the heaviest feet

Was everything like riding a bike? Muscle memory, maybe. Steer straight and pedal. Train your entire life, maybe, before the middle passes and makes it a memory in the first place. Do you ever really forget? Fingers on a fret board, moving across strings, forming shapes and creating sound between breaths. Simultaneously reading the subtitles while watching the images span across the tv, or the laptop screen propped by pillows. Driving, like riding a bike– steering wheel, rearview mirror, windshield wipers. Maybe muscle memory only meant multi-tasking. Funny, how it worked.

It’s all she thought about, leaning forward against her desk. Like she’d lost all sense of posture, all she’d trained for in elementary school playing the violin. Multi-tasking: thinking, thinking, looking– talking. Nate. 

She’d trained for this, right? How do you ever forget?

It was foreign, the way he said her name. Lina forgot what that sounded like – her name on another man’s tongue. Tried to forget it, too, and the way her words bubbled over and out around them. Nate liked waiting. When he talked, it felt heavy– weighed her shoulders down, made her shift forward to get closer. A desk and a countertop between them. Heavy, ‘cause it was slower. Visible breaths, y’know? Heavy, because his voice was deep. Too deep, like it matched the dip between his eyebrows, but not the rest of his face. Nate liked waiting, and Lina couldn’t even hold the words in. 

“Are you sure?” But he was eyeing the water cooler, now, and he wouldn’t look at her. Some things were answered without an answer. Forget it. Lina was the kid that shook every present wrapped underneath the Christmas tree– guessed and guessed what it was until her mother relented. A tip: always hide the torn gift boxes at the back. Never try to one-up your abuela, a worker at a wrapping factory. Patience was near impossible when all Lina wanted was to learn, or to give, or to smile. She tried the hardest stuff first– Paganini’s Caprice No. 4 in C minor eight months into training. “I bet you’re used to waiting, though, right? Being an astronaut and all?” When exactly did she cross this line of unprofessionalism? The first time she opened his file, and tried to make out every word– or now, making small (it wasn’t small) talk? Nathan Stahl knew a lot– knew so much, Lina knew – and it must’ve been perfect to practice patience when you were only surrounded by the stars.

He sure knew something, ‘cause he liked the music. This is when Lina remembered: practically perked up, with her spine straightened against the desk chair. “It’s good, right?”  The CDs were on the counter. She had to loop her fingers around a stray elastic band and pull, pull, to keep from waving a copy in his direction. 

Forget composure when a sad boy makes you laugh. Wide mouth, neck stretched. Loud laughter that blocked out anything beautiful. It was good, but this was even better. “If you look hard enough, I’m pretty sure there’s a 1996 copy with Jen on the cover.” Lina peeked over the counter, hiding a smile with a pen between her teeth. “You could hawk that for some serious cash– but, let me guess, here–” like she forgot why Nate was even here in the first place. “You like Friends, but He’s Just Not That Into You is your favourite movie.” The official introduction (”Nate. Nathan. Nathan Robert Stahl”) was like an inside joke shared between people that weren’t strangers. Confidential, almost, even though Lina had already broken that trust. He wasn’t a stranger, with the way he rolled his eyes. The way Lina thumbed through his file every other Wednesday afternoon. You don’t care this much about strangers.

“Just Nate,” she tried to breathe it out slow. Really slow. “I like that.” Maybe her reminders weren’t meant to be formal phone calls– maybe this was it. This was it: just Nate, and Lina multi-tasking. 

He took it with him.

The couch in Dr. Norman’s office had seven or eight throw-pillows on it, usually clustered up between two cushions when Nate came in. Today, there was a box of tissues on the side-table, overflowing like flowers in a vase too short. He tried not to think about that. The woman whose hair hid her face as she shimmied past him in the hallway, the bookshelves that barely reached his hipbones. There was the sense, leaning forward so he could tug a rose-covered pillow out from behind his back, that the room was a place where other people poured their sadness, and that the walls were buckling with the strain. Like he’d taken a deep breath out in reception and now he had to hold it ‘til his time was up.

Lina was a deep breath, too. Nate was working on remembering what it meant to be effortless, and talking to her -- almost twenty minutes, sitting out there, and he’d felt maybe five of them. Talkative people took a lot of energy; he and Mikhail didn’t say much on Skype, but they’d been pretty sparse up on the station, too, sharing headphones and watching the songs change each other’s faces. It was easier to be quiet. But out on the other couch, in reception, he wasn’t expected to take up the same amount of space as she did when she spoke. Maybe there was still effort involved, but there wasn’t any pressure.

