sunday prompt: delicious

he never had much of a taste for anything before. it had only been recently that he had discovered vegetables - the crisp crunch of lettuce - romaine, red and green, cabbage, frisee, endive, escarole. he tried it all, became obsessed with peppers, one after the other, beginning with green bell and ending with the megalomaniacal scotch bonnet, the tiny, ancient-looking habañero. then the small bursts of grape tomatoes between his molars, novae of flavour that caused his eyes to racket closed.

truth was, he had never been much of one for eating, for nutrition, for taste. it was the least important of the senses, to him. he shunned his mouth, despised it. glued it shut for days and used his voice sparingly. even shaved around its borders with a marauding hand, no gel or cream, just dry. the tingling burn of each minute bristle torn savagely from its follicle caused some irritation for hours after, but he didn't cease his self-destructive pattern. he never brushed his teeth and had terrible halitosis. his gums bled, regularly. he was constantly tasting his own blood, coppery and sharp, testing their swollen hillocks with the point of his short tongue. it didn't help, he supposed, that he ground his teeth during sleep and woke up with a sore jaw, as though someone punched him savagely, over and over, in the side of his face.

his life was routine, with brief moments of dissociation. he worked a regular job - a line cook in a small restaurant, putting together salads by rote, flipping the fries in their cages, pounding and chopping and twisting at the waist. his hands were speckled with the wholly unintentional design of white scars and small, pink burns. and he was tired. he drank a lot - too much - preferring after every shift to lapse into the quiet, wooden comfort of a faraway bar, trudging through gray snow and avoiding ice-slick the whole way. the walk did him some good. he liked to clear his mind, hit the reset button, slump into a seat and rake his hair back from his oily forehead. minutes after establishing himself, he would go to the bathroom and splash water on his face, stare at himself in the filmy mirror. let his eyes flick, rove, to the graffiti - the endless cascades of multi-coloured graffiti crabbing the flake-paint walls. from witticisms to averring love, to mindless design and visual art. he had added one of his own, in a black sharpie filched from the kitchen, wrote it neatly and straight at eye level above the toilet:

MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN

he sees it now. it has faded, but no one has touched it. he zips up after a heinous-smelling urination and returns diligently to his seat at the bar. he is thirsty. orders a beer, a stout, and when it arrives in front of him, as opaque as midnight, he tilts to his lips and drinks it steadily, rhythmically, adam's apple bobbing in syncopation with his gulps. in less than a minute, he sets the empty glass down on its coaster, the insides of it striated with foam.

"thirsty, eh?" he looks up and sees the bartender - Ruth - staring at him, arms crossing her chest, one eyebrow arched smoothly. he nods, preferring not to speak. she knows this. knows the next act, too, and swiftly begins filling another from the tap. "long night? it's been quiet here. no one knows about the old One Horse. a travesty, really. heard we might be shutting down..."

he is used to her monologues. likes them. he tilts his head at the appropriate moments, nods, shifts in his seat. toys with a pack of cigarettes - Camels - and smiles gingerly from time to time. when he laughs, it's a silent ripple of shoulder and facial tic. he doesn't open his mouth. Ruth rambles on, the same old doomsayings, how the economy is bad, how everything is terrible, how business is slow. he tips her well, and accordingly. she smiles and winks and calls him sugar and when she does it makes his teeth ache.

suddenly he is hungry and formulates a mental picture of the pantry in his apartment. of the refrigerator. notes the presence of a few shriveled stalks of scallions. the box of chicken stock. the plastic box of miso paste jammed between a bottle of diced lemongrass and a plastic container of marinated, pickled garlic and roasted red peppers. he begins to salivate, and swallows it hurriedly, finishing off his second beer. that is usually his limit. routine dictates he places the empty glass beside the coaster instead of on top of it, as a sort of signal. he idly wonders if Ruth thinks he's a mute. has he even ever spoken a single word to her? he drifts, still with his hand wrapped around the empty glass, hovering over the coaster. with a melange of resolution and resignation, he places it on the coaster. "i need a shot of something," he says, finally, and the words creak out of his mouth like an old hobby-horse.

"shaking it up tonight, eh? what kind of shot? something ... delicious? something ... alcoholic?"

"all of the above," he says. "surprise me."

it's the most he's ever spoken in this bar. Ruth laughs. it's not an unattractive sound, but it verges on shrill. she talks to herself as she gathers ingredients, bottles clinking, ice rattling. "my speciality," she says, emphasizing the incorrect syllable in the word.

a sad old drunk is clinking quarters in the electronic jukebox. the first notes of paul simon's "kodachrome" fills the bar. "ah, i love this song," Ruth says, humming along as she pours, slaps, mixes. he can't even tell what she's putting in the tumbler. the bottles look old. liquor he is unfamiliar with. he tends to stick to his stout and, from time to time, whiskey - but only at home, later hours, sitting up in an overstuffed chair with ice cubes glinting at him like knowing eyes through the translucent brown, a Camel curling up gray to the ceiling like a snake charmer's cobra. it is a long walk home.

Ruth places the shotglass in front of him. it is a milky, reddish hue, like liquid garnet. "bon appetit," she proclaims, a calculatedly mysterious smile tinging her full lips. "enjoy."

he catches some of the contagion of her dramatics, and with a little flourish, empties the concoction into his mouth, parting his lips just slightly to imbibe. it is harsh - spiced and pungent, and burns down his esophagus like a trail of fire ants to his belly. his eyes widen and spark with tears that he lifts a hand to brush away. "do you like it? i call it Fire in the Hole."

"god," he gets out finally. "what is that?"

"secret recipe," she replies. "want a chaser?"

"some ... water," he says. his lungs are itching for a cigarette. "i need a smoke."

"i'll join you." she's already got one arm in a coat, and before he can protest, they are both out of doors, in the small culvert by the door, out of the sleepily increasing winter wind. he lights her cigarette out of impulse, notes that she smokes a parliament. she notes his glance and smiles. "recessed filter. that's why."

"you like that?" he surprises himself. "i always thought it was kind of weird. why do they do that?"

"they say it's so the filter doesn't touch your tongue. some marketing bullshit, i don't know." she flips her hair - long, curled and auburn - over a shoulder and shudders involuntarily. "fucking cold out."

"it's not as bad as it could be," he offers. "supposed to get worse."

"snow?"

"tomorrow, maybe. mostly freezing rain."

she nods, a bit absently. "so ... your tongue got loose."

"what?" he is surprised, meets her cool and nonchalant gaze.

"you know what i mean. you come in here practically every night and you haven't said more than a word. why tonight?"

why tonight indeed. he can still feel the lash of the Fire in the Hole on his tongue. he finds himself warming to her now that she is in front of the bar. "i didn't realize you had legs," he tries, and she laughs suddenly, with great gusto.

"yeah. never heard that one before, smokey. what's your name, anyway?"

he finagles for a good lie despite not knowing the reason for hiding his real name. "Colin." it's a lie and she knows it.

"good Irish name." she plays along.

he doesn't know where to go with any of this. the hunger he felt earlier rises up inside of him and he does another mental imaging of his cupboards. no bread. some eggs, maybe. pasta. no sauce. could make a vinaigrette. olive oil, cider vinegar, some mustard to hold the emulsification - some tuna, maybe. he feels his tongue wriggling around in his mouth like a dog on a leash, straining. "are you okay?" she asks. "did i kill you with that shot?"

"still alive," he strains the reply between his teeth.

she has turned coy in the silence. something in her stance has shifted. the air curls around her differently. "but seriously." she looks him up and down. she is just an inch or so taller than he is. her eyes glint like gimlets. "what's your name."

he shrugs, lamely. "Lionel." and a part of him inwardly collapses, like a pillar in the ruins of its parent building.

"that's a weird one. Lionel."

"and you're Ruth."

"Ruthless."

"ah, i get it."

she flicks her cigarette with a practiced gesture into the frozen black river of the street. above them, a light goes out on its high metal post, stuttering into a smouldery oblivion. a single car rattles by, exhaust pipe purling out weird gray curls. he can see the ember of her Parliament in the middle of the road, winking, blinking, and finally dying out. "hey," she asks finally, turning to him. "are you hungry? i could eat."

he nods, somewhat dumbly, and throws his cigarette into the street after hers. "let's go inside," he states, as if issuing an order. "when do you get off?"

"an hour or so. depending on how busy we get." the loping sarcasm is evident in her tone, then in the way she bares her teeth at him.

"you have some humor stuck in your teeth," he comments, and she laughs out-right, the same shrill sound as before. he feels as though it comes from a little shrew, hiding inside of her mouth, which pops out to issue its cry. it doesn't belong to her, somehow.

"c'mon." and they go in.

hours later: the taste of her in his mouth, fresh from where he has clamped his lips over her bare shoulder. they are in her bedroom, whose walls are adorned with posters of Kate Bush and various photographs of her, her friends, what he assumes is her family. she is cluttered, a mess, strewn clothes over the back of every chair. they'd had to swipe all the detritus from the twisted bedsheets before climbing in, each so involved with one another's bodies, groping blindly for a clean spot. he rolls over onto a box of colored pencils that rattle sharply at contact, which he promptly jettisons from the bed. she is giggling now, softly, hurriedly, a new laugh that takes the place of the old harpy call, like an amused child with a playtoy. he buries his face in her hair, and laughs silently, the same way, an undulation of his shoulders and chest.

"you know," she says, between fits of laughter and shallow breath, "you should really let that laugh out. no good to hold it in like that - !" and he dives in like a mad bomber to tickle her exposed ribcage, his fingers like a rush of feathers -

and still later, at her kitchen table. two plates. he has made them a salad with the half-wilted lettuce he has unearthed from her crisper and from which he has also discovered a pair of tomatoes and some cucumbers. he has made the vinaigrette he was imagining, but with the lack of dijon has settled for ordinary yellow mustard. she is not eating, though she pirouettes her fork on the greens like a multi-legged dancer, rocking it this way and then that, on the tines. she supports her chin with her other hand, tilting her head, gazing at him. "this is really gross, Lionel."

