Post by Steve on Jan 29, 2011 11:55:31 GMT -5
Arthritis medication. Tiny blue tablets that, more often than not, adhere to the rear of my throat, or the ceiling of my pallet; murky-translucent peanut skin wallpapers my oral cavity. I use my tongue as a crowbar and pry the oval off, another gulp of tap water fevered with chlorine; fluoride; -something resembling bleach- chases it into my stomach the bitter chemical residue no longer induces dry heaves. Arthritis medication; I’m twenty-seven and nothing now seems to the potential it had. My joints throb as I stand in the kitchenette. Even though I’m wearing wool socks, the linoleum feels like partially melted ice. The floor is to the point where cold loses itself in heat. And the dampness! I never remembered the apartment being so frigid, moist in every room. I take solace in the thought that an Englishman might be comfortable, may even opt to open a window, and I chuckle at the ridiculousness of it. Bed linens rustle in the distance. The rest of the water is congenially, enthusiastically spilled down the drain. I make my way into the living room. More bed sheets whisper an authentic autumn hymn and I know that in addition to losing energy, rest, cognitive thought capabilities needed to perform work duties tomorrow, I have just lost my down comforter. Amanda must feel the acrimonious temperature of the apartment as well. The last of the fabrics’ rustle-swoosh subsides.
I sit on the pullout couch and stare at the television set, which is switched off to limit distractions, and listen to the banal hum of solitude outside; waiting for the nightly sirens. No infant horns have cried. Last night I laid awake as some apparition inflated the pressure between my joints beyond their max p.s.i., throwing out adjectives and nouns over the edge of my insomnia trying to remember my childhood. It’s ironically one of the sole memories of youth that lives well and healthy: a game of word association. Blue fetched a poem my father wrote when I was birthed; the adroit song “Good-bye Blue Skies”; and a time when Amanda and I ate boomers, which led to a limpid parley about my colour was blue. Her colour was green; coincidentally my favorite colour. I did this for a few hours, but retrieving no sequential, or at least strictly childhood, memories I abrogated the gimmick and concluded that it needed adjustments to receive desired data. I’m not certain why or how such a crucial era of life could be utterly forgotten. First kisses-august rainstorms-arguments-passages of books/songs/authors/artists/record/year printed-phone numbers-pet care-hygiene-decrees-addresses- especially since a myriad of those things occurred during the smudged years.
My parents’ grievances were alleviated, to say that a self-applied burden was relieved, once I found that it wasn’t restricted to the beginning of my tale that was abstruse. Enormous mountains of events had seemed to have vanished, leaving only craters in the surface of memory. For quite some time they belittled themselves for not bestowing upon me a childhood worthy of mental storage. I explained how monstrously happy moments were lost as well. A postulate being that the ardent emotions automatically filed into a vault where they would remain untarnished by reckless rehashing until I absolutely needed them. For a time when I lay on my death bed or am trapped inside of an auto wreck and pine for the sight of beatific and pulchritude. During the discourse I omitted the last bit, though I think it to be relevant and true. That the things beckoned for in moments as those require additional luster and gleam than day to day tasks.
Tonight, what remains-four hours to be precise-,I don’t even bother attempting to sleep and use the time to prepare morning coffee and vitamins; which means my feet are subjected to the insidious tile once again. I use all strength in brevity, and make it back to the couch and comatose television in no time. A passing interest in what the late night, pre-dawn, cable channel evangelist has chosen for his sermon has me fetch the remote controller and tune to the proper station. Job. Of all the books, he chose Job. Fitting as it is, with the economy a diamond ring we’re desperately trying to plunger, coax from the toilet pips, it doesn’t retain my attention.
Another hour steadily passes.
The up-coming day fidgets its way into my thoughts. The gathered eight hours of me and my mobile pound; the far from amiable stare-glare of caged animals puncturing the seat and entering my body, an axiom calculation has it benevolently missing my spine. The temporary cells, all their meshing-bolts-frames-locks, must be forged from recycled students’ braces and eye-glasses. The windshield is actually thousands of old lenses whose magnification abilities were nullified during the melting process. Like the non-Christians entering the Inquisition machine, they exited unchanged only in the manner that they were still human. The cells have to be rendered from recycled mouth and eye gear because of the frequency in which the animals gnarl their way to freedom; gnawing the mesh apart of bending the door away from its hinges.
