Tag: one-offs

A small meteor storm is headed your way

There is a young man slouching his way over the sidewalks. His back is notably hunched and his eyes, could we see them, for they are covered by black bangs overdue for a haircut, are outlined with the eyeliner of life (the life in particular is a very self-destructive one): the eyebags. From this we could infer that he is having a bad day, received some bad news, perhaps his favourite TV-show took an unexpected narrative turn he’d rather it hadn’t, we could spend time and word count thinking of anything that would’ve given this a-postured adonis a negative emotional reaction, but the truth be told as it is written: he isn’t sad, bitter, somber, or lugubrious at all. Not quite the opposite, but he is feeling relaxed. He simply decided that nothing matters anymore and this apparently includes his physical demeanour. He is humming along to the buzzing in his unironed shirt’s chest pocket. His boss probably, or a coworker who has been instructed to by the selfsame boss, for employers are deceptive, mistrusting creatures, who would use unwilling thralls to investigate if you’re not feigning illness or do not actually meet the agreed-upon, acceptable conditions for missing work. Neither party (the second one is you, the reader!) will know, because the man simply keeps walking and keeps humming.

“Now nothing matters anymore, I can do whatever I want. Which is nothing. I want to fill time with my body as if it were a space, and nothing else. There is my existence I owe obligations to. There is nothing to be ashamed of doing or not doing, but I would like to exist minimally. That seems reasonable,” chuckles the young man underneath his dark bangs, obscuring his sight, the path to self-awareness of his own refreshingly simple naivety, and also the path he is currently lolling on, which we can assign as the direct cause of the physicality about to occur.

“UWAGH!!!!”

“You have bumped into me, you villain!! That is a direct challenge, you cannot refuse me or the pain I am about to deliver!!! Onto you!!!!” A loud voice and an aggressive stance fill the streets, glass is crackling as if frozen, cracks and fissures are forming in the stone, energy waves are forming underneath her feet. That isn’t what is happening at all, but given the mystery woman’s proclivity to flair and dramatique, it may as well be! Her sports jacket does suggest a certain assertivity, but she is also wearing a knee-length skirt, which disrupts, dispurposes the image we had so precociously built for her.

“Is that so? I do apologise — it is quite serious, I concede. If you believe your reasons just, I have no qualms to make,” smiles the young man back. He has no real attachments to his body, so gracefully he accepts his punishment, his relationship with pain is an odd one, there are times he has expressed desire for violent death, but only ironically, not true at all, all the while using the rhetorical device to uphold the surreptitiousness of his masochism. He is quite the unintentional elocutionist.

Her hand goes up, and her chop is about to CLONK! him in the head, technique and style are emanating from each microsecond of movement! But then a television broadcast interrupts this balanced exchange, they are standing in front of an electronics shop after all, and if you must know, the ‘UWAGH!!!!’ came not from either of them, but from a set displayed in the window, it coincidentally showed an episode of the series the man might have been upset about, which is very slapstick.

“This is a news broadcast. We are so sorry to take up some of your time. There is a small meteor storm headed your way. Sorry.”

“Well, that’s quite troubling, I would say that, had I not decided that nothing matters anymore.”

“Do you think so? There is so much we don’t know that is so lovely.”

“I’d rather it not be so covert, then.”

The girl moves her fist beneath her sturdy chin and begins to shake her head rapidly up and down, like an earthquake showing its understanding of concepts such as materialism and personal property and how detrimental they are to the human condition. But not vibrating at a sufficient Richter scale to make the nuance show up on the panicking geologist’s seismograph to suggest it also comprehends we still need conceptually bad things, simply because they offer the most direct solutions to our complicated struggles. And how can we blame her, for not knowing the exact condition of this young man’s psyche and ideology? They had only just met and their first interaction could very well have ended in manslaughter, we don’t know the girl’s strength, maybe neither does she, but she empathises with him, an empathy born of pity. She rather enjoys the world and its constant excitement, the yelling of everything happening on earth, the thrums of the universe and the echoes of life reverberate throughout her chubby frame, every moment she spends is great, every kiss she shares with her girlfriend is bliss, if only this young man could see that, too.

She looks up, literally and expression-wise, and implies for him to do so, too.

“Isn’t that just the loveliest thing you’ve ever seen?”

“Oh! I guess you’re right.”

VIGNETTES OF A THURSDAY EVENING

Thursday evening. Streetlights outside are flickering in a way that isn’t particularly interesting anymore. It was remarkable at first, how they turned the night on and off in that particular road you overlook from your window, you stood underneath one and had a friend take some pictures, one of them turned out really good and you’re using it as your profile picture, but now you’re just lamenting the poor state of governmental involvement in infrastructure or basic electrical maintenance. You mentioned something symbolical to her like, ‘of course gov’t wants to keep the darkness in our lives, keep us scared’ and she responded with ‘lol’ (why did she say that out loud). Not that the view is particularly instilling of fright and dismay, but you like to purport noncommittal lies like that, to comedic effect or just in general. Watching that lantern from your room is what you’ve resolved to doing tonight, under the guise of “there’s nothing better to do (yes there is but i just want to be uninvolved with my own life)”. But! You’re not feeling sardonically corny enough yet to draw parallels between those streetlights and your life.

Darkness will come, but not right now.

Thursday evening. You forgot how the view was from the roof terrace. And you kind of hate it? Financial stability is already a tough scale to keep in equilibrium – on one pan your income and on the other EVERYTHING YOU HAVE EVER BOUGHT AND WILL BUY WOW THAT’S A LOT OF STUFF – and this cool ass house location is not helping. Is there some black market vendor who sells readymade custom roofs, ‘Cool Roofsman’, maybe some of the people here is this mystery merchant of your destiny, but you don’t recognise any of them. That’s what you get for disappearing right after high school, you guess, but at least you managed to stay in touch with at least one other person, hence the fact you’re here. They’re younger than you. Look at those children, they’re probably afraid of all sorts of things just like you are. When they’re older, they’ll be strangers and alone, and completely in their own company. For some reason, you want to be there for them, help them through days, give them years to live, whisper them a song, make their summers alright, but it’s hard to do all that before the end of this mutual friend’s party. Also, you really need another drink because goddamn you’re not feeling comfortable here. Standing around with a drink in one hand is alright, but being left alone with your own thoughts at a party is, well, being left alone with your own thoughts. Cause for a distraction. Maybe one day you’ll be holding someone’s drink in your other hand, because they had to go to the bathroom real quick, and you’ll feel less like furniture, less like a flickering streetlight.

That’s how it will go, but not right now.

Thursday evening. You’re climbing to the top of a hill, the city is so far away now, you can see that the streetlights haven’t gone out yet, so you’re not running late, not that you’re running, you lazybones, but it’s getting late. You’re wearing a scarf and your glasses and a blue jacket you forgot you owned, and it actually looks really good on you? That’s surprising, but in a refreshing way, a way that makes you feel good, confident. You’re getting closer! The sound of a guitar, finally the years of learning the guitar paid off, it’s an Em7 chord, then a G, oh my god is this Wonderwall, is someone already playing Wonderwall, is this literally happening, ahahaha oh god, and you’re inside. Everyone’s waving at you, so does the guitarist, thank fuck he stopped, you hate his plaid pants, and then they’re all shouting your name. Glasses are raised, you get one of your own, and the joke that’s made is the best joke you’ve ever heard. There’s conversation, dancing to strange music, and conversations about strange music, maybe some other weird combination, too. Luke hands you his beer, “we’re celebrating all of it!,” and disappears into the bathroom. You smile, you’re on the roof, a roof of stars and moons above you, and then I came in, and we’re looking at each other, the streetlights are as far away as they could be, and we talk, it’s just magical, a conversation that is just back-and-forth incantations. We are wizards trying to one-up each other but that will never happen, and the magic will never stop. Still.

The quiet will come, But not right now.