A novel by Craig Quackenbush
Subject clutches at a spark of hope. Hope that there will be change. Hope for tomorrow. To lose that spark would be akin to losing everything.
He’s there among the forgotten. He might stand beside you on the train. Or pass you on the street. Or sit alone at the bar. He’s a nameless face among the crowd. His is a solitary urban existence. Surrounded by the cacophony of life, throngs of people, and boundless possibilities, he is frozen in a misplaced moment.
Trapped in a corporate cubicle maze beneath the fluorescent sun, he laments, This is the job that will kill me. His talent lies in the written word, but he cannot put those words together as he once did. He cannot escape memory - the faded past. His friends have ventured down different avenues, their time devoted to their professions and relationships. He drinks too much, sleeps too little, and dwells on possibilities that are within reach but seem unattainable. He yearns for the warmth of fulfillment.
He distracts himself with technology, morbid daydreams, and voyeurism. He struggles to pull himself from the quicksand of malaise. Beneath it all, There’s a big monster crawling around inside me.
Yes, he seems a hopeless subject, but not all hope is lost.
The spark arrives as Gretchen, his younger first cousin. Gretchen is energetic, intelligent, and sincere – often wise beyond her years and sometimes irrepressible beyond rationale. She returns unannounced into her cousin’s life after several years. She pursued a life and career out west, but has now returned to the city she loves, to seek work in theater and to return to school.
Gretchen fractures his solitude – she is a chime of entropy that ruptures his serenity. Drawn to her, his blunted senses are sharpened by Gretchen’s vivacity and self-assurance. Soon she compels him to confess his thoughts – his apprehension, longing, and loneliness. Gretchen responds in kind and accepts him with compassion and understanding. He pieces his life together and grapples toward personal victory and redemption. Through Gretchen he finds a way to extract himself from his holding pattern. Their bond is effortless.
They grow closer and the nature of their relationship intensifies. The barriers that have blocked their undeniable attraction are breached. Their relationship unfurls into intimacy, and over time stretches to a breaking point. The unspoken truth of their relationship looms over them - an impossible Gordian knot. Love may be truth, but it may not be a lasting possibility. The inevitable reality is that he and Gretchen must part. Ultimately, they are two people who want each other - who need each other - but they know family and society would deem their union immoral. Depraved. Sinful.
Alone he tumbles toward the nadir. He finds a hostile epiphany on the streets of the present and through an unexpected confrontation with the past. These experiences, and with what Gretchen has brought into his life, might be enough to save him.
Even as he suffers the conflict of conscience and the ache of love, he knows …for that brief, exquisite second, I have never wanted anything more.