He said that, too. “I like the receptionist,” once he got adjusted and the door was closed and he could hear the minute-hand on the clock by the desk.

“Lina?” Dr. Norman’s forehead dug lines in itself. Nate could only nod. “She’s been with us for a little while now. She’s very talented.”

There were empty spaces between all of the words. Nate’s head, emptied out and echoing.

“She said...” He dragged fingers over his palm and looked at the carpet by the floor lamp, where the light made a shadow. “She said it must’ve been... it must’ve taken a lot of patience. What I did.”

“What did you do?”

“Being an astronaut.”

Dr. Norman’s mouth gathered together in the middle of his face. “You don’t say that out loud very often, do you? Can we talk about that?”

But that’s how she’d said it. Nate replayed it for himself, her voice bouncy and light like balloons, and he tongued his lip as he listened. And listened.

“Nate?"

It was a long session. May’ve been a little under the limit, with the delay getting started, but Nate felt every minute like they were three minutes each.

By the end, he had a name for the pressure in his chest.

The music was off when he got back into the waiting room. Dr. Norman said Nate was the last session, today, and he asked Nate to close the door behind him as he walked into the hall. He didn’t have a plan for this. He didn’t think about having a plan, or making one, or coming back another time; he wanted to keep holding his breath and let all the bubbles out at the same time, and Nate’s heart stuttered with the struggle to do both.

Astronaut, she’d said. Nate would never say that.

He gave her the $20 in scattered bills, five ones and three fives he’d gathered to tip the delivery cars that made it to his porch. When she smiled, she was all teeth and laugh lines by her nose, and Nate was like a fourth-grader on stilts in a trenchcoat, nothing to see here. A school uniform his aunt had to tailor-fit. He was the first to leave, and he made quick work of his feet in the stairwell, but then -- he just wanted to go home, draw the shades at home -- but then the door didn’t close all the way behind him, because Lina caught it with her hand.

“I have FEHB,” he said. That’s what he was going to lead with? It was too late to take it back. He’d already unplugged his mouth. “That’s federal employee; my insurance is through the government. I don’t have to write NASA on anything. And I know I didn’t say it, right? I would remember that. I’m not crazy.”

A little fucked up, sure. Hostile, now, definitely -- but it was a relief to be angry, and to carry that in his voice. Even if she looked like she didn’t deserve it. She did. She did. “What did you do? Huh? Did you listen through the door? Do you and Dr. Norman talk about me? Do I have to call the medical board?” It sounded like paranoia, but he couldn’t rein it in.

She thought a lot.

She thought a lot about him.

Was that much of a stretch? Read your college roommates diary once, and you never want to stop. Guilty pleasures: the Hills, My Strange Addiction. Like reading her favorite book (Crime) (Agatha Christie) over and over again. They had communities for that, right? The types of conventions she used to see in New York. You fall in love with Harry Potter: rinse (cry) and repeat (book-movie-book-movie) and discuss. But they, this– him, came right off the page, right off the IP6s from the file sitting in her lap. Walked right through the door each week, so tall that Lina kept thinking his head would hit the architrave.

Type in ‘Space’ on Netflix and Lina was curled up on the couch every other day off. “Ma!” She complained through the housework, and the “why don’t you go out and play?” scolds, like she was a child. Okay– okay, maybe. A school girl crush. Was it obsessive? No, no– think Donny, eighth grade. Point guard on the middle school basketball team, and Lina was learning how to dribble and crossover and no, you’re not allowed to stay inside the key for longer than three seconds. Knowledge is power. But Donny didn’t have that dip in his nose, y’know? Or the self-deprecation, or the grease in his hair – and okay, it wasn’t even about the looks, or the fact that the man had practically walked on the moon (or that, also, Lina hadn’t gotten anything in months) – it was this: Nathan, sitting on the couch, and trying not to take up space. And Lina might’ve jumped a little when the telephone started ringing, but she heard her voice shake back an introduction into the receiver. 

It was like her heart was contracting in her chest. She wasn’t much of a crier, but that thought-- that he tried to make himself little and small? It made her eyes prickle. Cleared her throat before booking in the appointment for the person on the phone. “Can you spell your last name again, sorry?” Distracted. It made her hands shake, keying the patients name into the system. Nobody deserved to feel small. Difficulty with affection. Nobody deserved to feel unloved. Mildly suicidal. And it’s what she thought of every time the door opened up on Wednesday mornings, and those nights she sobbed through Interstellar and Gravity. Last week’s progress notes said that “his career was all he had,” and now “it was like he had nothing,” and Lina couldn’t stop thinking past infinity. When Pluto was no longer deemed a planet, it still existed, right? And maybe that was Nathan – Nate, Dr. Norman scrawled – bigger and better than everybody else. He didn’t need a title to exist or shine or be. 

