She called
around mid afternoon, "'cuz that's when it all hurts the most."
Starbucks,
she asks. "Lets work on our homework
together." Shes asked me for this numerous times in the past.
I attribute it to lingering jealousy over Leigh. I do want to see
her though. Its been raining all day, I was trying to sleep but
I am awake now. It's a beautiful rain, all day it has persisted,
dancing from hour to hour in various different forms. I haven't
though about it much. I change and expect her soon. She has yet
to arrive though and as the minutes tick off I grow restless. Maybe
I don't want to see her. Its just masturbation. Why do I persist?
The rain has stopped. I am the one now lingering now, room to room,
glancing out the window. Always on call for her. Why doesn't she
just leave me alone? And yet now there it is - that hideous blood
red Ford Taurus. I awaits in my
driveway, accompanied by the low rumble of its innards. I gather
my bag - art homework, I tell myself. I mentioned to mother I may
be going out but I presume she will be unhappy with it anyway. There
is a mist radiating from the car. Its one of those evenings - one
of those evenings when the echo of remaining water droplets falling
from the trees give you such perfect solitude. She calls, but it
is not the girl - duty has summoned me and I wistfully answer. Duty
is a woman who loves only the warrior. I enter the vehicle and the
girl smiles. But no - her expression is not entirely alive. Her
melody… -with the most subtle discord. There is something dark
in her, and it is painted in the shadows of her eyes tonight. I
know not if I see it now or heard it on the phone but I feel it
always. Forward we match, and the car lurches forward.
Starbucks
is the chosen field. Playing field, wheat field, battle field -
I am drafted. We stop at A+
first, talk briefly, collect our cylinders of fiberglass lung coating.
She has a camera and requests several pictures of my hands. She
is doing a study of hands she explains - Sarra's and mine - elite
company indeed. I wish she didn't take so well to my hands. I wish
she dind't care. Who knows where they have been. We move on, to
Xando though, at my preference. "Starbucks is so corporate
America. Xandos is more controversial, it is richer," I insist.
I feel xando more and how, it always changes. We slide into the
building and the little girl selects her table and sits down. I
choose another, in defiance - in a valiant show of independence
but I find myself sitting across from her inside a minute. The girl
breaks into her book and I, my sketchbook, quickly losing myself
in shiny graphite and charcoal dust. I like art, I wish I could
be an artist, but I never get much past a blank page or canvas.
I am forever a dreamer but I manage a drawing before the close of
the hour. She take sup my notebook and begins in it. I won't acknowledge
it. I allow the charcoal to envelope me in its haze. We sip our
drinks. The cigarette strewn air is calm and perhaps, despite the
fickle rain, I will have calm passage tonight.
"ZOE!!!!"
across the room. It's Ashley with her boyfriend James and a girl
who looks vaguely familiar. I feel as though my relationship with
all of them remains a bit tainted. The girl rises and enthusiastically
greets our gues-her guests. I sink further into the darkness and
comfort of my couch. They don't even acknowledge me - perhaps that
is for better. I get mine also, surprisingly, as the gang makes
is way around the table to extend its warmest of greetings to myself.
James and Ashley are ghosts from a lost since dead time. Jamie from
my childhood. The man who stands before me has no resemblance to
the boy I once knew aside from perhaps his appearance. And yet an
odd somewhat contractual obligation has us on good terms for the
duration. Ashley is exactly the same as the girl I remember from
years ago. I hear nothing of her these days, aside from the loose
request for alcohol. I loved her. I always had. Hours and hours
on the phone with what once was one of my best friends. Confiding
in every feeling and detail. Oh, I loved her. I had given much to
support her in all that I knew. She has no use for me any longer.
I resent her thinly veiled advances.
Battle
field. I knew it before I realized it. It's happened before. For
now I no longer exist, as a frenzy of conversation erupts around
those who identify as not me. I am the ghost. I seethe. I'm only
here for my art, for my art. Homework. Homework I think as I approach
my second drawing with a focus in former times unknown. The little
girl quiets down after awhile. She looks intently at the edge of
the table. She rises from her sleep to temp me, to excite me. A
lit cigarette hangs just above
my knee, which is propped between my rib cage and the table. She
sends me a grin. She is ugly. I hate her and I thrust my knee up
into the still smoldering ashes. It doesn't hurt enough - she quickly
recoils. She attempts to give herself the same. I grab her hand
with a force she has never known and take it from her, extinguishing
it immediately. More cigarettes are downed and a bottle of intoxicating
"Poland spring" is sent around the entire circle. I am
not offered. I am not in the circle. I excuse myself to the bathroom.
Everyone
seems happy. Everyone enjoys themselves. I do not notice the girl
quietly after me. The handle is rustled from the outside. I presume
it to be another bathroom seeker though I don't recall seeing anyone
follow me. Surely they would have seen me enter - the disturbance
falls directly after the clicking of the door closed. It persists.