Yes, I’ve been bitten, twice. The first was a case involving an escapist Doberman who had gotten out of its cage three times. By the fourth we were both vexed at the other’s brazenness. That’s when I became careless and opened the rear doors without my collar tool. He took advantage of the situation and sunk deep into my forearm. If it wasn’t for the weaker jaw of the breed, in comparison to say, a Pit-bull, I’d have less arm and more scars. The second was an opossum in an old woman’s attic. She was sweet, frail, her skin hung on her like a wet towel thrown on a bed post; which made her appear a bleached, elongated walnut held upright by two dried leaf stems. The truth is it didn’t matter, even if she was a shrewd meatball of a witch, she was paying. I dropped the mold smelling, damp ladder legs, and in doing so alerted the creature to my presence. In the instant I set my hands over my head and onto the landing it promptly seized my hand and removed a quarter pound of flesh; a nice little serving of human tar tar from between my index and thumb. I bagged the opossum and all her little litter, the reason for her aggressive assault, as quickly as possible then drove to the emergency room. They injected me with a concoction to save me from rabies, other transferrable diseases and a painkiller. The latter made me dizzy and the drive to the office was treacherous and hazardous. It was then that I realized my employer would have me capture a feral infant, if the price was right, and such creatures existed.
An hour and a half remains.
I’m twenty-seven making a cup of relaxation tea to calm and wash down another doubled dosage of arthritis medication, which may help me remain in a subdued cloud of pain. I wonder where I’ll be today, on which side of town? I finish my mug of tea just as my feet recover from the latest exposure to the cold flooring and decide that I could lay motionless for an hour until the alarm sounded. I climb into bed; thankful we purchased the firmer of the mattresses-Amanda’s choice-as it made no shift or deflation beneath my weight. She continues to slumber and dream as I cover myself with the only things available: my work shirt and a corner of rough afghan.
The digital burp-hiccup-whir of the alarm acts as shock therapy and we sit straight in bed. There’s something non-secular-angelic in the way a woman works her face out of the dream realm, as though the pot of lips; furling of brow; blinking of eyes were ways to unknot themselves from sleep. She stretches her arms above her head, arches her back, and her ribcage is exposed by an artist worlds away who shades beneath-around-between each rib and like magic they’re brought to the surface. To reach out and run my fingers along them is detrimental to any possibility of affection to come. I fight back the urge and feel the air that hadn’t altered in the least. Her body collapses like an umbrella being folded and in a micro-second the artist has crumpled the image on his page and rescinded those ribs from my view.
Amanda watches through the mirror as I gawk at her like a school boy. She’s undressing while I’m beneath the covers, which are still warm from her body and dreams, fully clothed. There’s a shiver that starts at her hips and ends mid-way up her back. I make the obvious remark about the temperature. She turns and faces me. I’m expecting a firm lashing on my stupidity and obstute observation when she flatly-coolly says “that’s because you never mailed the utility checks”. Amanda points to my dresser. A neat stack of envelopes, sealed, stamped and patiently waiting. When I don’t say anything she huffs, pulls a thick sweater over her torso and snatches them on her way out of the room.
I can hear the clang of dishes as she begins her breakfast but I’m still on the bed staring where she had been. I’m twenty-seven. If I take enough bone medicine I will chase animals with a collar pole sleepily through the stages of delusion. I have twenty-four exposures of my youth which I build a flimsy child-castle with and the morning has been tainted. It was inevitable. If I had touched her with my icicle fingers the outcome would have still been this. As I rise from the mattress I conclude that next time I wouldn’t be courteous. I would reach out and smudge the fine-delicate shading of her rib-space, agitating both, artist and art.
I sit on the pullout couch and stare at the television set, which is switched off to limit distractions, and listen to the banal hum of solitude outside; waiting for the nightly sirens. No infant horns have cried. Last night I laid awake as some apparition inflated the pressure between my joints beyond their max p.s.i., throwing out adjectives and nouns over the edge of my insomnia trying to remember my childhood. It’s ironically one of the sole memories of youth that lives well and healthy: a game of word association. Blue fetched a poem my father wrote when I was birthed; the adroit song “Good-bye Blue Skies”; and a time when Amanda and I ate boomers, which led to a limpid parley about my colour was blue. Her colour was green; coincidentally my favorite colour. I did this for a few hours, but retrieving no sequential, or at least strictly childhood, memories I abrogated the gimmick and concluded that it needed adjustments to receive desired data. I’m not certain why or how such a crucial era of life could be utterly forgotten. First kisses-august rainstorms-arguments-passages of books/songs/authors/artists/record/year printed-phone numbers-pet care-hygiene-decrees-addresses- especially since a myriad of those things occurred during the smudged years.
My parents’ grievances were alleviated, to say that a self-applied burden was relieved, once I found that it wasn’t restricted to the beginning of my tale that was abstruse. Enormous mountains of events had seemed to have vanished, leaving only craters in the surface of memory. For quite some time they belittled themselves for not bestowing upon me a childhood worthy of mental storage. I explained how monstrously happy moments were lost as well. A postulate being that the ardent emotions automatically filed into a vault where they would remain untarnished by reckless rehashing until I absolutely needed them. For a time when I lay on my death bed or am trapped inside of an auto wreck and pine for the sight of beatific and pulchritude. During the discourse I omitted the last bit, though I think it to be relevant and true. That the things beckoned for in moments as those require additional luster and gleam than day to day tasks.
