Ciarra

There are certain streetlights as yet unwatched by sensors. These change instead with a timer and move with the speed of snow(flakes--freezing, falling, and fading away). On a night that's cold this is seen by gray-anxious eyes, confounded by/disengaged with the contentment they embody as they flick from red to greed and hesitate, before letting in yellow to return them to red once more, and every time.

The shade belonging to the eyes is a light one, a quality when inherent to gray which can be disconcerting to say the least. Both the colorless state of her irises and the intensity thrumming within the prefect stillness in which she holds herself, looking up at the light, impress upon a person something like a disgusted awe: most have felt nothing like her, even stranger though she is, and desire to never again.

This is not her concern.

Besides which, it is much too late in the evening for this city to play her witness. She likes the temporary belief that she could remain the single person still in the grips of wakefulness. As her and her steel-restless companion are the only ones up waiting for god, she is humbled at last.

("How can she look at the world with empty eyes and be right about it--?"
"Well it's not that she's right, she just understands something to it--"
"But even then, I'm not sure if it's possible, I mean, you've got me believing it but still, I suspect I shouldn't...or something--"
"I know, it's like nobody ought to know what she knows--"
"Yeah, exactly--"

At the school for the deaf, she wasn't able to understand her classmates or the bitterness they follow with prideful tenacity; the bitterness they trusted with biting naivety. She felt that for all they thought they were, they should at least believe something greater their own sake/ then themselves. She wondered what it would be like to expect nothing more just because no more could be imagined, and she hoped they were curious about her behavior when it differed from their own. And she still didn't know how to explain this.

But it stayed when she stood here beneath the hum-shouts of the traffic light that knew only of what it did, so that she felt as close to being something other than herself as she yet found to be otherwise possible. The worthlessness struck her with the truth of futility and she forgot even these thoughts with a solid sense of gratitude.

As beauty can never be tolerated for long, she continues her walk. She knew that there would be other streetlights, willing along the lengths of her sidewalk, waiting to keep her company. She was perpetually in between them.

Withholding from herself the lavish privilege of dissatisfaction, she went smiling on. The sky complained a symphonic fiasco to give (the context?) an ambiance to her thoughts, so she only half noticed. Her mind seemed a hosed-down battleground that remembered anyway. Her eyes held the most persuasive argument for sleep as her blinking became slow and halting. Had she been driving it would be time for coffee, but as her slight stumbling became more regular it acquired its own rhythm: She knew the feeling wasn't dangerous in itself, and she allowed herself to enjoy the closing in that it consisted of. Her frame of reference shifting, everything began to shine in the lighted question of just how comfortable it could be to lay down upon.

Small evidences of the fatality within human nature were placed deliberately on the things/ what her eyes could reach to see. The deserted shopping cart by a lake; the refuse scattered in the grass; the swelling jealousy of one another evident in every fenced yard; the compulsive ruination of anything beautiful, no matter how humble.

And all for nothing. For the thrumming desperation pushing these things into reality from imagination is in itself telling of all wonder with its slight intent. Of beauty, still breathing.

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.

Mitch & Bethany

"Have you told Indie anything about this?"
"Immediately at hearing her name, Beth watched the tension of defense creep into Mitch's forest green aura.
"What does she have to do with this?" he asked with a new warning in his still soft tone.
The noise shot from me; I laughed at him cruelly, knowing it would do him good but feeling a little bad anyway. "Come on, Mitch! It has everything to do with her!"
"Why (the hell/fuck) would you say that?" his foul/dirty mouth demanded, once again sounding familiar/recognizable to Beth.
"We both know I'd never give you a chance to fulfill this oh-so-risque sudden fantasy of yours--fucking the lesbian girl-next-door that's madly in-love with your sister who's conveniently off travelling?! Ha! Talk about too freakin' easy, my man."
"I said, 'make love,'" he stated redunantly, angry now but as stubborn as ever.

"Mitch." I looked at him as sincerely as I could, and tried putting a little smile of forgiveness in my eyes, because I knew that's all he really wanted. His glare lost a bit of the fight they'd begun to hold. "Look kid, I know you love me, just like you know I love you. How could we not when we've known each other blissfully for ages!?" I paused to/and let the casual confession drift away. "But there's no way we could ever manage being lovers, and we both know that by now, too. If you're suddenly thinking about me like this...it's only because something not-so-good is going on between you and Indie." That is/in other words, the woman the poor guy was in-love with. "Something that you don't want to think about. And I'm not the bangin' easy out you almost think you want (me to be). Don't be getting scared enough to do yourself a disservice, okay dude?"

Silly Mitch sighed heavy. "Quit lecturing me Beth, okay? And then maybe I'll talk to you--even though I know you're wrong."
"Ha! Fair enough," Beth exclaimed cheerfully. "Well, you know how I love to be enlightened, my goodly mate!"

"Yeah right," Mitch too-darkly replied, happily without any hint of forsaken apology. Then we sat in crazy tense silence--his--until he untied the big red love-balloon and exhaled aloud his coming-to-terms. "Do you remember how Indie and I first met?" he asked me, suddenly so unintense in comparison to only moments ago. [Thinking about Indie rather than something that excites him--at least, still seems interesting to him. :(]

"Not really...actually, I don't know if either of you have ever told me! And I'm pretty positive that I would have asked you guys by now, didn't I?" Perplexed, my/her face (was).

"You did. Almost everyone did, since that's what you do when you meet a brand new person hanging with your age-old friends. And we never told a one of you guys--I don't even know how we pulled it off! But it was definitely (a) deliberate (move)."

"Oh yeah?! Well that's pretty mysterious Mr. Honesty! What would possess you to do such a thing? Overpowering and hollow black shame? Red-hot passionate blushing sessions? Unforgivable sudden loss of memory!?"

"Quit being strange. It was sort of an unspoken reticence... the scene was just lame enough for both of us to be embarrassed, without wanting to be called (out) on it." He hesitated, then, "You know what I mean? From the very start, it was like we formed our relationship into something neither of us could be proud of--and we each made that damning choice all by ourselves." [Eh! but maybe only he did...and then took a course in projection.]

We let this sit--and then I couldn't contain myself any longer/more: "And you're not being just a tad bit melodramatic, dear? 'Damning' isn't too strong of a word here?!"
"Whatever. The point is that we ended it before we started."

But now it's been two flippin' years! I thought, flabbergasted. In that much time, something must have happened that bested this argument... Sheesh! Talk about a tired case of fatalism--as if neither of them could fix a fuck-up!? But I wanted him to tell me about this date from the unfortunate limits of a hellish limbo. That is, BEFORE my big-opined and unrelinquishing mouth buttoned-up his--especially without giving our expected flaky-crusted kiwi tart a chance to shine its light through to the tail end of this tunnel.

(Enjoy the cold, my most gracious love!)

Indie

The sound of the alarm clock not going off woke me. When I sat up realizing this I though I ought to cry, but decided against it and took a shower instead.

In spite of my logical assertion that bathing was best done before one goes to sleep, for well thought through reasons which I'll not go into at present, I find myself stumbling into the stall each morning (and I use the term lightly, as it was five o'clock in the evening at present) and I'm halfway through the process of cleaning myself before it dawns on my that I'm breaking my most reasonable of rules. Still, I'm not ready to give up on myself just yet.

After dressing and such I stood in the middle of my bedroom and tried to figure out what to do on this, my day off. Being that it was too early to safely go on a long walk, I figured I'd save that pleasure for later at two or three in the morning (when even the bad guys slept, I thought) and set off now on a short one that would end with me at Hale's bar.

I didn't drink...or smoke...or experiment with drugs and sex...or with much else in fact, but at least I was easily entertained--so while I didn't often make an appearance among my peers when they were intimidatingly concentrated in one place, every now and then I made an exception so as to witness the surreal transformation that people are capable of. Besides which, I liked to glimpse Hale in her current natural habitat before she succeeded in changing it past what she could stand. Television is exceedingly dull when you've got a good seat for your ever amusing version of real life.

January's End was three and a half miles from the house, so by the time I got there it was probably seven. Hale still had some time before she wanted to take her break, but she separated herself long enough to get me one of the three occupied booths to have for myself. I couldn't tell you how she did this, but it was the same each time. She walked up to our favorite booth with a view of the whole bar, regardless of who sat there (at the moment there was a grave looking couple looking as out of place as I probably did) and said just a few muted words. The woman paled steadily and the man hopped up and pulled his lady friend out of the bar with him. It had taken thirty seconds. Hale turned and grinned at me and I walked over and sat down with a confounded expression spilled onto my face, but I didn't ask. "I'll see you later," she told me before she pushed herself back across the crowded room.