Maybe he needed someone to tell him that. Maybe he needed to be reminded that he was.

You’re the girl from the phone. A quick glance at the time on the desktop, and Dr. Norman was running late, and Lina found herself running out of breath. “Yeah! Yeah, I am. I do. Lina.” She pulled her name badge up from her blouse for him to see. Carolina. “Well. Carolina, but– Carolina Ysobel Collado Mijares. It’s a mouthful and– yeah.” Car, CC. “Lina. Call me Lina. It’s just–” a breathy laugh, “it’s just easier that way.” He needed easier right now, okay? “I’m really sorry– Dr. Norman shouldn’t be much longer. Just running a bit behind schedule today. Um–” so flustered, with wide eyes, pushing herself off her chair. The AC must’ve been playing up, ‘cause she could feel the heat in her cheeks. 

“Can I get you anything while you wait? A glass of water? Tea?” Psychologist’s office turned hair salon. “He shouldn’t be too much longer. I promise.” 

Sociability had gone up, a little. That’s how the good doc would put it: and how has your social life been this week? from his chair, where Nate could see his socks that never matched quite right. He was trying harder to take some time outside. And, okay, maybe some days that just meant sitting a little closer to the windows, but some days it meant getting the groceries, standing in the sand, taking a cigarette on his deck at night so the smoke obscured the sky. Small-talk with strangers he never initiated. Mikhail’s face at 4pm, pale from the laptop glow. 

These were conversations that didn’t require too much processing speed, even the daily check-ins; his Russian was near-flawless (couldn’t call it fluent) but Mikhail was muted now, like Nate was, so they mostly just sat. He was getting used to quiet. He was getting to prefer the sound of his breath over speech. 

Carolina, the receptionist and appointment coordinator, was too many words between blinks. Torrential. He tried to follow it with his eyes, brows up, leaning a little farther over the hands clasped between knees. You would’ve thought -- you would’ve thought, from the classical music and the phone call formalities -- you would’ve thought she was muted, too. 

Nate hadn’t really thought about her. Before.

“Lina,” he repeated. Sounded different in his voice, stripped of something, and he swallowed around the self-conscious urge to stop talking. There was a water cooler next to him, nearly full. He looked from his hands to her to it, and all the waxy dixie cups they’d stacked upside down on the table. He tried to focus on the way her words sputtered like a stubborn engine, ‘cause at least his were coming through clear. What few there were. “I’m fine. Really. I... kind of like waiting.” Was that weird? It was definitely weird. It wasn’t -- it wasn’t the waiting so much as it was the quiet. It wasn’t the quiet so much as it was the suspension, knowing he was on time for something, living with the pause button pressed on. There are some places that just feel like when you’re in them you don’t exist the way you do everywhere else, and Nate knew that didn’t make any sense, but waiting rooms and parking garages and other people’s driveways were like pockets where everything else stopped. 

Talk about stuff you probably shouldn’t mention in therapy, Jesus. “I get to listen to the music,” he added, pointing vaguely over her shoulder at wherever the orchestra was coming from. “And I get to catch up on whatever... Jennifer Aniston is up to.” Seriously, the Us Weeklys were well-stocked. “I only get that when I go grocery shopping.” In the quiet after the joke, a movement ended. Another started. He covered one of his elbows with a palm. “Nate. Nathan. Nathan Robert Stahl” -- eye roll at himself, so she’d know he wasn’t making fun of her, just poking fun -- “but just Nate, most of the time. The rest’s a mouthful.”

Basic Information

Full Name: Nathan Robert Stahl

Nickname(s): Nate

Age: 36

Date of Birth: 17 September 1979

Hometown: Glen Head, New York

Current Location: Eastcliff, Massachusetts

Ethnicity: Non-Hispanic White

Nationality: American

Gender: Cis male

Pronouns: He/him

Orientation: Bisexual

Religion: Atheist

Political Affiliation: Democrat

Occupation: Flight Engineer, NASA

Living Arrangements: Nate currently lives in Rockford, in a beach house that his father and stepmother own.

Language(s) Spoken: English, Russian

Accent: Vaguely New England

Physical Appearance

Face Claim: Lee Pace

Hair Colour: Brown

Eye Colour: Hazel

Height: 6′4″

Weight: 190 lbs

Build: Broad-shouldered and lean, Nate towers over most people and can be considered an imposing presence by physicality alone. He lost some muscle mass while on the ISS, but he’s stayed in decent shape, though his exercise routine has dropped off since coming back home.

