Author: admin

The Laundry Man’s preferred location is next to a large provider of fine liquors, alcohol, and/or booze for thirsty individuals. This means one can expect no less than two winos loitering somewhere along the street in front of the store on the corner, the Laundromat next door, and the motel on the right side of the Laundromat. They are the gentlemen no one speaks of (or speaks to, for that matter). Gentlemen whose days have been better and whose nights would be ended but for the saving grace of sweet Lady Liquor. They are sometimes loud, at times a bit shaky, but always a reminder not to drink alone.

The parking lot for the Laundromat requires customers to drive around back through an intricately hidden driveway. It cost the Laundry Man several sidewalk excursions and two Tall Lattes from the Starbucks establishment across the street (408 calories and $6.00, no tax) to eventually discover the hidden oasis. As he circles around and enters the hidden parking lot it appears to be at capacity, though on closer inspection he does see one parking space in the rear corner of the lot, facing the chain link fence of the motel. On his more inquisitive or introspective days he wonders why he is always granted a spot by the urban gods, but on this particular day he does not question divinity and proceeds into his place in the line-up. He finds himself between the eight foot-high red pickup truck and a rather timid beige Corolla, itself nudged between the aforementioned phallus and a poor orange imitation of the A-Team’s garishly painted van. The Laundry Man keeps on his black supermarket sun glasses as he steps out of the street-worn Jeep (a deep shame of his, for you see a Jeep is not intended to be driven into the grave on asphalt) and walks around to the other side where a passenger seat stands between him and three blue garbage bags full of laundry (he failed to appear at the Laundromat the previous weekend). He collects the sacks, over the shoulder they go (two in one hand, one in the other), and walks across the vastness of a parking lot devoid of life. Behind him the Jeep acknowledges his parting with a single beep.

The dearth of sound in the empty lot becomes all the more apparent as his footsteps and the melancholy sobbing overtake him. One glance to the right, beyond the green fence and low-hanging branches of trees in dire need of a pruning, reveals the source of the latter: Violin Guy. The red-faced, curly-haired youth sits on the stairs behind the motel, where the smokers and the more entrenched motel residents gather in the evenings to talk of days past and days to come. It is in the late afternoon, when the Laundry Man visits, that Violin Guy plays the sweet, sad songs of forgotten masters. He sits facing the back of the motel lot, away from all eyes that may come upon him. The left wrist locks then vibrates then returns to steady in the span of two or three blinks of an eye; the bow gently glides across the worn resin. The Laundry Man, a simple man, does not know of tone or harmony or chords, but he hears the weeping of Violin Guy’s instrument and knows it is something he should appreciate when he can, as he has for the month and some days that Violin Guy has been sitting behind the motel, playing the undeterminable serenade for the motel residents and Laundromatters carrying their bags and baskets across the lot.

Several seconds later the Laundry Man nears the back entrance to the Laundromat where he sees a duet of dirty pillows on the ground, next to a gray cast-metal pole. A leather strap lies tied to the pole, and tied to the strap lies a boney, white and brown-splotched dog. The dog has discovered pirate treasure (or something just as interesting) behind the nearby rusted green dumpster, and pays no mind to the Laundry Man and his garbage bags.

He enters the building to find the familiar glow of sickly pastel yellow and a news program playing on the television hidden away in a recess of the wall above rows of glass holes. Further along, at the bottom of the convenient ramp, he is struck by the enticing aroma of fabric softener and drying sheets. It fills the space, the gaps and crevices, and engulfs the rather unsavory air around some of the more free-spirited individuals in the Laundromat. The Laundry Man holds his bags closely as he maneuvers through the gauntlet of laundry baskets, bags, and carts that people feel compelled to place along his path just before he arrives. When he reaches the other end the Laundry Man discovers that the machines he intended to use are available. His machines are always available, another apparent gift from the urban gods. He chooses three machines, one for the contents of each of the three sacks. First are the whites (not many of those), next are the browns/beiges/grays, and finally, the largest load: the blues and blacks. The Laundry Man’s vast collection of denim pants, in varying shades of blue and black, are always the largest load. Once the three loads of laundry are safely placed in the machines he opens the black slots along the top and pours in an equal amount of detergent and fabric softener, each in the specified holding area where the liquids wait to play their part in the thirty minute cycle. The fate of the laundry is, for the moment, out of the Laundry Man’s hands.

The Laundry Man wanders outside with phone in hand and makes a call to the cousin, who had left a voice message the day before. The cousin has a request.

“I’ll need more information,” he says.

The cousin responds, explaining what is needed and when. The Laundry Man listens intently; the brown-splotched dog continues swiping its dirty paws at the corner of a green dumpster and the bow continues sliding along strings of inexpensive metal. Twenty minutes are invested in listening to the details of the request, discerning the details past the broken English and worse telephone signal. The cousin asks a question.

“Don’t worry, it won’t cost a lot.”

The Laundry Man ends the call with thoughts of unwanted travel on his mind. It bothers him, though he does not know why. He returns to the interior of the Laundromat to stand next to the machines, watching the television and not knowing what he sees.

When the machines cease their violent vibration the Laundry Man opens them and reloads the three sacks. He stands and stares at the wall below the television; two rows of ten large, emotionless eyes stare back at him. He chooses two from the many lined up along the wall and pulls the doors open. The white laundry is required to remain alone for reasons unknown to him (and others as well, he suspects) and are loaded into one hole alone. Along with the whites he places two sheets of sweet-smelling fiber, the same sheets that are found littering the Laundromat floor. A girl appears on his right as he starts to seal the hole again, slipping through between the Laundry Man and a large basket someone placed on the opposite side of the aisle. She is very young, wearing a shirt marked with green spots of varying size and tone. The Laundry Man smirks, unbeknownst to him, as he recalls a time when he wore clothing very much like the girl’s shirt. He returns to the other sacks and empties them into the second hole, placing three of the same fibrous sheets in along with the dark laundry. As he stands there placing the laundry in the hole the Green-spot Girl passes behind him no less than five times, each time pressing closer and closer to him until he feels she will suffocate him. The Laundry Man’s smirk vanishes as he thinks to himself that the girl should learn to control her affections, or at the very least restrain herself from rubbing against strange men. The inevitable thought that were she only five or ten years older… briefly passes.

When the laundry is loaded the Laundry Man retreats to the empty lot once again. He faces the loneliness, accompanied only by the rather somber melody from Violin Guy echoing to him across the lot and trees, in order to retrieve a book purchased from the local book retailer. He beeps the Jeep (two beeps this time) and then unlocks the door to pull the book out of its plastic bag: a tale of death, with an introduction by the author’s melodic muse. He takes the book and returns to the Laundromat where the indoor park benches await. As he approaches the benches near the front of the Laundromat he notices three whimsically cloudy men sitting, huddled on the wooden bench farthest from him. One sits with a device atop his lap, the two others flank and chat with him. The Laundry Man forgets the men are there just as quickly as he noticed them, and takes his place on the empty bench. He looks at the symbols sporadically located throughout the pages of the book, and finds meaning in them.

“What do you have there, hm?”

The Laundry Man turns to see one of the chatters looking at him intently, hands placed on his thighs. His weakly shaped whiskers twitch as his glance shifts along the Laundry Man’s face.

The Laundry Man hesitates for a moment, then asks: “What would you do if you went for a stroll with Death and she offered you a hot dog?”

“What?”

“I said what would you do if you went for a stroll with Death and she offered you a goddamn hot dog?”

The Chatter stares quizzically for a moment, then turns away. The Laundry Man resumes and time is allowed to pass uninterrupted.

Time is derailed as the Laundry Man sits, and when he finally glances up from the book he sees that the cycle is complete. He pulls a strip of paper from his pocket, the receipt for the book, in fact, and places it in the book to remember where the symbols resume their message (he will more than likely not resume for another month). He pulls the garbage bags from his pockets and proceeds to the fill them with the fresh and admirably clean laundry. He should fold them but the Laundromat is fast becoming full, and he does not wish to linger. The Laundry Man is not one to quibble over wrinkles.

Three sacks full of laundry and a book rolled into his back pocket, he returns to the entrance, leaving behind the sweet aroma and Green-spot Girl and men reaching over each other’s laptop devices. As he leaves the Laundromat he looks to his left to see two people, one a short, stout blonde woman and the other a lean, dark haired man, sitting on two dirty old pillows. A white dog splotched with brown sits between them on its haunches, looking in the Laundry Man’s direction.

He walks across the parking lot. The overbearing silence indicates it is late in the evening, and the laundry is once again complete.

As he sits and stares into the green fence and beyond at the empty stairs, he makes another call.

“Hey.”

…

“I wanted to hear your voice. Uh, listen. What’s my name?”

…

“I know, but please: What’s my name?”

The voice is very loud as it booms from the hidden noise boxes. It is possible she is sick, as she sounds like those ill people at the doctor’s office, straining to sound cordial and inviting. But, her health is of no significance. The woman could step out from behind her curtain into the streaming masses and collapse and that little dark-haired boy with his back pressed against the window would not cast a glance. He does not care to hear what the horde of strange people around him bellows as they stand and wait, but the voice is very loud and it resonates into him. Only the voice, the shrill and unfamiliar voice that echoes through the vast halls of this wholly unkempt and foreign place. The voice is unwelcome at this time and it does not have the decency to go away.

