Post by Steve on Oct 10, 2008 18:53:57 GMT -5
attic lovers
they were an older couple, not much passed their thirties, the grey in their hair in the early stages where it looks like highlights. they were an older couple walking down fifth avenue beneath a dusty afternoon, killing time before they were victims themselves. i wasn’t doing much of anything then, and not much more now, but at the time i was nothing more than a tear in a river of sorrow; a heart broken now more than thrice compared to their shattered remains that they carried for each other.
“there’s nothing more to it. a cocktail party at Eva’s then?” the man said, his long tan trench coat blew open at the sides while his hands gestured waist-high, waving palms and clenching into fists.
“i don’t suppose we could skip it, could we darling? i’m not much in the mood for socializing. in fact, i rightly don’t fee-eel like doing much at all; it’s been such a long day. Oh, dear, we still have a few hours until they’re expecting us, we could easily conjure an excuse before then. there must be something that we can say we’re preoccupied with; prior engagements perhaps? i just don’t want to go tonight, any other night but not tonight. i just don’t...” the man stopped her mid-way with a handful of her forearm, without stopping their walk, and guided her steps closer to his.
“i understand my love. i only pursued it because she is an old friend of yours; not because i had any of my heart set on going, only with you and friendship in mind did i want to go.” their walk relaxed a bit, after their shoulders loosened with the alleviation of stress, then stopped at a vendor on the side of one of the intersecting avenues. There was another stand not far away, like most cities this one had tribes of food vendors; one selling water, another nuts; this one hotdogs, that one ice-cream, and the one i was destined towards sold roasted nuts in red and white checkered wax-paper. i bought bottled water to go with the nuts, really out of instinct more than want of water, and waited for the couple to begin their journey once more.
the sun was filling the streets with its orange-purple fire, igniting cars and buildings, devouring the city from the second floor up. it was a Tuesday and i had just received my third eviction notice; in love and housing. i hit the streets looking for something. a something that has a beginning and an end, that fulfillment of soul and senses, and happened upon the older couple not long after the start of my pilgrimage, and decided for one reason or another to follow behind in their footsteps. perhaps it was the over-heating, over-exhaustion, over-everything that made my face red and hot, in need of a cool calm shadow to bathe that had me following this poor (surely only by pity) couple down avenues, buying nuts and water when i was perfectly fine without. by chance it was the frustration of attempts that had never led to anything worthy of duration that led me to the heels of these persons; the need of confirmation that it was truly, un-yieldingly, without any doubt, completely and simply me that lacked the stamina needed for such fragile things as life, love and food; housing, a bed, anything that took a length of time to obtain, and never grasped, was only due to my inadequacy. this couple, the man with only 6 inches of grey trousers and the rest tan coat; the woman in a faded lavender dress with brown shoes and a petticoat, they suited me fine. Fit me as uncomfortably as an old pair of shoes found in the closet with feet altered by time, the imprint in the sole dated and ill-fitting. this couple of old-attic lovers blew their dust onto me; left me in a cloud of envy that i waded through. i stepped with my left foot into her right foot path and my right one fell onto the vibrating cement of the gentleman’s left foot. i absorbed love through their shadows, rode their love like a raft behind the wake of a ship; hoping never to capsize.
“Should we find a place to sit and eat Mary? Or would you rather keep walking and eat on our way?” the gentleman found his arm around his woman’s waist, resting objectively with no inclination to travel nor to sit. the woman nodded towards a bench merely ten feet away from them.
“that seems a nice enough spot to sit for a minute. i’d rather not chance tarnishing my dress with mustard stains.” she was walking lightly ahead of him now, his finger-tips were reaching until they seemed like roots gripping earth, and she was occasionally craning her neck to throw her words over a woolen shoulder. And she did this easily, haphazardly, as though she was an aged fisherman throwing his line into a pond. no thought process involved, only the flexing and compression of muscles; only a reflex. the man bit every time. each time he bit harder until it was evident that he would never remove the hook that pierced his lip, and every bite was more hungered, starved, than the last. the man had no objections, worries, dignities about displaying his need and dependency on the sharp smooth U passing through his lips. i wasn’t sure if he even heard the words that were thrown over her shoulders, floating on the surface of city air between them; which wasn’t much at all, until he spoke in response to something she had said.