There I sat half in waiting but happy there, a single person in a booth meant for a comfortable six, so that I occupied the only space in the entire room which would allow outstretched arms in just about any direction but back. This was a position I meant to take full advantage of, if only for the sake of rarity, but unfortunately I opened myself up for the following remark, "You look like you could use a hug," shouted at me over the din by a Brooklyn-accented kid, aging before my eyes from somewhere between 24 and 29 on.

I promptly put my arms down and squinted up at him, taking care to cock my head slightly to the right. "I think you're lying."

He draws his eyebrows comically together as if thinking real hard before deciding to ignore me. "I suppose I could help you out," he says like a first-rate creepy-guy, then he presumptuously slides around my booth without the slightest invitation to sit. Though I don't move away for pride, my knee rises of its own volition and lays down beside me, forcing him to stop his progress a foot and a half away.

Janey: The curvy mug peers seductively into its pool of icy innards...

The moment was, then, so she got up. She could feel every falsehood in the apparent solidity of the ground, as it rose up to meet the bottom of her father's boots, awkward on her feet. "You know we have to go," said her thoughts, " from this minute to another, on & on no matter how still we stand or stay." She smiled at this, and though no one noticed of the few smattered groups sitting around her, had they happened to, they would have thought blankly on it. "I was flabbergasted!" The stale sentence drifted stiffly past her and convinced her first step forward, then down the four pretentious steps that would lead outside.

She didn't know why she got like this--like she suddenly needed the relief of motion to take her away from nowhere. "You know often I'd rather not talk, and would prefer even less to listen--but even so I keep glancing around, planning on distraction." Oh! but where else to go?! This programmed to a destination, every beginning merely awaits its own end! Like how I wait for the conclusion of this thought, the period to this here sentence... .   Whatever for, when I know I'll just write another, and hope always for another again?! Where else do I even claim to want to be? As a matter of fact, I'd like the answer to be 'nowhere', and identical to the question, wouldn't you just love this to be IMPLIED? Wouldn't you like to apply it to the days--all of them? we're always talking about somebody! If it's not ourselves, then of course it's someone not there to inconveniently disagree--or take a personal stake in the outcome of the conversation, and our final judgement. (Only admittedly dynamic after the fact of our decision. Ahh! try not to talk like this anymore, m'dear... Look how loose your writing looks, the more buried becomes your point. :)

Janey

Music pounds, echoing in her head like an unexpected guest. She starts up violently without warning her startled bed mate. Before she thinks to be aware of it her flailing arms are pressed firmly while still writhing against her abdomen, and just like that the weight of her terror presses heavy on her chest. Unlike so many times before the feeling fails to ebb immediately and Janey hears her scream-sobs vacantly as though they emit from a phantom radio transmission. Held tightly and unable to move, the tenseness in her muscles begin to throb their painful protests. The thump of them beating in her ears almost drown out the worst of the sounds.

"Love, love, love! Shh, be calm, be calm, everything's fine. Wake up now, love, open your eyes. Open your eyes, love... Thatta girl. There you go, there she is..." Clayton held her still a bit too tightly but now she was grateful for his grip. They sat on the bed with her in his arms while he looked both at her and as scared as hell, but his dark eyes were as intent as ever in their fixed gaze. "Hi," he finished with at last.

"Hi." She didn't even begin the string of sheepish apologies this time because by now she knew they had both outgrown them. Instead, she let her shaking arms wrap around his waist and squeezed with the last of her might. She burrowed her tangle-haired head into the the curve of his bent arm to press her cheek to his chest. Exhausted, she shuddered her gratitude into him and hoped that he understood.

Hale

Sprawled bluejay-style and belly-surfing slept Ms. Hale Larck. New to town, she nonetheless snoozed straight on through the unfamiliar rumbling of the secretly smiling garbage-persons, and afterwards she kept right on sleeping. About the time that breakfast had ended for most of the townsfolk and they all readied for that next morning step from the driveway to the broken-in-by-decades Fords and Chevy sweating-nightscares of the adorable Green party, Hale sat up. Glancing at the shiny old light on the brand new wall, she half-heartedly cursed her internal joke of a clock and unconsciously shuddered at the unusual quiet that had lulled her to sleep and then some--nothing like the constant percussive music of her newly abandoned N.Y. By now she imagined that her stomping grounds of the last three years would be like a jaded lover, not-at-all surprised to finally see her go. Thinking this, Hale felt a pained guilt like a tiny dagger colored the ice-blue/deep/shallow-slate of her eyes, and allowed herself to miss New York for a full forty-five seconds before she shook off the feeling and got the fuck out of bed.