A black sign hanging far above and in the middle of the high ceiling glows red and then dims yellow, occasionally readjusting altogether as old symbols vanish and new symbols appear. They are important, those symbols. It is not unlike the rare days when the little boy, his mother, and his father travel to the large white building to sit on wooden benches and hear the robe man speak. All the people sit and stand and kneel and look up at the robe man and the sad statues surrounded by strange symbols. His mother tells him he must do what the other people do and not make a sound, because it is bad to do so. His mother did not tell him to do that here in this white building, and he wonders why it is okay to be noisy here but not in the other place. All around him people pause their advancement through a line or through the horde to look up at the holy sign. It seems to direct them, or tell them what they are meant to do. The little boy, with his hands joined and placed between himself and the glass behind him, looks at the sign as well hoping to understand and receive the information.

His eyes fall back to the main area where so many people sit or stand or walk very fast. There are many places to sit, like the other white building, but these seats are separated and made of cloth, colored blue. A woman directly across from the little boy but very far away sits on the ground, her back pressed against glass just like his. There is a hat, just like the one baseball players wear, atop her head, with few strands of black visible beneath the edge of the hat. Her eyes are lowered at her lap where a book lies over her crossed legs. Those pants she wears are too short for her and he can see that she wears purple socks like a girl he saw one time on a playground swing. Her clothes look dirty, not clean and pressed like the little boy’s. She should ask her mother to clean her clothes so she can look nice for her visit to the white building.

The voice announces more important information in that familiar yet indiscernible foreign language. Why does she not simply step outside and talk in a normal voice? She is confusing the little boy, who strains to listen but cannot grasp what is happening.

As he listens his eyes are drawn away from the purple-socked woman and are unable to focus. Blurs are moving, across the wide expanse of the corridor between the little boy’s side of the white building and the purple-socked woman’s side. A red shoe, a black sleeve, a yellow ponytail, a brown backpack, a shimmery silver bag. They move across so quickly, so amazingly fast that the little boy can only notice certain parts of the whole, those that catch the eye. Where do they go, those blurs? To the big white flying tubes, or to some other mysterious location? The robe man and his children disappear, too, when the ceremony ends and the horde must leave the white building. Here in this white building there is no robe man, but there is a voice. The blurs come, and the blurs go. They have received instruction and must find their way through the great hall in the white building.

To the left, more people seated on blue chairs. Most of them are like the purple-socked woman, holding a book or a collection of gray papers in their hands. They sit and stare at them. Do they not hear the voice or see the many, many blurs of the horde around them? The little boy wishes he could shut out the voice, as they do, but he is just a little boy. He hears everything, and sees a great deal. The little boy can catch glimpses of the purple-socked woman and the glass behind her through the blurs, and it is much the same as the glass on his side. Faint shadows locked behind the glass, the sharp edges of the tops of white flying tubes.

A woman, standing a few feet away in conversation with a man, glances at the little boy. Her dark eyes meet his for a moment and those round, rosy cheeks rise and dimple as they often do, before returning to face the man. The buttoned shirt and pants she wears match the yellow shoes upon her feet. A marshmallow woman standing so starkly against the blurs and gray people around them. The man, in thick blue denim and a checkered coat covering his thinnest of male frames, does not look at him as the woman did. He glances at the window, the ceiling, the floor. His light-colored eyes looking everywhere, and thin lips parting and pursing as the conversation continues. The marshmallow woman and checkered man, the little boy’s mother and uncle, continue their conversation. They, too, seem ignorant of the voice.

Hands are weary and bright red from an extended period of being trapped between the little boy’s rear and the glass, so he stands straight and turns. Tiny needles overtake his palms for a few brief moments before he places his hands in his pockets. He looks at the glass, and there they are again: the blurs and the readers and that purple-socked woman. They are the people behind him but he knows it is not really them. Their ghosts are nearly invisible, blending into the pavement, the buildings, the fleet of white flying tubes, and even those dark mountains that are far, far away. The ghosts remain safely locked away behind the glass. They cannot touch him or bother him, not like the real people behind him can. He looks into the glass, at his ghost. It looks almost exactly like him, with the thick, dark hair, nice shirt with buttons, and those pants that itch and his mother told him to wear. The shiny shoes that are only for those rare days. But the ghost is not a perfect copy, poor thing. Its eyes are dark; in fact, they appear black in this glass and at this dark hour. They are not like his brown eyes resting in front of his face. His lips spread and curve upward, testing the ghost, and it passes the test just as it always does. He knows that one day his ghost will get sleepy, and then he will catch it. The voice echoes again behind the little boy, and he sees several ghosts near to his pause and tilt their heads upwards. Some stand and move away from their blue seats while others return to their reading activity.

As he looks out across the mountains the little boy is startled by his mother’s ghost. It appears beside his own, and he turns around because he knows his mother is behind him. She stands, her cheeks not rising and dimpling, but not quite solemn like she appears on the sad days. This look is not as familiar as the rest. It is blank, perhaps. She stares out across the pavement and white flying tubes then, finally, glances down at the little boy, and the dimpling returns. Her left hand comes to rest on his shoulder while her other hand rises and points at the glass.

“Mira,” she says.

The little boy looks at her, brows low and his bewilderment apparent, but then turns to face in the direction she is pointing because it is his mother. Her finger points to an area on the left side of the glass where a white flying tube slowly rolls towards the white building. A blue streak, starting at the front of the great thing and extending back past the wings and up to the spiked tail, runs parallel to the glass squares all along the side, behind which the little boy sees faces. He sees people from another place and another time, now arriving in his. The little boy scans the faces as the tube slows to a crawl then crawls to a stop. Some of the people seem happy, some perplexed, and some move about so quickly that he is unable to decide how they are feeling. When the moving finally stops many of the faces disappear altogether, and it is moments later that the little boy realizes that the people are moving towards the front where a small curved door has opened. Glancing down, the boy sees a vehicle approaching, bringing a set of stairs to the opened tube. The little boy vaguely remembers the curved door at the front of the white flying tube, but the driving stairs are a strange new addition to the processes of the white building. Soon, people begin stepping out of the tube and descend the stairs. There are children, a man with no hair upon his head, a large woman wearing worn sandals. One by one, they step out and onto the pavement below.

A thin man steps out from the white flying tube, one large brown bag in each hand, and advances down the stairs. He seems familiar but for the fact that all around his face is a thick mass of black hair. The little boy stares, and as he tries to trim away the beard the voice blares behind him. It distracts him, again, and he loses focus. His mother notices and says something, which if not for the voice he might have been able to hear. She seemed to indicate that he should look down at the bearded man again. The voice’s intensity increases behind him. As he tries to look, tries so hard, the ghosts of the people and things inside the white building take his focus away from the man. He sees as far as the other side of the white building, where the ghost of the purple-socked woman once sat. Only a vague outline of a glass wall remains. But he tries again and manages to focus on the bearded man when he reaches the bottom of the stairs. The voice, the voice is getting louder! Be quiet, voice, he is trying to figure out who this man is!

The bearded man looks up. His eyes rise to the white building, at the glass, at the little boy. There is a serene smile upon his face, calm as always, even with this black mask on his face. The little boy’s eyes glisten; his lips curve upward, much wider than usual. He smiles, and the voice goes away.

It is evening in the middle of the arid western summer, and a cabin lies nestled between the jagged, dry hills of south-east California.  Far from a past life.  The town of Randsburg is but a tiny speck on the map.  The single winding main street running through the sleepy town and leading down to the highway near old Burro Mine.  Along this highway and several miles further to the north-east there are fields of coarse, dry brush now as the night sky, unlit and untouched by the false luminescence of man.  Dark.  Creatures dwelling in the darkness scurrying, flying, fleeing, and making the dreaded music that the creatures of light fear as they hunker in the relative safety of their burrows.  Cacti standing tall among the brush.  A night owl perched on the tallest cactus in view of the cabin, staring into the brilliance of the fiery square floating in the darkness.

Through the lit window there is a room.  The house of oak and pine built for a purpose and sparing the luxury.  A single room is all he needs.  A floor on which to stand, a roof and walls between which he may be protected from the weather, a comfortable old rocking chair in which to sit and think and write when a viable thought crosses his mind.  A single room is all he needs.  In the center of the room there is an old wooden rocking chair, and in the old rocking chair he is.  An old journal in his hands, bound in cracked leather.  Yellowed and crisp pages poking out along the perimeter of the book.  Creases of time scarring the cover much like the creases of time spread across his face.  Laugh lines, frown lines, the old childhood scar now a deep rift across his right upper cheek.  The once finely trimmed black beard now a thick gray bush, extending from his cheeks down past the jaw line and well below the point where he used to shave, keeping the beard even and presentable.  It now grows wild, as wild as the fields of brush surrounding the cabin, for he is old, and when one is old there is no need to impress anyone.  His hair remains short, despite the absence of vanity, with faint streaks of black still visible.  The widow’s peak that once helmed the crown of thick strands now a distant memory, having given way to a broader and higher hairline.  The old man’s chest twitches beneath the fabric of his dull brown collared shirt as he rocks in the old wooden rocking chair, followed by his stomach, then arms coated in a layer of shimmery silver hairs, then legs tucked inside a pair of old black denim pants, then finally, his feet.  His feet protected by white socks with gray sole knit, warmed by the trapped heat from the fire, bringing the old man up and down in his old wooden rocking chair.