"yeah." he has been making a game effort of it, chewing when it was unnecessary to, when the limp leaves would have just slid down his throat. he puts his fork down and stares at her, seriously, then issues a sigh. "sorry."

"not your fault."

"well, the lettuces was pretty old."

"lettuces. did you just say --"

"no, i said -- "

"you totally said lettuces."

"lettuces." the word with its ersatz plural feels as weird in his mouth as the actual leaves did. "lettuces."

"fuck this," Ruth proclaims, shoving back from the table with a crash, rummaging in her pocket and withdrawing a Parliament. lights up. inhales and blows it at his face. he follows suit, but after a moment.

this, then, how they sit, her kicked back, rocking back and forth on the hind-legs of a protesting chair, he sitting with hunched shoulders, eyes darting from one place to the next like a bird unsure of which branch to alight upon. in silence. both unknowing of the irony that they both think of the same thing, which is: what next? and concurrently,

how do i get this godawful taste out of my mouth?

sunday prompt: dare

nolan and his brother on the sidewalk. snow, but not the predicted blizzard - a light, fine dusting. bald patches of asphalt show through on the roads. the sun hides its face behind bandage-thick cloud. neither brother speaks - this is their sunday ritual, the morning thud of booze's clamor in their heads, cigarettes in and out of their mouths like lazy pistons. on their way to breakfast, a greasy spoon a few blocks away known for the classic rock on the stereo and shifty, grizzled clientele. besides being brothers they are also roommates, and the apartment they have left behind is littered with the detritus of a post last-call party. phalanxes of beer cans line the counter and tabletops, an exhausted army with deserters and wounded alike. cigarette butts crushed out in red plastic cups; the chrome bottom of the sink littered with the same. a cat - Melvin - prowls around and in and out of the rubble, nosing at these unfamiliar objects, ears pricked at the sound of the door antecedent to their exit.

they ease into adjacent stools and are given coffee without having to ask. neither take cream or sugar. they order. nolan drinks faster than his brother, and upon being refilled by the plump, arch-browed waitress, turns to his brother and says

"so what was her name?"

his brother doesn't respond immediately. takes his time with a slow draught of his mug. "angela." pauses. "or maybe marian."

nolan nods, then laughs, almost as an afterthought. "she left her number."

"where?"

"she left it on the fridge. used a magnet and everything."

"i didn't think we had any magnets."

"it was one of her own - one of those magnetic poetry ones."

"really."

"you don't remember?"

"no."

"she had them all over the fridge. i think she wrote you a poem. or you wrote her one. i don't know."

"that's gay."

"well she left you 'inferno'."

"on the note?"

"yeah."

the brothers' breakfast arrives. tabasco is applied to both plates - nolan's brother more liberally than he - and silverware is taken up like weaponry. brown one-ply napkins settle on right thighs. all these tiny moments, going unnoticed by the brothers - they are machine-like in their sunday devotional, eating with controlled gusto. following breakfast they will return to the apartment, sit on a couch with television and share a joint. a phone will eventually ring, and they will leave one another to their respective days. the sun sets, the lights come on. Melvin puts in an appearance and keeps a carefully disinterested company with whichever brother is left behind. the kitchen will go as it is for a day or so, with nolan's brother idly assembling the cans in neat arrays on the table. eventually nolan will take it upon himself to toss them into a bin in the closet, separated by bottles and cans.

on this sunday neither of their phones ring. this has happened, but it is rare. after the third hour of mindless television, nolan straightens up in his seat, eliciting a melisma of disgruntled noise from the newly-dislodged cat. "why don't you call her?"

as before, during breakfast, nolan's brother takes his time in replying. it is as though he frames and then re-frames the question in his mind before answering it, almost as though he's just a little dull, a little slow. he tilts his head to one side slightly, narrowing his eyes, and then shrugs. "dunno."

"she left her number."

"it's happened before."

"did you like her?"

nolan's brother shrugs again, or releases the previous shrug, and chuckles a little bit, rubbing his chin in the way he imagines people do when they're amused. "sure."

"then call her!" nolan is playing a part too - that of dutiful brother: coaxing, nudging, pushing. "you know you want to."

he sighs. "i was thinking about going to get a beer."

"ask her if she wants to."

"i don't know. she was kind of ... weird."

"weird how?" the television blares something about monster trucks, self-importantly.

"you know. i mean. magnetic poetry or something."

"so?"

"who brings that to a party?"

"maybe it was just in her backpack."

"maybe." nolan's brother is considering. the phrase 'why not' enters his head like a cold breeze from a door opened to the outside. "i don't even remember her name."

"maybe she never told you."

"i think she did."

"but you can't remember."

"right."

nolan shrugs and stands up, pacing idly. fixes a slightly crooked picture on the wall. it is a print of Dogs Playing Poker. "i dare you."

"don't. nolan."

"i double dare you."

"i hate this. you know i hate this."

"i double dog dare you. call her."

a different silence settles on them. something more electric, yet not excitable. it's a sad silence. nolan's brother loses the color in his eyes, bends his head and cracks his neck. refuses to meet nolan's pressuring stare. "fine." he pulls his phone out of his pocket and stands up, heading to the kitchen. there is the number, as related. he holds it in his hand and laughs to himself. written on the small slip is a number:

1-900-BLOW-ME

he can hear his brother's laughter coming from the living room.

colder

lately everything's rushing. suddenly the house is ten degrees colder and the floorboards shrink. heaters switched on. winter comes down like a bomb in the sky, even though the colours of the trees are as bright as hell's flags still. and not even halloween yet.

a kind of battening-down process. i'm backing up all my data in case of another hard drive catastrophe. cleaned up and rearranged my room. books all in alpha-order. all things in their right places. burning data to hard copy. settling down again. like a dog in a circle before laying down with a great sigh. and the more i think about time, the more time thinks about me, and then i'm crushed under its momentary consideration of my existence.

met a right asshole in the bar the other night. rush, or raj. i'm going to bet the actual name was raj due to his accent and skin color but i'm going to call him rush because it seems more appropriate. half-cocked, going off, un poco triste, my little lemming-mind jumping off the glass cliff into an alcohol ocean. standing to one side, watching - and then the momentary victory. connection, and a good one, a male-female connection, and what electricity - her smile, her laugh. a fantastic conversation lasting through two - no, three! - cigarettes, and the eventual return to her glowering companion, rush, astride his barstool. i am inflamed, have been, all day - all week! - with the private correspondence of H. Miller and L. Durrell. have devoured The Colossus of Maroussi, have embarked on Prospero's Cell. obviously when one reads about the apotheosis of place such as Miller and Durrell made Greece (and surrounds), there is a longing that shows up. for travel. for the past. nostalgia for these things which have not yet happened or never will. i am going off, a roman candle with a fuse a mile long, how much i'd love to see Greece, the Mediterranean

and Rush, good old motherfucking Rush, barging in. this is where my memory gets hazy. where psychic damage sets in. his false impressions of me, his generalizations, his aggrandizement - all of it. so much and so virulent. i feel like i'm in the middle of a swarm of wasps. he gets up to use the bathroom and Maria is explaining that i am "doing the right thing, exactly as i should," as though i am winning a game. the scene is becoming drastically skewed, like a fucked-up dream. i imagine the floor to be collapsing. or the ceiling. Maria wants me to meet her friend. Kirsten. she likes me, i think, or is entertained by me, neither of which i mind at this point - she tells me to write my email down. my phone number. asks me to be discreet in some way, slip it to her by way of some complicated scheme that both of us are too drunk to execute - but then there is Polyphemus again, rounding the corner from the bathroom. perhaps neither Rush nor Raj is appropriate but a slightly different phonic: Rage. he sits again beside me and strikes up the same conversation as before - i have no doubt in my head that he is smarter than Maria is drunk and so i do not slip her the piece of paper. he would see right through my ruse.

this continues. for far too long. eventually i leave. taking too much of the drunkard's skewering "observations" to heart. the only way i can deal with it is pretending it doesn't matter. another drunken conversation. another bar. no - scratch that. the same fucking bar. one of the same.

so, another cold. the rain sluices down today. it's no longer that the wind is cold, but the air itself. the space around everything. shrinking. freezing.

more layers. insulate.

a list

- hike a mountain

- write an album

- write a play

- write a novel

- invent something useful

- build a house (or a bookshelf)

- brew beer

- learn how to shoot a gun

- learn how to ride a horse

- learn how to deliver a baby

- survive the apocalypse

- conquer stupid fears

- publish poetry

- go spelunking

- visit Europe

- visit Antarctica

- learn how to swim

- learn how to deal with time

advice

"chase it, and it'll chase you."

onset

wild-eyed. flail. come to rest. wild-eyed. flail. come to rest.

shouting into gray. gray shouts into white. white listens. speaks with a black tongue.

in dream, i painted shadows with a brush. i moved faster than everyone else, faster than light, even. i myself did not have, did not need, a shadow. i worked for the light yet moved faster than it.

repeat myself. repeat myself.

woke up before the sun. stayed in sheets. slept again.

late for work, so late i should be fired. but the boss is foaming at the mouth at the top of a wooden ladder. hanging up chinese dragons by strings.

on way home, i walk like a drunk driver. through the evening's violent glow. past my apartment. all the way west. sit like an indian on the dying grass. watch the careful flicker of the airstrip. beyond the murmuring arterial of the interstate.

the first fall wind in the trees.