“Katherine Hep. was correct when she said that. No, she was a great actress and i’d love to watch that silly baby movie you love so much. the film’s wonderful and innocent. would you like me to make cocktails? Perhaps a martini; dirty?” his smile was like the demolition of a sky-scraper, a bright hum of sun permitted to pass through the crevice, one would have to utterly ignore, dismiss, one’s senses in order to have missed this man’s smile. somewhere, on a distant street corner in a dark triangle shadow of his own, a blind man looks right; smiles, feeling the vibrant echoes dancing down the roadways and knows that there’s a stronger possibility of a tomorrow. knows there’s still genuine things in this world, and time; the energy of love.
“i’d like that Phillip. i’d LIKE that indeed.” and the woman sat on the bench with a brilliance of eyes like the millions of reflected light of an ocean, condensed into a chestnut-sized sphere. the man took his place next to the woman gingerly as though his weight would send her upon ripples, she strolling unaware from him, as quickly as the breath he just drew. She slid along the planks of the bench until her thigh was ruffling his coat. On the gentleman’s right leg were packets of mustard, the corners ripped off and ready in easy reach of her hand. She tore pieces of the pretzel and dabbed a bit of yellow on the end of each one just prior to placing it in her mouth. The man ate his dry and intact.
i sat on a cold cement wall watching them, ignoring their words and placing all of my attention on the bodies; especially their hands. I watched as her hand would soar out in front of her, a white gloved hand flying about in a turbulence of invisible syllables and intimate emotions, then it would settle down onto either his knee or her own and roost. The man seemed preoccupied with something, moving an inch of his pants this way; adjusting his coat numerous times, eventually concluding that a cigarette was what he desired. A plume of smoke rose into the air and hung for a second, not sure which wave of breeze it wished to travel then swiftly dipped and circled behind the couple; folded into the wind and air. the woman’s discretion, how instinctually she decided against maneuvering around the city while eating a pretzel; her selfishness in not giving up her routine of eating the dense salted bread with mustard, all were polar opposite of my characteristics. her beau so undecided and apt to float on her apple blossom scented whims-i was a gargoyle perched on my cold cement staring over the living.
The woman was still talking and the man was nodding his head and only seldom would it rotate side to side in disagreement, and then, suddenly the man stood and extended his hand for the woman’s, lifting her off the bench. i crumpled the wax paper into a ball the best i could and placed them in my jacket pocket and drank the remainder of water. There was still some warmth emanating from the package that made my hand too warm to rest in the pocket and too chilled to be left outside. i tucked the hand inside of its sleeve and began following the couple again.
they wove in and out of the pedestrian traffic. if their feet were dipped in ink the tracks left would zig-zag like the first attempt at sewing by a first year home economics student. i followed them, at times losing one-but the knowledge of one’s where about led to the other’s, like seeing your left hand you know the right is somewhere, perhaps even just hiding beneath the sheet-but discovering the other close by.
we had walked a great many blocks and were approaching the area where traffic slowed, as much as it did in the city, and a few bicyclists rode along the dotted lines between lanes. brake lights began to be reflected brightly on the glass of the closing fashion, posh, and “cultured” stores. red streaks ripped crossed the faces of fur-draped mannequins. head lights were spotlights and each one seemed paralyzed; alive, but crippled by fear like deer.
my eyes and legs had united after the torrents of people had faded and they led me unwaveringly along the steps of the older couple. there was a constant electrical buzz that floated through the air and permeated into my thoughts. something that roused emotions and phobias, logic and skepticism was in the night and it passed through my brain like an electric current. it stimulated portions of it long subdued by wages; schedules; documents; groceries; family; drugs and sex, brought it pulsing out of its dormant cave and into light. sudden thoughts of people i hadn’t spoken to in years ran to the front of my mind like it was a race out of the building on the last day of school. landscapes of places i had been were dotted with people i had known, lost, loved. the rubble of government that toppled its heavy stones onto us each day, reprimanding us for attempting to replace the stone and secure its foundation. my grammy and the way she would have milk and cookies waiting for my sister and i when she knew we were visiting; her liver-spots and cool skin the day of her funeral.
