I stopped, startled, and even let out a little gasp of surprise.
"What the fuck?" I asked. Intelligent question, I know.
"I was wondering the same," she replied, without opening her eyes.
A moment passed, during which I stared at her while she didn't move at all, so reached for and grabbed a towel, and then brutishly thrust it in her general direction. The initial absurdity of the situation diminished in return for a more general sense of awkwardness. I couldn't remember who she was or how she arrived there, even if my life depended on it. But there I was, rudely gawking at her, and there she was, taking a bath and smoking a cigarette. She still hadn't opened her eyes.
Read.
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With time, everything changes.
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Ripple.
I reached over and ran my fingers through her hair while she traced out some sort of messages on my chest: letters to the future or equations or doodles or love notes; I don't know. I never asked. We were quiet, dozing for a little while, relaxed and contented.
Love, be a light
unto my path.
For the night is dark,
and unending.
There are skies there, like waves in the ocean, and we can soar through them. We are the ships; love blows us along.
Sad.
The confines of this crib strengthen, all around. All around.
When dreams go to the floor, land, and crack apart,
thunder is created.
Chipped dreams, collecting in the shadows of footprints,
the shadows of bodies, where they once slept in bliss.
"Promise me that you won't forget," she said.
"I never will," I promised.
Screen.
Me - So, what did you wish for?
Her - I can't tell you. You know that if you tell what it is, your wish won't come true.
(She brushes a stray strand of hair from her face)
Sector C.
EXCERPT AS FOLLOWS
Legal:
In light of recent federal investigation of Synchro Systems and its associates, all contact information for the company has been removed from this website.
We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause.
Synchro Systems is leading humanity boldly into the future with upcoming developments in the fields of medicine and technology!
"We could just walk up to the front desk, tell them your story, and ask them to help you out," he said.
"Do you think that will work?" Janine asked him.
"Do you think that it's any less likely to work than sneaking in, snooping around, and hoping to steal some information that might be relevant to your case? Synchro Systems is a big company shuffling a lot of information around in light of the recent federal inquiries. I'd say that you'd be more likely to get help if you just asked for it than if you tried to be deceptive about it."
Shard.
I like your breasts, when you lie on your back, arched, and you stretch your arms above your head. It's nice how you bite your lower lip when I'm close, your tongue when I'm closer, your upper lip when I'm there. And you open your eyes. Don't fall over, or I will put on my shoes.
<
br /> I can't remember
a
sliver
Shift.
I find tomorrow, and
I twist the knife again.
"Oh yes," I say. "This time I will win."
Without drowsy passions, what do we have?
A bitter taste, perhaps the times we waste...
What do we have, now, my love?
bad news.
Sliver.
she asked me to stay. all beneficial things come with a price, don't they? you take all the positive things and all the negative things, and sometimes you actually do a little better than break even. sometimes, they Fit right next to you. sometimes you leave because it's not uncomfortable at all, rather, it's disturbing that you want to stay, because you've forgotten what that feels like and don't want to deal with the ramifications of what that means. you leave because it's too soon, but you're older now, and you're scared, even though you know better. don't be afraid, you tell yourself, and you wish you had a cigarette for a second - any distraction; you pull them closer, you kiss them softly, and you shiver a bit. you realize that you're synchronizing. doesn't make sense? does it have to? it never does.
it's always explosive.
it always feels good.
everybody always runs.
Soil.
A rock,
sharp edges, rough-cut
tearing at cutting at your feet,
there is great gnashing of teeth.
Now, thrown into the lake, skim
surface, sinking, swimming down:
as rocks tend to do.
Through time, tender touch,
pushed under current,
streams, streambeds.
Rock, resting, polished on the shore,
shaped egg of the earth;
an epoch of careful design.
Into the soil beneath our feet. Will you follow?
In the face of unending sunlight, we wilt.
Struggle.
Living, Loving, and Lies.
Though you'll wonder the inevitable "what if", the most likely ending is that one day the stupid things will happen.
The lyrics will come, the letters will arrive, the memories will surface and start whispering suggestive things in your ears: things you thought, for so long, that you wanted to hear.
With enough concentration and sweat, through some misguided force of will, you'll create the reality that you thought you were chasing after, the one that you thought would never materialize.
You'll take a step back, after a moment, a couple of conversations, and one or two stiff inhalations of the cold January air (making your nose run).
You'll say to yourself something along the lines of "That's it?", and feeling rather ripped off, you'll end up sighing and you'll say something like "I'm glad that's over."
Then you just won't know what to do.
You'll be some big, boring, lifeless blank space, wandering like a lost child, muttering the details like an old man, trying to discover what you thought was so important about loving, living, and lies in the first place.
Suspense.
Her - Why do you wanna know so badly, anyway?