प्रेत

smoked myself so high that suddenly i was sitting next to myself. there was no chair beneath me. i hovered somehow. staring at myself. surprised to hear a familiar song. i & me reached out to touch it as it hung in the air. the front door opened and let someone into the house. my bedroom door was locked, i didn't care. the chill of the air sent my skin into minuscule undulations, all over the map of my body. or else there was a ghost in the room with i & me. possible, that. i reassured me like a child afraid of the lightning-storm. "sometimes people just get stuck," i said. i combed my hair back with my fingers. the words came out like a murmur, though i'd intended them to be louder.

later: the sun, just under the trees. snarling through the lacunae of their branches, frothy pink and red. our shadows fled us in fear. walking sidewalks until they ran out. i heard the sound of a drum, something wild - and growing wilder. the sky, folding & unfolding above us. we were side-by-side but not hand-in-hand.

the cemetery, then, newly manicured, each gravestone nervous with its exposure. the old tombs backed into the hillside. their names: Sawyer, Haggett, Longfellow, Hillborn. the darkness hung low between the trees like a trap. clouds assumed the guises of mountains on the long-away horizon. our shadows leapt into each other and stayed there.

i have discovered this new dark, this non-light, this thing i am a sun of.

and something inside of me (after) is newly mazed, is tightening its corridors like veins, constricts & contracts and then dilates with the all-too-short duration of each breath. and there is something running the maze, something i am terrified for. something that lied too much & too often and was imprisoned there as punishment. there is no solution to the maze.

and i woke up this morning thinking about how my left arm is laddered with scars, tiny scars. and i fell back asleep with my glasses on, leaning against the wall. face tilted north. the chill in the air made a sheet of itself and wrapped me in it. i re-woke, imagining adding rungs to the ladder. stared at myself for time immemorial and woke up again. maybe i was the ghost. the difference between ghosts & us is that they know when they dream.

and later i will hear that an old friend of mine has changed his name to Only, which will make me laugh so hard i fall to the floor. only, (from ME, from OE, 'having the form of (ly) one (on(e))). slide a labial in there. (l)only. he always was so lonly. overcompensated for it. grew another shadow. grew three. they died like unwatered hanging plants. crisped on the vine and flaked away from him until Only he was left. then paired off again, with a living shadow. trekked. used their feet and their mouths. used wild pantomime to speak and laughed silently, like devils, into the night-hours. and of course the past had put microphones in the trees. and of course he knew it and so they stayed silent.

the unavoidable. the inescapable. find a bottle and cause it to become empty. become devoured by an urge to empty every bottle you see. drink the oceans. in the morning, vomit hurricanes.

first person

there is a goal. a tentative goal. better than nothing.

burning out, burned out. the dog days. i am positively canine. sweat constantly. thirst like a maniac. can't drink enough water. or beer. or water. committed a terrible deed but didn't realize til post hoc that it was a terrible thing. shooting off at the mouth. every day before i go to work or before i go to the bar i think to myself "this is going to be the time when i rein myself in." when i'm not such an asshole. when customers at tables tell me i'm a good man. or when they thank me for something effusively. i want to yell at them. that's not my hallmark. someone said the other day (the other week) "that's what i like about you. you don't care. you do what you want." how can they be so blind to the 304.80 that i so clearly exhibit? my polysubstance dependence.

quit my therapist. she wasn't helping. none of them do. you get what you pay for. you pay as you go. more about mindfulness. more pema chodron, more thich nat hanh. more about breathing. always questions about "do you think about suicide?" who doesn't. it's life. it has an opposite. how can you not think about the opposite? turn over every rock, investigate every cranny. shine a light on where light could be found.

working on writing. it's something largely continuous yet with no discernable plot. as always. as nauseam. the same character, unnamed. a slice of me. some turbulent idiot who goes around collecting observations that mean nothing, yet observations that i as the creator imbue with some sort of meaning. seems like an inverted attempt to get God to say "HI THIS IS WHAT THIS MEANS" in a booming voice. even through dream. c'mon. i'm waiting.

taken to bloody marys. ozzies call a virgin mary a bloody shame. so now do i. make my little jokes to the people at the tables. keep my jaw wired shut around the people i work with. still not over the shockwave of what my idiot mouth said, so i try to keep it shut. booze corrodes the wires. my jaw hangs open and stupid comes out. i used to be all about forward motion. but my mind is always running everything that happened over again. i live in dual-layered time. my left ear hears the present, my right ear hears only the past. i mix it up in the studio of my skull. sometimes things overlap. what did you just say a second from now? oh - you've just now said it. there's a third ear like a mutation in the folds of my brain. it hears the future. or thinks it does.

there are dependencies and then there are dependencies. who among us isn't dependent on something. rueful choice that my selection is poison. so many others have it so much worse. sometimes i feel like i'm watching myself through a spyglass. drowning in the ocean. i tell people i don't know how to swim like i tell people i've never had sex. it's become integral to my mythology. i can understand the irritation from those who've heard it before. do you think a monk ever gets tired of reading the Bible? (anecdote: in Spring Harbor, there was a bearded kid who shuffled the hallways, endlessly peripateic, in socks that wore through after a week, murmuring the Bible to himself. upon asking a nurse what happened when he reached the end, she shrugged and said "he starts all over again.")

trying to shake the habit. if you want to change your life, you have to start by changing the days. the hours. the seconds. you have to learn how to set up roadblocks in your brain. my thought is a careening, drunk driver who gets blasted & swerves over rain-slick roads. crashing from one tree to the next and somehow keeps going. scot-free. maybe a little bruised. sometimes it's a big tree. sometimes it's someone else's car. this is how anxiety works. pressing the brake pedal before you even see headlights. 300.02.

quit my therapist because i hated her. didn't give her much of a chance. they say that if you realize everyone else is just as scared as you are you could love just about anyone. she said i should focus on what i was doing. what the now was. jesus woman i said jesus woman now's already gone. stupid words from someone who knows all about the Importance of the Now.

hamartia, hubris, anagnorisis, nemesis. peripateia. catharsis. where on the weird list of the tragic scale am i now? have i jumped scales? should i begin a new hagiography? it's about time i did. that means a new language. or a new phonetics.

i will begin to watch objectively the motions of my mouth

ab morpheum

1. philip glass - opening (from "glassworks")

2. the album leaf - the light (from "into the blue again")

3. kate simko - welcome to fermilab (from "music from the atom smashers")

4. glowworm - periphescence (from "the coachlight woods")

5. cliff martinez - we don't have to think like that anymore (from the solaris (soderbergh) OST)

6. ulrich schnauss - gone forever (from "a strangely distant place")

7. khale - working... (from "sleepworks")

8. the low anthem - charlie darwin (from "oh my god charlie darwin")

9. max richter - on the nature of daylight (from "the blue notebooks")

10. whitetree - koepenik (from "cloudland")

11. grizzly bear - colorado (from "yellow house")

12. steve reich - pulses (from "music for 18 musicians" (track 1))

13. whitetree - mercury sands (from "cloudland")

14. gregor samsa - abutting, dismantling (from "rest")

15. kings of convenience - singing softly to me (from "quiet is the new loud")

16. whitetree - other nature (from "cloudland")

17. kings of convenience - the weight of my words (from "quiet is the new loud")

sketch

X & A & R & J, sprawled on the couches as though a bomb had gone off in the center of the room and they lay there, dizzily, stunned. the walls pulse with the reflected colors of the television, a noisy ghost shouting useless things. outside, the trees bend and quiver in obeisance to an invisible menace. it has rained for three days now and the city is beginning to feel it in their spines, right around the third vertebra, an aching that gets worse and worse as their shoulders sag, day after day, rising to see the sun and finding only that eldritch white-gray sky staring balefully back down at them. the clouds drop the rain as though unravelling themselves, like dispirited yarn-skeins.

eight hours earlier, X had curiously poked his index finger in the air, expecting it to tear through some sort of seam. everything sagged. they each ate a handful of psilocybe cubensis and chased them with miller lite. they'd gone through their ascent together, yet apart, each in a different quadrant of the room, gone through the period of hysterical laughter at anything anyone said, gone through the melting process, stared wildly into space, lost inside their heads as though in a vast cavern, staring, staring -

in the skinny hour before dawn, A falls asleep, his breath rasping against the back of his throat. the pre-cursor to some later-life apnea. R is bug-eyed, his long-fingered right hand clutching the armrest. the TV has taken on some form of life for him. J is in the process of calmly rolling a small joint, though he won't admit to having some difficulty. the small white pinner has developed an unfortunate twitch, a tail which flicks around and evades his fingers. he considers taking the lighter in his left hand and burning it as it lays on the table, but the thought is an ephemeral one, a fish in the muddy murk of his brain, a fish breaking the surface and then retreating again. his thoughts unravel like a burlesque reel, or a vaudeville. he is thinking of his various paraphilias. X finds his jaw clenching, feels the layers of his stomach writhing over the remnants of the mushrooms. he wonders: (is it still raining outside?) the curtains over the windows are thick and would not move easily. he has not smoked a cigarette in entirely too long, though sometimes when he trips he just doesn't. forgets to.

apostrophos

i used to be good
at understanding this
mysterious language,
the alphabet of every day,
each hour
descending inevitably
towards Z,

but lately i slur,
trip over the consonants
& fall into the holes
of the vowels,
phrases tumbling
out of my pockets

(re) capitulation

and so today was a
slow itemization of things
that turned against me:

i woke from a dreamless sleep
into a pellucid morning,

fear dripped into my veins
from the invisible machine
of nightmare,
had to turn the light on
and stare at the shadows
until they melted back,

then
the necessary cigarette
left me
as always
unsatisfied

and doing nothing
(a lot easier
than it sounds)
was justified by
reducing it to
small somethings,
like reshuffling the books
because the height of The Idiot
is smaller than that of
The Devils,
and i don't know
maybe i felt something
a little like sympathy,

and then
the cat hissed at me
though i had done nothing,
and i saw my fear
reflected in her eyes,
a weird shimmer
like the lake of heat
you might see
over summer asphalt,

for a damned second
heart pulpy in my mouth
like a bitter fruit
i stood staring at
the ridges of her palate,
thought how they looked like
the marks the waves make
in the sand at the beach.

