BUT A WHIMPER

Direct hit! You've sunk your own battleship, I told myself. Wouldn't Captain William Scully be proud of you. I laughed at my own dry humor and turned off the T.V. It just wasn't friendly tonight. But then the silence was deafening. I've always liked that little oxymoron. "The silence is deafening."

How can silence be deafening? The same way closeness can push people apart. The same way magnets repel each other if one magnet flips the other one over in order to chase the little gray magnet from outer space. Or the little smoking magnet from the shadow government. Or go looking for it's little sister magnet who'd been missing for twenty-five years.

I couldn't take the silence anymore. Is that a symbol for anything else in my life, I asked, trying to distract myself by pretending I was still in one of my English lit classes. I got up and walked over to my stereo. It was covered in a thin layer of dust, not like I cared. I hated cleaning. When I was a child, it was a dream of mine to hang big fishing nets from the ceiling and just toss all my crap up there. Then I would use a long pole to knock stuff down when I needed it. I looked up at my ceiling. Some peeling paint, but no peace of mind. Guess what I needed wasn't up there. And even if it was, it wouldn't have mattered, because I don't have a long pole. Oops. Freudian slip.

I flipped through the CDs. My taste was apalling. When the hell did I buy a Michael Jackson album? I opened the cover up and transformed the disc into a frisbee, watching it turn light into rainbows as it glittered its way into the trash can. I returned to the CDs. The Cranberries? I didn't recall buying that. With a wave of recognition, I remembered Scully had brought it over a long time ago. Just knowing it was hers made my chest tighten. I had really screwed up. She had even given me a window of opportunity, a chance to not only redeem myself but to express myself. And I had stammered like a teenage boy searching for any excuse to give to the father of the girl I had taken home late with hickeys on her neck. Or metal implants in her neck. When had my every thought become connected with Scully?

About three minutes after you told her that you were the FBI's most unwanted, I answered myself as I put the CD into the stereo. I wiped the dust off the cover and glanced at the title. "Everybody else is doing it, so why can't we?"

Yeah, Scully. Why can't we?

Another Freudian slip, eh, Fox?

I just realized my mental soliloquoy was teeming with rhetorical questions. Maybe it was time I answered some of them.

I cued the CD and sat back down on the couch, grabbing some iced tea and a flashlight before doing so. I sipped the iced tea, made shadow puppets on the ceiling, and listened to the music. Scully's music. I listened to the entire album once before realizing how meloncholy the lyrics were. Even the songs that had peppy tunes had lyrics that made me want to cry. Funny. I was supposed to be the embittered one. I never thought Scully would be so tormented.

She's not, I told myself. She probably doesn't sulk at home reading the hidden meanings in things the way I do. I grabbed for a paper plate resting on the coffee table and put it in the beam. "UFO!" I mock-screamed, making the plate "fly" across the night sky/ceiling.

"Oh no! What's this?" I said, holding the flashlight between my knees as I stuck my left index finger into the beam. I made the "UFO" hover above my finger. "It looks like the UFO is tempting Fox Mulder with promises of the truth." I wiggled my finger. In a high voice I cried, "I'm Fox Mulder, and I am just a pawn in your games. I let you play with my mind."

I extened my left middle finger into the light. In my best pretend female voice, I said, "Hello, Fox, I'm Dana Scully. I'm here to let you ruin your life by ruining mine."

"Not now, Scully," my index finger said, "I have to ditch you in order to chase after something I can never catch. I know this is self-deprecating behavior which can end only in pain and torment for me and everyone close to me, but I don't care. It's a real UFO!"

"Mulder, it's a plate, not a UFO. Any logical person can see that," I said in my best Scully-trying-to-explain-the-unexplainable-because-for-some- reason-she-has-to-prove-me-wrong voice.

The UFO/plate edged closer to Fox/index finger. It landed on top of him. I tucked my index finger into my palm, and the UFO/plate floated away with its new passenger. Leaving Dana alone.

I realized that I was sitting on my couch with a flashlight between my knees and my middle finger pointed defiantly at the ceiling. At the sky beyond. At whoever could be watching from that sky.

"Yeah, fuck you!" I hissed.

Exhausted, I lowered my hand. I grabbed the remote and raised the volume letting my taxed but still functional mind find things where no one else would. I looked at the CD cover. I think it was in the middle of the first song. "I still do," according to the cover. I listened to the words.

Oh God. I was crying. It was like Scully was singing these words to me. How could I have been so blind? So willing to see where there was nothing that my eyes passed over what was obviously there? I should call her. Pick up the phone and tell her everything I have already told her a thousand times but she never heard because I had told her in my mind.

But I couldn't.

No. This catharsis was an event to be experienced alone. I couldn't go to her and beg her to let me back in. I wouldn't be able to handle it if she denied entrance. I was already bitter enough. No need to make me climb a clock tower and shoot inocent people with a rifle.