A car drove by. Ripples coagulated, an optical swelling. Travis dribbled. He wore a jersey, numbered, and shorts, colored. Sweat escaped him, the unattractive kind. It matted clothes to him. Disgustingly. My skin burned. Rust grew over mountains of metal. The dust was not refreshing. But there were worse places to be than here.
"I don’t know if I ever told you before," I said, "but you know that Jacob kid, the one we hang out with sometimes, who’s fucking your sister? I don’t think I like him very much."
Travis missed another shot. Apparently, it shot a surge of elation through him. He grinned. This was his ultimate fulfillment, his anchor in the dark.
"No," he said. "I don’t think I like him much either. But no one does, so it’s okay."
We played. He missed another shot. He dribbled. The sun beat down. As we played, my mind wandered. Travis and I did have poignant conversations sometimes, but not very often. I stole the ball, but I missed. I wanted to write a poem about redundancy. Travis got the ball.
He scored.
The net whooshed all strange like, whipping as the shot passed through, and the ball bounced off the side of the court.
We paused.
"Jesus," I said.
"Jesus." He scratched his scalp, confused.
We stood, dumbfounded, as the wind picked up. Scraps of leaves scrambled in gusts. Clouds, pulsing away, turned dark, ominous colors, and the sky cleared, in all directions, moving away from the axis of us,
pulsing back
because we’d torn something free, that was, that wasn’t supposed to be. The sky turned gray. The sun hid in shadows. Delirious, a rhythmic affront to continuitydiamondsallgleamingfor some abrupt disintegration, to make clear the consequences of an end, here and now, in a bastardized place, undone, by some pernicious fluctuation in the rules, breaking.
A few feet past the post, by the ball,
a green globule grew out of the ball, ionic
with emerald lightning in the side, as it took the strenuous into itself, enlarging strangely, all but flickers in the coming dark. Static flashes, faster than eyes, sprang out, lighting pieces of grass on fire, wickedly, so they curled, in
a fit
of ruination,
all things casting aside the
real.
Reality gave a vicious,
curdling scream, and split in twine
as it
kept growing,
a conical beam in the center, vibrating, all the
things inside
as they grew. .
Reality split
and the ball
went nuclear, sending a spear
of brightness
into the center of the storm, where the thunder was, the angry clouds,
swirling,
into a tornado,
spreading out
like a tear in the
universe.
::::::::::::::::::::
I fell. Which is to say I broke the water, splashing, hands and feet, scrabbling
once, with a grasp I didn’t have. The surface rebuked me, in failure, and I fell.
Deeper and deeper, but slowly, waves, cloudlike in the undertow,
enfolded me,
so cool, so neutral, that the water might not have been water at all, lacking wetness, and liquid fortitude. I breathed, but of course I breathed, going under in the darkness, reaching out, opine, for a handhold in
the light.
But
the light
was done with me, because I wasn’t strong enough to take my own advice. I was naked
here, in the sinking place, nimble, wearing a glove of a body, just a hint of skin. Way out, casually swimming figures, invisible from above, swam with me. They were impassive, but of course they were impassive. This was their place here.
It was
all they knew. Kaleidoscopic colors, welling cumulus from below, cushioned descent, a fall onto opium dreams and lazy, lazy swaying. Already
I
knew nothing of memory, that bane, and the confines of
me,
the gap in the universe that was
me,
in line with itself, as though there were really anything loose, in silence. Layers
peeled away
as I fell, as simplicity came true, casting aside the actual, the factual, the
unnecessary.
Who was I, who in moments
such as these
thought nothing of being understood?
I fell into the darkness
and nothingness
cared for me there.
:::::::::::::::::::: "Thanks a lot for seeing me," I said.
The Chimera nodded.
"People say that a lot," he said.
And most likely, they did.
"Just one question," I said. "Have you ever thought… maybe that you were still falling?"
"No one ever stops falling," he said. "All life is nothing but just a really, really long fall."
"Then I’ll remember for you," I said, "If I can, though really, I’m not very good with memory, like people say, and I’m not very good with secrets either.
A whirlwind sprang up beside me. Pathways sprang up. I felt like I’d been here before. I felt like I’d seen him before. This place was nothing but strangeness.
"Thanks for the favor," I said. "Maybe someday I’ll need it."
"You will."
"I will?"
Why?
"I don’t know if you’ll believe this," he said, "but she wasn’t alone." “If you want,” I said, “I could get her to talk to you. Maybe.”
Markus shook his head, but he was smiling inside. He slapped himself in the face. He gurgled, strangely, and choked on inhalation, thinking of her. This was his gracious, goodliness of romance, his beacon of want, and lust, and fear. I knew, of course, that most likely she would reject him (had in fact rejected him already, so many times, by being there, by being), but there are times in life (like this) that I do my best to be (something) like a friend.
"No," he said, "you couldn’t… no." But inside he was saying yes, because she was his voracious angel, and he wanted her, from a distance.
"Are you sure?"
No he wasn’t. Of course he wasn’t sure. He felt like he was impeding on the distance he knew. I felt for him. I wonder if he understood how far away she really was, a guest in her own self. Ashley, subliminal, was a piece of plastic with fresh, heavy breasts and extremely inviting skin. She’d told me so in person. I was willing to lie for her.
::::::::::::::::::::
Very painfully
she rejected him, stabbing with blades of apathy, atop an undertone of disgust. He wouldn’t talk about it (I don’t think I wanted him to), but he told me he didn’t
think he would ever be able to look at her again, in this life. She was his licentious