i rubbed my tongue over my teeth
and prepared to hiss back,
but the rumble and mutter of a truck
shoving by importantly
on the street outside
sent her fleeing
for the nearest couch.

the sun went behind a cloud
and didn't come back.

then,
now,
this,

a shaky column of words,
a half of a pillar
in the rubble of the
ruins of the day

complaint

& i am so
motherfucking
tired,

so tired i can feel
fissures developing
in my bones,
the bigger ones,
the one in my thigh and
the one in my chest
quaking like california
under tectonic duress -

and this is boring,
so motherfucking
boring,

so boring that i have
canned myself like
cling peaches,
filled up my insides
with syrup & even my brain
is yellowed,
sickly with it

and they say
no man is an island
and i'm calling bullshit
from my roof
howling at the dawn
every man
is islanded,
surrounded by the pelagic
nothingness,
the whirl & whorl of sea
& wind
the sound of a seagull
that i take to be mourning
but is actually
hunger

day #---

the kind of morning
where i can’t get the temperature
of the shower right
and every other step i take
down the sidewalk
is a stumble

and i say to myself
this is going to be
one of those days,
an exhausting pageantry
of hours,
whittling myself to a sharp point
& by the time i’m drunk,
jabbing at anyone
who comes close enough

and my friend says
i drive people away,
says through a froth of drunk
and pot,
and later we sit
on his couch,
like a couple of knives
rasping in a drawer.
by the end of it
we have dulled each other
and the window is repainting itself
with a fragile blue

& the birds are
going apeshit in the trees -

white hole

wes by night, in his room with a black sharpie, drawing Xs all over his body. the chart of them: inside left forearm, inside right thigh, left anklebone, slightly off-center forehead, left eyelid, right earlobe, the soft underbelly of his chin, in the hollow of his throat, and now the marker hovered over the ridge of an iliac crest - he stood naked in front of the mirror, eyes focused on his own eyes. he knew how stoned he was, felt his brain soggy with it. he ran his free hand through his hair and idly thought about shaving it all off. he’d done it before, in a drunken fit, taken the clippers to his scalp and watched with great zeal the way the follicles fell. he’d let it grow out of boredom, enjoyed the way women would touch it, exclaiming at the tight curls.

he was born with violence inchoate, in diametric opposition to his immediate family, who were as calm and settled as lambs in a pasture. his mother had been a kind woman, soft like a marshmallow and slightly dumb, preferring mass-marketed paperbacks to the science-fiction her husband devoured. he figured the violence came from his paternal grandfather, who was a wicked drunk, who lived alone in a dilapidated and messy house after his wife’s cancer had made an antecedent of her. figured it skipped a generation. a recessive trait. he only remembered a few family visits, and they had always ended badly, with the old man slurring into his Canadian Club, smile pasted poorly to his mouth as he spoke nasty truths that he perverted to suit the moment. he had used his fists on his wife, that much wes knew - he’d never asked his father, but the way his face tautened, the way his arms hung ready at his sides, (instead of nested in pockets as they usually were) versed him of a threat from the old man. it took wes’ father a good half hour to calm down, usually just as they hit the bridge over a perpetually muddy river. the silence broke easily, as though sliding aside. he would light his pipe and begin casual conversation as though they were driving back from the mall. as though his father didn’t exist. only once did wes bring the subject up, just as they passed over the bridge, and his father’s speech became terse, as though the words had to squirm to get past his clenched teeth.

music was playing, something low, something urgent. wes wasn’t listening to it, but it informed his heartbeat. the cold from outdoors leaked in through the old window, set badly in its frame. he drew a pair of black, fingerless gloves over his hands and flexed his fingers. tilted his head. all at once he felt ridiculous and flung the gloves from him. they crumpled in a corner like dead rodents. he put clothes on, not even bothering to note what they were, opting for a loose brown sweater, a white t-shirt and jeans. the girl kept invading his thoughts like an unanswered phonecall. the girl from the bookstore. their brief words, swallowed up by the spines of the books. his conflicting desire to walk with her to her destination (back the way he’d come) and his desire to find a bar and drown himself in whiskey. he had another girl on his mind that day. she called herself Charlie, short for Charlene. nice girl. he met her a month ago at the movies. walking out the door. lighting her cigarette. the flash of gratitude - and something else - in her eyes. the casual conversation leading to a drink in a dark pub. that drink leading to another. leading to karaoke - she sang, he didn’t - leading to her apartment and a drunken fumble in the hallway, sloppy movements leading to her slapping him across the face. the lacuna of horror as she realized what she’d done. dissolving into giggles which veered to shrieking as he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her into her apartment. collapsing like buildings detonated from the foundation onto her couch, grappling with one another’s twisted wreckage. over the month, it had gotten worse. she confessed her rape fantasy to him and he obliged her. the rope burns on his palms. her helpless, contorted snarl still rang in his ears.

“what’s your name?”

“saskiya,” she said, staring at him unrelentingly. flicking her hair over a shoulder. narrowing her eyes. shading her gaze from the sun.

“that russian or something?”

she shrugged. “yeah. what’s yours?“

“viktor,” he lied, unsure why.

“that russian?” her lips curved like a saber unsheathing.

“da.”

“well, thanks for the smoke,” she said, and started to walk. he followed alongside.

“you walking this way?”

“sure.”

they walked like that together, smoking, silent. her phone rang and she answered it, holding a conversation with the other end while completely ignoring wes. he found he didn’t mind. eventually, she ended the call. “where are you going?” she asked offhandedly, as though the answer didn’t matter to her overmuch.

“down the street. you?”

“same place,” she said without missing a beat. “but seriously, where are you going?”

“just walking.”

“ah.”

again, silence intruded like a third wheel. a few daring birds had taken up perches in the still-bare trees. they made tremulous song. clouds passed over the sun and they both felt chilled. “well, viktor,” she said finally, “this is my stop. thanks again, for the smoke.”

“any time.”

and just like that, she turned. wes walked another block without thinking, then stopped in front of a run-down apartment complex, staring at a broken window. it had grown dark, and the sky was clotted with clouds like rhexic blisters. the thought passed him that he should follow her at a distance, but then Charlie’s gasping laughter came back to him and he crossed wires, imagining the rape of saskiya. he grew uncontrollable within himself, felt his muscles writhing over his skeleton. he lit another cigarette and headed home.


wes by night, staring into the mirror, suffused with smoke. the music had ended and he inhabited a limbo of action. felt like he was floating instead of standing stationary. closed his eyes and tried to feel himself further and further above his skull, lifting out of his body as though drawn out by a celestial hand. it only lasted a second, that vertiginous sensation, tipping over a precipice, before he was snatched back earthbound, rocking back on his heels. his eyes flew open like startled shutters. old, crusted hate shook itself loose from its cage and pissed acidly into his stomach. shook itself like a kenneled dog, ears flat, frothing at the corners of its mouth. wes turned away from the mirror, lowered himself to the hardwood, beginning a series of calisthenics to purge. he did this until sweat dripped from his brow and his abdomen quivered from the effort.

hours later, in the whirl of a padded booth in some bar. friends all around, crowding, jostling elbows, roaring with drink. enough alcohol on their breath to breathe fire if ignited. wes, jammed in the corner but fighting back, just as rowdy and boisterous if not more. he never knew what he was saying, but he knew it made the table shake with their laughter. had to remind himself of their names, sometimes, in foggy attempts to reinstate his hold on reality. lucas. norris. jake. the two girls from another table, coquettish in tone but garish in demeanor. jake’s hand on the blonde one’s thigh. running up her leg. her attempts to fend him off. her contradictory giggles. her burnished cheeks and darting eyes. drinking a cosmopolitan. the other, red-headed, gigantic breasts, amazonian. flirting dangerously with lucas. norris trying to horn in on the action, clueless to their intended targets. the bar tilted like a pinball machine, dislodging their coterie into the chilly grasp of the evening. it had rained. the sidewalks and streets were slick with it. just as always, they shouted and caterwauled the whole way back to wes’ apartment, where music played again. wes could see the faint marks of the sharpied Xs. he’d spent a good time rubbing the visible ones off, but if he looked hard enough, he could still see them.

three splayed out in the living room. someone turned on the television and there was a squealing fight, between the blonde and jake, over control of the remote. wes, in the kitchen, with norris, lines of coke on the table. norris had arranged them like a galaxy. they railed them at the same time, each taking an arm of the spiral. a small pile remained. “white hole,” said wes, randomly. they sat, spinning in their respective orbits, talking on topics neither of them knew shit about, expatiating like scholars on life and the universe. wes found himself talking about saskiya, said things he didn’t know he felt. found himself talking about Charlie. norris looked lost throughout the narrative, grayed-out by the alcohol and the cocaine, nodded his head irregularly. wes, angry, slammed his fist on the table, and norris’ eyes snapped open. they got up and went to the living room, norris falling once against the wall with a giant thud. books fell from a shelf, scattering across the floor; wes fell on his friend like a hungry mongrel, whaling on him even as he crumpled beneath the fury. the next thing: jake & lucas, tearing him from his prey. the next thing: alone, in the living room, the music still on, blasting. the next thing: the blonde girl, teetering out of the bathroom, eyes half-open, terror slathered on her face. she’d been crying: her cheeks ran ashy with mascara and her lips were smeared with shakily-applied paint. they stared at one another as two tourists gawking at respective disasters. “get out,” wes snarled, and she fled, one heel in her hand. the door slamming shut behind her. shaking the walls. the next thing: dark, and dream.


