The Drift
He looked and
recognized the symptoms―in love. What a bummer. Horrible disease, much like what the old mariners of Rome encountered as myalgia and rigor, thought to derive from astrological influences, but intrepidly tied to cold weather and mammalia interaction.
I think of all those blue note evenings when his tenor phone whined around my capillaries and the Hennessy turned me anxious: I told myself (read: anxious Bros) I was past due for getting laid, but really craved intimacy. It’s so underrated and overshadowed by guys. A source of mocking and hypocrisy as they all seek it out themselves—
Non curable―but treatable and, like the other, passable in time with a healthy immune system. the sort that dims the world, quiets the clamor off the street and unbeknownst leads you to converse softer for some reason.
It certainly met all the familiar criteria.
When people entered your world in this state, like a server perhaps, it was sort of a friendly intrusion because only a gunshot wound could wake you. And even beautiful people seemed less appealing because you didn’t know them; and what was it to be attracted to others but a distraction from the swirling buzz of love drunkenness.
So with her buck tooth that looked to be hit with a hacksaw, and wild eyes no less, her crooked grin and non sequitur topical choice—despite her trim ink skirt and awesome tights—she looked like the hot adult version of the kindergarten brat who annoyed the fuck out of you, talking about Rainbow Bright during English or your Zack Morris thermos at lunch. Who woulda thought she’d grow to be so damn hot later oN?
But this shit could honestly depress the hell out of me: seeing a dude like Jeff— the kinda guy that spent every evening closing shop on Sony/Nintendo library—succeed in love’s grand vetting. That would make any self-respecting guy a bit squeamish.
Well, maybe if you invested more subtlety in telling her to shut up during Mr. Lucia’s lecture and stop following you during break, you would be reaping more dividends as we speak. Oh well, sometimes the chips rise in badass glory and sometimes they implode in a smoldering ball of self-hate. Ya know, it goes either way.
If Jake were here he’d proly say somethin about us being ‘genetically selective’ and “therefore” more ineffectual by all the options presented before us, thus unable to make a rational, adult choice at the moment. But he wasn’t, he was, well, I don’t know if “genetically selective” is the right phrase. We obviously disagreed about the nomenclature and who knows maybe Jeff was of a craftier Order that time would eventually favor. I mean, I was just as likely to hit Control-Z with a good nine millimeter to the head and how is that for natural preference?
I think you would make a good couple, she said.
Tasting her was like going back It was the kind that made you drift off while staring at a stupid drugstore receipt, an office document devoid of meaning.
When did I last feel like this ?
Might as well a been empty―rasa, Slater.
Eventually your friends have to talk you out of it, like a damn hostage negotiation of the soul till you come to your head, remember you have a life: you can’t just live off the fruits of another’s body and mind.
Or that your coworkers overheard as a sigh in your little person-box. You live your whole life in one: might as well sleep out eternity the same.
The corners of your eyes slip down but not from heaviness or lack of sleep; nah, a strange lightness you feet in the head, an almost wispy leak from the tear ducts with no forecast of fog or humidity. The earth slows
You know Prudence? She asked, as if we were just introduced.
the lights seem far.
There’s an object adored in film hailed the scrim, which reduces the ludicrous wattage from the lights, and sometimes gives texture to the set.
But we were talking alone. This was before. I mean, this was a while back, ya know, there was no future. I was blacker than a chalkboard, the remnant dust was residual emotion left for a new man.
There’s a scrim for us, the way we look at the other, the night, our breakfast, the morning sun outside, our shoes; there’s a scrim that wanders hopscotch and sometimes forgets to call. Although, we don’t. Despite—we might forget its face.
Out of that calamity came a strangely poised individual whom I’ve never known nor quite measured on the scopes, so to speak.
James, he said. I guess you might not understand this now, but one day when
you make it to middle management your peers will finally have that revelation that, yes, indeed you are that jackass they were concerned about. You just can’t make reasonable decisions and being only eleven is still no excuse.
You walk through life like a frolicking fawn, ignore your parents, don’t feed your dog, neglect homework, chased by girls but don’t seem aware or interested―all around just show up a day late and a buck short…wish there was something I could do. Just have to let life teach ya, I suppose.
I hated that man. Perhaps still do. What is it to grow to become someone else for reasons uncertain to one’s common sense with no clear benefit at the end?
A fuckin piece of wire scrap that made us love life, without direction.
You probably think this is a bad thing or somethin.
Well, I’ll tell you: it’s a thing to enjoy one’s own life and forget the reasons why you originally did them, the people you did them for.