old girlfriends and flames, which were now as hot as a pile of ash, their kisses as different as their smiles and each one tasted so delectable; Dori was sweet like she used raspberry pectin as lip gloss; Claire had spice; Liz numbed lips with a bitter after-taste of medication; Sara...had the taste of baby-blue skies and simple yellow sun when daydreaming was the only thing to do.
the stores had dissipated completely and were replaced by tightly fitted houses; like a drunk-family-reunion photograph, every member’s face squeezed together in order for everyone to appear in the picture. there was a steady march of street lamps that stretched far in the distance. there were neatly trimmed trees along the sidewalk being tamed and held captive by knee-high iron fences. the couple appeared then vanished, like a fishing bobber dipping behind a wave, as they entered then left the topaz lights. i took the wax-paper ball out of my pocket and took a sip of water before eating any of the sodium coated nuts. they were far enough away to not worry about them hearing my noise, their conversation carried on the air between us just above the sidewalk; i had to stop and listen to the cracks in the cement to hear the echoes of their jubilation.
their pace slowed and i sat finishing my snack, crumpling the paper at the end.
i watched as they made their way up the marble stoop of the building from an alley adjacent from the house. the rapid dawn and night of the lights stopped in one particular room on the third story. there, a new world of 60 watt day was born within the darkness of neighboring windows, and even in the sightless panes of the two floors below them. in the golden frame silhouettes fluttered along the wall; inaudible ice doubtlessly fell into glasses; tasteless lips were welded in an embrace; the shadows shrank and the room hushed to the humming blue of the television. i made my way through the night in slow dashes as the changing of scenes flashed a deep wound of darkness a crossed their faces. i came upon the stoop and collapsed in a heap of systematically decaying cells; in a weightless pile, a portion of my body easily blown away in a gust like a handful of leaves. i fell and waited, hoping they would find me in the shapeless infant dawn and welcome my arrival with eyes they’d give a stray who had just wondered into their lives. i fell asleep; deep in canine dreams.
they were an older couple, not much passed their thirties, the grey in their hair in the early stages where it looks like highlights. they were an older couple walking down fifth avenue beneath a dusty afternoon, killing time before they were victims themselves. i wasn’t doing much of anything then, and not much more now, but at the time i was nothing more than a tear in a river of sorrow; a heart broken now more than thrice compared to their shattered remains that they carried for each other.
“there’s nothing more to it. a cocktail party at Eva’s then?” the man said, his long tan trench coat blew open at the sides while his hands gestured waist-high, waving palms and clenching into fists.
“i don’t suppose we could skip it, could we darling? i’m not much in the mood for socializing. in fact, i rightly don’t fee-eel like doing much at all; it’s been such a long day. Oh, dear, we still have a few hours until they’re expecting us, we could easily conjure an excuse before then. there must be something that we can say we’re preoccupied with; prior engagements perhaps? i just don’t want to go tonight, any other night but not tonight. i just don’t...” the man stopped her mid-way with a handful of her forearm, without stopping their walk, and guided her steps closer to his.
“i understand my love. i only pursued it because she is an old friend of yours; not because i had any of my heart set on going, only with you and friendship in mind did i want to go.” their walk relaxed a bit, after their shoulders loosened with the alleviation of stress, then stopped at a vendor on the side of one of the intersecting avenues. There was another stand not far away, like most cities this one had tribes of food vendors; one selling water, another nuts; this one hotdogs, that one ice-cream, and the one i was destined towards sold roasted nuts in red and white checkered wax-paper. i bought bottled water to go with the nuts, really out of instinct more than want of water, and waited for the couple to begin their journey once more.
