He just managed to miss his train. Not because he was late for it--actually he'd stood there as it scratched up and watched the doors open and hold...hold...hold. Then he'd watched them roll shut right before the train screeched away again. He'd missed it because he was confused. The sign on the window had read the place where he'd come from, but after it was too late, he realized that right underneath it the place he was going to was also listed. So now he knew--the top was your past; the bottom, your future. Depressing, but good to know.
Well, to be honest, he didn't know where he was going. The closest he got to it was deciding the direction. Today, it was south.
Another train came, and this time he got on it. The ride rattled and stayed warmly crowded. Six minutes and two stops into it, an elderly gentleman began strumming sweetly and singing in Spanish. The tune was reminiscent of a love tragedy set in ancient Mejico. MysteryGuy had seen the old man perform on this, the 1 train, before--but this time he wasn't carrying any cash or coin. Damn shame, too, because the song was lovely that evening. He couldn't look up when the old dude came tottering by with his hat held waist-high, after the subway patrons' scattered applause had faded. Next time I'll remember to carry cash, he silently promised the anonymous performer.
Showing posts with label Mystery guy?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mystery guy?. Show all posts
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
MysteryGuy?
Counterfeit exhaustion got him there, but the coming fall is all his own. His pulse is strong and slow, which seems odd to his senses. Under his breath his own voice is muttering to him but he can't make it out. Instead, he gulps the coffee sitting on the church pew beside him, wishing he could be of service to someone.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
MysteryGuy?
My eyes fill with her hands. They regard my face curiously, tracing away my lines until I feel my face a blur. My chocolate irises commiserate with her sepia skin, as the two move slow again through their ancient introduction.
"Will you write me down?" she asks me with quiet interest. I tell her hands yes, that I will write about this--but no, I will not write about her. "I miss being strong," she tells me, leaning down to give me her lips.
We go on, reaching out to bliss & contrition, but really it ended there.
The next morning she leaves without waking me, but to be fair I had lay in her bed for fifteen minutes without squinting an eye, listening to her lingering departure. When she goes, I roll lithely from the mattress and stand naked in her kitchen, making myself half a pot of her Columbian without a sense of guilt or regret to temper my actions. I sit at her bright chestnut table sipping for almost forty minutes, distracted by nothing else, and afterward, take care to rinse the mug I had used. As I leave through her large oak-black front door, seen for the first time during the brief darkness of the evening before, I can't imagine entering through it again.
If you're already feeling sorry for me--even if your pity's unrealistically self-directed--then you've misinterpreted the string of the story that I'm telling you. It's true that my solitude is not all I've hoped for this life, but when I delve into it I do so in a peace offering to every person that I love, and who has been handed the misfortune of loving me in return. It's the very best I have to give to them.
"Will you write me down?" she asks me with quiet interest. I tell her hands yes, that I will write about this--but no, I will not write about her. "I miss being strong," she tells me, leaning down to give me her lips.
We go on, reaching out to bliss & contrition, but really it ended there.
The next morning she leaves without waking me, but to be fair I had lay in her bed for fifteen minutes without squinting an eye, listening to her lingering departure. When she goes, I roll lithely from the mattress and stand naked in her kitchen, making myself half a pot of her Columbian without a sense of guilt or regret to temper my actions. I sit at her bright chestnut table sipping for almost forty minutes, distracted by nothing else, and afterward, take care to rinse the mug I had used. As I leave through her large oak-black front door, seen for the first time during the brief darkness of the evening before, I can't imagine entering through it again.
If you're already feeling sorry for me--even if your pity's unrealistically self-directed--then you've misinterpreted the string of the story that I'm telling you. It's true that my solitude is not all I've hoped for this life, but when I delve into it I do so in a peace offering to every person that I love, and who has been handed the misfortune of loving me in return. It's the very best I have to give to them.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
MysteryGuy?
Working the taps, MYSTERY GUY felt his arms wake up--finally being appreciated beyond their monotonous swaying of the back and forth kind. (Or Hale's line when starts to work again...?)
"You're a distinctual sort of dude, mate. You know what I'm saying?"
I had no idea.
"Absolutely," I said.
The man in the pink hat scoffs for the third time that evening, so that by now I recognized it as an expletive of approval. Luckily there was no one around to see me gloat. I poured Pinky another shot without being asked, good bartender that I am.
