Metro Times Special Pandemic Fiction and Poetry Issue: ZZ Claybourne
“Year of Hell”
by
ZZ Claybourne
Let’s see if we can get this camera in focus.
Is anybody out there? Can anybody hear me?
Do we know where we are, what we’re doing?
What have we done, where are we going?
The hell’d we do this year?
This year happened 20 years ago, right?
Only 4 months? Really? Stop playing. There’ve only been 4 months inside this year? Is that factoring in, like, temporal anomalies and stuff? No? Damn.
Damn.
Fucking damn.
Hugs to anyone else living a Year of Hell.
This year makes me feel my age. All kinds of gross shit’s happening. America’s psychosis keeps playing out. Lots of people in danger of losing their houses. They know where they are: about to be in the bank’s possession. Then speculators mainlining HGTV will swoop in and teach the houses to flip. Best dog show ever.
Oh, and family stuff. And friend stuff. And family friend stuff. Family and friends and a virus, which sort of sounds like a new sitcom on FOX, and kind of in a way it is, considering the (OK, there’s no way I can say these words without using finger quotes) “national leadership” we’ve had, except—as with most sitcoms coming out of FOX—it’s not funny at all.
Yeah, you know the drill. Year of Hell fist bump for you.
Wasn’t all bad. I hear Schitt’s Creek’s finale was pretty good. Energized people, gave folks hope…then Trump tweeted a day later and we were all, like, oh, this is 2020. Sorry, forgot. Wait, there was another television event, something geeks have been squeeing for their whole lives: A NEW STAR TREK SHOW FEATURING OUR CAPTAIN PICARD AND THE RETURN OF SOME OF OUR FAVORITE FRANCHISE CHARACTERS AND—what’s that? Who got killed off? Really? Spoiler alert? Fek you talking about?
Oh.
So, um, there was…there had to be…oh, wait, arts! Let’s turn to the arts! Books. I hear there was a surge in interest about Mexican and Latinx culture, a really prominent—
Seriously? Barbed-wire centerpieces? The entire fuck???
Jeebus bake the saltines, is there nothing untouched by fuckery? Has the Year of Hell simply shat on everything? Where in hell is Linus van Pelt to step out and tell me just what living a hopeful life is all about, Charlie Brown???
I hear the soft footfalls. I hear the swish of a blanket.
Listen, listen.
Thank you, Jeebus. Thank you.
I await and I heed.
“This year,” says Linus, “sucks the balls of a monkey with a urinary tract infection.”
SONS A BITCH, LINUS!
But he goes on: “But so did last year, and you’re still here. So did the year before, and you’re still here. We’re all here. We’re all creating something somewhere, one way or another. We met new people. We helped familiar people. We rekindled passions. We tasted because we’d never tasted before. We smiled and flirted and laughed. We were honest. We acted with integrity. We defended those who needed defending, and we asked for help for ourselves from those we knew would rescue us without price. We said no to the ghosts and demons that refuse to go quietly. We tried, Charlie Brown, to be more human than we were the day before. We tried to be kind and we tried to be not so scared.”
That last one stuck.
Being scared holds everything back from so much. During this long year I published in venues I hadn’t attempted to publish in before. Goddamned soloist that I am, I tried my hand at a shared-worlds effort. I started a new job doing more physical labor than I’ve done in years. I had Vietnamese food and movie nights with a goddess, weekend trips with family and friends wherever the wind blew us, helped random strangers, had oddball health issues straight out of Monty Python, thought so much less about where I was and each of varied troubles, thought a whole lot more about who I was that day. I said yes to possibilities and opportunities more than I ever did. On several occasions I damn near joined the Whos in freaking Whoville to cut up some glorious and divine Who roast beast. Tried to not be so scared.
As for being kind, that’s just basic, innit? “Don’t go forth in dickishness.” That’s in the Bible. Know what I’ve found? A lot of the time, being kind is you telling yourself to shut the hell up. It starts with that inner self-edit. Shut off the inner monologue and actually be a part of the world. Connect with it.
So I’m going to be kind and shut the hell up soon. The camera doesn’t need to be in focus. Doesn’t have to record. It’s good enough that you and I are still here, even if you’re way over there in your room and I’m in mine. The connections we need blast through space and time. The connections we need connect the dots that become people, smiles, experiences, and encounters. A year in a few moods, invisibly etched across what we know will come, but we call it hope anyway. Linus has spoken, so let’s end quite sincerely with this dedication from one of my favorite books: Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir, by Graham Roumieu:
“Bigfoot want thank friends. You like a rainbow in hell.”
To that I say amen; I sit back, close my eyes, and let the sun splay across my face.
A group of Detroit writers and artists contributed to the Metro Times “Special Pandemic Poetry and Fiction Issue,” guest edited by Kresge Artist Fellow, Drew Philp. The special issue was dedicated to supporting the publication which is facing dire financial difficulty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of Kresge Arts in Detroit’s ongoing commitment to supporting Detroit area artists in times of need, the organization provided retroactive stipends for the writers who participated in the project many of whom subsequently donated their stipends to support the fundraising efforts of the publication. This is what solidarity looks like within the arts.