A woman sitting next to me on the bus today sent the following text: "Sitting on the bus. An old woman with a cane just angrily stared me down to take my seat. It's not my fault, I was daydreaming of you! Damn you!"
A great text, to be sure, only it wasn't true. Ignoring the fact that the message itself revealed a lie (why is she "sitting on the bus" if she just gave up her seat?) There was also no woman, no cane, and no embarrassment. On the other hand, there very well may have been some daydreaming involved.
In any case, the woman sent it and smiled. If she wasn't daydreaming before, she almost certainly was now. She got off at the next stop (did she really just take the bus for a measly five-block walk? Did she get on the bus in the first place just so her text would be half-true?) and walked away.
And that was that.
7.16.2009
5.03.2009
You Were Meant to Be Together. (play)
(A woman stands to stage right, and addresses the audience
Narrator: This is Peter Glass.
[Peter walks on stage, with a minimal amount of props suggesting a Parisian subway stop]
Narrator: He’s twenty-four years old, and this is his seventh day in Paris.
[A woman holding a map approaches Peter, asks him a question in French. He stammers a bit in reply, indicating he doesn’t understand. She walks off, frustrated]
Narrator: Peter doesn’t speak any French. Still, he’d like to think he’s getting the hang of this city. He can buy a subway ticket with relative skill…
[Peter confidently purchases a ticket from a machine]
Narrator: He knows which vendor sells English language newspapers, and he delights in being able to make use of the only French he does know…
[Peter walks over to a vendor, points to a newspaper and hands over some cash. The vendor hands him the paper, and Peter says, as though stating something quite profound: Merci!]
Narrator: Oh, and this is Zoë. She’s reading a French magazine, but don’t let that fool you. She’s American — she just speaks French a bit better than Peter does.
[A pretty young woman is sitting on a bench, reading while she waits for her train]
Narrator: Peter sits near her while he waits for the train.
[He does]
Narrator: He thinks this girl might be the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.
[he definitely does]
Narrator: Peter tries out the only other French word he knows, to mild success.
[Peter says “bonjour!” Zoe giggles a bit, and replies with a much quieter “bonjour”.]
Narrator: Peter asks if she speaks any English, and he is surprised and relieved to find that she does.
[Peter does not. Rather, he continues merely reading his newspaper on the bench].
Narrator (A bit shaken): Uh… Well. The two of them pick up a conversation, and discover that they have the same home town— they even share a few mutual friends.
[This does not happen. The two continue sitting near each other, but do not even make eye contact]
Narrator (with growing confusion): Neither of them consider themselves romantics, but they are surprised to find that they’ve fallen completely in love with each other in just the few moments they’ve spent together. Zoe writes down her number on Peter’s newspaper before she leaves…
[Peter turns a page in the newspaper, and continues reading. Zoe gets up after a moment, and starts collecting her things]
Narrator: Peter promises himself he’ll play it cool, and won’t call for a few days, but he knows deep down that he won’t be able to resist calling her as soon as he gets home. He is happy, ecstatic. Everything in his life has been leading to this moment.
[Zoe finishes packing her things, and leaves the station]
Narrator (looking directly at Peter):… what happened?
Narrator: This is Peter Glass.
[Peter walks on stage, with a minimal amount of props suggesting a Parisian subway stop]
Narrator: He’s twenty-four years old, and this is his seventh day in Paris.
[A woman holding a map approaches Peter, asks him a question in French. He stammers a bit in reply, indicating he doesn’t understand. She walks off, frustrated]
Narrator: Peter doesn’t speak any French. Still, he’d like to think he’s getting the hang of this city. He can buy a subway ticket with relative skill…
[Peter confidently purchases a ticket from a machine]
Narrator: He knows which vendor sells English language newspapers, and he delights in being able to make use of the only French he does know…
[Peter walks over to a vendor, points to a newspaper and hands over some cash. The vendor hands him the paper, and Peter says, as though stating something quite profound: Merci!]
Narrator: Oh, and this is Zoë. She’s reading a French magazine, but don’t let that fool you. She’s American — she just speaks French a bit better than Peter does.
[A pretty young woman is sitting on a bench, reading while she waits for her train]
Narrator: Peter sits near her while he waits for the train.
[He does]
Narrator: He thinks this girl might be the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.
[he definitely does]
Narrator: Peter tries out the only other French word he knows, to mild success.
[Peter says “bonjour!” Zoe giggles a bit, and replies with a much quieter “bonjour”.]