Tonight at the bar I saw someone in the midst of a crowd of her friends. Do you know what I mean by that? There were at least a dozen of them, but no matter where she stood she seemed the one surrounded. I keep thinking, 'Does that say something about her? Or does that say something about me?
If it's the latter, I think I'd better grow out of it soon--I can't believe how easy it is to utterly ignore the individuality of seeming pack members.
What's she look like? The better question might be, what doesn't she look like? Or maybe, for an edging of flair, what does she exude? Something like thoughtfulness, I think. Ah! But what does that mean? What next? Something generic--something barely there. Like a patch of sky, painted/allowed in the corner of a ceiling--of a low ceiling, that is.
Anyway, I mean to answer the question, 'Why?' if I can. First things first, she wore a backwards hat, and her eyes narrowed painstakingly with each fixation of her gaze. Absolutely, which is how she seemed to see things.
Maybe that's all it was--a matter of movement. No, but it wouldn't be a case of physical stillness, what with how often she pulled a chosen friend into the crowded room and made her real--even into the crowded room blaring with the dissatisfying music, t-shirt hanging over her shoulders in all the wrong places. She wasn't the only girl grinning either, but it was just as well--I was only curious about hers.
Images of her smiling face watching itself in the mirror for a fleeting moment, and then wilting maybe, they manifested of their own accord by the design of my imagination. I saw her with an inscrutable expression, showing the clothes she would wear that morning. Yawning, and then rechoosing. Would she smile self-deprecating before she did it. Would she get an arbitrary sense of her choices? Of her life, perhaps? And would she keep right on smiling?, I wondered.
Like tonight, though? Why was I wondering about this girl anyway, when each of the other people I saw would have been subjected to the same processes of the days. Why couldn't I seriously care about their expressions, as if they'd be as invisible as my own through my eyes?
Her colors were monochromatic; she was all browns and grays. Cedar-skin, sequoia-hair, and lips and eyes. Shades of sand at midnight ensemble, as if feigning colorlessness. (Almost colorless?) None of this would mean a thing on someone else--I wouldn't even have noticed! How easy it is to get nowhere.
"You're a distinctual sort of dude, mate. You know what I'm saying?"
I had no idea.
"Absolutely," I said.
The man in the pink hat scoffs for the third time that evening, so that by now I recognized it as an expletive of approval. Luckily there was no one around to see me gloat. I poured Pinky another shot without being asked, good bartender that I am.
Tonight at the bar I saw someone in the midst of a crowd of her friends. Do you know what I mean by that? There were at least a dozen of them, but no matter where she stood she seemed the one surrounded. I keep thinking, 'Does that say something about her? Or does that say something about me?
If it's the latter, I think I'd better grow out of it soon--I can't believe how easy it is to utterly ignore the individuality of seeming pack members.
What's she look like? The better question might be, what doesn't she look like? Or maybe, for an edging of flair, what does she exude? Something like thoughtfulness, I think. Ah! But what does that mean? What next? Something generic--something barely there. Like a patch of sky, painted/allowed in the corner of a ceiling--of a low ceiling, that is.
Anyway, I mean to answer the question, 'Why?' if I can. First things first, she wore a backwards hat, and her eyes narrowed painstakingly with each fixation of her gaze. Absolutely, which is how she seemed to see things.
Maybe that's all it was--a matter of movement. No, but it wouldn't be a case of physical stillness, what with how often she pulled a chosen friend into the crowded room and made her real--even into the crowded room blaring with the dissatisfying music, t-shirt hanging over her shoulders in all the wrong places. She wasn't the only girl grinning either, but it was just as well--I was only curious about hers.
Images of her smiling face watching itself in the mirror for a fleeting moment, and then wilting maybe, they manifested of their own accord by the design of my imagination. I saw her with an inscrutable expression, showing the clothes she would wear that morning. Yawning, and then rechoosing. Would she smile self-deprecating before she did it. Would she get an arbitrary sense of her choices? Of her life, perhaps? And would she keep right on smiling?, I wondered.
Like tonight, though? Why was I wondering about this girl anyway, when each of the other people I saw would have been subjected to the same processes of the days. Why couldn't I seriously care about their expressions, as if they'd be as invisible as my own through my eyes?
