{"id":1039,"date":"2015-02-06T15:36:02","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T15:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/essaypress.org\/squeezy\/?p=1039"},"modified":"2015-02-06T15:43:11","modified_gmt":"2015-02-06T15:43:11","slug":"read-an-excerpt-from-i-afterlife-essay-in-mourning-time-by-kristin-prevallet-guest-judge-of-essay-press-open-book-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essaypress.org\/squeezy\/read-an-excerpt-from-i-afterlife-essay-in-mourning-time-by-kristin-prevallet-guest-judge-of-essay-press-open-book-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"Read an Excerpt from I, Afterlife: Essay in Mourning Time by Kristin Prevallet, guest judge of Essay Press’ Open Book Contest"},"content":{"rendered":"

An excerpt from Kristin Prevallet’s\u00a0<\/span>I, Afterlife: Essay in Mourning Time<\/a><\/span>:<\/p>\n

\n

\nThe narrative goes something like this:<\/span><\/p>\n

My father walked into a hospital. Outpatient. He was suffering
\nfrom severe panic attacks. He was sleeping two hours a night. He
\nhad to fill out a form: Name, address, birthdate. Is the patient
\nsuicidal? He checked “no.” The next week, he drove to a gun store
\nand bought a revolver. The next week, he drove to a parking lot
\nand shot himself in the head.<\/p>\n

Before this, he made an appointment to see a psychiatrist, and got
\na prescription for Paxil. The psychiatrist gave him a form: Name,
\naddress, birthdate. Are you suicidal? He checked “no.” He only
\nsaw the doctor once.<\/p>\n

There are numerous studies that link Paxil to suicide, not because
\nhe was depressed there is no reasonable proof that he was not
\nsuicidal before he took the Paxil. So this is a story that leaves a wide
\nmargin of doubt, a story that is not about probable cause.<\/p>\n

On the day he died, November 20, 2000, it was overcast, but not
\ntoo chilly. It’s possible that he had tried to go to the gym at 5 A.M.
\nAt some point, he bought\u00a0The Denver Post<\/em>\u00a0because he used it to
\ncover the windows of the car.<\/p>\n

At 8 A.M. some kids from the neighborhood were on their way
\nto the park. They saw the lone car in the parking lot, with the
\nwindows covered in newspaper. They peeked in and saw a man
\nslumped over the steering wheel. One thought he saw blood on
\nthe man’s ear. They called the police.<\/p>\n

The police came to the house and asked, “had the victim been expressing
\nsuicidal thoughts?” They gave my stepmother a pamphlet, which included
\nadvice on how not to feel guilty. The pamphlet advised against building
\na shrine.<\/p>\n

My stepmother wanted to see the body, to say a proper goodbye.
\nThe police told her to call the coroner’s office. She called. They
\nsaid, “You can’t see the body. We’ll leave his hand outside of the
\nsheet for you.”<\/p>\n

We collected dried flowers from the garden and wrote letters
\nthat so my father would have something to open when he woke up
\non the other side. Zinnias, peonies, poppies, and strawberry bush
\nbrambles. We were trying to fill in the gap.<\/p>\n

The report from the scene is the police-side of the story. 1) They
\nsearched for a pulse. 2) They established identity. 3) They took
\nphotos. 4) They wrote down descriptive phrases. (They investigated
\nto make sure no foul play was involved.)<\/p>\n

No evidence exists to call this “murder” because it cannot be
\nproven that any outside force caused this violence act to occur.
\nInternal violence is too intangible to be considered “proof.”<\/p>\n

So, as I was saying, after three days of being on Paxil, he drove
\neleven miles to Rocky Mountains Guns & Ammo on Parker Road
\nand purchased a Colt revolver for $357. I asked my sister, “Who
\nwas driving? The man or the medicine?”<\/p>\n

He signed a form: self protection. So, a man walks into a store and
\nbuys a gun for self protection. But self protection cannot protect
\nthe man from himself. I said to my brother, the logic escapes me.<\/p>\n

The bumper sticker on his car read, “Conflict is inevitable,
\nviolence is not.” The police didn’t make a note of it on their report.
\nThe man who sold him the gun probably didn’t notice.<\/p>\n

The scene: a baseball field, in the heart of Englewood, Colorado.
\nA field, and behind the field, a thick grove of trees concealing a
\nbike path. One single and solitary tree sits off to the side of the
\nfield. A parking lot. He parked the car in the eighth spot, facing the
\nsolitary tree. When I went to investigate a few days later, I found a
\npile of grass. From the evidence I deducted his location at the time
\nof death.<\/p>\n

But this is not the whole story. The whole story is gaping with
\nholes. The “hole” story is conflicted, abstract, difficult to explain.<\/p>\n

Sublimation: when solid becomes ether without passing through
\nthe liquid state. When the overflow of negative psychic energy is
\nrechanneled into writing, or art. When the distance between living
\nand dying is filled in with language, objects, people, and mundane
\nactivities, such as doing the dishes. When something difficult
\nto articulate finds its form in poetry. When dead (silence) is
\nbrought back to life (mythology).<\/p>\n

Regardless, the story has many possible forms and many angles
\nof articulation. This is elegy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An excerpt from Kristin Prevallet’s\u00a0I, Afterlife: Essay in Mourning Time: The narrative goes something like this: My father walked into a hospital. Outpatient. He was suffering from severe panic attacks. He was sleeping two hours a night. He had to fill out a form: Name, address, birthdate. Is the patient suicidal? He checked “no.” The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essaypress.org\/squeezy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essaypress.org\/squeezy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essaypress.org\/squeezy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essaypress.org\/squeezy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essaypress.org\/squeezy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1039"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/essaypress.org\/squeezy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1195,"href":"https:\/\/essaypress.org\/squeezy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039\/revisions\/1195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essaypress.org\/squeezy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essaypress.org\/squeezy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essaypress.org\/squeezy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}