Dating

They had met out of necessity, having been pressed rudely together in the surge and crush of commuters moving on and off the train; the currents opposed and the two of them caught in the midst. She seemed vaguely subcultural, her hair dyed a deep black and her eye shadow a bit heavier in its application than could be considered stylish. He seemed intentionally unshaven, his sweater ill-fitting; the kind of guy that had a tattoo, but only one, and certainly of nothing outrageous. He had made some joking remark, now forgotten, upon being first forced against her and she had smiled sympathetically. His timing was poor and the joke clichéd, but he was attractive enough to warrant a smile. Names had been exchanged along with, perhaps, a remark about the weather before they had lapsed into a silence that seemed final. He thought briefly of all the other attractive young women he had met in circumstances similar to this only to have them disappear moments later into a world too large for coincidence to ever bring them together again. It was a surprise, then, when they found themselves stepping through the doors together, expelled quite forcefully from the metal opening of the train and the mass of commuters inside. The conversation began anew. More smiles. More jokes. He, stumbling over his words, asked her out to dinner. She haltingly agreed. Phone numbers were exchanged.  

A handful of weeks had passed and they found themselves now lounging naked on top of the covers, all in disarray, on her bed. The room lit only by the soft, incandescent glow of old Christmas lights strung haphazardly across the ceiling. He traced soft circles and figure-eights over her hand and arm with his finger as he stared absentmindedly at a French poster she had tacked to her wall; for absinthe or something else. A robed woman, drawn in the Art-Nouveau style, poured a large decanter of green liquid into the sky, the contours and curves of the liquid matching very nearly the contours and curves of her flowing golden hair. He was suddenly struck with the uncanny feeling of existing within a memory; not deja vu, per se, but an honest-to-goodness recurrence. The feeling came from the past. It was a nostalgic feeling. After a moment of reflection he remembered that his first girlfriend in high school had stuck the same poster up on the wall of the small room she had lived in above her parents' garage. She had strung some old Christmas lights in a similar criss-across her ceiling. And he had laid in this very position, naked and slightly stoned as she awkwardly fellated him for the first time. He had not spoken to that girl in nearly six years and he could not help but wonder where she was and what she had become. He thought that he had loved her and he wondered if he was falling in love again.

It would, of course, end eventually a few weeks later. They would become entirely too familiar with the shapes hidden beneath each others' clothing; her bare breasts no longer provoking for him sudden erections. His sexual inadequacies becoming over time less and less hidden behind or overshadowed by the newness and excitement of the act for her. He would quickly run out of amusing anecdotes to relay to her and would resort to simply pretending that he had forgotten he had told them before and would tell them again hoping for the same adulation she had heaped on him the first time around. But he would be met only with exasperation and curt reminders that he had told her these things already. And she would soon grow anxious in silences that increased exponentially in length as they sat across from one another in the same restaurants they had been going to for months now, feeling as though their inability to converse reflected something fundamentally uninteresting about the two of them, or more specifically, her. And so it would come as a bittersweet relief to them both when she, drunk and fed-up, would go home one night from a party with a guy with an eyebrow piercing. She would meet him the next day at his apartment and say, almost hopefully, “I slept with someone else last night.” He would remember later feeling mostly relieved; but, understanding the importance of maintaining appearances, would launch into a rant so furious that she would almost believe that he was actually upset. They would then hug for the last time as she stepped across the threshold of his door and, turning, would say, “I hope we keep in touch.” 

They would not. And the only evidence that would be left of their ever having touched at all would be the few pubic hairs they would inadvertently leave between each others' sheets.

We Don't Deserve It

The feeling, when it comes, is nearly impossible to be imagined by or described to those who have not felt it before. It assaults her body and her mind simultaneously. She is left crippled and nauseated, without hope or happiness. There is frustration, too;  an overwhelming feeling that escape from the burdens of those failings, those setbacks, those countless obstacles which have been amplified a thousand-fold would be easily reached if only she could find her way out. But there is no out, and she lies immobile on her bed instead, unwashed and unfed. Isolated and choking on tears that never come. Waiting for a future that could not possibly be any worse; for tomorrows that, as far as she's concerned, have all ended today.

I Travel Through Time

Down the quiet hallway and up the silent steps he crept so as not to disturb the sleeping occupants of the house. Like a thief or assassin through darkness and dust to his bed tucked in a tight corner. And alone he wrapped himself in blankets of many colors. And alone he let his thoughts drift from a head pillow-bound to other places and times. The flickering of a streetlight in time to the pulse he can hear throbbing within his own head. 

And so he closes his eyes and hopes. 

A Good Life

Scraped Knuckles

He sat quietly, robed in white, amongst his classmates dressed the same. One by one they were called to the center of the room and offered up a one-inch thick piece of wood to break either with their fists or with a well-placed kick. He was the youngest student by at least a year and he was nervous. His instructor had started this portion of the test by announcing to the audience of parents and relatives that he had been unable to procure three-quarter inch boards and the test would therefore demand much more from each of the students. By merit of his last name, he was one of the final students to be called to the center. He bowed, he got into proper stance, and he struck. His fist met the board and bounced back stinging and swollen. His instructor raised the board up and said, "Try again." He brought down his fist again and was again unable to break the board.

"Try a kick this time." 

He took a new stance and, lifting his leg up, his knee almost to his chest, kicked his foot straight out into the center of the board. The force of the kick went into the board and was dealt back to him sending him toppling over onto the linoleum. His instructor extended a hand and said, "That's alright, next time." And he returned to his plastic chair, humiliated.

Months later, as he sat in the passenger seat of his mother's truck he saw the building where the test had taken place being lifted off of the ground and set on the backs of immense trailers. He was at first awestruck and then immediately dejected. The building uprooted; there would be no next time.

Sidewalks

And with apprehension he thrust himself out the door and into the city night. It was approaching two in the morning and the streets were crowded with the drunk, the drugged, and the delirious headed from one door closing towards another soon to open. Those women still sober enough to manage perched high atop shoes too impractical for the sidewalks strewn with trash, glass, beer, urine, and vomit. Others splashed through the filth, their feet bare, shoes already forgotten in the basement of some frat or clutched dangling from one hand. The men listed from one side of the walk to the other; all confrontational and at one moment sincere and defensive, at the next leering, aggresive, and sarcastic; all drunk. He walked quickly, his eyes fixed on the space immediately before his feet. He judged them all as they passed, eyes sort of perpetually, mentally rolling as each group walked by.

It was convenient for his walk towards the campus to take him through these throngs of the stupid, indulgent, and drunk. It distracted him from what, upon even momentary reflection, he would consider a lapse into indulgence and weakness that was disturbing and inexcusable. He walked among these sinners en route to a girl who he hardly knew and liked less. A girl he would fuck noiselessly over the headboard of her dorm bed as her room-mate lay passed out mere feet away in an inebriated coma. Whom, after he had finished would stand up and say, "Alright, get the fuck out." And he would head back out into the night, the streets now emptied, and make his way home.

The young man kneels naked on the tile, head bowed  low. She stands over him at his back, scissors held in one hand, a toroiseshell patterned comb in the other. She laughs nervously into his ear as she makes deliberate, slow cuts. A cut quicker than the rest is followed by, "uh... oooh. Oh."

He glances up into the mirror, trying not to seem alarmed. Reflected back he sees only the top of his head and her behind, calm, confident. From her fingers drops a sheaf of fresh-cut hair.

He is transformed, for better or for worse.