Threadbare
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Thread thus far...
In an attempt to gather some dignity, he went back to the party. There, he laughed at all the wrong moments.No one took much notice.His friends hovered at the horizon of his haze, occasionally breaking in to ply him with a drink or take a cigarette. He danced for a while, and then slammed down some tequila with the host. He left by midnight. He walked fast, only vaguely keeping an eye out for the supposed shadowed monsters of the City night. Though his pace was determined, his thoughts were aimless. He was avoiding it. He rounded the corner to his house, and retreated from the amber glow to a sleepless bed.
When, eventually, unwillingly, sleep grabbed him, his dreams did not wander like his gait. Instead, he fell through sky and water and earth, towards a not un-pretty girl. He fell until he almost touched her, but she moved slightly away, reaching out, smiling. He felt like he might fall forever. He felt afraid. On waking he took a bath and noticed a ring of red glitter around his tub, matching the bloodied edge of his left nostril. And she was gone.
On the telly something about crack addicts and the usual as he bent over his laptop and started writing out his letter of resignation.Bloody bob pops up with that annoying 'bloop' from msn saying hi, as one of those Cape winds runs uninvited into the room and chases all the glitter out the bathroom and into his living room.
Which made him think. Icicles.
Edward needed air, a walk would do the trick, to clear his mind of the previous evening. Pausing on his way down the path he retrieved a crumpled and damp letter from the post box… when he wondered, was the last time he received mail… as in hand written mail, delivered by the post man and not Google? Months, perhaps. He fingered the envelope… foreign postage stamps. Not sure where from but definitely foreign. So much for the walk, he dumped his coat at the front door and sat on the edge of his bed, feeling its weight and size with eyes closed. A couple of pages at least. He removed the sheets from the envelope, and started creasing them along the original folds. One he folded into a heart, the next a dragon with wings that flap, an aeroplane, which he tossed across the room. Reworking the pages with his hands, twisting the paper, some turned to gunk which stuck under his nails. Some fell to the floor. Heaps of confetti which looked like snow, discarded and disintegrated. Edward concentrated on the pieces, looking through one eye, turning them into patterns and pictures. Days later the broken up bits of yellowing paper, still lay strewn across the floor, markers of minutes, hours, days, years.
He woke with an almost inhuman yelp. He felt as a convict would after going to sleep in his cell and awaking in a Woolworths next to the well presented quick dinners: disorientated, but ultimately pleased.He had dreamt of Edward, he knew that much. Some hint of a party and paper planes still clung to him in the fog, like the fog, hazy and incomplete. Coffee, cigarette, e-mail, an apology from an ex-lover, coffee. The pristine melancholy of the dream picked at him, pouring Edward all over his morning.
In an attempt to gather some dignity, he went back to the party. There, he laughed at all the wrong moments.No one took much notice.His friends hovered at the horizon of his haze, occasionally breaking in to ply him with a drink or take a cigarette. He danced for a while, and then slammed down some tequila with the host. He left by midnight. He walked fast, only vaguely keeping an eye out for the supposed shadowed monsters of the City night. Though his pace was determined, his thoughts were aimless. He was avoiding it. He rounded the corner to his house, and retreated from the amber glow to a sleepless bed.
When, eventually, unwillingly, sleep grabbed him, his dreams did not wander like his gait. Instead, he fell through sky and water and earth, towards a not un-pretty girl. He fell until he almost touched her, but she moved slightly away, reaching out, smiling. He felt like he might fall forever. He felt afraid. On waking he took a bath and noticed a ring of red glitter around his tub, matching the bloodied edge of his left nostril. And she was gone.
On the telly something about crack addicts and the usual as he bent over his laptop and started writing out his letter of resignation.Bloody bob pops up with that annoying 'bloop' from msn saying hi, as one of those Cape winds runs uninvited into the room and chases all the glitter out the bathroom and into his living room.
Which made him think. Icicles.
Edward needed air, a walk would do the trick, to clear his mind of the previous evening. Pausing on his way down the path he retrieved a crumpled and damp letter from the post box… when he wondered, was the last time he received mail… as in hand written mail, delivered by the post man and not Google? Months, perhaps. He fingered the envelope… foreign postage stamps. Not sure where from but definitely foreign. So much for the walk, he dumped his coat at the front door and sat on the edge of his bed, feeling its weight and size with eyes closed. A couple of pages at least. He removed the sheets from the envelope, and started creasing them along the original folds. One he folded into a heart, the next a dragon with wings that flap, an aeroplane, which he tossed across the room. Reworking the pages with his hands, twisting the paper, some turned to gunk which stuck under his nails. Some fell to the floor. Heaps of confetti which looked like snow, discarded and disintegrated. Edward concentrated on the pieces, looking through one eye, turning them into patterns and pictures. Days later the broken up bits of yellowing paper, still lay strewn across the floor, markers of minutes, hours, days, years.
He woke with an almost inhuman yelp. He felt as a convict would after going to sleep in his cell and awaking in a Woolworths next to the well presented quick dinners: disorientated, but ultimately pleased.He had dreamt of Edward, he knew that much. Some hint of a party and paper planes still clung to him in the fog, like the fog, hazy and incomplete. Coffee, cigarette, e-mail, an apology from an ex-lover, coffee. The pristine melancholy of the dream picked at him, pouring Edward all over his morning.
posted by Born In The 90's at 4:59 AM
1 Comments:
As he glared against the white kitchen wall, the coherence of the dream silted as a lie - a deception he'd carefully avoided - consuming his inner melancholy.
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