"I'm really surprised to hear soul in here," a customer commented. With that, the guy behind the counter cranked the volume to its impressive limits, and when the song ended, shut off the music abruptly to announce in a loud voice, "I'd like to thank everybody for coming out to SOUL night, tonight and every Wednesday night at the ****! I'd also like to inform you all that this is the last SOUL night EVER! Thanks for joining us." Promptly, the next song began its blaring start from the speakers, and it was most definitely not soul.
Sitting in one of the intentionally eclectic rooms/art galleries of this old-house-turned-coffee-shop, a wide-eyed kid named Beth began to feel the shivering jolt of caffeine start-up its own song in her all-but-shot system. With the coffee's persuasive insistence, her mind formed the thought, "Maybe I should try calling first..." Immediately--or at least before she could think better of it--her cell was against the side of her face, attempting to summon a voice with the shriek of a drrrrring!
Friday, May 15, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Carrie
The sweet, empty sensations of "traveling" licked the insides of Carrie's thighs. Dissatisfied, but at least spent, she sleepily sucked on the moist tips of her fingers, pretending she tasted her far-gone lover there.
She moved through the days, dazed and sometimes manic with the magnificence of distraction, but most often as a distant witness to her own experiences. The shifting landscapes; the sensory overload of faces and sounds--unrecognizable to her in either expression or language; the summation of this absence of anything familiar, save her own occasional voice accompanied by startled look, returned by a glimpsed-at mirror...these were the things of her life just then. Profound, soul-bending, & ever more silent with every explanation.
As filled with newness as she always meant to be, still she fell asleep with an embodied lack of her love's memory: drifting off to the deserted rhythm of Beth's body breathing beneath her.
She moved through the days, dazed and sometimes manic with the magnificence of distraction, but most often as a distant witness to her own experiences. The shifting landscapes; the sensory overload of faces and sounds--unrecognizable to her in either expression or language; the summation of this absence of anything familiar, save her own occasional voice accompanied by startled look, returned by a glimpsed-at mirror...these were the things of her life just then. Profound, soul-bending, & ever more silent with every explanation.
As filled with newness as she always meant to be, still she fell asleep with an embodied lack of her love's memory: drifting off to the deserted rhythm of Beth's body breathing beneath her.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Indie
Indie felt queasy. She watched Beth and Mitch return walking through the alley across the street and she knew. They looked too far apart out there, and wore focus like masks that stared stiffly straight ahead. He had (finally) told her. So now what? Which choices would be hers? And what the fuck was she going to do?
Tracking their approach with her imagination more than her eyes, she sat behind the big lacquered pulpit of a counter with her face sunk into an unknown & oversized book. She anticipated the little silver-ring bell sounding only a few instant-beats before it actually did, and then waited until the very last straw of etiquette before raising her head slowly/reluctantly. The expression she thought she held in check blankly/frankly glowed her relief to see it was only one of them that entered--her one.
"Hey," she told him with an unexpected warm half-smile, come from force of a formerly good habit.
"Hey." His eyes wandered, distracted as was his own habit. Who was she to call it good or bad, now?
She stood up when he neared and he finally looked at her dead-on, seeming startled when he did so. Though she partly expected him to lean in and gently kiss her cheek--one of his dearest talents, (gentleness)--she knew she couldn't allow the gesture were it offered. But this time it wasn't.
She looked at him hard & soft(ly), as she always had. Hard as in closely, and determined to see whatever (was/) he held there; and soft with inexplicable affection, which afflicted her in his presence even now. Regardless of her efforts to neutralize/dilute the reaction/response with well-justified resentment, the latter just wouldn't stick, so far as she could tell. Not that it mattered--her mind was made up despite her self-traitorous body or soul (embodied soul?).
"Where'd she run off to?" Indie asked Mitch with light curiosity.
"She said she still had ten minutes of break time left--told me to tell you she'd be back in a bit." He looked slightly dazzled, or at a loss for words. "How've you been?," he questoned at last.
Indie had no idea what to do with him--her man, of ?? years, standing before her with his shoulders drawn up, knowing his betrayal of her, & knowing too that she knew, that he'd been playing a liar. Except he was just the same! He hated the part of her that refused to change, and yet she loved that part of him that just couldn't, regardless of every method he'd tried as instant remedy. She loved the timid/shy/sheepish blue that his eyes stayed (shaped) and showed; she loved his heavy, pointless heart, and his fruitless efforts to do some nameless SOMETHING that he could be proud of (at last); his fantastical standards for love, romance, & an ideal of life, even if these where the very things that doomed them (her) to failure (with/for him).