Feeling like a stalking lion(ess) she slammed each foot down taking the steps across the room and reached the itsy-bitsy excuse of a closet, settled in by the viewless window which opened to the north. Swinging wide the singing door that creaked miserably to the stress of use, Hale tried her best not to notice the sinking-heart horror at the crystal ball future she looked into, seeing there stacked all haphazardly before her, boxes of stupid crap that seemed to puke the peaking colors of too many clothes spilling gently from lids left askew. Instead, in the pure(st) name of self-denial Hale grabbed hold of what seemed to be the navy blue arm of a t-shirt and pulled with all the might necessary to ignore the inevitable. Slamming the door with (accidental/pointless) flair she pulled her consolation prize over her head and forgot entirely about searching out a bra to go with it. Returning to the bed, she hunted around for just a moment before discovering yesterday's jeans tucked half-beneach the nightstand. These she pulled on, blowing off the effort too of finding a pair of underwear/panties, probably for consistency's sake. She reminded herself to dig out her alarm clock as soon as possible as she exited the soon-to-be-painted-over bright(ness) of the godforsaken/head-ache-inspiring/(thought) provoking yellow bedroom. She took the wooden stairs two at a time in her descent to the communal kitchen.

Entering with besocked feet that slid on the ancient tile (floor), Hale took in and swallowed up her surroundings. A sense like the pretense of vertigo swept over her when the sink turned out to be on her left rather than straight before her as she had remembered. Seeing the texture and shade of the dark sepia cabinetry likewise deceiving her expectations, she ignored the small group of people as yet unacknowledged and sitting at the corner of her eye. For a moment longer she let them await her inevitable attention and slowly slid her way to the center of the room to peer carefully around once more, for only the second time in the space of three months.

Yes, single sink on the left of the hallway entrance, uncolored stainless steel. And the cabinetry she now realized seemed too dark (only) because the room stayed dim this time of the year. Autumn. The visible changing of the light as the year progressed would be hard to get used to, she thought, so accustomed as she was to strictly artificial light. The rest of the kitchen turned out to be equally unrecognizable to her, though this time no shredded and useless memories desperately attached themselves to her mind's eye so that she could rediscover the interior as if for the first time. Plain, was the overall conclusion/result of her interpretation/study.

Turning around again definitely/pointedly, Hale at last paid homage to the housemates of hers who were evidently fellow bums, drinking coffee with bleary eyes at half past noon. (Really!?) The table enclosed by the hunched and hulking forms of the three present persons was of questionable quality/origin to be fair. It could quite possibly have once passed for a respectably good impression of wood, but those glory days of threaded grain were long past gone, and in their place was coat after coat of pale paint, probably/likely bright pink in a former life, something like sadly reminiscent of a fadingly too-vibrant bottle-assisted blonde man of maybe ninety-two. Hale glanced up (and away) instead, blushing awfully.

And at last her eyes alighted on the companionable bunch sitting above the false-jovial/joyous tabletop. The figures were Indie Parks and Mitch Beckham, the picturesque couple made up of her oldest friend and that chick's beau; Jane Levlin, her buddy-buddy, quietly budding landlord; and a younger woman than the rest of the small group--a girl Hale had previously seen only in a photograph--Jane's birth-deaf, lovely (grand?)-daughter. For the past few weeks prior to finally moving herself & stuff officially in, Hale had been waning curious about the girl and the rumors that came attached to her name/person. Seeing her now for the very first time in the flesh, her ebbing interest once more flowed and Hale's glance lingered into a gaze that was fully met by the mute(d) young person.

As ever reliable, Indie piped up upon Hale's entrance when no one else had yet thought to speak, including Hale, the bra-less intruder herself. "Hey there, sleepy-head! Come to join the land of the living, did we? How'd ya sleep? (How goeth the slumbering?)

Half ignoring the crazy girl, Hale addressed the whole lot of 'em: "Morning everybody." She removed her eyes from the girl in order to skirt them across the rest of the faces. They paused on their landlord before they returned once again upon their original curious subject. "How's it going these days, Jane? Can I guess that this is the (grand)daughter you mentioned, Ciarra?" Hale thought to position herself full frontal for the girl so that her lips might be read without much strain of effort.

Immediately the silent figure still looking with interest back at Hale stepped forward at this inquiry and stuck out her ridiculously tiny hand, as Hale noticed with her acceptance of it, presumably to be shaken not stirred, thought Hale's strange bartending mind.