He sits in the center of the room.  A counter in the corner to his right provides kitchen space, and the stone hearth immediately to the right of the wooden counter is more than adequate for cooking meals.  Tonight, the aroma of boiled beef, carrots, potatoes, and salt waft out of the faded black pot in the fire.  The smell fills the room, much like it has many times throughout the old man’s life.  This was once a place used to get away from the pressures of life among the people and the false luminescence of man.  Now, it is his only shelter against the pang of reminders.  The old man is unable to deal with the reminders.  A weak old man, doing his best to forget until his last breath in the rocking chair.  He feels the onset of sleep, but he is not ready to sit and lay upon the cot in the corner behind him.  The old man continues sitting, rocking forth and back, staring into the crackling fire.  He adjusts his right hand, running the dark, wrinkled finger tips along the creases of the journal.  Eyes dart left and right as he stares at the fire, memories flooding back into his mind.  Reminders…

He allows his old dark eyes to glance above the hearth of the fireplace, face remaining fixed on the fire.  The eyes look up from beneath thick gray brows.  A large vertical portrait is hung on the stones, framed in rich, dark wood.  Portions of the frame still glisten from the lovingly applied wood stain that once made the frame shimmer in the light of a fourth floor apartment.  Now, the frame merely serves to hold the glass that protects the pencil-drawn portrait beneath it.  A woman’s face is immediately discernible in the top portion of the frame, lips pursed and curved upward as she smiles at the viewer.  Her eyes are fixed…  locked on someone past the viewer.  Was it the artist?  Was it a humorous occurrence just at the right moment?  Or, was she simply a wonderful model?  Only the old man knows why she looked past the viewer, and why she smiled so sweetly, her bared white shoulders raised as she rests her hands against the beige stucco of a balcony railing.  Fingers delicately folded, her fingertips gripping the rough stucco coating of the balcony.  Flowing black strands of hair cascade down onto her shoulders, free and gently nudged by the ocean breeze on a late summer afternoon.  Her black blouse stretched as she leaned back, legs and lower half of her body not visible in this particular portrait.  In sharp contrast to the black blouse, is her skin, as white and beautiful as the freshly fallen snow of the mountains the old man came to know so well.  Behind her a thick blanket of fog overtakes a large expanse of ocean, and a crimson gateway to the north fades into view through the white mist, extending from the center behind the woman and cutting off along the frame on the left side.  The sky beyond the bridge on left side of the portrait, behind the woman, a calming shade of blue; along the rim of the balcony, just barely visible, is the wide expanse of the urban sprawl below the building.  The remaining space is a random smattering of buildings and skyscrapers, as generic as any other around the world and of no particular interest in this portrait, this portrait of a woman hanging above the hearth of the stone fireplace.

The old man quickly averts his gaze, as he dares not stare at the portrait.  He may only steal a glance on the nights when he feels strongest and able to resist his thoughts.

As he sits, a wind flows around the cabin.  A strong wind, given that it had to travel over hills, forests, grasslands, deserts, and finally mountains to reach the cabin.  Yes, a strong wind indeed.  It gets stronger, seemingly bent on this particular cabin and this man.  And, as he sits, with his old cracked journal in hand, rocking on the old wooden rocking chair, the wind reaches him, flowing in through the seams around the door, from the fireplace, from unseen cracks in the cabin’s exterior.  The wind reaches him and his eyes rise.  His nostrils flare, mind set ablaze by the warm air circling inside the cabin.  Suddenly, he lifts his head, staring at the portrait.  His brows furrow, wrinkles around his eyes and along his forehead spring to life.  The laugh lines, and frown lines, and deep rift on his cheek all cast shadows across his cragged face.  The aroma from the air fuels the flames, an aroma as rich and lovely as the bloom of flowers in the spring.  And as the old man concentrates on the portrait, on the face, on the eyes, his teeth clench beneath his pursed lips.  The old man’s ears perk up and move ever so slightly, his rough palms now tightly gripping the arms of the old wooden rocking chair.  He hears a distant memory, a faint voice that excites him and presents that which will finally give him the peace that he seeks.

The old man stands.  He reaches under the old cot, reaching for the black canvas duffel bag that had served him well.  He ignores the ache in his knee as he hunches down by the cot, for he is quite able to take the physical pain.  That pain was never a problem.  The bag is filled with hastily gathered clothing, boots slipped on quickly, and an old olive coat slung over his shoulder.  The old wooden rocking chair continues its steady motion as he steps out of the door, casting its long and thin shadows across the floor.  The fire dies, the soup boils and burns until it, too, becomes cold and gray.

He said they live on an incline. Does this street look like an incline? Drive further up the hill to the peak and gather yourself before you end up on a one way street with no place to turn. Take a moment at the stop sign and look about.

Well, this certainly looks correct. There goes the street name. Yes, and there is the turn and there is the incline. 1209… 1207… 1205… it should only be one block further. The trees in this part of town certainly are tall, and rounded. Do you suppose birds nest in the trees? If they are old enough I bet you that at least one man has been hung from the neck from the branch of one of these trees. Old towns such as this have those sorts of histories – the kind that remain hidden and are swept beneath the rug as new people arrive to fill the space left by abandoners and the dead. But I digress. We’ve arrived at 1144. You will have to park further up the street near the convenience store, only make sure to roll up your windows because I do not trust the look of that ghetto fellow loitering out in front of the telephone booth.

This would be a lovely place to go for a walk with a woman, wouldn’t it? Flowers blooming above like colorful bubbles of sorts, and the birds chirping like a melodic symphony. Women appreciate that sort of whimsical fare. Do you think she would as well? I don’t suppose you’ll ever find out, at least not until he is out of the picture, and you’re coming up on the place so you’d best prepare for a smile and a half-hearted wave. Who waves these days, anyway? I don’t suppose… wait, someone’s walking out. And would you look at that… did she get a haircut? My god, man! Forget the hair, look down. Look at her eyes. The stifled flicker. It’s still locked away – hidden from the world as some form of cruel self-censure. You certainly believe that you alone see this brilliance. You want to pursue that light. You want nurture it. If you reach out, the light may become brighter. Or it may go out altogether. Such is the risk, and you are no longer in a position to claim youthful exuberance.

So she steps out one leg first, a black stocking leading down to a foot wearing a flat shoe of some modern sort and leading up to a skirt that ends just above the knee and starts at the waist where the hint of a white blouse shines through the part in the thick Burberry coat draped over her shoulders which curve elegantly up towards her chin lowered slightly when she smiles and waves and calls out to say “Hey!” as her nose crinkles and eyes gleam with that flicker beneath the brim of a black, round hat that would look bad on anyone but her. So what? It’s just a woman wearing clothes, and that’s all. Now steps towards them unless you prefer to remain forty feet away and wave incessantly.

Be polite, and not too personal. Hold her hand, certainly, but do not go in for the kiss on the cheek. It will be too telling. You will linger. Hold her hand and apply light pressure, then turn to him and grip his hand firmly. Assert your position over him. Show him he whose hand he shakes is not a hand to be taken lightly. You will not do anything to harm the little fellow, of course, but show him regardless. If anything you will rest easier when you think back on the day’s happenings. You showed him, ey? Walk to them, and greet them, then follow them as they lead the way. Don’t fall behind, not if you can help it. Walk beside her at a respectable distance. Flank her, because as you can see he’s all too keen on keeping ahead of her. It’s just how he is. You’ve probably done it yourself, pal, so don’t go holier than thou on me. Remain between her and the street because cars or trucks or mad bikers may drive by and take her or hurt her. Who told you that you have to walk between your girl and the street anyway? Was it the old man? Well if you can’t remember I certainly can’t. In any case, if you can only serve as a wall I say take it. It’s better than nothing.

They’re certainly leading you far, aren’t they? The trees are bare here. You’ve never really seen bare trees save the odd one or two that people planted in the yard or on the bit of dirt next to the curb. The trees were always full, and blooming, even when they scattered leaves on the ground every winter. You used to rake those leaves when they told you to, when you were angry all the time. An angry young man. That’s an awfully cliché state of being, don’t you think? Of course everyone on the planet is some form of cliché so don’t feel too bad. You simply transitioned out of that cliché and into another.

Hey, stop listening to me. Don’t crane your neck and look around. She’s talking and you need to talk so that it’s not just her and him talking. Pay attention and talk. Well, isn’t that something. She’s talking about the trees! And before you go mad with spiritual kinship it is merely a coincidence, not a sign from the heavens that you are meant to woo this woman with your fancy talk about trees and what they represent. It’s chat, buddy, and nothing more.

The wind’s getting colder, and of course your coat is hanging in the closet at home. The old green coat, the one you insist on wearing for those few months in the winter when it rains enough to require a coat, is looking mighty worn. Perhaps a pea coat or some other hipster duds to look more cool? No? Well, then, don’t bother me when you get alienated for wearing the same old clothes. I mean, jeans and a T-shirt for years. Grow up, and while you’re adding action items to the list please do enter the restaurant that they both just walked into.

Pizza? How mundane, and might I add you’re certainly high and mighty when it comes to food as of late. Was it Mexico where you ate a tray of fried calamari, or Hong Kong? Both were good in any case. I mean, I don’t know what kind of oil they used but it was un-fucking-believable and they have posters of baseball players on the wall here and is that Lou Gehrig? Here, in the city they have a poster of Lou Gehrig? Hey and look at that, they’ve chosen the table right by old Lou. He can watch the cheese trail from each slice and act as witness to your ridiculous guarded conversation.

She sits amazingly well. Such grace, and style. Brings her knees together and places her hands over them as she sits. And look at how she removes her hat, and her coat, and it is indeed a white blouse and she did indeed change her hairstyle. It’s short now. It wasn’t short before. You like short dark hair now, don’t you? Yea, I figured as much. Now, that doesn’t mean you can comment on her hair. Yes it is a new style and she does look amazing with her hair styled in short layers that hug her face, but do not dare comment on it. Your friend sits beside her. Make sure to pay attention to both. Equal eye time for each. Do not linger on her, jackass! That’s right. Look up, at that television. Who’s playing? Arizona?