Her colors were monochromatic; she was all browns and grays. Cedar-skin, sequoia-hair, and lips and eyes. Shades of sand at midnight ensemble, as if feigning colorlessness. (Almost colorless?) None of this would mean a thing on someone else--I wouldn't even have noticed! How easy it is to get nowhere.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Beth (& MysteryGuy?)
Busking was a tricky thing.
Under the guise of artist, I had made it my right and their privilege, but I knew the precipice I walked. I thought of it constantly and so far the view was still worth it.
"My good Gentleman, would you by chance spare--" I heard snippets of the mobile panhandler Jay during a long rest as he made his way toward my corner of town, on his dozenth round of the night. My cello drowned out his approach when it came but he stopped in my line of sight to address another of our worldly patrons. His appearance was more frequent during certain songs for they tended to have an impact on some folks, and as the distracted woman listening fumbled with her purse and generously handed Jay a fiver, he winked at me. I wouldn't have let anyone else get away with it.
The wild-haired sage had a face seemingly gray with its permanent coat of dust and at the moment the angle of the freshly risen moon put a gleam in his wide eyes that I knew he would use to his advantage at the game. Clothes more ragged than necessary draped his every limb, and in layers as it got colder quicker now. His hands were perfectly calloused and clean. He, too, was a musician, but not here; he thought himself pure. I watched him keep my time on his way back against the foot traffic.
The woman five dollars poorer stayed to hear me play twenty minutes more. She was a regular charge, if ever I could claim one, and had been for the last month. She came at the same time each night, stuck around for half and hour or so, and then leave. She always approached from the same direction and the returned again without ever passing me, so I knew that i was the main event of her journey, though she never left any money for me even while I'd seen her dish out plenty to Jay, among other. Not only did I not mind this, I dreaded the evening that would see her drop off a handful of cash and then take back her lunch-break, robbing me of another worthy audience.
When my momentary admirer had gone for the evening once more, I stopped my playing for a while as was my timed habit. The baby crowd that had gathered continued on their way after leaving me with a quantifiable/the counted amount of their appreciation.
I smiled steady at them all as they went steadily on, but didn't respond to the compliments the threw carelessly my way. I never talk to them, it was an exceptionless rule. The fact that most didn't notice wasn't what kept me silent, though I couldn't say exactly what did. Nonetheless, if that one woman ever spoke to me, perhaps I would answer.
I got up to look and saw Jay almost to me again. My cello set carefully on the second-hand stand next to my stool. I bent to retrieve my first shift's wages and then tucked the soft gray case between the two objects. When I rose Jay was there, and I smiled my gratitude as he painstakingly perched himself atop my former seat. I told him I'd be back in a few minutes and he nodded solemnly before hunching forward and closing her eyes. He'd been walking the same hour long routed for the past decade and he was looking old these days. A good man, Jay was, I thought to myself.
Leaving him then I crossed the street. My spot was located on a steep slope; when I play I'm completely facing the folks climbing the hill while my back is to the faces of those coming down. The position seems to work well since most of the people who stop to listen only do so for an excuse to catch their breath. Then they have to pay out something so that they can continue to think nobody noticed.
The other thing this tilted perspective effects is where I go on my breaks. I choose entirely based upon how tired I am or how hot it is rather than where I might like to go or for what I hope to fetch. Consequently, I hardly know what I want anymore. (Aren't the lot of us mood-oriented?)
Up the hill and into the heat, I went as a closet masochist will do. I felt I needed to be tired and slightly feverish to pull off the rest of the night. It seemed I might even play better that way. Too bad for my retired fan.
The places on my right stood still and let me pass. I could distinguish them from those on my left only for the side of my neck that currently throbbed. I could see sounds being created in the distance but what I heard moments later was bodiless and distinctly alone. I stopped suddenly on my intent passage when I noticed a new face to as old a profession as mine.
He was a youngish boy, probably nineteen. Sitting cross-legged on the concrete, he had a cat on his lap and held a harmonica to his mouth, wailing on it in a way that I hadn't realized was possible. He'd yet to draw any serious people but I knew that would change; his hook was an irresistible one. Even to me. I left him a quarter of what I had made so far (we don't think in terms of amount when we give up our own earnings, but rather percentages). He didn't even look up at me and I knew pride at this. After staying to listen for a little while I turned completely around and left, hoping he felt the same way I did when my woman did this. I bought Jay a sweet, sweet coffee on my way back to him, carrying my own bitter brew in opposite hand.