Tattoos: --

Piercings: --

Clothing Style: Nate usually goes for function over flash, preferring thin sweaters and jeans whenever he can get away with it -- even if that occasionally means throwing a blazer on, too. He has been known to wear button-up shirts for special occasions, but he only owns one suit. Around the house (especially lately, given his slipping self-care) he’ll stick with sweatshirts or undershirts. 

Usual Expression: His low brow and down-turned mouth make Nate look unhappy by default -- and though that’s not a wrong assumption these days, it’s made him seem unapproachable to people his entire life. 

Distinguishing Characteristics: Staggering height; ridiculous eyebrows; deep “frown line” between eyes; freckled shoulders and upper back

Health

Physical Ailments: --

Neurological Conditions: Major Depressive Disorder

Allergies: --

Sleeping Habits: Excepting the occasional insomniac side effects from his medication, Nate sleeps at least eight hours a day. Depression has significantly altered his sleeping and waking patterns (erratic, he takes long naps in the middle of the day and often doesn’t turn in for bed until well past midnight), but he’s a light sleeper, and will certainly rise to an alarm. 

Eating Habits: His appetite has decreased a lot over the last few weeks, but the meals he does eat are typically balanced. When he has the motivation / energy, he really enjoys cooking for himself and others -- a skill he had to learn as a young boy.

Exercise Habits: Nate does not exercise. He stayed fit for most of his life, and had a mandatory exercise regimen while on the ISS, but since coming home he has stopped taking care of his body. His muscle tone is fading quickly, and he has probably gained a little weight. 

Emotional Stability: That depends on your definition of emotionally stable. Nate doesn’t feel very much emotion right now, so he doesn’t have any mood swings, but he is somewhat severely depressed, and that makes him emotionally unhealthy. His medication will allow him to feel more broadly as he adjusts to it and the therapy that accompanies it. 

Sociability: He’s never been very good at talking to strangers. Nate wasn’t friendless in school, but he preferred having a few close friendships over having a lot of less meaningful ones. He’s still like that now; a true introvert, he needs time alone to destress after big events or extended time with other people. 

Body Temperature: Average, though he takes well to summer heat and disparages the bitter winter.

Addictions: --

Drug Use: Nate has never done any recreational drug in his life. He is currently on 20mg of Fluoxetine (Prozac) daily.

Alcohol Use: Similarly, Nate has been a rare drinker in the past. This is subject to change.

Personality

Label: The Starless Planet

Positive Traits: Modest; industrious; independent; thorough; curious

Negative Traits: Self-absorbed; self-destructive; stubborn; withdrawn; defensive

Goals/Desires: To be cured of his Depression; to better understand his mother; to find something worth moving forward for

Fears: Fire (to an almost extreme degree); irrelevance; falling short of expectations (his own and others’)

Hobbies: Sailing; watching Netflix; learning to smoke cigarettes

Habits: Rolling his shirt-sleeves up to his elbows; tonguing his lip when uncomfortable, occasionally stammering 

Favourites

Weather: Warm and breezy, like an afternoon in late August

Colour: Blue

Music: David Bowie; Frightened Rabbit; Paul Simon; Nada Surf

Movies: Paper Moon; Back to the Future; American Beauty; Toy Story

Sport: Basketball (Boston Celtics fan)

Beverage: Fresca; peppermint tea; lemon seltzer; 

Food: Baked ziti; chicken caesar wraps; garlic bread

Animal: Dogs (especially Dalmations and German Shepherds)

Family

Father: Richard Stahl, hedge fund manager (retired), 69

Mother: Karen Brevitt (née Wheeler), unemployed, 64; step-mother Julia Stahl (née Showalter), nurse practitioner, 61

Sibling(s): --

Children: --

Pet(s): --

Family’s Financial Status: Upper-class

Extra

Zodiac Sign: Virgo

MBTI: INTP (The Logician)

Enneagram: Type 5 (The Investigator)

Temperament: Melancholic

Hogwarts House: Gryffindor

Moral Alignment: True Neutral

Primary Vice: Envy

Primary Virtue: Diligence 

ii.

Some things remained consistent. Every Tuesday, the same pay was deposited into her bank account. The files on her desk without a crease, without a tear. Straight and ordered. The paperwork procedure kept changing: chronological order, reverse chronological order and back again. Patient labels running up her arms. She’d lost her thimble under the photocopier the week before, and now she was padding her fingers with spit– and drinking water instead of tea. The dehydration, the paper cuts: consistence. Something new this week, at least, with  Dr. Norman letting her put up a display of her CDs on the counter. Free advertising, he said. And ten dollars was cheap, especially for good music. 