Burgundy streaks across fields of sod… what’s in a friend, anyway? Who’s this guy? This clown? Is he really a friend? I mean, what’s he done for you lately? Nothing. Not a single goddamn thing. The guy’s okay to hang out with and grab some beers at a bar with, but really that’s anyone. See the waiter? Yea, he could sit and listen and laugh just as well as this guy. Plus he’s taller and he’s more likely to want to hang around after your drunken arguments with the frat boys. He won’t want to pull you away and make you feel a foo–

She turned her head! Did–did you see her hair flutter? Wow, man. I hope you did see because… because it was every possible synonym of the word “beautiful” that you can think of. Thanks for sparing me, but I saw it too, and I’d agree. Amazing… You could talk of pleasant things, risqué things that would lull her into the proper course of conversation… but look at him. He must care for her. He must love her, still, because my god she is unbelievable. Do you suppose it’s possible that, somehow, you want her because someone else has her? Now don’t go withdrawing into your shell, I’m just thinking to the beat of a different drummer. It helps me understand you, because sometimes you simply confuse the hell out of me. You lack consistency in your madness and I’m left without a clue as to your intentions. Before you start to feel please grab that pitcher that the waiter just dropped off.

Her, through the brown ale and foam. Beer goggles do nothing. She is, and has been, a woman unmatched… until tomorrow when you reflect on today and realize yesterday is not a time to linger in.

Discuss the weather. Discuss work. Discuss things that lead to jokes and joke about things that lead to reassuring nods and then a laugh. Oh, see, now she’s talking… yes, very well, turn to her. You have reason to look her in the eyes. Oh, and she’s a freckled one is she not? Most certainly. Like a child in a sandbox, the sun beating down on every kid around you, and that girl with the dark hair and darker freckles hanging upside down (what is a jungle gym anyway?) and smiling and flicking her tongue through the hole in her teeth. Don’t feel bad about not remembering her name—you were a child, and kids don’t think about each other the way you’re thinking of this woman now. But, there was something. An impression of a future that has left you reeling. Powerless you are not but susceptible? And how.

Did she just laugh? Laugh! Chuckle at the very least. Can you imagine sitting with her at the booth beside us? Next to her, holding her hand, the smell of her perfume (and hopefully not your cologne if you’ll listen to me for once and not wear the acrid stuff) filling the space, wafting and billowing around while discussing more than trivial status updates. Or maybe discussing the most trivial nonsense imaginable. The point, of course, is that it would be discussed by the two of you. “The two of you”, now isn’t that a nice thought?

… Jesus Christ, man, you’re such a woman.

Pizza’s here, so’s the second pitcher of beer. Joy, and indulgence that you can indulge in. One slice, two extra hours on the machines. Second slice and she’s had her second glass. Did you just finish off your fourth? Pig. Drunken pig. Oh, how she laughs. My suggestion to you: learn to write sonnets. It will be a useful skill when you move on and realize this one’s out of bounds. Keep it in the court and you’ll find yourself a nice cheerleader to keep you company. Oh, man, remember the cheerleader. In the short shorts? Who was that, Maria? Or Steph. It might have been Steph.

The names, man, the names. Don’t forget your names.

The hour draws near, and it’s sad. She’s sad. I can take it even if you refuse to see it. Corporate secretary living with a retail monkey? She can’t be happy! Logic and life draw us to wants of extraordinary proportions. We’re faulty but really what’s wrong with wanting great things? Life is short, and as far as we know it’s the only one we have until the sack of flesh we call a body decomposes and returns from whence it came. Things we have to do… people we have to love. Responsibilities we don’t need. Weights. He weighs down on her and it will only hasten her descent into a life of mediocrity and despair.

Well that’s interesting, isn’t it? When’s the last time you were happy? No friend, not content. Happy.

Cool night. I love it up here, you know. You should move up here. L.A. wasn’t like this. The high desert wasn’t like this. The shack by the side of the road up in Eureka was definitely not like this. This is something else, and I say enjoy it until you get sick of it. Find yourself a roost and feel what there is to see. Hear the end of it and then you can say you’ve truly lived. Brush yourself against dirty walls and wood grain bars. And wish, hope, that somehow she’ll be with you. Holding your hand… whispering “you’re acting like an idiot” in your ear. Cool night, and she’s right beside you. No need to feel alone.

Dismissals, goodbyes, and the pleasantries of life. Shake his hand again, firm again, you’re the man and he’s mush again. Hold hers gently, and wait, the lovely doth draw closer. She draws herself in for the cheek kiss. She smiles. She breathes… like any other woman. She breathes like she does. You damn yourself by elevating her to the top of the pedestal. You relegate her to “goddess” and now the simplest interaction sends your chest into a flurry. What if she was old? Sick? Missing an arm? Would it matter to you? You can say “no” all you like and she smells so damn alluring. Perfume. And her lips are… where was I? Lips. Pretty lips and warmth.

Lingering!

The shuffle back to the car late at night. The midnight routine. No one out, no one else to justify your existence at this moment. Right now you’re all alone here, bud, and there’s no way to avoid that fact. Tomorrow you should call Kristy and go somewhere. Yea, I know. It’s just Kristy. I just won’t stand to be around you and the after-seeing-her mood. At least Kristy will keep you distracted so I can relax for a while. Kristy with the jangle and glimmer of necklaces, bracelets, and rings, and that long gorgeous hair. You know, long hair? That used to be your thing. The trees again, see how they wave as the sea air batters them.

Well if all you’re going to do is sulk in the face of logic then I’ll just stop trying. Get in the damn car.

Turn the key. Reach for the knob in the same place it has always been. Ah, fate be damned! Tonight’s one of those nights when the car has declined to cooperate with your attempt to escape and get on the road, where you feel safest. Constant motion and the sound of wind blowing past the car have always been a comfort for you haven’t they? Pull the knob all you like, but the electrical’s still out of whack. Those lights won’t be coming on for a while so just stop fussing about with the wiring underneath the dash and sit upright. You know, you really should have gotten that fixed a year ago when it first became a problem.

Rest your arms on the steering wheel and lay your chin on them. Stare out into the wisps of fog rolling by. Don’t you dare think about light. Stare into the darkness. What do you suppose lingers out there? You’re not unique, hardly a soft little snowflake, and one of over six billion irrational beings on this planet. It certainly would be plausible to imagine that someone, somewhere, is sitting in the dark staring out across an empty street and accompanied only by the faint glow of street lamps, empty apartment windows, and the wispy fog. And who knows, perhaps that person is also a believer in safeguarding the soul against vicious and malicious assaults by the heart. Oh, now, I didn’t say that just to get you started on “feeling”! Keep staring into the darkness, yes, good… keep staring into the darkness.

When you’re ready, turn the key and get the engine going. It has been a long while and if you drive long enough in that darkness the lights are bound to come on again. That’ll get you home tonight. Of course if I know you, and I think I do, you won’t have the lights fixed until they shut down for good.

A cracking voice resonates and words are spoken which are registered in the mind as pain, then anger, then pure lustful rage. The severity of the words typically determines the quickness in which the rage overwhelms. When the mind has accomplished routing the message it has then to delve into the archival series of events and experience that form a history and use them to attach significance to the words. A cracking voice, red eyes, and shimmering trails along cheeks all indicate sadness or grief almost immediately and such elements play an important role in the severity. If the words interpreted by the mind are damning enough, no further thought or analysis is necessary.

Some men may listen. Some men may be recalled. Some men may stop to fathom or even consider. Some.

“He… was just walking me home,” she tells him. “I didn’t think he could do this to me. He seemed nice… oh God, please…” Her sound as subsequent noise drowned out by the loud roar exploring the corners of the mind when the connections have been made. The vast emptiness that reigns over the mind is filled with an overwhelming pressure as the physical sensation of sound brimming from ear to ear presses and pounds against the skull. The mind needs to relieve such immense pressure and to force anything but the cause of the pressure to bear the brunt of the release is out of the question. It is rage, truly, but rage that must be directed along the proper channel else the man should explode within himself.

“I need you here with me. Don’t leave,” her gentle hand tightly gripped around his wrist. “Please, come back? We’ll call the police. He can’t get away with this. Baby, come here, come here.”

All physical sense is pounded away by the beating drums, all touch becomes meaningless save for the only touch that the mind can fathom, which is not this touch. Touch, like anger, does not express that which is in the man’s mind – the pairing of the terms pulsing andthickness may suffice. It is the compulsive need to feel flesh pounded beneath flesh as so much worthless hamburger is pounded by the hammer. A human equated to meat purchased at the butcher shop – such is the only type of thought that can exist. Gentleness is impossible in the cacophony of the enraged mind.

“Don’t do it! He’s not worth it! Babe, plea–”

Her noise is static in the background as the man steps toward the door and his hand pulls it open. The cracking voice and rosy cheeks dissipate as thick wood is slammed against thick wood and the silence of street lamps buzzing in the night overtakes him. All things are as indiscernible shadow beneath the glowing orb of hatred and rage. There is nothing save for the face, and the act, and the belief that it has to happen. No, more than belief. A desire, a lustful desire to commit the act, to carry it out in full. It must be understood that it is not an emotion in and of itself, but merely an extreme extension of anger. It is anger that people most often find themselves in the company of. The deafening presence of silence and screaming rage that simultaneously take hold of this man’s mind is a rare occurrence, and some people may be fortunate enough never to experience such a state of being. It is as drowning, and sinking helplessly below the surface of the water until there is only a pressure from within to take action and seek relief. He must break the surface or allow himself to drown.

The man as he was is now the man as he is, just as the man as he is will be the man as he will be when the ever-present thunder subsides and he will sit in a pool of blood and he will weep.

Fists clench as the feet pound the pavement and the throbbing in his mind continues its irregular assault on the senses. Every twig, leaf, and wrapper combust beneath the soles of his shoes as every step takes him further along the only path. The scattered mass of buzzing rages around him. As fallen crystals, raining down, striking him and all that surrounds him. Clinking and clicking and insanity’s relentless attack upon the core of the self. Louder, more expressive, sharper by the second in the focused barrage… him… hit… hurt… hunt… hollering… happiness, lost forever. She is taken, she is gone, she is not as she was and she will not be and louder still, horrid loudness pressing and hurting and wanting to explode from his eyes and lead him and it hurts. Groaning, hoping to drown out the sound yet it lingers and he must be rid of it, you see? He must be rid it, he must be rid of it, he must be rid of it.

A light shines down on the path’s direction and he turns a corner, physical and nowhere in the vicinity of emotional. It is there, as it was there before. The familiar sights and unfamiliar maddening screeching. Further still, by steps, and farther away as the echo returns to him. A reflective door returns the sound to him and his body begins to feel the crushing weight of the house inside the door. Before, this place was about the steps on stairs and ringing bells. Laughter inside, and calmative conversation. Trusted communication betrayed by lustful howling and it must be silenced, it must be made to stop.

She must have yelled, she must have wept loudly in bewilderment. The echo from such noise will be horrible and glorious and a relief unheard of in all of man’s existence.

A massive shockwave when flesh meets wood, and he leans forward to brace himself when the imminent occurs and the wooden door gives way to a man from which all the world’s madness flows.

“Hey, what the fuck?” What’re–” The first contact falls between a fist and the face of nothing. A nothing. The mind registers the face of the man in the doorway as nothing. So much hamburger. No one cares for hamburger. Pounds the hamburger. Pounds it into the wooden ground beneath his feet.

Flesh ripped open, bones cracking, blood amassing as strike after strike falls upon the cause of the horrid symphonic melody in the man’s mind. This is responsible; this does not deserve what is given, what is bestowed, what is gifted to all creatures. He took more than he is right to do and gave what he should not have and now, here, in a hallway, on the wooden ground, beside a black wall and a black table and a black rail the noise will cease.

The feeling of rhythm. Rapid beating against open palms. Painful jolts as fists strike flesh and bone and hands clamor desperately, scratching a face, pulling an ear. Words uttered yet not understood as the mind’s walls reflect a deafening roar—the desperate gasp for life goes unheard.

The crunch reverberates in his mind.  One crunch, then another, and another.  Endless crunching across a plain of pristine brilliance, freshly fallen and not yet in a state of decay.  Slim shadows from nearby gangly giants protect the surface, and keep it intact.  Towering above all things, keeping watch, older than the eldest memory conjured by the weak creations of flesh that seek the safety of the giants.  They see in no visible spectrum, speak in no language known to exist.  The only audible sign of life is the howl of the wind through the myriad of appendages and a tired yawn of the bough.

They tower over him and demonstrate their power.  The hiker continues along slowly, aware that the pride of these mighty giants can be felled with a swiftness such elderly things are not aware of.  As he crosses a chasm of what could have once been flowing life he steps over a fallen giant, and plods along in silence save for the jarring crunching of his boots.

He remains on the path as it has been decided, marked by bright poles of ore and colorful woven flags designed to catch the attention of passersby, marching onward to his destination.  It, the goal he seeks, lies far ahead, though he is not certain for the frigid corners of the world are unknown to him.  He is of a different place full of warmth and drying plains; a place between the lands in the sky and the buried secrets beneath the vast bowls of wetness; a place no longer wanted, nor needed, existing far behind and even further ahead.  It is now in the pallid that he bears witness to that which he has never seen, nor touched, nor truly ever dreamed.  It is not as they write about, and images are false when compared to such a scene as that which is the real thing.  The sheer lack of flat, the unshaped beauty of imperfection, it rolls down towards the valley lying thousands of feet below.  Sending all manner of fallen things cascading down the cracks and crevasses between the amassing of frozen life and death and the once-organic shale of stone that supported the creatures that dwelled beneath a massive ocean.  The hiker wonders of these things though he does not fully understand, for although well-traveled is he, learned he is not.  Like the rest he simply observes and is content to witness that which few men see.

He then bares witness to the haze of miles far ahead, jagged peaks discernable yet clearly not true.  The peaks rise high, higher than the one on which he marches, and expand to fill the horizon with their gray and misty visage.  They fill the land, and stand in a vigil over the lands to the West, once guardians now reduced to silent witnesses to the end of the old times and the beginning of the new.  They will remain there to the end, and will continue to remain as new ages begin again.  The hazy peaks will forever see that which even the old giants will miss when they die and fall to the valley below.  They will exist now and forever.  To observe, contemplate, process, and accept such hazy peaks would be to accept that which is beyond him, grander than him.  There are decades of conditioning to undo before the hazy peaks may be seen as they are, rather than imagined as faint illusion.  He cannot fathom, nor does he care to for he has not the time in his quest to pause and reflect on such things.  The hazy peaks are, at the very least, contemplated.

Behind the hiker lies the center of all things civil.  Vehicles, bright and shiny underneath the giants (“beautiful!” they exclaim) and across the slippery black, march in unison as they search for a place in which to stop.  They looked, they slowed, they saw a man and chased him down only to be turned away when he revealed he did not plan to leave.  The great building. made up of strips of the giants’ corpses, lay near the bare black square and provided a place of temporary warmth and familiarity for those who cannot take the unfamiliar cold and landscape draped in shadow.  In it are directories and helpful types, but only helpful when one knows what he seeks.  He did not know why he was there, not truly, and they served no purpose other than to provide a smile and a tangible memory to be forgotten in a box (though some would argue that $7.99 for a memory is quite the fair price).  Outside, the blare of the search for a place in the civil world continued, and he placed his memory in the pocket of his coat as he returned to his own place in the line.  He, too, did not plan to leave, but merely to collect the bag of his belongings and sustenance, for he would need these on his trek across the sharply angled terrain.  He waved the seekers away; they continued along in silence to seek their place.  As he headed to the path a sharp sound, a rather hoarse cry, echoed to him.  It was a familiar creature, although unlike any instance of the species that he had ever seen.

It was a white beast.  Sharp ears erect, black glistening nose twitching as it peered from side to side.  The legs of the lanky body twitching, muscles rippling, it sat ready to spring upon anything it beheld or flee, as the situation required.  How it stared into the distance, regal, almost, though clearly not as that is a quality not imagined by the white beast but by his overseer.  The blood memory in the white beast, the rich history it held – it must have been a true sight to behold.  The white beast, ancestrally not white at all but flecked with streaks of grays, browns, blacks, and all manner of visually pleasing yet practical tones, once roamed across this land on which it stands.  The white beast once claimed prey and ate the bleeding remains in the times before it waited patiently for bowls of nourishment.  It hid beneath the land in wondrous dens that served its purpose and nothing more.  It roamed from giant to giant, hazy peak to hazy peak, never marveling (or perhaps it did, though it did not occur to the hiker) at the land it passed through so freely.  And free it was, for no creature guided the white beast.  The instinct and blood memory of a thousand generations served as its compass.

“Sitzen!”  The jarring sound came from somewhere near the white beast.  The hiker glanced to the side to see another man in green; a seemingly affable one, this green-man was the white beast’s director.  The white beast’s head turned, and it sat upon the ground, tongue waggling and eyes frantically darting as it returned from its memory-state to the present time.  It rolled, and leapt, and let out its hoarse cry.  It yelped, held the ball, lumbered from corner to corner – a spectacle for eyes to see, and how they did gather around to watch.  The hiker did not watch the white beast play, as he was already walking to the path.

The memory of the white beast comes to mind with every glance at the landscape and hazy peaks.  The white and pure terrain, unknowing, uncaring.  The sun still shines brightly upon him, as he does not dare attempt the quest when the sun is low in the West and the moon threatens to rise.  Such is the time of dread and cold.  Rare indeed is the creature that would dare to face such horrors as those that occur when the cold becomes too cold, and night too dark, and perhaps that is why there are so few creatures of the night on the high peaks.  They are built for such trials and have honed the skills necessary only after generations behind them have struggled and perished.  He is not equipped, this man, but someday perhaps he will.  For now he must be content to observe as the day wanderers did in their time before his species.

The ground  becomes harder, the grasses and sod giving way to rocks and stone.  The giants begin to spread out and give him room.  The colored flags have disappeared, the steps of past trekkers long since vanished.  Along his left side a grand cliff rises.  The sheer rock of the peak is exposed before him, free of life and not encumbered by the vegetation of the low lands which it originated from.  As he stares at the ever-rising cliff he feels his eyes water, struggling against the blowing winds of the high peaks.  The exposed patches of skin across his face dry and grow pale.  Onward!, he thinks to himself.  His goal is close, he knows, for the air grows colder and dryer with every step taken.  It may seem agony to some, an annoyance to others, and a challenge to a select few, such as this man.  He is encouraged to return to where he comes from, where he belongs.  The hiker pays no mind (perhaps at the risk of health and life, but such men that would continue on despite the danger are men not to be argued with).

As he nears a rise in the path growing narrower and narrower by the minute a distinct sound rises.  At first a whisper, then a rustling, and eventually a loud echo; the sound does all it can to call the hiker’s attention.

His pace quickens, and his legs grow tired as the hiker ventures over the boulders that block his view of the origin of the sound.  Every step taken and rock clamored over brings him closer, and upon reaching the top of the boulders, before he has seen that which he knows is there, the sound overtakes him.  Nothing, not his boots on the rocks nor his own labored breathing, are audible over the vast and overbearing roar that flows past him, through a crag in the cliff and along to the right where the peak has suddenly become steep and unmanageable by a body that has experienced a lifetime of unnatural comfort.  He stands upon the highest boulder overlooking the thunderous roar, his back stooped low and hands resting upon the same boulder.  He stands there.

Distracted by the impassable wall in front, and shadowed by the wall to his left, the hiker allows himself to remain still until at last he returns to the mind that brought him to this place.  His goal lies far ahead of this place and higher than he cares to imagine, yet as he observes his surroundings he knows that such a thought is a lie.  He looks in both directions; to the left there is the cliff, gaining altitude still as it resumes past the crag from which the roar emanates and around another bend in the path; to the right there is the sudden drop to the sides of the peak below where the hiker once stepped, and even further still to the valley below, where green fields and smoke dot the land from which he came; in front of him is the roar itself.  There is no visible means of crossing the chasm of thunder.  The hiker removes his pack, placing it on the boulder beneath him, and then removes his gloves, one after the other.  His hands are instantly stung, and no amount of warm air from between his lips can warm them as he surveys the land and the impossible path ahead.

He first appeared on a Friday.  I remember he seemed to be thinking carefully about his choice, but in the end he chose what everyone else chooses during the lunch rush: sliders.  After that he came in once a week, sometimes twice a week if he and his friends stopped by for sliders on Fridays.  Sometimes, I would be there to ring him up, but if it wasn’t me at the register he would not even look at me.  It did not matter where I was standing; next to the register, leaning against the counter, walking by him after I cleaned a table.  He would just look right into the eyes of Michelle or Jorge or whichever employee was helping him, oblivious to anyone and anything else that did not pertain to his order.

That was when I was not the one at the register.  When I was the person ringing him up, he would stare into my eyes.  I wondered if he knew what he was doing when he stared at me or anyone else like that.  He had the kind of hazel-flecked eyes that burn into you, almost as if he either hates you intensely or loves you more than he can bear.  At first I thought it was awkward to look into them, but then I realized it was not awkward at all.  It was actually kind of painful.  I wanted to look away, but at the same time I wanted to stare back.  I wanted to peer into the golden streaks that glitter under the lamp above the counter and get darker as you follow the streaks towards the pitch black iris in the center.  His furrowed brows, always low and close together casting shadowy patches over his eyes, and his lips pursed like he just said something he did not want to say and had to quiet himself.  But, his eyes.  I forced myself to look into his eyes because then I could pretend that he was there to see me.  That every week, or twice a week, he would stop at our restaurant just to see me, and look into my eyes, and touch my hand when I handed him his change.  He could not bear to be away from me or my hand, and every moment spent away was like agony to him, because his desire was too great and his heart could only stay away for so long.  He was not just there to eat burgers and joke around on his lunch hour with his friends or buy a pizza for him and some other girl he’s seeing.

I’d pretend he was there for me.

*      *      *

The first time I saw her she was at the register, leaning against the counter.  She had makeup on.  Not too plastered on, like some girls wear it.  She just had a nice amount of eye shadow and eyeliner all around along her lashes.  I think the term is “kohl-rimmed” eyes.  Some women wear it and they look kind of cheap, but not this girl.  Aside from the dark around her eyes she had real simple, flat black hair down to her shoulders, and she wore that powder that makes a girl look paler than she really is.  I liked that she looked so pale, especially with the black hair and dark around her eyes, but judging by the skin on her forearms and hands she probably didn’t need any of that make-up.  She was one of those classic fair-skinned beauties, like Snow White or some other make-believe character.  I could see her sometimes, when I got lost in a thought, as some princess walking along in a field of roses.  Her skin so bright that it would attract the attention of every misfit creature out there in that field and simultaneously scare them out of their wits to see such a gorgeous sight.  She would lull them in, their own curious nature and an indescribable attraction to this bright princess out in the field drawing them closer and closer until she sprung on them.  A few moments later they’d be dead, and she’d continue walking along unfazed by her own power over them.  Pretty as a picture.

But I’d seen lots of good-looking girls before, and I would see many good-looking girls long after she disappeared.  No, this girl had something else.  I caught it the first time I saw her, after noticing her make-up and fair skin.  It was on her arm.  The long, thin tendrils extending out across her forearm.  A black pattern over the faint blue threads intricately woven under the fabric of her skin, over the taut sinews that stretched as she handed me the change she held in her small hand.  A grotesque black shape that only the twisted calculations of nature can create, like the spirals of a conch shell or a long and evenly segmented bug that walks along on a thousand legs.  She wore it well.  I sometimes thought of asking her about it, that tattoo.  Why a spider-web?  Did she place it on her forearm as a symbol, as a joke, or did she think it just looked interesting?  Whatever her reason, I’d stepped into the parlor, and I was sure as hell stuck.

No, not stuck.  Caught… that’s what I was.  And I couldn’t shake loose.

*      *      *

On my more whimsical days I would see him roaming a desert in that blue truck that I always saw him drive into the parking lot.  Mountains would rise thousands and thousands of feet up into the air all around, creating a pit of sand and shrubs and living things that barely lived but somehow got by.  The sun shining down upon everything, down on the poor little desert animals that dashed across the sands looking for food and shelter, while the huge cacti towered above them and laughed amongst themselves at the silly little creatures’ attempts to survive.  Little chirpy things and buzzy things and the hollow wind would be the only musical accompaniment to the survival scene that played out day after day.  But as I sat or leaned or lay wherever I was at the time I would close my eyes tight and suddenly, he would be there.  That big blue truck of his with the ridiculously huge tires, narrowly missing the little creatures and leaving behind a trail of dust as he cut his path through the sands.  Defying the laughing cacti and chirpy, buzzy wind orchestra as he roared through the open land and let the sunshine come upon him through the open windows.  He was an explorer, this man.  He loved to roam free and did not like to worry about the inane issues that the rest of us deal with every day.  He liked to swim the ocean in the morning, climb the mountain in the afternoon, and rest in the valley at night.  Hazel-Eyes was the kind of man who made his own path.  The kind of man who took what he wanted.

Then, I would get depressed.  Why wouldn’t he take me?

*      *      *

On certain occasions I sat facing her as she worked at the register, with two friends sitting across the table watching the big television at one end of the place and one more guy on my right side facing the same direction I was.  I’d bite into my burgers and talk to the guys about work and football and the chick at work who was looking good that day, all the while stealing sly glances at the register.  She’d stand there, her body towards me but not facing me directly, sometimes talking to her big co-worker/friend who’d be off to the side with her back to me.  Sometimes that big co-worker/friend would stand right in the center of the area behind the register and block my view of her, and I’d just sit there burning a hole into her back at the spot where her too-tight T-shirt revealed a bra strap that was stretched beyond its limit.  I was prone to stare, as my folks used to tell me, but no one else ever seemed to notice.  So I’d stare and wait for her to move so that I could steal another quick glance of Spider-Web before she’d turn to enter the kitchen or manage some other task that was out of my field of vision.  Back there, where no one could see.  I bet she’d talk to the Mexican guys who worked the kitchen and smile playfully, turning them into mindless little drones who gave her anything she wanted.  Once they were smiling idiots gathered around her she’d walk her way into a big, empty back room with only a rug in the center.  Their eyes would remain locked on her as she’d reach down and lift the corner of the rug, careful not to shake up the layer of dust that rested precariously on the surface.  Beneath the rug there’d be a huge vault door, wooden and old with cracks running along the thick planks.  She’d lead them down there, one by one following closely behind, and when she returned from the vault there’d be no followers.  She’d replace the vault door, and the dusty old rug, and smile to herself as she returned to the register to help some customers that would suddenly appear from off on the side somewhere.

She’d probably go back there just to get out of my sight.

*      *      *

Hazel-Eyes continued to come to my restaurant nearly every week for four months, until the summer.  Each time I saw him I became more and more lost, finding myself wandering through fields of hazel-colored flowers or riding in a big blue truck through the mountains that extend up from the shoreline.  It grew beyond my work.  As I sat on the train, he would be there sitting across from me, the light behind him creating an aura of amazing light that transcended anything I could imagine without him.  At school I would see him sitting on a bench between two other guys, looking back at me.  Piercing me with his gaze.  But, best of all, there were the good days.  The days when he would appear in my room as I slept and wake me up.  I would hear him, though he did not speak, and see him, though many times my eyes would be closed.  And he would sit by the bed and look at me to show me I was there.

One day in early summer he appeared in my living room, sitting on the couch and watching Jeopardy with my parents.  The flickering blue glow from the television danced across his blank, expressionless face.  I waited for him to turn to me and look into my eyes like he did every time I saw him, but he never turned.  I waited, and waited, until at last my mother noticed and asked me why I was staring at her and my father.  I turned away in silence and returned to my room to wait for him, but he did not appear that night.  The next morning was a Friday, and I decided then that I could not wait for him.

I had to do it, for us.

*      *      *

My mind was slipping.  I knew, because it’d happened before.  Minutes seemed like days as I waited to get out to lunch and grab a bite to eat.  The time spent away from that restaurant was time wasted not being near her.  Her pale, beautiful skin, at the time so beautiful and unlike anything I’d ever seen, and of course the spider-web from which Spider-Web got her name, extending and wrapping around her thin, elegant arm.  She’d fly around me, dark angelic wings springing from her back, her luminescent hands extended out to me, calling me.  And I would follow, because what else could I do?  She had me, her and her dark web taking hold of me, dragging me towards her like a helpless creature caught in some predator’s sights, until at last I could do nothing else but stop resisting and go to her.

My mind was slipping because I thought of these things.  It was unhealthy, I knew, because it’d happened before.  The web didn’t have me completely paralyzed yet, and despite the immense beauty of Spider-Web and all that she was, I couldn’t do it again.  When that Friday came, I suggested we go to the deli up the street.  They asked me why I was suddenly changing routine.  I told them we should man up and try new things.

I had to get a grip on myself and end it, for our sake.

*      *      *

“What can I get for you?”  Her hand rested on the counter as she looked at him, head cocked at an angle.  She waited patiently, glancing out the window as the rain from a gray day fell in silence.

He looked up and rubbed his chin as he pondered his meal.  There was the menu.  Then he looked down, and she was looking at him.  “I think I’ll just go for the All-You-Can-Eat Sliders,” he said.

A blanket of gray clouds was always draped over the sky at that time of the afternoon, and the sun was nowhere to be seen when the woman emerged from the grove of trees. The wisps of her pallid blue dress trailed behind her. Her feet, what little of them was visible beneath the dress, were bare. The curls of her eerily shimmery locks cascaded down past her shoulders and likewise trailed along behind her as she stepped forward along the tufted ground. The blank expression on her face did little to convey her purpose as she neared the edge of the seaside cliff.

In her hands she held an open envelope. It was that envelope which caught the girl’s attention.

“Hi,” said the girl.

As she neared the edge of the cliff the woman slowed and turned her head to the left. There was a little girl sitting on a log, or rather a bench carved out of a fallen log, a short distance from the edge of the cliff. Her back was bent over. She wore a gray scarf flecked with strands of violet, and a simple purple coat coupled with a pair of denim jeans. Her feet, unlike the woman’s, were protected from the cold ground by a pair of yellow and white polyester shoes. In her hands she held a doll adorned in yellow yarn and a blue skirt. The girl’s tussled black hair gently waved about as the breeze from the late afternoon blew past her.

She had watched the woman approach with the envelope in her hands and turned to look at her, and she seemed nice so the girl thought it best to say, “Hi.” The little girl continued to look at the woman even when she did not respond. Her blank stare made her seem despondent, or as the girl might have said she looked “real sad.”

The woman looked back at the little girl, blue gaze locked on her. She said nothing. The little girl could only look back for so long before averting her gaze to mountains across the sea in front of her, nearly hidden by the afternoon’s gray haze, then to her doll. She held the doll’s yarn hair in her fingers, intertwining the strings as she sat in silence. Her brows rose as she smiled and looked back at the woman, who was still gazing at her.

“Do you want to sit down?” The woman did not move, or even respond. “It’s made out of a tree, see?” The little girl knocked on the wood of the bench.

Blank blue eyes fell to the bench. Pale fingers tightened on the yellowed envelope as she turned her body away from the direction of the cliff. The little girl patted the space beside her, silently asking the woman once again if she wished to sit. The woman in the blue dress regarded the little girl and the bench with her blank eyes, and still she said nothing. As the little girl turned away and continued to play with her doll the woman’s feet began to take her to the bench, the rest of her body rigid and unwavering. Her hair and dress now billowed silently towards the trees she had emerged from. She walked to the bench and sat beside the little girl, placing the envelope on the bench beside her, bringing her knees up as far as she could and wrapping her arms around them. She held her two bare feet together beneath her, and stared out across the sea.

“Why do you look sad?” said the little girl. The woman kept her gaze on the waves below. She parted her lips as if to speak, but said nothing. The little girl thought she heard a noise, but it was no more than an inaudible whisper.

“Huh?” she said. She leaned over, bringing the side of her head closer to the woman’s lips. The woman was also slightly louder the second time, or so the girl thought. Narrow lips shaped and stretched as each word was slowly uttered.

“Lost… someone. Someone… very close… I loved.”

“Lost in the woods?” The little girl gestured to the grove of trees behind them with her empty hand. “My dad says if I get lost I should scream to high heaven and someone will come to find me.”

“Not lost.”

“Oh.” The little girl turned to look at her hands, fingers intertwined in front of her knees. “Are you lost?”

The woman closed her eyes and turned her head once to the left, once to the right, and stopped when she was facing the sea again.

“Not lost.”

“Oh, okay.” The little girl’s eyes drifted along the woman from her head to her feet. “Are you cold?” The woman opened her eyes and nodded.

“My dad says I should never go out without a jacket because the food in my stomach will freeze into ice cubes. Didn’t your dad ever tell you that?” The woman remained still, and the little girl did not press the question. She sat next to the woman for another few moments in silence, and then began to unwrap the scarf around her neck. The woman turned her head to watch when she noticed the movement near her. When the scarf was removed the little girl turned to the woman and held it up.

“Here, you can use it. My dad says I should be helpful or I won’t get any Butterfingers after dinner.” The woman inched her hand towards the scarf and touched her fingers to it. Her eyes widened, just slightly, as she moved her hand closer to the material, placing her hand flat against the woven garment. Eventually she coiled her fingers around it, and brought it to her knees. The little girl watched and giggled as she observed the woman’s ineptitude with a scarf.

“No, no, that’s not where it goes. Watch.” She stood and pulled the scarf from the woman’s hand, then walked around behind her. The woman turned slightly as if to watch what she was doing, but not enough to actually see. The little girl stood behind her and wrapped the scarf around the woman’s neck, leaving both ends dangling across her chest. She then pulled the woman’s hair out from beneath the fabric before returning to her seat, smiling all the way.

“See, that’s how. It will warm you up, watch.” The woman brought one hand to the scarf and felt its rough edges, tracing strands of fabric from top to bottom. As she did this the little girl picked up her doll again and resumed running her fingers through the yarn.

“Have you ever had Butterfingers?” she then said. “They’re reallygood. They’re the best candy ever.” The little girl smiled widely as she pondered Butterfingers. “I bet my dad brought some Butterfingers today, too. They’re going to be so good!” The woman remained silent. Obviously, she was not interested in Butterfingers. The little girl smirked and pursed her lips as she thought. Then, she said, “Who did you lose?”

“What?” said the woman. The little girl was glad that the woman was speaking loudly.

“Who did you lose? You said you lost someone.”

“Someone I loved…” The woman furrowed her brows, as if to make certain before completing her response.“… man.”

“Ooh, like your boyfriend?” said the little girl mockingly. The woman nodded in her slow, deliberate manner.

“Why did you love him?”

“Loved… him. He loved me.”

“But why?” asked the little girl. The woman lowered her eyes to her hands, which she placed in her lap.

“He loved me.”

“Oh.” The little girl thought for a moment. “Was he a good man? My dad’s a good man,” she said. “My mom says so.”

“Lucky, your mother,” she said. The woman looked away again, back to the mountains across the sea.

“What’s your name?” asked the little girl.

“Name?” She looked down at her hands once more. “Don’t recall… name?”

The girl smiled and looked at the woman incredulously.

“Everyone has a name.”

“Don’t recall,” said the woman. “Your name?”

“Jan.”

“Nice name… Jan.”

“I don’t think it’s nice,” she said. “Everyone calls me Jan-In-A-Can. My dad says they don’t like their names either, so they make fun of mine.” She poked her doll, then said, “Did you know that Jan means ‘gracious’?”

The left side of the woman’s lips rose. It was not quite a smile, but it was more than the blank, thin line that she had worn since she appeared from the trees.

“Dad says?”

“Nope,” said the girl solemnly. “My mom.”

“Funny little girl,” said the woman.

Jan scratched her dark head and stretched her legs out across the sandstone angled down towards the cliff. She stared at her feet for a moment, unsure of how to respond. Beyond her feet she noticed that the gray clouds were getting thicker, and darker. They filled the sky now and there were no light patches between the dark patches, like before. It was just dark everywhere.

The woman rose, then, and Jan did not even see her move to stand up, but she was. The envelope was once again in her hands.

“Must go.” She looked to her left, down at Jan.

“You have to leave?”

“Very sad,” said the woman.

“You have to leave ‘cause you’re sad?” asked Jan. The woman nodded.

“Cannot stay here… without him. No life… without him.” Then she added, “you come, too?”

Jan said her dad said not too wander too far.

“Not far.”

Jan squeezed her lips together as she considered the proposal. “Well, okay, but only if it’s not far away.” She approached the woman, who’s left arm was slightly raised towards Jan. Jan reached out and took her hand.

“Ouch, you’re still really cold! You should buy gloves at the store.” The woman closed her grip on the little girl’s fingers and began to lead her forward, away from the grove of trees and bench, towards the sea and the gray mountains.

“Where are we going?” asked Jan.

“A better place. Quiet place.”

“Quiet place?” said Jan. “That sounds boring.” The woman led her along in silence. The roar of the waves beneath the cliff grew louder, and Jan clutched her yarn-haired doll tightly as the wind grew colder and stronger. The woman’s dress waved along behind her. Her hair was as gray streamers, wildly flying while the oncoming wind grew fiercer. With every step she took it grew colder, and more dark, or at least it seemed so to Jan.

The little girl plodded along behind her, approaching the cliff’s edge. “Are we going to see the water? My dad says I shouldn’t go too close to the water without him or the mermaids will come and take me away.”

“Yes… sea is there. The sea takes away sadness.”

Jan looked down at her feet as they walked along. She noticed how white and clean the woman’s feet looked, walking across the stone. When she lifted her eyes she saw that they were close to the edge now, and could almost see the waves directly below the cliff. The mist rose higher and wafted around Jan’s head, causing her to shiver. She craned her neck to look down when the rocks jutting out from the sea below became visible.

“My dad says that when I’m sad, I should remember that there are people who love me, and everything will be okay.” She looked up at the woman. “Don’t you have anyone else who loves you?”

The woman stopped, erect and standing utterly still. The cessation of movement caused Jan to drop her doll in front of her onto the layers of shale stone. The doll’s feet folded down along the cliff’s edge, towards the water, and would have fallen right over if they had been just slightly further ahead.