And so/thus/of course he hated that steel in her, could never condone its duplicity/unwillingness or disvaluing of sacrifice, which meant that simply by having decided so she would never again allow him to touch her face or hand, despite the fact of all her remaining love--for him, yes, but also for all the things that he couldn't live with, within himself.
So then, what? His face tilted down the incline of his three extra inches. She refrained from reaching up to stroke his chin, in careless-lover fashion. She glanced down instead, and watched/saw her hands do a brief drumming motion/movement against her thighs before looking up again. "Fine. How's goes it with you?" she asked non-committally.
"Okay. How's your day going?"
"Not bad," she shrugged off his lack of (sexual) tension and ridiculously irritating politeness.
They hadn't seen each other for four days, since he'd moved out of her/their apartment last week. They "weren't making a thing of it" however, which turned out to translate into "kept it a secret from their friends."
Well, most of their friends--she supposed Beth now knew. Of course, Beth was mostly more his friend anyway--working together nearly daily hadn't bridged up the gaping hole in communication that she and Beth had in common. Or more accurately, didn't have in common. They liked each other well enough, though. And who knew? After all, it suddenly looked like they had something more in common than they'd realized. Or rather, someone.
The scene short came its ending, & drizzle-stop ran the static that next fell.
Tracking their approach with her imagination more than her eyes, she sat behind the big lacquered pulpit of a counter with her face sunk into an unknown & oversized book. She anticipated the little silver-ring bell sounding only a few instant-beats before it actually did, and then waited until the very last straw of etiquette before raising her head slowly/reluctantly. The expression she thought she held in check blankly/frankly glowed her relief to see it was only one of them that entered--her one.
"Hey," she told him with an unexpected warm half-smile, come from force of a formerly good habit.
"Hey." His eyes wandered, distracted as was his own habit. Who was she to call it good or bad, now?
She stood up when he neared and he finally looked at her dead-on, seeming startled when he did so. Though she partly expected him to lean in and gently kiss her cheek--one of his dearest talents, (gentleness)--she knew she couldn't allow the gesture were it offered. But this time it wasn't.
She looked at him hard & soft(ly), as she always had. Hard as in closely, and determined to see whatever (was/) he held there; and soft with inexplicable affection, which afflicted her in his presence even now. Regardless of her efforts to neutralize/dilute the reaction/response with well-justified resentment, the latter just wouldn't stick, so far as she could tell. Not that it mattered--her mind was made up despite her self-traitorous body or soul (embodied soul?).
"Where'd she run off to?" Indie asked Mitch with light curiosity.
"She said she still had ten minutes of break time left--told me to tell you she'd be back in a bit." He looked slightly dazzled, or at a loss for words. "How've you been?," he questoned at last.
Indie had no idea what to do with him--her man, of ?? years, standing before her with his shoulders drawn up, knowing his betrayal of her, & knowing too that she knew, that he'd been playing a liar. Except he was just the same! He hated the part of her that refused to change, and yet she loved that part of him that just couldn't, regardless of every method he'd tried as instant remedy. She loved the timid/shy/sheepish blue that his eyes stayed (shaped) and showed; she loved his heavy, pointless heart, and his fruitless efforts to do some nameless SOMETHING that he could be proud of (at last); his fantastical standards for love, romance, & an ideal of life, even if these where the very things that doomed them (her) to failure (with/for him).
And so/thus/of course he hated that steel in her, could never condone its duplicity/unwillingness or disvaluing of sacrifice, which meant that simply by having decided so she would never again allow him to touch her face or hand, despite the fact of all her remaining love--for him, yes, but also for all the things that he couldn't live with, within himself.
So then, what? His face tilted down the incline of his three extra inches. She refrained from reaching up to stroke his chin, in careless-lover fashion. She glanced down instead, and watched/saw her hands do a brief drumming motion/movement against her thighs before looking up again. "Fine. How's goes it with you?" she asked non-committally.
"Okay. How's your day going?"
"Not bad," she shrugged off his lack of (sexual) tension and ridiculously irritating politeness.
They hadn't seen each other for four days, since he'd moved out of her/their apartment last week. They "weren't making a thing of it" however, which turned out to translate into "kept it a secret from their friends."
Well, most of their friends--she supposed Beth now knew. Of course, Beth was mostly more his friend anyway--working together nearly daily hadn't bridged up the gaping hole in communication that she and Beth had in common. Or more accurately, didn't have in common. They liked each other well enough, though. And who knew? After all, it suddenly looked like they had something more in common than they'd realized. Or rather, someone.
The scene short came its ending, & drizzle-stop ran the static that next fell.
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