It is from the mouth of the river that the sea takes its sustenance.
You sit at the table, cigarette in hand, drink before you, and you watch the door. In time, and in libation, nothing begins to matter to the exception of all else. There are comings and goings, conversations and arguments about less than nothing. It is the way of things. It's just you and the six billion. There are too many, you might drown in them. Closing in, they menace with yellow teeth and the sweet, tempting breath of the dying. Where does the time go?
Heading for the door, the poignancy of the scene left behind is not lost on you. Men and women, happy, enraged, sad, delirious, all sliding to their fate, slow as hell. You and the six billion. Where does the time go? The fresh air changes your direction. Suddenly, everything is fresh and clean. Now, its you who are menacing, belligerent and deadly. You see faces, repulsed, amused, fearful. Trying to become invisible, you trip on to your destination, such as it is. Rushing water sounds in your head.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Small Things
What I remember of her are the small things: The way she moved her hands, the sun in her hair, the way the hem of her dress curled up slightly. She would hold her hand over her eyes, shading out the sun, but letting the small breeze blow her bob around her ears.
"What are you doing?" She would ask, but not really expect an answer. It was a greeting, as close as she ever came to acknowledging that she needed someone else's company. We sat together often, usually during a lunch break or some such interval. I would munch the sandwich I brought, she would look around us, and comment on the people. I never saw her eat, which is curious; most relationships center, at least in a small way, around eating.
"I like that guy's hat," she would nod at the elderly gentleman with the fedora and long coat. "You should get a hat like that."
I rarely had a reply to that sort of thing. She couldn't possibly have meant it. I had seen myself in hats, and it was always ridiculous. At the time, I had long, red hair, past my shoulders. Hats just looked out of place.
"That woman is a racist," An unsubtle pronouncement, but when I looked up to see who she was talking about, I wasn't sure I could disagree. The lady did look rather disapprovingly at the interracial couple a few feet away from her. It could have been the overly-affectionate mannerisms they displayed, or the divergent skin colors. It was difficult to tell, and to point that out would be unnecessarily confrontational. I was never into an argument.
So, I let these little comments go, usually without a rejoinder of my own.
These are the things I recall, and little else. She seemed nice enough, and in the couple of months we played at a relationship, she displayed nothing abhorrent or terribly irresistible. So, finally, we simply stopped seeing each other. We didn't even say goodbye in any way. One day, she didn't show up for lunch, and I didn't go round her place that night to make love and examine her collection of novena candles again. I didn't see her again for another six months.
I was at a party. It was a rather large affair, held in a warehouse. Two friends of mine, a couple for a decade or more, were celebrating their anniversary. When they had a party, they tended to invite everyone they had ever known, so these affairs had long ago outgrown their apartment. One of them was an artist, and she liked to turn these parties into an art show as well. The floor was scattered with various heavy-looking lumps of bronze and iron, almost fearful to behold, in a Lovecraftian sort of way. The walls were littered with two-dimensional doppelgangers of them.
I was seated on a bench beneath one of the gigantic canvases, staring distractedly into a mostly-empty glass of gin. "That girl just had sex in the bathroom." She was standing a little to the left of me, gazing off into the crowd. I could see the woman she was talking about. She was the only obvious choice. The rest of the crowd in that part of the room appeared to have stopped doing anything remotely enjoyable years before.
"Her dress is wrinkled in the back, and her hair seems more accidentally disjointed than intentionally scruffy."
She looked down at me. Her hair was longer now, it was in her eyes, and I couldn't see the color of them. I didn't remember it. We smiled at each other for a moment, and she moved back off into the crowd. I never saw her again.
"What are you doing?" She would ask, but not really expect an answer. It was a greeting, as close as she ever came to acknowledging that she needed someone else's company. We sat together often, usually during a lunch break or some such interval. I would munch the sandwich I brought, she would look around us, and comment on the people. I never saw her eat, which is curious; most relationships center, at least in a small way, around eating.
"I like that guy's hat," she would nod at the elderly gentleman with the fedora and long coat. "You should get a hat like that."
I rarely had a reply to that sort of thing. She couldn't possibly have meant it. I had seen myself in hats, and it was always ridiculous. At the time, I had long, red hair, past my shoulders. Hats just looked out of place.
"That woman is a racist," An unsubtle pronouncement, but when I looked up to see who she was talking about, I wasn't sure I could disagree. The lady did look rather disapprovingly at the interracial couple a few feet away from her. It could have been the overly-affectionate mannerisms they displayed, or the divergent skin colors. It was difficult to tell, and to point that out would be unnecessarily confrontational. I was never into an argument.
So, I let these little comments go, usually without a rejoinder of my own.
These are the things I recall, and little else. She seemed nice enough, and in the couple of months we played at a relationship, she displayed nothing abhorrent or terribly irresistible. So, finally, we simply stopped seeing each other. We didn't even say goodbye in any way. One day, she didn't show up for lunch, and I didn't go round her place that night to make love and examine her collection of novena candles again. I didn't see her again for another six months.
I was at a party. It was a rather large affair, held in a warehouse. Two friends of mine, a couple for a decade or more, were celebrating their anniversary. When they had a party, they tended to invite everyone they had ever known, so these affairs had long ago outgrown their apartment. One of them was an artist, and she liked to turn these parties into an art show as well. The floor was scattered with various heavy-looking lumps of bronze and iron, almost fearful to behold, in a Lovecraftian sort of way. The walls were littered with two-dimensional doppelgangers of them.
I was seated on a bench beneath one of the gigantic canvases, staring distractedly into a mostly-empty glass of gin. "That girl just had sex in the bathroom." She was standing a little to the left of me, gazing off into the crowd. I could see the woman she was talking about. She was the only obvious choice. The rest of the crowd in that part of the room appeared to have stopped doing anything remotely enjoyable years before.
"Her dress is wrinkled in the back, and her hair seems more accidentally disjointed than intentionally scruffy."
She looked down at me. Her hair was longer now, it was in her eyes, and I couldn't see the color of them. I didn't remember it. We smiled at each other for a moment, and she moved back off into the crowd. I never saw her again.
After Work by Gary Snyder
The shack and a few treesfloat in the blowing fog I pull out your blouse, warm my cold hands on your breasts. you laugh and shudder peeling garlic by the hot iron stove. bring in the axe, the rake, the wood
we'll lean on the wall against each other stew simmering on the fire as it grows dark drinking wine.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)