Jan looked up at her and winced, partly due to the wind and the hair in her eyes, and partly to try and figure out why the woman stopped. “Hey, we’re almost going to see the water. Why’d we stop?” The irritation in her voice was not obvious to the woman, though Jan thinks she made it clear enough. “The water’s just there over the edge. Let’s see if the mermaids are there!”

A man’s voice called from far away, behind them. Jan turned and grinned, then reached down to pick up her doll. She pulled her hand away from the woman, which took more effort than she thought was required. “I have to go. My dad’s calling me.” As she walked away she paused, and looked back at the woman in the blue dress, who remained still, facing the sea and the gray mountains. She waited to see the woman’s face but the woman did not turn.

Jan could not wait too long when her dad was calling her, so she said “Bye!” and disappeared into the grove of trees.

The wind was howling, calling to the woman who remained at the edge of the cliff. Her loosely curled golden strands danced about her and occasionally stung her moist cheeks. The woman’s face remained blank and free of expression. She stood there for a long while, staring out across the sea. After some time she turned, away from the seaside cliff and back towards the grove of trees. She silently walked back across the bare stone to where grass was the more common footing, and she too disappeared into the grove of trees that she emerged from. Behind her there remained a yellowed envelope, caught between the thick blades of a tuft of grass growing in a crag in the stone. The wind from the sea blew furiously and took hold of the envelope, pulling it away from the bench, away from the jagged tufts of grass scattered along the stone terrain, and down and away from the seaside cliff. The envelope and letter inside fell to the violent foam below and were sucked into the frenzy, disappearing into nothing.

When Jan returned with her dad they found the violet-flecked gray scarf on the rounded log bench, clinging to the splinters. Jan’s dad picked up the scarf and wrapped it around her neck, then kissed her on the forehead. He said Jan should never go here again because she might fall into the ocean and get eaten up by sharks, but that she is as clever as a fox for making up such a story. He took her hand and together they turned and disappeared into the grove of trees.

God, look at that sun shine. The sun is beautiful. Hell, everything is beautiful. The rows of multicolored columns in my bookshelf are beautiful. That black spider currying up the wall in the corner is beautiful. The smell of last night’s General Cho’s Chicken served over white rice is beautiful. Everything under the sky in heaven and above the fires in hell is absolutely, unbelievably beautiful. But these are just small observations whose beauty is amplified by the presence of the true beauty that lies beside me, with her arm resting across my stomach and her head on my chest. Her mix of dark and highlit strands swept behind her head and to the side, near my armpit. A thigh over my leg, a slender foot resting on my shin. The smell of her sweat, smell of her hair. All of it, every bit. Beautiful.

“Will God forgive us for what we’re doing?” A wind chime, singing the melodies of the angels by way of the heavenly voice from between her two thin pink lips. I’m so caught up in the beauty of existence that I don’t listen.

“What?”

“I asked, will God forgive us for what we’re doing?”

She’s joking, I’m sure. It’s just such a strange thing to ask. But, as she pulls away to look at me, I see that she’s not smiling. In fact, she looks pretty damn serious about it. I take a deep breath, making sure my chest rises and settles, and move my arm higher until I can feel her shoulder blade against the hair on my forearm. It’s something I’ve learned over the years; show that you’re listening when you don’t know what to say.

Finally, I realize I may as well voice what’s in my mind

“What do you mean, ‘will God forgive us’?”

She doesn’t hesitate. “I mean, do you think He’ll forgive us? You know, for having sex?”

Forgive us for having sex? Having sex? What is she, fifteen? She wants forgiveness for experiencing the most beautiful, intimate, passionate aspect of human existence? How can she even think of that now, as we lie together in bed, draped over one another as two bodies melded into one. And good lord, look at her eyes…

“Why would he have to forgive us? We’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Maybe you don’t think we’ve done something wrong, but He says we have.”

This is getting funny.

“He ‘says,’ really? Did he speak to you?”

“Of coure not. Please don’t mock me. My relationship with God means a lot to me.”

Jesus fuckin’ Christ. “I just don’t get the question. Are you saying this feels wrong to you? Am I evil to you? Do you think I’m here to corrupt your soul?”

“Well, you are being really harsh about it.” The rims of her eyelids are glistening. “You know I’m a Christian.”

I do? I must’ve missed that during the preamble last night.

“It means a lot to me, okay? Please, just tell me what you think. Will God forgive us?”

She’s joking. She has to be. “Look, I get it. You’re a religious person. But you’re kidding, right?”

She pulls away from me then, moving her one leg to the floor followed by the other. Hair draped around her face as she peers down for a second to ensure her footing, then uses her arm to push herself upright. I’m lying there on my back, naked, watching as she climbs over me; there is not a thought in my head.

She walks her dainty self to the other end of the room. Pitter, her feet pitter across the floor. Pumf, pumf, pumf. The soft heel-toe that only small and delicate girls can accomplish. Breasts don’t pitter, but just slightly jiggle. Hers aren’t as large as others, so it’s just slightly. Watching her thighs clench, buttocks tighten with every pumf. She pitters across the hardwood floor of my apartment. Past the corner of the bed, near the fridge and bathroom door. She’s going for the bookshelf?

Her fingers touch on the books, from one to the next.

“Where’s your Bible?”

Fuck me, she is not kidding. And how does she know I even have a Bible?

“Why?”

“I want to read you a passage.” Amazing. She’s actually going to go for a sermon.

“Why does it fuckin’ matter?” Really, why does it? “I suppose the rule is no sex before marriage? So, we’re breakin’ religious law. What’re we to do now? Repent? Kneel and beg for his almighty fuckin’ mercy?”

“You don’t have to shout, or curse.”

I’m shouting?

“Yes, you are, and it’s very disrespectful.”

For a couple of moments I relapse, and it’s Sunday school all over again. I see the steeple of the church as I did every Sunday morning for years. The sheen of those colored stained glass windows in the early morning sun staring out over the crowd of people below, waiting for the doors to open for Sunday service. My parents and older brother go to the area with the picnic tables and talk to the adults while my little sister and I are sent to the large building next to the church where they teach about God and the Bible. The lower half of the walls painted brown and the upper half painted beige along with the majority of the building. We shuffle in and memorize poems that teach us lessons while Mrs. Mallory scolds us if we talk during reading time or form the wrong cross with our thumbs and index fingers. But I’m only there for a few of moments before I turn my attention to the sweet little Bible thumper working her way through my miniature library.

“Look, this is ridiculous. Come back to bed. It’s early, it’s sunny,” at least it was, “and you and I can talk this out without resorting to spouting scripture. Will you come back?”

Not a word. Where’s the effusive gal who smiled playfully when I asked her if she knew what the fish in the tank behind the bartender were thinking.

“What are they thinking?” she’d asked.

“They’re thinking, ‘What’re the tall fellow and gorgeous gal sitting at that bar thinking?’”

She’d laughed, even grinned. She didn’t have to, but she did. Where’s the girl who told me about her escapades as a rambunctious college student and accepted the drinks I bought? She wasn’t a prude about discussing the sexual repression of women in the Middle East. Where’d she go? I want her back.

She finds it on her own. The Bible, which I’ve been promising myself to read (eventually), is brand new if slightly dusty. It’s one of those study bibles with footnotes which may as well be titled “The Bible for Dummies.”

“Have you ever even read this?” She’s leafing through the pages now, that same serious expression still twisting the beauty of the smile that shined down on me no more than an hour ago. She settles on a page and looks up, holding the book with one hand and using the index finger from her other hand to keep her place.

“You have heard that the law of Moses says, Do not commit adultery. But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust in his eye has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your eye – even if it is your good eye – causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

She pauses to glance at me. I have no words. I’m not even here.

“And if your hand – even if it is your stronger hand – causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

She pauses again, holding the opened book against her flattened stomach and ribs. The cover of the book rests just an inch or two below her breasts.

“So I ask you, again: Will God forgive us for what we’re doing?”

She’s fucking naked! She’s giving me a sermon and standing there at the foot of the bed with the Bible in her hand pressed against her stomach, and she’s fuckin’ naked. God, this moment is beautiful. I could cum (again) thinking of this moment. If my mind were a VHS tape… well, you know about the worn out points in VHS tapes.

She shakes her head gently, places the Bible back on the bookshelf, and turns around. Son of a bitch, she’s picking up her clothes.

“Wait, wait! Yes, all right? God’s going to forgive us. We are sharing our love with one another – physically and spiritually. That can’t be wrong.”

She slips on her panties, the lacy black pair that landed on the counter in the middle of the night. I’m losing her.

“We can pray! I mean, that’s how it works, isn’t it? We pray for forgiveness.”

Slinking back into the black dress. She pulls it up to her waist, stomach and chest still bared. One arm beneath a strap.

“I didn’t ask you to pray. I asked you if you thought God would forgive–”

“And I said I think he would.” Sitting on the edge of the bed now, the sheet over my lap. “He will forgive us, because as I said we’ve done nothing wrong. We are two people, and for a night we shared ourselves. Please,” patting the bed, “come back.”

That one strap over her shoulder, looking me in the eyes like someone looks at a faraway sign or really tiny words. I don’t know what to say.

She sighs and quickly pulls up the other strap. “The blood of the wicked can be as sweet as virgin honey.”

What? What kind of response is that?

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“You’re a weak man, sweetie. You should work on that.” She smiles. She fucking smiles, then looks away and puts on her flats. The dainty feet don’t pitter as she walks to the door and shuts it, loudly, behind her.

I’m sitting on my bed, wondering what the hell just happened, and all I can think is “fuckin’ God.”