It was a little more control. And that was an inconsistency. Maybe it was going to her head.

It’s not like this was the first time. A reoffender. Lina was obsessed with Columbine in high school, and then the crime documentaries that, soon after, became a late night routine (consistent, see). SVU. That psyche; murderers taking victim after victim– what’s a life mean if you’ve already taken one? Doesn’t it make it easier? It didn’t work like that at all, but it’s what she thought about, with the IP6s (clinical progress notes) in her hand. Nathan Stahl printed on the top of the page. It was always a hit and miss with the paperwork. Ten extra years at school didn’t mean squat for the good doctor’s grammar and spelling skills. Why would you need to know how to spell “aneurysm” when you could save people’s lives?

And okay, confidentiality was big. Lina knew that, sure, but once she started it was really hard to stop. The handwriting was almost ineligible; so much so that she had to squint to make out the words, and twisted her mouth once she spotted a spelling error. 

36 y/o male. Evident lack of self care. Unbrushed and greasy hair. Pale, under-eye bags. Poor posture and low tone of voice. Dressed in jeans and a shirt… No hx of suicide attempts. Describes self as “mildly suicidal, I guess” … Well educated astronaut from wealthy background… Currently single after a long-term relationship; potential fear of commitment or long-distance risk… Absent parents – difficulty with affection.

What she was doing wasn’t right, but neither was this– the description in the progress notes didn’t mention the line down his forehead, right between his brows. The way he kept his knees tucked close, and how his body sat low on the couch behind the counter. His voice, so raspy, on the telephone each week when she called up to remind him. Clinical: a reminder for her self. Confidential. Another. Her fingers tracing the pen marks along the paper, before shuffling through to find a signature. Like maybe touching that would make it easier to understand– make it all easier to swallow. Is this why they called them guilty pleasures? 

Mildly suicidal pushed his way into the office. Paperwork quickly back in the file, and fake clicks on the mousepad. Readjust. Breathing was consistent, but Lina must’ve forgotten how to, after that. “Hi, Nathan. How are you?”

iii.

Two weeks for the side-effects to stop. That’s what they said at the pharmacy: give your body two weeks to adjust, give yourself some time. He read the papers they tucked in the bag with the pills (use care when operating a vehicle) and he tried to brace himself, that first morning, for the shit he knew was coming. Bracing didn’t work. Two weeks of worse sleep. Skipped meals. Three-ibuprofen headaches. He had hands he could almost always rely on, but for two weeks, the water wavered in his glass, and Nate was pretty sure this was all pointless, anyway, because this wasn’t a condition he could treat. It wasn’t about serotonin. It wasn’t chemistry.

It was just the way he was, now.

Still, he had to give this a try. Needed an Official Diagnosis to apply for medical leave, needed to show he was working towards something instead of just lying on his couch in sweatpants, eating cold pizza, refusing to charge his phone. People like that get fired. This job was all he had -- he just needed them to hold it, for a little while, so he could take himself apart and then rebuild. 

He liked the doctor well enough. The psychologist. Dr. Norman. And the drive over (use care) got easier each time he made it, a little more normal. It was the talking that he still had to struggle through, picking at his cuticles, speaking to his knees. Last session, they veered away from Mikhail’s divorce and wound up on Heather, and wasn’t that a waste of time? Rehashing? He didn’t miss her. He didn’t feel wronged. He definitely didn’t want to air out his sex life to a stranger and a white noise machine, but when he didn’t talk, they’d just sit. “I’m not -- I’m not explaining this right,” he’d said. He said that a lot. 

And it was always right here, in the waiting room, where he remembered how hard the next forty-five minutes were about to be. From the couch by the reception desk, Nate prayed for earthquakes. He prayed for sinkholes. No one else, just him and a hole in the ground. His appointment was for 11. The clock said 11:03, and he’d already signed in, so there wasn’t anything else to do -- except skim through the office’s US Weekly collection, which, no thanks. He was watching his bouncing leg. When the phone rang, he looked up at the sound; the music was still quiet enough for the receptionist to talk over, and then a fog he didn’t even know was there cleared out. Nate didn’t stand up -- he just leaned on his elbows on his knees, and cleared his throat when she was done, and tried to speak a little clearer than all the other times he’d spoken this past month. “You’re the girl from the phone,” he said. Not a question. No doubt. “You do my reminder calls every week.”