the sun was filling the streets with its orange-purple fire, igniting cars and buildings, devouring the city from the second floor up. it was a Tuesday and i had just received my third eviction notice; in love and housing. i hit the streets looking for something. a something that has a beginning and an end, that fulfillment of soul and senses, and happened upon the older couple not long after the start of my pilgrimage, and decided for one reason or another to follow behind in their footsteps. perhaps it was the over-heating, over-exhaustion, over-everything that made my face red and hot, in need of a cool calm shadow to bathe that had me following this poor (surely only by pity) couple down avenues, buying nuts and water when i was perfectly fine without. by chance it was the frustration of attempts that had never led to anything worthy of duration that led me to the heels of these persons; the need of confirmation that it was truly, un-yieldingly, without any doubt, completely and simply me that lacked the stamina needed for such fragile things as life, love and food; housing, a bed, anything that took a length of time to obtain, and never grasped, was only due to my inadequacy. this couple, the man with only 6 inches of grey trousers and the rest tan coat; the woman in a faded lavender dress with brown shoes and a petticoat, they suited me fine. Fit me as uncomfortably as an old pair of shoes found in the closet with feet altered by time, the imprint in the sole dated and ill-fitting. this couple of old-attic lovers blew their dust onto me; left me in a cloud of envy that i waded through. i stepped with my left foot into her right foot path and my right one fell onto the vibrating cement of the gentleman’s left foot. i absorbed love through their shadows, rode their love like a raft behind the wake of a ship; hoping never to capsize.
“Should we find a place to sit and eat Mary? Or would you rather keep walking and eat on our way?” the gentleman found his arm around his woman’s waist, resting objectively with no inclination to travel nor to sit. the woman nodded towards a bench merely ten feet away from them.
“that seems a nice enough spot to sit for a minute. i’d rather not chance tarnishing my dress with mustard stains.” she was walking lightly ahead of him now, his finger-tips were reaching until they seemed like roots gripping earth, and she was occasionally craning her neck to throw her words over a woolen shoulder. And she did this easily, haphazardly, as though she was an aged fisherman throwing his line into a pond. no thought process involved, only the flexing and compression of muscles; only a reflex. the man bit every time. each time he bit harder until it was evident that he would never remove the hook that pierced his lip, and every bite was more hungered, starved, than the last. the man had no objections, worries, dignities about displaying his need and dependency on the sharp smooth U passing through his lips. i wasn’t sure if he even heard the words that were thrown over her shoulders, floating on the surface of city air between them; which wasn’t much at all, until he spoke in response to something she had said.
“Katherine Hep. was correct when she said that. No, she was a great actress and i’d love to watch that silly baby movie you love so much. the film’s wonderful and innocent. would you like me to make cocktails? Perhaps a martini; dirty?” his smile was like the demolition of a sky-scraper, a bright hum of sun permitted to pass through the crevice, one would have to utterly ignore, dismiss, one’s senses in order to have missed this man’s smile. somewhere, on a distant street corner in a dark triangle shadow of his own, a blind man looks right; smiles, feeling the vibrant echoes dancing down the roadways and knows that there’s a stronger possibility of a tomorrow. knows there’s still genuine things in this world, and time; the energy of love.
“i’d like that Phillip. i’d LIKE that indeed.” and the woman sat on the bench with a brilliance of eyes like the millions of reflected light of an ocean, condensed into a chestnut-sized sphere. the man took his place next to the woman gingerly as though his weight would send her upon ripples, she strolling unaware from him, as quickly as the breath he just drew. She slid along the planks of the bench until her thigh was ruffling his coat. On the gentleman’s right leg were packets of mustard, the corners ripped off and ready in easy reach of her hand. She tore pieces of the pretzel and dabbed a bit of yellow on the end of each one just prior to placing it in her mouth. The man ate his dry and intact.
i sat on a cold cement wall watching them, ignoring their words and placing all of my attention on the bodies; especially their hands. I watched as her hand would soar out in front of her, a white gloved hand flying about in a turbulence of invisible syllables and intimate emotions, then it would settle down onto either his knee or her own and roost. The man seemed preoccupied with something, moving an inch of his pants this way; adjusting his coat numerous times, eventually concluding that a cigarette was what he desired. A plume of smoke rose into the air and hung for a second, not sure which wave of breeze it wished to travel then swiftly dipped and circled behind the couple; folded into the wind and air. the woman’s discretion, how instinctually she decided against maneuvering around the city while eating a pretzel; her selfishness in not giving up her routine of eating the dense salted bread with mustard, all were polar opposite of my characteristics. her beau so undecided and apt to float on her apple blossom scented whims-i was a gargoyle perched on my cold cement staring over the living.