I wonder if it is raining. I do not know when I realized it was
the same little girl who had just moments ago ravaged a small, circular
patch of flesh perched upon my knee, but I am not surprised as she
stands in front of me as I open the door to return. She slips in,
immediately assuming an rather contrived air of calculated casualness.
She washes her hands. I turn the lights off. I don't know why. She
demands the return of the light - no, I haven't seen her all evening.
I leave and she chases desperately after me and pushes me up against
a wall. I don't know why. I slink off back to our table to endue
the salvos to come. Notes are passed, expressions exchanged. The
circle is teaming with clandestine informants. I hear nothing. I
am not part of the circle. I fight to maintain my composure. I draw
violently. The little girl does write me a note, but she does not
deliver it. I find it later, though. It is stained with the rings
of carelessly handled glasses.
Little
Mikey
Bean
Softly
Scooping
Quiet forms
Darkness
Duration
Of all
Extending
Fragile
Chaotic
From static screaming
A good place
Wisdom
I do
not as of yet notice it. I remain entrenched in my sketchbook. Ashley
wants to draw - so much for recourse. James takes my gummi eraser.
He makes a penis of it. He is thoroughly amused. I sink. Conversation
continues. I approach the other remaining girl, Jackie. I have placed
her. I refrain form mentioning it though for I wish to continue
the conversation and I find that perhaps I am not so adventurous
any longer. The little girl is dejected, despondent between bouts
of feigned exhilaration. We feel the distance. "Lets go,"
she says to me. Who am I to disagree? I follow blindly as I have
for years and shall for years to come. She is my duty.
"If
dreams are like movies than memories are films about ghosts,"
pours from the speakers about me. It is pervasive and so is she.
She is different. Maybe she isn't ugly. She places the CD player
in my lap and adjusts it with what seems to be an inordinate amount
interest and precision. The night is almost over. The battle is
lost as always - but the flag bearer still stands. "If I could
make it rain today and wash away this sunny day down the gutter
I would.". The Crows Count
on. Her hand graces mine as it begins to rain. A touch, a gesture,
gracefully dancing through the air above me and then stop. She takes
my hand and I hers. We grip each other as if it were our only remaining
line to life. It is. The light cascades across the wet streets and
I lose my breath for a moment. "You can see a million miles
tonight, but you can't get very far." We part, as our finger
tips thank each other for the dance but the night is not quite ready
to release us and he hand find its way to mine again.
I don't
know what to think - I don't know what to feel but it searches the
depths of me frantically. Her breathing becomes irregular. She holds
me tighter and gasps for air. There is a magnetic quality between
our souls and I cannot let go of her. "I am colorblind, coffee
black an egg white. Pull me out from inside." He breathing
has become stuttered. She tries to sniffle away a tear. We pull
into my driveway, the car stops, she stops, and I remain. I want
to say something, I search everything I know and everything I feel
and I know a thousands verses of utter nothingness and I seek and
I try and I fight and I crusade. She begins to cry. Please stop,
please don't cry - don't feel the pain and don't hurt and don't
think of me and don't care. I beg and I plead and I tell her everything
I can and I hear nothing fly from my lips. I turn and I take her
in my arms and she erupts. She is choking on her own breath, she
is blinded by her tears and I want nothing more than to have her
inside me, within me, protected forever. I grasp her, I claw at
her in hopes of achieving this but her cries only continue and I
can't find even a syllable to utter. "I love you, Mike"
she whispers. I have never heard someone cry until now. She has
lost her veil. I can feel the single bones which line her rib cage
and I feel the life in her and I feel all that she is. This is an
intercourse of such stronger feelings. What am I doing here? My
duty is blurred by my own tears and her rage continues. I don't
know what I am living, I don't know how I can be feeling what I
am feeling. Do others know? Do others fathom? Can they dream in
such lavish, such brilliant grays? The rain is comtinues down on
the car and I have no Idea where I am. I to fly in her darkness,
and warm her shadows. I want to see the intricate details of her
breath.
The devil's
in the dreaming
He tells you I'm not sleeping in my hotel room alone
With nothing to believe in
You dive into the traffic rising up
And it's so quiet
You're surprised
And then you wake
For all
the things you're losing
You might as well resign yourself to try and make a change
I'm going down to Hollywood
They're gonna make a movie from the things that they find
crawling round my brain
"I
want to die Mike" she says. I could. I know nothing else -
except how to summon "I love you, Zoe." In this moment
I am aware of nothing else. I feel nothing but the laboring beat
of her heart against my chest. She is dying. So am I. We long to
be burned alive. This is life. This is the nectar which pulses through
us. Its pouring. She is exquiset. She is beautiful. Always and forever.
...:Sentinelle
Perdue
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