(it’s his house. it’s his parent’s bedroom. two bookshelves, facing each other like sentinels over the king-size bed. his father’s, crammed with paperbacks, seeming to lean. then fall. both fall, scattering their cargo over the bed and the floor, covering a body that lay on the sheets. the sound of a car backfiring, echoing. the acrid smell of smoke. a gray-white ghost of it in the air. the fan, turning, turning, faster, cracks in the ceiling spidering out from it. a graveyard with heaving headstones. the ground, undulating. cracks in the sky. trees planted upside-down in the mud, roots in the clouds. their weight is tearing out the sky.)


the bellicose growl of the bar behind him, wes standing outside. (wes is out cold on his couch) dazed by the temperature, feels afloat in the lukewarm air. the buildings around him seem unreal, permeable, like weird spongiforms grown up out of the asphalt. he has always prided himself on seeming less intoxicated than he actually is. a troupe of girls passes him, each of them engaged with their cellphones. he seems a blur of blued curves. feels himself swell up, primally, sizing them - but then they are gone & he watches them go, through the cloud of his cigarette smoke. wes plunges his hands into his back pockets and snarls silently at the stars.

as he lists slightly by the bar, dollar bills crammed into a fist, he overheads a woman talking. she is discussing her past with another man, who leans towards her on his stool as though about to fall on her with lust. she is confessing: she was a siamese twin, severed from a sister at birth. felt guilty every day that she lived. she paused, downed the rest of her pink, frothy drink. fixed her eyes on wes. "you know what i'm talkin about, don't you darlin? you know what its like - to lose somebody. someone close to you gets tore outta the world, you spend the rest of your goddamn life tryin to paste over the hole..."

"no," wes lied. "sorry."

she shrugs. gives him a nasty, irregular smile. "ever'body has. you, too - maybe you jus don't know it yet." with that, she turned back to her man, grabbing his thigh. wes ordered a double in her cloyingly perfumed wake. his chemistry boiling, he returned to the table feeling newly arrogant. swept his eyes over the tableaux of his friends and their girls. felt nothing for them.


wes had spent his time in college as a whirlwind passing through a small town. he enjoyed a sotto-voce notoriety among the women of their academic terrarium - that he was a violent fuck, an aggressor, despite his bland & limpid smiles. he was personable in society, yet, even to the ones who knew him best, seemed distant & aloof, as though constantly occupied with something burning intensely, in his brain. hed majored in business, though seemed largely unconcerned with his progress, enjoying a steadily average GPA. he knew none of his professors by name, and preferred it that way.

only once had he come afoul of campus law, when a high-strung girl - Christine - had shrilly invoked the police on him for attempted rape. it had come to a farce of a hearing, where the girl had broken down & admitted to having wanted it. he had walked into sunlight, arrogantly free & clear -


- how many times had he surfaced from blinding oblivion in the same place, pretzeled on his couch, head going nova? the familiar agony - no matter how frequent, never ceased to cause him new pain in a new place. this time, behind his eyeballs, under his fingernails. the mirror showed his face, messily bisected by a ruddy line of dried blood, from jawline, under the nose, to just below the eye. the same hue, flaky on the dull ridge of his knuckles -



saskiya had reached a modicum of homeostasis, arriving at wakefulness in her own bed. she felt at peace, lying inert as though paralyzed, eyes twitching to & fro in her skull. eventually, however, the exacting lassitude of sleep pooled in her muscles & she stretched, hearing joints pop & feeling herself extend like taffy on a pull. she yawned like a cat & turned her head to see Henry, still asleep, curled like a child around his pillow, tucked into a near-fetal ball.

kamera obscura

saskiya reads a lot of nabokov. she tells anyone who asks that she has read his entire oeuvre. proudly announces her favorite: 'laughter in the dark.' privately, she imagines herself to be a version of the villainness, margot. she is flagrantly intemperate, and often petulant. sometimes she feels as though she is still a child, feels small within her skin; sometimes it is the opposite, she feels older than her twenty-odd years, expired somewhere inside of herself. this is a recent development, this secondary feeling, the creep of age. she becomes vain quickly, checking the mirror every morning, arranging herself as best she can. other days passion and impatience win out and she skips the reflection of herself entirely. heedlessly into the world she flies, often harried, biting her lower lip during any conversation with an acquaintance. on one of these days, as winter turns to grayish puddle and the sun strives through the thick blots of cloud, she is scarved and ambivalent, coffee quickening her towards the bookstore. she takes the same route she always does, secretly hoping she won't see henry on his way to or from the butchery he works at during the week. sometimes she passes there, stealing a glance through the front window. she can see him, aproned in white, sleeves rolled, hair hanging over his forehead. he wields a gargantuan cleaver, up and down, up and down. thrills run through her at the sight, but she allows herself no more than a scant minute, departing before he recognizes her looking.

the bookstore affords her a measure of relaxation. the man behind the counter resides in a haze of smoke, constantly perusing some paperback whose cover is hidden. he doesn't even look up when she enters, and this she's glad of. she slips quickly to the right and through the skinny passageways to the place she knows as Fiction, running her hands idly along the spines. she is immediate and ruthless with her judgement, which spines she plucks out - it's about the colors, which one looks riper, to her. like picking fruit or vegetable. sometimes the brighter the color, the more rotten the prose inside. she makes a face and returns it to its position, wriggling it back among all the others. such shifts of temperament come easily to her. after the judgemental phase passes, she feels maternal, holding such books as a tattered copy of Ibsen, or a Tolstoy, lovingly scarred with marginalia. these she wants to give a home on her shelf, already imagines where they'll fit in the ranks. she hardly ever buys hardcover. she has nothing in particular in mind today, no one book she seeks to acquire, and so lets her unconscious mind take control. she wanders back and forth in the aisle, roving over the selection. her eyes move slowly, then quickly, and fall on a title: HENRY, on a dusty, lined old spine the color of moss. the author's name is unreadable, smallish in print-size. her heart trips over itself and grabs for a hold on her breath. she grasps it and pulls it out. the front of it reads, in plain black font: "GHOST OF HAPPINESS" and the author, below, in italics; "JUNE HENRY." she smirks and replaces it, perhaps a bit more violently than she should have.

she leaves the bookstore a half-hour later, tucked under her arm a book of poetry by someone she has never heard of and The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy Casares. her head is clear, filled with effervescence. she rides high on the feeling, savoring it, lighting a cigarette as she walks down the street. she lets her free arm swing to and from, allows the wind to rake its invisible fingers through her hair. she takes a different route home, having to hurry across a crosswalk just as the light changed. she smiled and waves at the driver who was about to lay on his horn - until he sees her face and then grumpily waves her on. she feels no guilt, could care less about traffic. her thoughts unravel to henry at his job, the gleam of the cleaver and the glint of sweat on his brow. the creases in his collared shirt, sleeves rolled up, just-so, to the elbow. he is focused, but doesn't appear at all angry or irritated as some people do - he seems in his element, at peace, a supreme machinist of his own body, as ungainly and lanky as it was. he was the kind of person who would fold his pants after having taken them off. would lay them neatly on a chair. fold his shirt the same way, lay it in a pile on top of the folded pants. watching him do it from her side of the bed, she ground her teeth & wished she could fold him like he folded his shirt, fold him and put him in a drawer. she imagines she can, imagines he's really just a piece of paper. she folds him into origami. his blinking, bemused eye, on the side of a swan. tugs his tailfeathers gently and sees his neck curve.

she blinks, shakes her head, realizes that she has lost herself in her reverie, quite literally, having walked all this way without realizing where she'd been walking. she was somehow by the water, at the foot of the hill, by the wharves. their stench is what shook her, that, and the bleat of the boats in the harbor. she stops suddenly, on the corner of the end of the street, and stares at the buildings. there are further roads, all leading down to the edge of the docks, crammed against one another, seeming to hold each other up with their respective collapse. someday there will come a giant freighter ship whose horn shakes them all down to dust and rubble, of this she is sure. she remembers a bar down here, something divey and of ill-repute. she took henry there. she observed him as they sat side by side at the bar, the radio crackling out the "top songs of the 80s, 90s and today" while the seagulls cartwheeled and shrieked gleefully outside. it had been a gloomy, wet day, and the damp floorboards seemed to heave as they walked to the bar. the bartender stared salaciously at saskiya, asking crude questions and lounging in front of them, pretending to polish the glasses with a filthy rag. a cigarette hung out of his mouth in defiance of every state law. saskiya asked if she could smoke. found herself flirting with him. henry fumbled to light her cigarette, but the bartender was faster, flicking a dented Zippo marked with an Ace of Spades. saskiya smiled and breathed out. his name had been Gerry, short for Gerald. henry heard the rumbling amusement of the fisher-folk around, clad in jaundiced slickers and squeaky boots. saskiya noted the discomfort clouding his eyes, and felt satisfied and guilty simultaneously. when they left, neither spoke. they walked, separated from each other. eventually, turning to cross the road, she violently seized his hand and walked intentionally faster, as if daring him to keep up. he did, but still didn't speak. it was this way the whole way up the hill and into her apartment, where they fell onto her bed and made savage love to each other, his clothes falling in a heap on the floor. she noted this. her hips pistoned even faster upon seeing him in such a state of disrepair, one sock barely clinging to his foot, the other in defeat next to the rumple of his pants. his shirt, half-on and half off. hearing a seam rip in the armpit, she moaned out of sheer bliss.

