Occasionally, we all find ourselves at the edge of the cliff of control. One more step and there will be nothing beneath our feet. We will lose control and go berserk. But the decision to take that last step is ours, and we are ultimately responsible for our out-of-control actions.
Well, yesterday I was out-of-control angry with Allen. Whoever coined the phrase “hell-cat” must have known someone like me. I am not exactly Mary Poppins when I’m angry. I could feel the fires raging inside me. Allen had mocked my diary. While he was outside washing the car, he yelled out for all the world to hear that not only was I fat, I was also mean, and why didn’t I go write about that in my diary. Oh, talk about Mount St. Helens. I would show him.
I marched into the house. “Mock my diary would you? Ohhhh! You went too far that time, buster!” I flounced into my bedroom, removed the pages from my diary, marched back down the hallway, grabbed some matches, turned on the gas starter in the fireplace, and proceeded to burn page after page. I watched each paper burn. Oh, I was so clever. I felt so smug. Allen would be infuriated. But most of all, I showed him. He would be sorry. He would stop making fun of me and my writing.
As the papers turned black and became ashes, I felt a marvelous sense of victory. I’d won the battle. As each page burst into flames, the heat it generated was richly rewarding. As I watched them burn, I realized there was part of me on each page of my diary. Hours of my life. Pieces of my personality. Glimpses of my soul. My dreams for the future.
But none of that mattered at the time, just as long as I could hurt Allen. Maybe I could even make him realize how much he’d wounded me! Ah! Done in the nick of time. Allen came into the kitchen. He didn’t know yet. He commented on the fire. (Such an unsuspecting lamb.) Then, as I abruptly left the kitchen, he almost choked with realization. He gasped out one word at a time as he asked, “What… did… you… burn?” I didn’t answer. I was reveling in my revenge. He asked Tiffany, “What did she burn?”
I heard Tiffany reply, “Some papers with writing on them.” Ah! Sweet, sweet revenge.
Allen rushed down the hallway, his voice raspy with fear. “Did you burn your diary?”
And now for the coup de grâce: “It was my diary—I could do what I wanted with it!” There! At last he knew. “You’re never going to make fun of it again.” I turned and saw a look of agony on his face that I’d never seen before. Truly. His reaction was a knife plunging through me. I had hurt him, but not as I expected. He didn’t get mad and lose his temper.
His face crumpled as he cried, “Oh, you fool. What have you done? I feel such a sense of loss. The world has lost something incredible, something it desperately needed.”
I was shocked. My plan had backfired. I did not expect this. I thought he would be angry because of the loss of something of potential monetary value. But he showed concern for my words. For the me I’d been able to put on paper. He had actually said, “The world has lost something incredible….” Was he seriously talking about anything I could write? What a compliment.
At that moment, I was thrilled… and thankful. Thrilled, for I knew Allen meant it. Thankful, for I had burned only newspapers! If you were fooled, it was because I left out one tiny detail: I did take the pages out of my notebook, but I hid them and grabbed some old newspapers instead. I’d never acted out something like that before, but it was an incredible experience. As I sat before the fire, putting in page after page of newspaper, I realized how important my diary is to me. It matters not what comes of it later. To me it is priceless. To me… it is me!
It was a climactic moment when I told Allen I’d only burned newspapers. What an actress! What a scene. Jane Fonda, eat your heart out. Imagine, me in a starring role. I must admit, I loved it. I ate it up. I’d fooled everyone. (“I want to thank you for this Oscar. I worked extremely hard for it!”)
The relief on Allen’s face was as unfeigned as the torture had been. But he had to know for sure. “Where is it?”
“I hid it. I wanted to make you feel how hurt I was by what you said.”
“It worked. I was sick.”
Curtain closes on couple as they talk over their ridiculous argument. Book closes on this entry.