Under the guise of artist, I had made it my right and their privilege, but I knew the precipice I walked. I thought of it constantly and so far the view was still worth it.
"My good Gentleman, would you by chance spare--" I heard snippets of the mobile panhandler Jay during a long rest as he made his way toward my corner of town, on his dozenth round of the night. My cello drowned out his approach when it came but he stopped in my line of sight to address another of our worldly patrons. His appearance was more frequent during certain songs for they tended to have an impact on some folks, and as the distracted woman listening fumbled with her purse and generously handed Jay a fiver, he winked at me. I wouldn't have let anyone else get away with it.
The wild-haired sage had a face seemingly gray with its permanent coat of dust and at the moment the angle of the freshly risen moon put a gleam in his wide eyes that I knew he would use to his advantage at the game. Clothes more ragged than necessary draped his every limb, and in layers as it got colder quicker now. His hands were perfectly calloused and clean. He, too, was a musician, but not here; he thought himself pure. I watched him keep my time on his way back against the foot traffic.
The woman five dollars poorer stayed to hear me play twenty minutes more. She was a regular charge, if ever I could claim one, and had been for the last month. She came at the same time each night, stuck around for half and hour or so, and then leave. She always approached from the same direction and the returned again without ever passing me, so I knew that i was the main event of her journey, though she never left any money for me even while I'd seen her dish out plenty to Jay, among other. Not only did I not mind this, I dreaded the evening that would see her drop off a handful of cash and then take back her lunch-break, robbing me of another worthy audience.
When my momentary admirer had gone for the evening once more, I stopped my playing for a while as was my timed habit. The baby crowd that had gathered continued on their way after leaving me with a quantifiable/the counted amount of their appreciation.
I smiled steady at them all as they went steadily on, but didn't respond to the compliments the threw carelessly my way. I never talk to them, it was an exceptionless rule. The fact that most didn't notice wasn't what kept me silent, though I couldn't say exactly what did. Nonetheless, if that one woman ever spoke to me, perhaps I would answer.
I got up to look and saw Jay almost to me again. My cello set carefully on the second-hand stand next to my stool. I bent to retrieve my first shift's wages and then tucked the soft gray case between the two objects. When I rose Jay was there, and I smiled my gratitude as he painstakingly perched himself atop my former seat. I told him I'd be back in a few minutes and he nodded solemnly before hunching forward and closing her eyes. He'd been walking the same hour long routed for the past decade and he was looking old these days. A good man, Jay was, I thought to myself.
Leaving him then I crossed the street. My spot was located on a steep slope; when I play I'm completely facing the folks climbing the hill while my back is to the faces of those coming down. The position seems to work well since most of the people who stop to listen only do so for an excuse to catch their breath. Then they have to pay out something so that they can continue to think nobody noticed.
The other thing this tilted perspective effects is where I go on my breaks. I choose entirely based upon how tired I am or how hot it is rather than where I might like to go or for what I hope to fetch. Consequently, I hardly know what I want anymore. (Aren't the lot of us mood-oriented?)
Up the hill and into the heat, I went as a closet masochist will do. I felt I needed to be tired and slightly feverish to pull off the rest of the night. It seemed I might even play better that way. Too bad for my retired fan.
The places on my right stood still and let me pass. I could distinguish them from those on my left only for the side of my neck that currently throbbed. I could see sounds being created in the distance but what I heard moments later was bodiless and distinctly alone. I stopped suddenly on my intent passage when I noticed a new face to as old a profession as mine.
He was a youngish boy, probably nineteen. Sitting cross-legged on the concrete, he had a cat on his lap and held a harmonica to his mouth, wailing on it in a way that I hadn't realized was possible. He'd yet to draw any serious people but I knew that would change; his hook was an irresistible one. Even to me. I left him a quarter of what I had made so far (we don't think in terms of amount when we give up our own earnings, but rather percentages). He didn't even look up at me and I knew pride at this. After staying to listen for a little while I turned completely around and left, hoping he felt the same way I did when my woman did this. I bought Jay a sweet, sweet coffee on my way back to him, carrying my own bitter brew in opposite hand.
