We found
a bedroom away from everyone else. It was dark there, but you could see out the window, and for some reason someone had a fire going. People kept jumping over it.
One fell in (I never found out who), but he didn’t get burned very bad. I opened the door for her and locked it once she'd gone inside. Even when there
wasn’t any light she was beautiful. The darkness made canals on her face,
accentuating her gothic reverberations, silvery flush, a touch of ivory and smoke,
ghosting, quinine, unbelievable.
(She went inside. I shut the door.) We
were a schizoid digression. We were clashing
themes, repeating. She
was my echo in the night. She
was my receding
memory. I kissed her first,
hard enough to bruise her lips, and she kissed me back so hard the next day my
lips were bruised. She was soft: she was gentility and softness, sensuality. The moon
made flickers around the room, almost as gentle as she was, but there wasn’t any
moon, so it must have been the stars, even if I’m sure it wasn’t.
We kissed
and they were great kisses. She took steps toward the bed, languid into
shadow, a place where the medians breaks, night and day encasing. She pulled and I followed where she led. To
scintillating night, brightness and
something like what must make the world glow. And
for some reason
I found myself
remembering the day I met my first crush, when I was first grade, in what was probably a kindergarten class
from a time where I thought the whole world was young. No, I realized, the world
had never been young, but that didn’t matter with her.
She made the world
into so many things, a whole
world of vision, a chorus of voices, repeating and repeating. And
when she pulled me onto the bed she made me realize before that night I’d never
seen something beautiful, I’d never seen life, or meaning, but she gave me that, and
she gave me so much more.
When
she pulled me onto the bed,
into
all
that
was her, she brought my world
into focus. She made me complete
and for that
I’ll never
forget
her.
"If you were a metaphysical object," I asked, "where would you be hiding?"
Markus gave me a strange look. His eyes fluttered. We kept walking. Cars passed, kicking up dust and rubble, stones, sticks, scattered. Trees swayed in the breeze, bent over; gigantic floral apertures, praying to the earth. I kicked a rock. The rock turned as it crumbled.
"I’m not really sure," he said.
"Somehow," I said, "I’m not surprised."
We kept walking
::::::::::::::::::::
until Ashley picked us up. She was pretty, and she had long, flowing brown hair, the gorgeous kind, so I guess her hair wasn’t brown anymore, it was auburn. Markus had a crush on her, but that wouldn’t end well. Ashley only went for athletic guys, the kind Markus wasn’t- who could take off their shirts without being embarrassed, and smile without turning her away. Ashley was more expensive than her car. Her aura smelled of hyacinth and ambrosia. She gave us a ride because she owed me. I’m glad we didn’t have to walk.
::::::::::::::::::::
Never listen
to anything I say because I like
to
play
with words.
I visited Jacob again. I didn’t know why I came back. Every time he I saw him he got lower. He pulled his legs in, crumpling, and something in him got less human. He’d become part of the place, brick and mortar, oppressive. When I spoke to him he groaned, oblivious, not drinking this time, or even smoking, though there were bottles by his hand, and a scattering of ashes. He’d become like the steps and the stones, inanimate as the corner.
He moaned
again, tilting his head. Maybe he noticed me. Drool fell past open lips, pooled by his collar. He moaned. The spiders must have him by now: yeah, his hand was a
scarred marking of wounds, needles and poison, they’d sunk their fangs in him,
they’d made him their king. Pitiful, dirty, he was their aboriginal God, their arachnid
mandala of being. He moaned.
"Jacob?" I asked. "You there, dude?" Though I knew he wasn’t. He was a husk
peeling, his flaking skin, his quivering eyes. The vultures would come for him soon,
they would come, hardness to tear strings of flesh, his apathetic fingers.
Mercilessness, they were the end for him, they were coming, unfeeling as the sky,
putrid and cool, they came.
::::::::::::::::::::
I visited my neighbor while she knitted. I found her watching TV. It was all the world had left for her: one eye and vision. Age had taken life from her, taken strength and feeling, so it gave her television. Always watching, she knitted (old), with knobby fingers and a crooked nose, and thought: of things the world had taken from her. It hadn’t always been like this, she said, though she wasn’t sure if it was all life, or just hers, getting caught up in representation. Nothing was real anymore.
Old pictures hung up on her walls, and tapestries. They were faded. Here everything was faded, where the years were. She had pictures of old things, brightly colored banners, triangulating stars, from an era when it was almost possible to escape anonymity. Sometimes I asked her about them, but she never wanted to talk. Her voice would get tight, and she would sob, and she would scream go, just go, it wasn’t any of my business where she’d been, what she’d done, just go. Now I hardly asked her anything at all.
"But sometimes," she said, "when the memory hits (glorious, glorious memory), it makes you remember." As she spoke, her fingers weaved, making the needles move. "I’ve been alive so much longer than you have, but I feel younger than you do. You don’t understand what it means to be alive, you’re still too caught up in living. But it passes someday," she nodded, "it really does. And then you’ll know."