caocethes scribendi

called her a starfucker & she gave me this little smile. it was supposed to say "i have a secret" but instead it looked like she was going to vomit. she was drunk, so was i. we smoked weed in the tiny bathroom of the bar, tried to cover up the obvious smell by exhaling into paper towels. we were unsuccessful, and fled, giggling, out onto the street.

this is the wind from the hurricane. she makes a comment that touches on how everything is related and she forgets sometimes that this is so. i don't say much but nod wisely, like i know. thankfully this goes unnoticed. she rambles about the boys she's fucked, and that's how she says it: fucked. it's a litany of the upper echelon, boys whose names anyone would recognize from posters on telephone poles, from reviews in the local paper. she is proud of it. i find myself a little disgusted but don't let on. i am a terrible liar, even through omission, and my ears turn red. she is suspicious. we flick our cigarettes into the street and barge inside for another shot. this is when, post-tequila, i call her a starfucker & she smiles.

she is set upon by a gaggle of her friends, all martini-ed & immaculately dressed. i give her the slip while she is busy exclaiming! at her hot friends. this is the wind from the hurricane. down the street, a young fat guy is cradling his cell phone in his hands and staring at it with candor and love. the width of his pupils in the streetlight cause me to conclude mushrooms. when the phone rings suddenly, sharply, he starts and smashes it to bits on the sidewalk. he is a zoetrope of emotion at that moment, all regret, remorse, ecstasy, and emancipation exploding on his chubby face.

beyond that, the night is uneventful. there will be other starfuckers whom i won't be intoxicated enough to care to speak to. there will be other idiots crashing around with their mouths blaring, staggering like the noisy undead, filling the streets with their obscenity. i will shrug on the jacket of indifference & feel slight nausea at the superiority it grants me. i navigate towards home. i slip through the cigarette burns & slide off-screen. being the antagonist, this is available to me. the harsh, gaudy exit is unnecessary. belongs to someone else. the real hero of the story. the one she goes home with. who plays the guitar and never says he loves her.