The woman was still talking and the man was nodding his head and only seldom would it rotate side to side in disagreement, and then, suddenly the man stood and extended his hand for the woman’s, lifting her off the bench. i crumpled the wax paper into a ball the best i could and placed them in my jacket pocket and drank the remainder of water. There was still some warmth emanating from the package that made my hand too warm to rest in the pocket and too chilled to be left outside. i tucked the hand inside of its sleeve and began following the couple again.
they wove in and out of the pedestrian traffic. if their feet were dipped in ink the tracks left would zig-zag like the first attempt at sewing by a first year home economics student. i followed them, at times losing one-but the knowledge of one’s where about led to the other’s, like seeing your left hand you know the right is somewhere, perhaps even just hiding beneath the sheet-but discovering the other close by.
we had walked a great many blocks and were approaching the area where traffic slowed, as much as it did in the city, and a few bicyclists rode along the dotted lines between lanes. brake lights began to be reflected brightly on the glass of the closing fashion, posh, and “cultured” stores. red streaks ripped crossed the faces of fur-draped mannequins. head lights were spotlights and each one seemed paralyzed; alive, but crippled by fear like deer.
my eyes and legs had united after the torrents of people had faded and they led me unwaveringly along the steps of the older couple. there was a constant electrical buzz that floated through the air and permeated into my thoughts. something that roused emotions and phobias, logic and skepticism was in the night and it passed through my brain like an electric current. it stimulated portions of it long subdued by wages; schedules; documents; groceries; family; drugs and sex, brought it pulsing out of its dormant cave and into light. sudden thoughts of people i hadn’t spoken to in years ran to the front of my mind like it was a race out of the building on the last day of school. landscapes of places i had been were dotted with people i had known, lost, loved. the rubble of government that toppled its heavy stones onto us each day, reprimanding us for attempting to replace the stone and secure its foundation. my grammy and the way she would have milk and cookies waiting for my sister and i when she knew we were visiting; her liver-spots and cool skin the day of her funeral.
old girlfriends and flames, which were now as hot as a pile of ash, their kisses as different as their smiles and each one tasted so delectable; Dori was sweet like she used raspberry pectin as lip gloss; Claire had spice; Liz numbed lips with a bitter after-taste of medication; Sara...had the taste of baby-blue skies and simple yellow sun when daydreaming was the only thing to do.
the stores had dissipated completely and were replaced by tightly fitted houses; like a drunk-family-reunion photograph, every member’s face squeezed together in order for everyone to appear in the picture. there was a steady march of street lamps that stretched far in the distance. there were neatly trimmed trees along the sidewalk being tamed and held captive by knee-high iron fences. the couple appeared then vanished, like a fishing bobber dipping behind a wave, as they entered then left the topaz lights. i took the wax-paper ball out of my pocket and took a sip of water before eating any of the sodium coated nuts. they were far enough away to not worry about them hearing my noise, their conversation carried on the air between us just above the sidewalk; i had to stop and listen to the cracks in the cement to hear the echoes of their jubilation.
their pace slowed and i sat finishing my snack, crumpling the paper at the end.
i watched as they made their way up the marble stoop of the building from an alley adjacent from the house. the rapid dawn and night of the lights stopped in one particular room on the third story. there, a new world of 60 watt day was born within the darkness of neighboring windows, and even in the sightless panes of the two floors below them. in the golden frame silhouettes fluttered along the wall; inaudible ice doubtlessly fell into glasses; tasteless lips were welded in an embrace; the shadows shrank and the room hushed to the humming blue of the television. i made my way through the night in slow dashes as the changing of scenes flashed a deep wound of darkness a crossed their faces. i came upon the stoop and collapsed in a heap of systematically decaying cells; in a weightless pile, a portion of my body easily blown away in a gust like a handful of leaves. i fell and waited, hoping they would find me in the shapeless infant dawn and welcome my arrival with eyes they’d give a stray who had just wondered into their lives. i fell asleep; deep in canine dreams.