she stared at the wharves for a dismal moment, watching the trail of gray smoke escape upward from a stove somewhere, then turned on a heel, dismissively, hiking back up the way she'd come. the notion of home was far from her mind. she had nowhere to go and nowhere to be. she flirted with the idea of sitting in the park at the foot of her hill and sketching the easterly ocean. the islands in the bay. the white sails against the slate sky. the one-dimensional joggers and their one-dimensional dogs on the pathway around the park. she knew eventually she'd just start drawing him, starting with an eye, a black, hollowed-out circle with her pencil, vicious motions, as if flaying the paper with her instrument. it would become his face. he would look sad. he would look concerned, but for something beyond her, through her. as though something were falling down behind her and she lay in anguish, dying, before it. as though he were more afraid for the occupants of the falling tower, though she lay bleeding before him. knowing this, she altered direction yet again, and found a pub she'd never been to. entered, sat, and drank whisky for the next hour, let it mull her thoughts and numb her brain. one turned into two turned into three. before she left, the sun was setting. she had distilled herself into mumbling sadness, and staggered off home. she knew henry would ring her soon. she peeled off a layer, half of another, and fell face-first into the bed, the books she'd bought fallen messily on their pages on the floor.

saskiya & henry

saskiya needed something bad, but what she needed was bad for her. she wanted to unmake herself, undo herself. she stood out in the winter and let the wind blast her bared teeth. her stomach gurgled at her like a sewer clogged with storm. wine thrummed through her veins. across the park, she could see her lover climbing the hill. snow caught in her hair. she was unhappy with him. felt her muscles twisting & roiling like ropes of snakes, hissing at him silently. stared at his thin black form as he followed the cracked sidewalk. he wore his greatcoat, as always, head bare and chin burrowed into his scarf, hands thrust deep into pockets. she scowled at him, menacingly. pretended she was a feral predator high atop her hill, staring at the gazelle which loped amiably below. with one swipe of her claw. she lit a cigarette in the pale blue cave of her fingers, finding more than one attempt necessary in the face of the wind. once lit, she took an insane pleasure at inhaling just as it roared into her mouth, sucking the smoke down into her lungs so violently that she nearly choked on it. she contemplated going inside and locking the door. turning off her cell phone. later, pretend to have fallen asleep. he's waving. henry's waving. the idea turns to ash, and blows away. he's seen her. she grits her teeth & waves back, less friendlily. she could always run. just take off and leave the city behind. she's heard stories about people who do that. just start walking and end up somewhere else. when she thinks about those people, she imagines the instant of their departure. she imagines a girl with dark hair like hers, walking down the street. she imagines the girl tilting her head to one side, as though hearing some music she can't pinpoint the origin of. she can see a sudden dawning, an awakening, in the girl's eyes. she sees her stride change from an awkward, side-stepping gait to a stride of purpose, one foot in front of the other for as long as her body can go. until hunger devours her and she topples in the middle of some street far west of there. saskiya imagines a rural road, the faded lines of yellow on the asphalt. the way it winds through autumnal trees. the soft pelt of rain on the leaves. she sees the girl falter, take one step out of rhythm, and stop in the middle of everything, realizing that she is lost.

henry is closer now, and she sighs, taking another long, hard drag on the cigarette. she eyes the ember on the end of it. considers engaging an old habit, the old savagery of college days, exacting vengeance on her flesh. dismisses it. she is too old for such dramatics. she has a craving for vodka, the cold sharp flash of it in her mouth. her cigarette is damp, and in one of her irritable flicks, it breaks mushily in half. she swears under her breath and drops it in the snow. henry is warm. she likes that about him, even though he is all angles and bones, he is warm like a furnace. she hates how he talks. if he never opened his mouth, she figures she could be with him forever, but when he speaks, his tones are soft and rounded. he is amused by everything. nothing angers him, everything rolls off him like water. his armor is impenetrable. she has tried. she has been wicked with him, tossed him around, taunted him, drunkenly assaulted him with metaphor and with spite. still, he stays. he is warm. she likes that. she spits to one side.

"saskiya!" he is calling, gloved hands cupped around his mouth.

"henry," she replies, her call sinking like lead before it reaches halfway to him. she considers the hesitation in her voice. she wonders if it's because she didn't want him to hear her, afraid of the malice that could be present in her tone, or if it's something else. could be anything. millions of things. she puts the thought away. he is striding up the hill, red-faced but not out of breath, in fact, energized by the climb. she is jealous - can never make it up the incline without ending at the top breathing heavily and heart pounding like a frenzied tom-tom.

"saskiya," he says, arms open. "i'm so happy to see you." the wind almost bowls him over, and he stumbles towards her. she is stationary, but her eyes flicker to his sudden movement.

"you're always happy to see me," she remarks, crossing her arms over her chest.

"and you're not? happy to see me?"

"of course i am," she lies, and it's a smooth, honeyed lie, and she knows it will hit its mark. it always does.

"it's freezing out here. shall we go inside?" her lips tighten at his use of the word 'shall.'

"it's not that bad. bracing, really."

he turns, faces the ocean, inhales deeply. "the wind is pretty brutal. but you're right. it is kind of nice. besides, i should probably enjoy it before spring comes - and you know that'll be soon."

she grimaces. she hated spring, the mushy brown nonsense which made lakes of every lawn and every dip in the sidewalk. she hated the nascence of the season, how everything was puling and new, weak and golden. glazed with dish-detergent yellow. "soon. yes."

henry falls quiet and she sees him allow his eyes to ease closed. he seems meditative, as if allowing the world to pass through him. at the first sign of a creeping smile over his lips, she interrupts - "let's go in. i'm cold."

his eyes snap open and he lets the smile form fully, a nearly lascivious-looking thing in the lower third of his face. like a worm full of blood inching across his jawline. pulsing. "all right."

she turns and sets off inside. she does not hold the door for him - not at first - then immediately feels guilty and rushes back a step to grab it, causing an awkward bumble of their arms and torsos. "sorry," she mumbles. "it slipped."

"no worries," henry says, gallantly doffing an invisible hat. "after you."

he follows her up the stairs. she feels him at her back like a dog that you can't shake. a banally loyal dog. a dog whose tongue lolls out and whose bark is lazy. she wants to take henry by the collar and toss him out the front door. she feels she would get great satisfaction out of hearing his confused, betrayed whine.

two voices

"lately i've been seeing myself in the city. just a glimpse, sometimes just enough to recognize my particular stride, my hunched back. i realize, after a dozen or so of these encounters, that i'm insane. that i'm projecting. i see myself, up ahead, turning the corner. not always walking. sometimes in the passenger seat of a familiar car. i am haunting myself."

"have you ever tried talking to them? i mean, you - one of you?"

"no - that's anoher thing. i freeze up, i become ... strangely inert."

"when do you - when does this happen?"

"all the time. at random. i could be anywhere. i see myself walk by the windows at work."

"do you ever see your face? are you sure it is you?"

"no, i'm not sure. but i know. i know it's me."

"maybe you're trying to tell yourself something."

"or i'm dreaming. or i'm losing my mind."

"i don't think you're dreaming."

"so i'm losing my mind. might as well be dreaming."

"well - what's so bad about it? why does seeing yourself cause you such panic?"

"wouldn't you?"

"panic? no... well,"

"you don't know how you'd feel. i swear, it's like i'm being haunted."

"some hauntings have been described as friendly. the ... hauntees, become acclimated to the presence."

"this is different. i feel ... threatened."

"by yourself?"

"yes - no, I - "

"it seems like you're saying that when you see these - apparitions, you feel as though you could be harmed."

"it's not like i'm afraid they're going to shoot me, or stab me, or... you know. there's just this horrible, nameless..."

"go on - "

"i - don't know how."

"you're shaking. should we... move on?"

"...no."

Pause.

"how many times has this happened to you?"

"i stopped keeping track."

"...at last count?"

"7. or 8."

"for how long?"

"i kept a tally on the back of my hand. in sharpie. then someone asked, and i stopped. it's been a few months since then."

"all summer. when did you first ... see one?"

"right at the end of spring. first really warm day, but still night pretty early. i was - well, i was drunk coming home from work and i walked past myself. i know what you'll say - i know, i was drunk - but you asked. for the first one. that was it. i felt it, turned around to look, but just - saw myself, the back of me, head down & hood up, walking the way i'd just come. only when it had turned the corner, only then, i turned & went home. ran home. said to myself i was just drunk & stupid. thought i saw something, drunk enough to have convinced myself it was real ... i forgot about it for a few weeks until i saw myself again, walking by the front of my house. even ran out after it, but stopped at the last step, staring after my own image, again, vanishing around the corner."

"that's twice you mentioned seeing it outside of your apartment. have you ever seen yourself indoors?"

"once, maybe twice. at the bar. once, returning home, i thought i was already there, asleep in my own bed, but i'd only left the lamp on. the window was open, though, and i didn't remember leaving it open. maybe i left before i came in. maybe someone's playing a joke on me. how can you tell when you're hallucinating?"

"you don't... it's the nature of it."

Pause.

"have you heard the story of the appointment in Samarra?"

"no."

"it's the story of ... well, this guy sends his slave to the market for something, and when the slave comes back, he's trembling and white with fear. the man asks his slave why he's so terrified, and the slave replies that he saw Death in the marketplace, and Death made a threatening gesture at him, looked at him weird or something. the man gives his slave his best horse, and the slave tears off to Samarra, which is far, far away. then the man goes to the market, finds Death, and asks about the threatening gesture. Death replies: 'it wasn't a threat, i was surprised to see him - you see, i have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.'"

Pause.

"seems to speak of ... inevitability. of powerlessness to Death. are you afraid to die?"

"who isn't?"

Pause.

"why did you tell me that story?"

"i don't know. i remembered it. that ... feeling you get. hearing it. that's how i feel when i see myself. dread."

"... implies a premonition of sorts, doesn't it? an omen?"

"i read all about Doppelgangers. i don't know. it's something ... else. almost doesn't feel real. like i'm the only one meant to see it. no one else does - well, they - how do you ask someone if they can see you walking down the street without coming off insane? you can't - that's how! do you know how i feel even telling you all of this? insane! that's how!"

"you're not insane. ... maybe we should move on."

"to what?"

"you're clearly experiencing a great deal of what seems to be stress - "

"... can we not use that word?"

"what word would you feel more comfortable using?"

"i just don't want to give the impression that i'm under some sort of ... pressure, that i'm ... imagining this."

"can you say for sure that you aren't?"

"well - not, not ... for sure."

"then don't discount it as a possibility so off-handedly. i'm not saying you're losing your mind, just - trying to cope with some as-yet undisclosed distress that your psyche can't handle."

"sure sounds like insanity to me."

"it isn't."

Pause.

"have you ever heard of something like this before?"

"specifically? personally - no, but that doesn't make it worse than anything i've ever seen anyone deal with before."

"maybe i need a priest. an exorcism."

"you don't think that's being ... a little dramatic?"

"i was joking."

"i see."

Pause.

"so... what else would you like to talk about?"

"i don't know."

"do you have any friends you've been able to talk to? about this?"

"no. well - i have friends, sure - but no, i haven't talked to them about this."

"what do you talk about?"

"um... books. music. movies. i don't know - stuff."

"do you like yourself?"

"which?"

"... sorry?"

"which myself?"

"well..."

"sorry. joking. again."

"oh. ...why do you think you - "

"defense mechanism."

"... let's try this again - "

"sorry."

"no need to apologize."

"i know. do it anyway."

"do you like who you are?"

"would if i knew who that was."

"are you sure?"

"that i'd like me if i knew who i was? no. guess not."

"how do you feel when you look in the mirror?"

"try not to."

"must be a hard thing to avoid. there's mirrors everywhere in our society."

"try to avoid that, too."

"...joking, again?"

"not really."

"so you tend to be a bit of a homebody, i take it. spend a lot of time by yourself?"

"yeah."

"and it sounds like you drink - how often?"

"don't know. enough."

"enough for what?"

"to knock a horse out." Pause. "sorry. kidding."

"were you?"

"well... how much would it take?"

"too much."

"hey - judge not, lest ye be..."

"why do you think it is that you drink?"

"to dispel ghosts. look - can we just ... i don't know, talk? i feel like i'm kinda being interrogated here."

"you're uncomfortable with being asked questions."

"- that was a question. you just said it like a statement."

"going to answer?"

"no."

"that's fine."

"of course it is. i'm paying. customer's always right."

"if that's how you want it."

"it is."

"we can sit in silence if you want. as you said - you're paying."

Long pause.

"we seem to have hit a wall."

"i thought i was paying for silence."

Pause.

"something tells me you're not."

"hour's almost up."

"does this feel like a good place to wrap up?"

"no."

"well, what else would you like to talk about?"

"have you ever been haunted?"

"no, i haven't."

"then we have no common ground."

"i don't think that's true."

"i'd like to request to talk to someone else."

"...it's certainly within your rights to do that."

"who here has been haunted?"

"... that's not something we keep on file."

"then trial & error. who do you think - "

"i really think this has gone far enough."

"...yes. you're right. i'm sorry."

"and i think our time's up."

"yes."

discoveries

#1 - kimmy at the bar while i'm working. she seems stoned, or slightly dazed with drink. talks effusively of this new thing she's discovered - well, it isn't new, she admits, and then confesses to being a 'fucking hippie' before swiftly describing the dichotomy between 'fucking hippie' and 'fucking punk hippie' - it's that the energy you give to the world comes back to you, that if you put out nothing but good energy then the universe is somehow, inexplicably bound to reflect and reciprocate nothing but good energy back to you.

without calling bullshit, i agreed with her, because i do in a way, and only in certain moments. this leads me to believe that there are different values of this mysterious quanta called 'energy' ... not, simply, as believed prior, an absolute binary state.

#2 - same goes for happiness. i have been spending the same amount of time at the bar as i always have, yet now and lately i am more cogent of when i don't need another. perhaps this will change. despite the nascent alcoholism and the curtailing of such (unless i'm a total hypochondriac and this is normal behavior) i am content around the edges. this, as always, leads to a sort of spike in my heartrate - i at once begin to question the fabric of my daily life. the apartment i have lived in comfortably begins its second year, and almost directly at the outset of it i am driven by this odd impulse to make it live-able. before this anniversary, i had done small things - in fits, and spurts. i constantly add books to my collection. i acquired a desk. then i painted a chalkboard on the wall. most recently, i added a full-length mirror & a rug. my seemingly noble goal of becoming 'upwardly mobile' and 'forward-thinking' has disintegrated, i've left it behind, mingling with the desperate dust. so now i'm here, aren't i? i'm here at this place of happiness. i have a stable, respectable job. i am far from poverty. i have steady social contact. hell, i'm even proximally linked with most of that in social media! so it seems i should be content.

perhaps this is human. perhaps the reason i am dissatisfied with contentment is that i secretly am not. perhaps the reason all of us feel this vague dissatisfaction with our lives is because this isn't how we were meant to live. i can't shake the feeling that this, all of this that has grown up around us, all of these walls and cities around us and these roads paved through it all ... i can't help the feeling that it isn't how it should be. that i'm a stranger to this type of life. i feel protean. people i say hello to freely on the street one day become people that i avoid the next -- and not out of fear, or dislike, but rather a kind of laziness which causes me not to want to have to interact - at all! yet it is impossible to avoid that when you are out of your house. hell, it's even impossible in your house. always running into ghosts. i find myself often wishing i were invisible.

#3 - i've been writing a lot more, yet it's all nothing. natalie goldberg says "keep the hand moving." i do that. but it is always the same story. boy is lonely, neurotic, and possessed of some very bizarre idiosyncrasies. meets a crazy girl while drinking in a bar. then i never finish it. the other story i'm always writing is crazy boy walks down the street towards his home, drunk. i feel like i'm just jerking off with this shit, lately. putting what i wish would happen on the page, and then putting what always does. not a day goes by i don't think about calling the counselling center and signing up again for a new counsellor. which of course means paying them the debt i owe. again. i don't know why i just don't do it.

hesitation is my curse.

#4 - no, that's it.

the double speaks

so, these are the last days of february. this year, it was four solid weeks of gray, beginning on a sunday and ending on a saturday. never seen the calendar so efficient or organized. would that every month were this way.

last night, drunk by seven, popped a little blue valium in the bathroom before graduating from cheap beer to sugary, viscous jagermeister. sinking slowly in a stool at the bar across the street. katie the bartender's comment: "i've never seen you so sedated before." a thrill, really, to hear something like that. barely remembering the walks to and from the bars, the volume on "heads will roll" (new yeah yeah yeahs song) as high as it could go. so high that when i took my headphones off everyone's voices were muted. greeted by trent in the first bar. the perfunctory hellos. he says he is doing better than he was last week. i say that better is always good until it turns to worse again. he seems nonplussed. on the walk, seeing chase. can't tell if he is stoned. he's going to kick it with JJ for awhile. then bowling. he tells me not to "hurt myself" drinking and we part ways. then the bar, and then trent's admission. i speak with my roommate & her friend erica for a moment. erica relates the story of her trip out of maine. she went skydiving. i tell her it sounds enticing but that it reminds me somehow of swimming, which i am terrified of. she agrees after a moment of thought that the two are somewhat similar.

so i come home early in the evening though it is the syrupy dark of a maine winter. i don't remember passing out, but i remember the dreams ... i remember the dreaming, i remember being at home - HOME - which will always refer to the HOUSE i grew up in, though it is inaccessible now. i am in my old room though it is my sister's room now. my old desk is there, the one that fits in the corner. it is crammed with books, all my old books, the ones i've lost, all of them, and i am telling my mother and my sister that i am taking them back, and i am taking back my 1990 powder blue ford mustang, even WITH the huge dent in the side, even WITH the ominous rattling under the hood, i am going to drive it back to maine and it will combust somewhere along I-95 and take me and all my books with it in some huge fiery crash.

as though anticipating my death-wish, i am rebuffed and so i take to stealing, slipping the books out of the house one by one, two by two, as many as i can beneath the seemingly impenetrable greatcoat i happen to be wearing. i happen to espy my mother talking worriedly to my ex-stepfather in bed. he lays on his stomach, naked, unmoving. she is talking to a corpse. then the house is full of life, crammed with relatives, visiting from everywhere, little children running around - cousins who i could care less for, aunts and uncles who aren't really asking about how life is in maine, what i am doing, and i lie, i lie like a bastard, i lie so much and so quickly that my face turns blue. they ask me if i'm cold and i say that i have a genetic predisposition to change skin color when i lie. they are confused and leave me like images on a television screen, just slide off the set, off stage left, take off their masks and costumes and try all over again in a new character.

i am startled to wakefulness around six in the morning, having slept the best i ever have in my life, despite the crazed zoetrope of dreaming. i am staring at this thing, this "queer & allied" writing project that is happening in the city in a week or two. i am supposed to submit something but the only thing i have is unfinished and really quite terrible.

ran into the past the other day. some folks from college who knew me then and think they still want to know me now. joke's on them - they never wanted to in the first place and now it's all about making the past closer to the present so they don't feel so confused. who are these strangers who profess to know me? i don't want to know them. leave me alone.

and so it goes. i get lonelier by divesting myself of people who profess to care about me. and words do nothing to salve the wound. in fact nothing does.

i'm a waiter now. i'm about to turn 26 and i wait tables in a local restaurant. i live in a comfortable room with a lot of things. i drink a lot. i like to trip on drugs. i don't read as much as i should. i spend too much time watching television and stuck in the internet. i am gaining weight in the middle, though it is a subtle gain, i can feel it. it's all the beer, they say. if this cold doesn't end soon. if this winter doesn't shudder to a halt. if all this continues and continues to continue.

i need to make sure i go back to therapy. i am losing myself again. things are spinning out of control.

parthenogenesis

1.

