon-