She gestured at her hands, still threading. It was a mechanical motion, habitual. She didn’t have to think, and she didn’t have to be. This was her new purpose, fading grasp on function. She made socks and sweaters, stockings, blankets and more blankets. First she made them for her family, so they could wear her memory, and then when they stopped taking them (they hadn’t worn them at all) she kept them, and now she threw them into the fire, so she could see them die.
She kept a fire going all year round, so her house was always hot. I was never sure why I went there. I’m not sure why I came.
"I hate this, you know." She looked at her hands, getting older. They were very ugly, and useless, but good for knitting. She was cynical and angry; she was an old woman in a forgotten place. Even the ghosts didn’t visit her anymore. She hadn’t been alive for so long. The heat, the dust, the dying, she had corpse on her breath, and there was nothing left for her here.
"Yeah," I said, "I know." All the while
wanting very badly
to leave.
::::::::::::::::::::
My neighbor was bitter, and she hated me. I was young. She could never forgive me for that.
::::::::::::::::::::
I don’t go
to concerts anymore.
They suffocate
me. "She’s so beautiful." Markus leaned forward, taking a drink. He drank orange soda because he said it matched his hair. He had red hair, it wasn’t quite orange but it was red if you understood language. Behind him a girl almost as attractive as Ashley came in, walking to the counter. The guy working there was probably her boyfriend. She wore short shorts (a compound meaning), and she never looked Markus’s way. "Yeah," I said, "I guess she is."
He looked at me strange. "You don’t think so?"
"I never said that."
"But you just did, didn’t you."
"You’re just getting caught up in inflection."
I paused for a second.
Sometimes I could be better at feeling. I’m more things than one, and I don’t understand what it means to subliminify. It’s gone beyond the point of trust. I’m too fond of making up meanings.
"Where did you meet her?" he asked.
"You know where."
"But why do you know her?"
"You know that too."
He sighed, and sat his drink down again, fizzing. He said I shouldn’t be right so often.
I am.
::::::::::::::::::::
Travis wanted a rematch.
::::::::::::::::::::
James threw another rock. He missed; he always missed; he was obligated to miss. Markus hung back. He picked up a strand of grass, twining until the filling bled. I stood. A cloud passed by. The sky was higher than we were. Most likely this would never change.
"Hey Ashley," I tapped her on the arm. Markus gave her appreciative looks. "Don’t go this way." She asked why and I’m sure Markus wanted to answer. I almost let him.
She smiled. Her lips were wide, full, dark, luscious. All sorts of words that have nothing to do with vision. She was an ostentatious, prettyful lie, and she might have been the most beautiful girl in the world.
I bet Markus wanted to touch her hair. Maybe, if she was in a good mood, she would let him.
::::::::::::::::::::
"James is throwing rocks at cars," I said. "Oh," she said, and went another way.
::::::::::::::::::::
"So where did you meet her?"
"School."
"Did you become a single person in two bodies?"
"Only once."
"How long ago?"
"A long time."
The girl with the legs was still at the counter. She was unreal. Her legs were too
dark for nature, and she was too naked to be human. We're all the same underneath, or so they say. I pointed her out to Markus. He stared for longer than I did.
"Was it before you met her?" I loved the way he enunciated, pronunciated, droned. She wasn't quite ripe for capitalization, but there might be a day, someday.
"It was a long time ago. Before."
"You realize, right, that you might never find her again?"
"I realize."
He sighed again, and finished the rest of his drink. Ice cubes clinked to the bottom, absolutely without purpose. If he set them outside they would evaporate soon. The streets and the city didn’t care: useless and impotent, melting.
"Sometimes," he said, "I think I might be better off you than are." — Was she there when you got back? he asked. I was too afraid to answer.
::::::::::::::::::::
(why,
didn’t
you leave?)
::::::::::::::::::::
Yeah, he said, I met her at a party a few years ago. She had darkish reddish hair that got bluish when the light hit it right, over every strand, illuminating? I met her once. She didn’t say anything about a boyfriend. She came up to me all angles and elbows and cheekbones and graceful shoulders. She blew me
in the hall. I was surprised too. We were just making out, then she had her hand on me and I was on the floor and people were walking past some of them maybe giving us strange looks if they realized what we were doing. She was my nymphomaniac vulture, striking, with violent beauty, with willowy, flowing fingers, her nubile tongue. full, full. lips. I’ve
never been so surprised before. Not since once when I was young and I discovered that if you try sometimes you really can get away with lying if no one knows if you don’t give yourself away so soon. She gave me restraint and cardiac arrest, a paradise that didn’t so often have to lie. But the strangest thing
was that when she was done (the people still passing, giving us strange looks, her splayed hair and horizontal posture) I felt dirty, or used. No. that wasn’t true. I’d used. her.(she.was) my ticket to purity. But it didn’t matter. I couldn’t help thinking that she’d used me, by being so perfect, by never coming back. I think I still might love her. I’ve never dealt with loss
very well.
::::::::::::::::::::
Birds flew by overhead, aerodynamic, a flock of prophets, changing seasons. No: the winter wasn’t coming soon, no ice, no falling snow. If they shat, then they shat, and Markus would eat shit, in his nose and mouth, white and falling, putrid, hardening. The seasons changed. The year was not ending. James threw more rocks. "You know, dude," I said, "if you keep this up long enough, sooner or later you
really are going to hit a car."
He shrugged.
"I know."
::::::::::::::::::::
I found him again: Jacob in his cave, where the world fell away. No wind blew, not wasting in the alley. All was stagnant as an empty night in a dead city, where the corpses were, where death, and rot, and enmity came awake.
"Why do you come here?" he asked. There were cracks on his skin, and spiders, making webs to anchor him to the wall. His eyes were the dullness of inhumanity, lidless, unseeing. I don’t think he could move. His sweater had many holes. Redness strung his face and hands, strings of infection, sickness and hurt. He wept. He was a monster and a horror, weaping for lost life, distant memory and gross, gross pain.