MysteryGuy?
The bitch is fickle. She jumps out of my lap in the same instant that the sliding-door slides next-door; between my neighbor and I, only one of us spoils her without restraint or shame, so suddenly I'm cold again. Not that I mind--it's time I head off to work, and anyway, the love of my life is still just a dog.
Without distaste, MysteryGuy stares into the negative spaces that contaminate his apartment. He's holding very still, thinking that he understands the being of his corduroy waistcoat hanging away in his bedroom closet. He watches his foot tap rapidly against the leg of his armchair, and feels matter-of-factly distinct. He wonders if he'll be remembered, but he doesn't wonder by who.
Through his thigh MysteryGuy feels the wake of motion of the foot bobbing before him. He imagines the billions of tiny processes that occur in the realm of his body, half-hoping they wouldn't suddenly cease, and also equates his own self with every one--responsible for all possible outcomes or failures of the moving shoe attached to him--in complete control of the thing that seem to effect him. His footsteps while he thinks in this way--seemingly unobserved.
Particularly awake, MysteryGuy uses that [un?]disembodied foot to very deliberately stand up.
My dog--gathered up, curled in front of the window so's to sleep through the traffick sounds. My heart means to be strongly felt; my skin warming to it easily. My long breath is displaced by this arrangement of words, so trying to be concerned.
Why distraction? Why disapproval? didn't you ever memorize the number of holes in the ceilings of your classrooms, after counting them, countless times?
There are people that come into and leave my life, not gently, and moving quickly. They taste unfinished in my eyes--they have neither desire nor chance to distract me, and neither would I allow them to. But it is their theoretical selves that leave me this bewildered; knowing you're at least that real. How is it that I am the same!? What do we do with this? These ancient implants sitting before each other with half-lidded opportunity?
Way better at accidents than intention. Don't forget how annoying it is! And ridiculous! This is certainly not about choice.
Without distaste, MysteryGuy stares into the negative spaces that contaminate his apartment. He's holding very still, thinking that he understands the being of his corduroy waistcoat hanging away in his bedroom closet. He watches his foot tap rapidly against the leg of his armchair, and feels matter-of-factly distinct. He wonders if he'll be remembered, but he doesn't wonder by who.
Through his thigh MysteryGuy feels the wake of motion of the foot bobbing before him. He imagines the billions of tiny processes that occur in the realm of his body, half-hoping they wouldn't suddenly cease, and also equates his own self with every one--responsible for all possible outcomes or failures of the moving shoe attached to him--in complete control of the thing that seem to effect him. His footsteps while he thinks in this way--seemingly unobserved.
Particularly awake, MysteryGuy uses that [un?]disembodied foot to very deliberately stand up.
My dog--gathered up, curled in front of the window so's to sleep through the traffick sounds. My heart means to be strongly felt; my skin warming to it easily. My long breath is displaced by this arrangement of words, so trying to be concerned.
Why distraction? Why disapproval? didn't you ever memorize the number of holes in the ceilings of your classrooms, after counting them, countless times?
There are people that come into and leave my life, not gently, and moving quickly. They taste unfinished in my eyes--they have neither desire nor chance to distract me, and neither would I allow them to. But it is their theoretical selves that leave me this bewildered; knowing you're at least that real. How is it that I am the same!? What do we do with this? These ancient implants sitting before each other with half-lidded opportunity?
Way better at accidents than intention. Don't forget how annoying it is! And ridiculous! This is certainly not about choice.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
MysteryGuy?
His strumming stops. Six feet above his head a leaf lets go of its branch and settles on his shoe. Its colors are gray and soft yellow, he notes, and just like that the moment felt contrived.
He closes his eyes again and continues to strum. He imagines himself in a deserted peasant graveyard in France, pretending to play with a brimful saddened heart. He thinks he hears the tink of appreciation or guilt, and though grateful, he doesn't acknowledge his patron as she walks by glanceless and graceful.
He closes his eyes again and continues to strum. He imagines himself in a deserted peasant graveyard in France, pretending to play with a brimful saddened heart. He thinks he hears the tink of appreciation or guilt, and though grateful, he doesn't acknowledge his patron as she walks by glanceless and graceful.
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