Tonight, what remains-four hours to be precise-,I don’t even bother attempting to sleep and use the time to prepare morning coffee and vitamins; which means my feet are subjected to the insidious tile once again. I use all strength in brevity, and make it back to the couch and comatose television in no time. A passing interest in what the late night, pre-dawn, cable channel evangelist has chosen for his sermon has me fetch the remote controller and tune to the proper station. Job. Of all the books, he chose Job. Fitting as it is, with the economy a diamond ring we’re desperately trying to plunger, coax from the toilet pips, it doesn’t retain my attention.
Another hour steadily passes.
The up-coming day fidgets its way into my thoughts. The gathered eight hours of me and my mobile pound; the far from amiable stare-glare of caged animals puncturing the seat and entering my body, an axiom calculation has it benevolently missing my spine. The temporary cells, all their meshing-bolts-frames-locks, must be forged from recycled students’ braces and eye-glasses. The windshield is actually thousands of old lenses whose magnification abilities were nullified during the melting process. Like the non-Christians entering the Inquisition machine, they exited unchanged only in the manner that they were still human. The cells have to be rendered from recycled mouth and eye gear because of the frequency in which the animals gnarl their way to freedom; gnawing the mesh apart of bending the door away from its hinges.
Yes, I’ve been bitten, twice. The first was a case involving an escapist Doberman who had gotten out of its cage three times. By the fourth we were both vexed at the other’s brazenness. That’s when I became careless and opened the rear doors without my collar tool. He took advantage of the situation and sunk deep into my forearm. If it wasn’t for the weaker jaw of the breed, in comparison to say, a Pit-bull, I’d have less arm and more scars. The second was an opossum in an old woman’s attic. She was sweet, frail, her skin hung on her like a wet towel thrown on a bed post; which made her appear a bleached, elongated walnut held upright by two dried leaf stems. The truth is it didn’t matter, even if she was a shrewd meatball of a witch, she was paying. I dropped the mold smelling, damp ladder legs, and in doing so alerted the creature to my presence. In the instant I set my hands over my head and onto the landing it promptly seized my hand and removed a quarter pound of flesh; a nice little serving of human tar tar from between my index and thumb. I bagged the opossum and all her little litter, the reason for her aggressive assault, as quickly as possible then drove to the emergency room. They injected me with a concoction to save me from rabies, other transferrable diseases and a painkiller. The latter made me dizzy and the drive to the office was treacherous and hazardous. It was then that I realized my employer would have me capture a feral infant, if the price was right, and such creatures existed.
An hour and a half remains.
I’m twenty-seven making a cup of relaxation tea to calm and wash down another doubled dosage of arthritis medication, which may help me remain in a subdued cloud of pain. I wonder where I’ll be today, on which side of town? I finish my mug of tea just as my feet recover from the latest exposure to the cold flooring and decide that I could lay motionless for an hour until the alarm sounded. I climb into bed; thankful we purchased the firmer of the mattresses-Amanda’s choice-as it made no shift or deflation beneath my weight. She continues to slumber and dream as I cover myself with the only things available: my work shirt and a corner of rough afghan.
The digital burp-hiccup-whir of the alarm acts as shock therapy and we sit straight in bed. There’s something non-secular-angelic in the way a woman works her face out of the dream realm, as though the pot of lips; furling of brow; blinking of eyes were ways to unknot themselves from sleep. She stretches her arms above her head, arches her back, and her ribcage is exposed by an artist worlds away who shades beneath-around-between each rib and like magic they’re brought to the surface. To reach out and run my fingers along them is detrimental to any possibility of affection to come. I fight back the urge and feel the air that hadn’t altered in the least. Her body collapses like an umbrella being folded and in a micro-second the artist has crumpled the image on his page and rescinded those ribs from my view.
Amanda watches through the mirror as I gawk at her like a school boy. She’s undressing while I’m beneath the covers, which are still warm from her body and dreams, fully clothed. There’s a shiver that starts at her hips and ends mid-way up her back. I make the obvious remark about the temperature. She turns and faces me. I’m expecting a firm lashing on my stupidity and obstute observation when she flatly-coolly says “that’s because you never mailed the utility checks”. Amanda points to my dresser. A neat stack of envelopes, sealed, stamped and patiently waiting. When I don’t say anything she huffs, pulls a thick sweater over her torso and snatches them on her way out of the room.
I can hear the clang of dishes as she begins her breakfast but I’m still on the bed staring where she had been. I’m twenty-seven. If I take enough bone medicine I will chase animals with a collar pole sleepily through the stages of delusion. I have twenty-four exposures of my youth which I build a flimsy child-castle with and the morning has been tainted. It was inevitable. If I had touched her with my icicle fingers the outcome would have still been this. As I rise from the mattress I conclude that next time I wouldn’t be courteous. I would reach out and smudge the fine-delicate shading of her rib-space, agitating both, artist and art.