Me - I dunno, I just do. So are you gonna tell me?
Her - (Leaning forward, kissing me on the corner of my mouth) You don't know when to stop, do you?
Taped to a Mirror.
One day, you'll wake up, and I'll be gone.
It might take a while for you to notice.
A week.
A month.
A year, even.
But you'll notice, eventually, and by then, all that will be left might be the expression on your face as you wonder what happened. As you discover that you're screaming at the walls.
And you'll come looking for me in all of the same old places, and you won't find anything.
No clues, no nothing.
Because I will have sold it all. Given it all away. Thrown it in the trash. Taken a little bit of it with me.
Then it won't matter so much, anymore, these debates as to sincerity, and truth. Collections. Trophies. Inner-wisdom; wrongdoings gone unpunished. What you feel that you've got to prove.
What you feel that I've got left to prove to you.
There just won't be anything left of me by then. No, nothing much at all.
They say that if you break a mirror, you'll have seven years of bad luck.
Temps.
I can speak to you normally now.
I can remember what it was like in the time before you came.
I don't remember the first time that we kissed.
What was it like?
Water
Air
Earth
Fire
All are temporary.
There.
First, there was the power surge, then The Apparitions.
A few blown light bulbs, one notable, over the kitchen sink.
The circuit breaker tripping, a loud snapping over to the off position and there was the whining down of the heater and the refrigerator fans and the sound of the computer monitor blinking out.
Darkness, a moment of blindness while the eyes adjusted,
and then
The Apparitions.
August 08, 19xx
I am afraid.
The basement downstairs - that's where they crawled up from, creaking their way up the 14 steps to the top, towards the bent linoleum of the floor, those same stairs you used to fall down when you were a toddler, and adventurous. Or rather, the ones that you hesitantly made your way down into, down towards the basement-crickets, brown and spiked, towards the unfinished walls of sheet rock and smelling like fresh cement and condensation. Remember? The rail was loose at the bottom, and it would come free from the mount because you held it for too long, and too often, before making the final steps onto the hard carpet of the floor.
Thirst.
I say unto her:
I should broadcast myself into a million bubbles of carbonation
and then
maybe
you will drink me up
and happiness will arrive
she says unto me:
perhaps
drinking you
carbonation and all
would solve no dilemma, would alleviate only the symptoms
...the sky could fall on us.
I would follow her unto the ends of the earth, if she were to ask it of me.
Three Women.
She's three different women to me, I find myself thinking:
The woman before me
The woman I am in love with
The woman who knows it's falling to pieces
To Have and To Hold.
9.2736184954957037525164160739902
We'll always have a pistol to each other's heads, won't we?
I'm writing her name in the condensation on the table as the thought arrives. My mind wanders to some place about 3000 miles from the Avenue because my company is disinterested. She asks another question, I begin another answer, neither of us really pays that much attention while the traffic lights change and it rains a few miles south of here. This is twenty-six, this is twenty-seven. This is every second, minute, hour, and day we've wasted aiming for the not-happy-just-appeased.
Pull the plug.
But I never do. I never do.
I don't think that I can.
Trust.
Five bonus points, then.
It should be less, but I'm feeling generous.
That was too easy.
It wasn't easy!
Are you kidding? We all caught the reference.
Not everyone reads Milne, you know.
Everyone should.
Visceral.
There is a certain coarseness to my thoughts as I evaluate my situation; they are like the stubble on my cheeks after skipping a day of shaving, and I can't find a razor.
What If.
(Nonsense words).
What was I thinking. Running. Avo
iding.
There are two examples shaking my hand and illustrating that I am mistaken, and still I tried to rely on the once-interpreted-as-intuition-but-now-doubted-thing.
Stupid me.
Stupid silly tragic and used to be romantic some may say me.
No hyphens but no hyperventilation either.
Comma comma and (more nonsense words).
I'm tired of working. At and for everything. It used to be easy.
No not apathy not being broken not anything, not nothing either.
She isn't coming home, but she likes to tease me.
She isn't coming at all, but she likes me to try.
Or so it seems. Not hearing anything.
Playing old music for old songs and old memories as therapy, except you're working.
And nothing's working.
There's a new blank, a new empty, a new void, a new hurt, and new loss, but girl:
You forgot about me. You forgot about me.
No more music, so no more singing.
Keep the (nonsense words). Sell the memories if they give it back to me.
!!! And?
This is the mud. This is the mud I'm crawling through.
Didn't say good-bye, just that you want a love and that you're not so hollow.
And maybe just maybe it isn't a big deal that you slipped away.
Or unknown.
Or had a heart failure.
Or couldn't break out of the salvaged mentality.
Or just wanted to love me, but you got tired of waiting.
Any number of things that it could be.
Reverts to something inside, it does, and to best solve the problem is to best create a new one: