Double Helix
Curtis Tompkins
We knew something was in need.
Based on the poem “Double Helix” by Sean Thomas Dougherty
“Sexual relations can take up the whole of adult life. But if that life were a lot longer, might not staleness stifle the capacity for arousal well before one’s physical powers declined?”
–Milan Kundera
In Spring we keep the windows open at night to let sparse sounds fill us and soft whispers of wind lull us to sleep. But last night, after I had fallen, an urgent noise drilled into my dreams, what the dreams were I can’t say. The sound became everything and woke me. Above me, long shadows of streetlight stretched across the ceiling. The noise, like a scream, rose and fell on the air.
“What the hell is that?” I was grumpy, spitting the words without coherence or direction. But I wanted to know. I hoped it wouldn’t stop right away. A cat, I thought, must have been howling for a good lay––a poor creature wanting nothing more than to reproduce. I listened harder and knew I was wrong. It was a crying child, a hungry baby. I looked at Rachel. Her eyes were wide open.
Not knowing the power of sound, the baby cried out from four or five houses down, allowing itself to be filled to the brim, bursting with instinct––like a siren, unaware. And we, Rachel and I, the childless intellectuals that we are, woke instinctually. We knew something was in need.
Rachel had fallen asleep while reading. The book––Kundera––lay open on her chest. She closed it and carefully set it on the floor.
The cry lingered on as we stared wide-eyed at the ceiling shadows dancing. The leaves of a sycamore were a bushel of darkness, flickering around the edges. Our blind slats stretched out in silhouettes, elongated by the swimming street lamps––the illusion of light against matter.
Rachel’s icy toes barely touched mine. I felt her hand on my thigh. As the wind rose, the child’s cry cresendoed with it like a symphony of screams. The wind, old and transparent, hummed; the child, young and stimulated, hit the high notes of longing, or maybe fear. The hair on my arms stood as if the wind had straightened it. I felt Rachel shiver. Small tremors, creaks and clatters, moved through the room. I thought I heard footsteps––pitter patter, pitter patter. But then the wind was dying, and the child’s cry lost volume slightly.
Rachel turned to me, tossing her legs over mine, interlocking them. The child grew quieter. We lay on our sides, entangled like a double helix. Rachel looked concerned or confused––I couldn’t tell which. She said, “Is that why we don’t have kids?”
The cry was almost gone, suffocating under the wind. The child’s mother had surely come, cradling its head just as Rachel began to cradle my own. In the dark, I pictured the mother stroking the child’s legs as I traced lines with my fingernails down Rachel’s thigh. We leaned in and kissed gently. I cupped her breast and kissed the bust, picturing the eager child as its mouth took control of the nipple, wanting never to release. We rolled into one another, me on top of her, her legs knotted with mine, twisted. And together, the child’s mother and I sang the softest lullaby, filled our loved-ones with all we had––the milky giving of light.
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Curt – you never cease to amaze me with your insight and capacity to create vivid imagery that draws visually and emotionally from some of the simplest, yet at the same time some of the deepest human experiences.
nice story but it is a complete rip off of my poem, the last line is a direct plagarism. even with the nod “based.” you stole my actual language, the last line is the last line of my poem. That’s just fucked up. It’s sad because you have enough talent not to resort to shit like that, seeing this would make me suspect anything you wrote.
As the author of this story, I would like to address the previous comment made by the author of the poem on which this short is entirely based. This story was written over two years ago for an upper-level creative writing course during which I was given an assignment to write a short based on Dougherty’s poem. When it was done, I didn’t like it very much, having used a lot of language directly from the poem to transform it into fiction with respect for the author’s gifted use of language. However, my professor (a close friend of Dougherty’s) praised it, as always happens with a piece the writer cares for very little.
A few months later, I attended a workshop taught by Dougherty at my college. Remembering how much my professor liked the piece, I decided to read it to the workshop group, including Dougherty. When I was done, I returned to my seat and happened to overhear Dougherty saying to my professor, “I think it might be better than my poem” or something to that effect. I was elated and encouraged, and later that evening, I shared drinks, laughter, and discussion with Dougherty where I think we even discussed the piece further.
And so, years later, looking through my work to submit to various magazines, I came across this story and realized it was one of few that conformed to the very low word-limit of most zines. With much reluctance, I submitted it to a few different zines, assuming it would never be published but also assuming that in light of Dougherty’s comments and feelings about the piece and myself that I would have his blessing. To my surprise, Ducts accepted it with gusto.
The story is an homage to Sean’s poem and not plagiarized. The subtitle is not merely a “nod” to Sean but a complete admission and reference to the overwhelming influence of his poem on the piece. Language that was used in his poem is mostly reduced to single words which helped inspire the sentences, like “howling”, “longing”, “fear”, “cresendoed”, “pitter patter”, “cradling”, and the reference to Kundera, which I expanded. Only the last line (as Dougherty notes) is taken directly from the poem and was meant as yet another homage to his talents.
I am saddened by Sean’s reaction and hope he will consider contacting me directly so we can talk more about this misunderstanding. I am hurt by his assertion that I don’t use my talent and “resort to [expletive deleted] like that” and that one should “suspect anything [I] wrote.” I hope my other work, which has appeared in numerous online and print journals, speaks for my talent, originality, and insight to the nature of writing.
I should have had to the foresight to know that I wouldn’t want something of mine published to be so heavily influenced (easily the most influenced piece I’ve ever written), especially since it ended up in one of the best zines on the net. I now regret ever having published it.
The experience has ruined one of my happiest moments as a publishing writer yet.
-Curtis Tompkins