... the doctor, yelling, the nurses murmuring, the white white walls flashing colors like a mad zoetrope. she feels delirious, like that time in college she tried acid in her dorm room - the ceiling elongating to cathedral heights, the walls pulsing in tripartite rhythm - the epidural is doing nothing for her. she feels pain inside of herself, a different pain than a burn or even the dentist’s awful drill - it is a mysterious tugging, as though God is making origami out of her insides - God screwing up the swan, unfolding, starting again, each fold creasing her, causing her flesh to become weaker and weaker until on the seventh or eighth try, she rips in two...

the shriek comes from her asshole - she feels like she’s taking the most gigantic shit in the universe, but it goes backwards, redlining its way all the way up her spinal cord, tickling her vagus nerve - she is flooded with sensation, feels it burbling in her nose as though she is drowning. her hand falls to the side of the bed, grasping for a mate that isn’t there. her fingers curl. nails dig into her palm. blood oozes to the surface of the skin as though it is emancipated finally from a term in prison - she is barking, now, like a feral dog, thrashing in the sheets, howling, even, her neck snapping to and from, sweat-soaked curls of dirty blonde hair lashing the pillows and the bedsheets ... the nurses flinching, the doctor swearing, then yelping - it is like a scene at the zoo - and with a colossal bellow, she falls back, face contorting, and delivers, with a horrible squelching sound, a child, into the eager doctor’s latex-gloved hands.

that is the first sensation Ezekiel feels as he falls into the world as from a great height, the slippery latex of the doctor’s gloves. the glint of anodyne light from the doctor’s wire-rimmed spectacles. the perspiration gleaming like diamonds in the furrows of his brow. the ridged & blue-masked mouth, like a mandrill’s face - this, and the second - the abrasively chemical smell of their fear - and the sweet persimmon of relief the moment he opens his mouth to bawl the news of his arrival.


2.

it is like this. the doctor remembers the clutch of her hand, empty-fisted, curling in on itself. the struggling quest for her first postpartum breath. the weak flutter of her eyelids in direct opposition to the unfettered spread of her lips into a smile. he likens the curve of her mouth to the satisfaction he sees his wife repeat after they make love. perhaps he is a narcissist that way. she is getting used to breathing again. her child is wailing unceasingly. there was a chance - more than a chance - that it wouldn’t survive. silver scissors separate the infant from its mother and the doctor gently holds it aloft. in the bed, the glop of placenta, left on the sheets, glistening wetly in the light. the mother’s arms are outstretched, pleading. her fingers wiggle like a child’s to a cookie jar at an unattainable height. he takes pity on her, knowing she’ll never see the baby again, and places it like a jigsaw piece between her breasts. her eyes are tumescent with tears. her arms wrap around her progeny, her chin ducks to her chest, and she croons tunelessly, brokenly, body wracked with a tempest of sorrow.

the doctor can hear a clamor rising in the hall. the nurses are fighting their way back into the room, slapping at hands which wriggle at them. the mother rocks to a steady, metronomic rhythm. the baby is weirdly silent, an ugly, bloody mess of flesh and eyes and mouth and fingers, toying with the soaked curls of its mother’s hair. the fracas in the waiting room is getting out of hand. even beatrice and the whole of the administrative staff can’t hold back the rising tide of on-lookers, worshippers, and paparazzi. the woman is lifting her head. her eyes - sodalite blue, cut across the hospital room to his chest, then lift, weakly, up to meet his gaze. “doctor,” she rasps, “i’ve changed my mind ... i want to keep him.”

the doctor pulls down his face-mask, and sighs heavily. it is his job to retrieve the infant and keep it in isolation until the proper authorities can see to its care. “you’ve signed the papers, Cherie.” she starts shaking her head back & forth as though repeating the violent throes of labor. “the money’s on its way to your account right now...”

“it’s not about the money...” but her thrashing & the clench of her jaw interrupts the words, so he can’t be sure that’s what she said. he nods to a nurse, who stands by the bedside, eyes dark & tumultuous with consternation & fear. he nods, tersely, in their direction, and Cherie begins to shriek anew, bloodlessly, clenching the baby to her chest. a needle slips into a vein. her jaw falls slack and her eyes roll into her skull. her muscles are loosened as though untied. Ezekiel, shrieking in slight discord to his mother’s own ululations, slips into the awkward arms of Caroline Peavey, R.N. Caroline has never had a child, let alone a serious boyfriend, and yet it feels right to her when the squalling infant falls into her embrace. she instinctively clutches it to her breast, knees buckling as though he is a much greater weight than six pounds, five ounces.

Eyvind/Simon: (Simon called Samuel)

Months later: winter spills in from everywhere, like an overturned cup of liquid nitrogen. Simon struggled through it like everyone, head down and neck scarved to protect from the bitter, northeasterly wind. and yet still the inevitable draw to the maelstrom of the bars, even going it alone most nights. the bars he tended to frequent were smaller in comparison than most, at best dives with a maternal bartender & a disillusioned looking waitress plying the tables for whatever tip she could. he’d been floating lately, deviating from routines, trying to avoid the beaten path. the stampede, he felt, was coming. mid-january, the time when everyone loses their head to the snicker-snack of the winter wind and goes a little bonkers. some more than others.

in the squeal & shudder of a foreign intersection, snow-spittle clinging to his face, Simon sees the familiarity of a warm neon spilling its fluorescence on a snowbank. the name on the bar becomes apparent after a trudge through an unpaved section of sidewalk. Ghostly’s. It looks like an abandoned trailer, the windows possessing both horizontal blinds and what looks like curtains. The neon beacon is the comforting word: OPEN. Simon pulls back his hood and enters, shoving with his shoulder after the initial (and familiar) grudge of frame vs. door.

the juke is on, and it’s johnny cash. which song, he doesn’t know, but he knows the voice - who wouldn’t? - and the bar is empty. there’s an old man in a mackintosh and a driver’s cap sitting in a booth alone, drinking coffee. his hands shake, communicating the tremor to his whole body. from time to time, his bifocals slide down his nose and he shoves them up. Simon notices that there are band-aids on every other finger. some are peeling off. the sound of the coffee cup rattling against the saucer is a weird, skeletal accompaniment to johnny’s rough and pained quaver. the woman behind the bar is stout, wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. her hair is permed, copper-coloured, like a tangle of wires attached anachronistically to a fleshy, obsolete machine. her eyes are artfully hidden behind stubby forests of mascara and the curve of eyeglasses. Simon pulls up a stool and smiles. “Hi.”

her mouth moves at the same time as an eyebrow - immaculately plucked - arches upward. “Out in this weather?”

He shrugs off his scarf and laughs a little. “This is nothing.”

“From Maine, are you?” She is polishing a pint glass.

“Not originally, no.”

“Further north?”

“You got it.”

She smiles, but it’s a weird smile - something not quite right about it. She is cannier than she lets on, Simon feels. “What’re you having?” She pronounces it “yew”.

“Jameson on the rocks, please.”

Before he even says it, she’s turning round, fluid motions. Not rushed, like some bars he’s frequented. She sets the glass down on the bar and languidly scoops a small collection of cubes into it. Next, the bottle, which doesn’t have a spout on it, and the whisky flows as if commanded, perfectly into the glass. He puts a twenty on the bar and thanks her, waving off an offer of change. She shrugs, and moves off, a look in her eyes that says she wants to check it for counterfeit, the way some people eye a coin and bite it to make sure it isn’t chocolate.

he’s feeling generous. he likes this place. there’s no television, just the juke, and after each play, the records inside halt & judder to their automated destinations. each song begins with a scratching, deathly sound. time slips by him almost without his notice. the old man gets up and goes, tugging his overcoat around him. his steps are aided by a scratched brown cane. two longshoremen enter, sit in a booth. they are quiet, fatigue discoloring each of their motions. a yawn passes between them, serving as conversation. Simon watches it snow, heavier and heavier. “Seems like we might be stuck in here,” he remarks casually to the bartender.

She shrugs and replies without looking at him. “Can think of worse places to be stuck in.” Her arm in motion, describing the gleaming bottles of liquor on the shelves behind her.

“Good point,” Simon concedes, rolling the glass between his hands. A beat passes, lugubrious and dusty. A fly, somehow stowaway from the summer, buzzes fatly in a corner. “So why’s this place called Ghostly’s?”

She laughs. “Because we’re a haunted bar. You didn’t know that?” The way she says it, he isn’t sure she’s joking or not.

“Sure I did,” he bluffs. “Just didn’t think it would be so obviously named is all.”

“So you know her.”

“Knew her,” Simon corrects. His glass is empty. She fills it without being asked. When he fumbles out another bill from his wallet, she waves it away with carnation-tipped nails.

“What’s your name?”

He pauses, then looks her in the eyes, trying to dig their color out from behind the makeup. He thinks he can catch a sliver of opaline blue in there, a startling color. “Samuel.”

She heaves a chuckle, something dredged up from way down inside the caves of herself. It sounds dusty, and causes her to cough, a rattle which descends into her, shivers in her papery lungs. “You can call me Delores.”

“Are you the sole owner and proprietor here?” He takes a sip of the Jameson, settling into the lie like a comfortable chair.

Delores looks to a corner before glancing back at him, cagily. “You know I’m not.”

He coughs into a fist. “Excuse me. Are you the sole corporeal owner & proprietor here?”

Delores nods appreciatively. Simon abruptly experiences that old sense of vertigo, when the lie threatens to take over, when the con-man suddenly doubts the veracity of his own belief - and taps his fingers in a staccato pattern on the bar. His eyes flit to an ashtray nearby. The crushed remainders of Virginia Slims. Mistys. Two of three of the long housewife-killers. “Are you married, Delores?”

“Just to m’job,” she proclaims, and shifts her bulk away from him suddenly, moving with a speed that Simon didn’t think possible, and disappears behind a curtain into a room he hadn’t noticed.