Narrator: Peter asks if she speaks any English, and he is surprised and relieved to find that she does.
[Peter does not. Rather, he continues merely reading his newspaper on the bench].
Narrator (A bit shaken): Uh… Well. The two of them pick up a conversation, and discover that they have the same home town— they even share a few mutual friends.
[This does not happen. The two continue sitting near each other, but do not even make eye contact]
Narrator (with growing confusion): Neither of them consider themselves romantics, but they are surprised to find that they’ve fallen completely in love with each other in just the few moments they’ve spent together. Zoe writes down her number on Peter’s newspaper before she leaves…
[Peter turns a page in the newspaper, and continues reading. Zoe gets up after a moment, and starts collecting her things]
Narrator: Peter promises himself he’ll play it cool, and won’t call for a few days, but he knows deep down that he won’t be able to resist calling her as soon as he gets home. He is happy, ecstatic. Everything in his life has been leading to this moment.
[Zoe finishes packing her things, and leaves the station]
Narrator (looking directly at Peter):… what happened?
9.16.2008
Notice (short story)
Labels:
fiction,
short story
There is nothing unusual about this moment, aside from the blood on my hand. I'm not sure when it got there, but it certainly came as a surprise. I had reached down to turn up the volume on my ipod and saw this streak of red on my hand.
So I've stopped here in the median dividing the road I've been walking, completely unsure where the hell my blood just came from, and started searching my body-- a slightly more important variety of the just-leaving-home pocket-check. Wallet? Phone? Keys? Check, check, check. Hands, neck, face? Check, check, and… I pull my hand away from my face. Another streak, splotched against my palm, bright red in the way that you would think was fake if you saw it in a movie. You would sit in the theater and see this bright red blood and say, you’ve ruined the moment, I know this is fake, and now I can see that everything is fake. But here this unlikely color is on my own hand, and it came from my own nose, and moments ago it had been flowing around in my own body.
So, I have a nose bleed. Not a problem, really. I'm headed for a drug store anyway, I can just buy some Kleenex or toilet paper and jam it up whichever nostril, and then walk back home with a white ball of fluff hanging out of my nose. This sort of thing would have bothered the Old Me, the Me from before I started going to therapy, but the New Me quickly rationalized. I realized that no one who saw me on the street (if they looked at me at all) would really find anything unusual about the cotton in my nose— everyone has nose bleeds, and I had never encountered anyone who knew of a better way to take care of one than just plugging your nostrils.
And... and if they looked and pointed and stared at the white fluff on my face, I would be perfectly entitled to scowl back at their ignorance, for who were they to not know what a nosebleed was?
I knew that scowl well—I had received it before, as a child, when I saw a tiny woman get on the bus with a giant powdery gray smudge on her forehead. I had looked at her and she looked right back at me with a face that told me that I was the one at fault in this impromptu staring contest, and not her. She had made this smudge herself-- I knew immediately I had been foolish to assume otherwise. When I asked my brother about it later, he told me that she wore ashes to remind herself that she was going to die. The opposite, really, of a nosebleed, where we wear bloody scraps of paper in our nose to remind the world that we’re not going to die, not quite yet, and we’ll be keeping the blood in our bodies just a little longer, thanks.
My nose is, nevertheless, dripping its own reminder of my mortality. I can taste blood in my mouth now, and the drug store is still a block away. I wipe off my lip and stick my little finger inside my right nostril, then my left. This is far less elegant than the toilet paper method. That, you can wear with pride, with the I-know-what-I’m-doing scowl. But now people will see me and say, look, he’s picking his nose, how silly. I take my finger back out. There’s no blood on it. Unusual.
I rub my nose with the back of my hand, sniffling. Now there is blood all across the back of my hand, even brighter red than before. Ah, I see now. My nose is bleeding, but from the outside. This is a new problem, a harder one to solve. You can’t just stick toilet paper right there on their skin. Or rather, you can, people do, but not for something like this. If its in the right spot, you can point there and say, look, I cut myself shaving. But you don’t shave the outside of your nose.
I cross my eyes and can see a bead of blood forming off on the right side of my nose, far darker than the obnoxious bright red stuff that is now in streaks across my hand. I try to apply pressure with my finger, and now I look not like someone picking their nose, but some demented Santa, touching his nose with a wink before… what? Going into Kinney Drug?
But its really too late to do anything useful. I walk into the drug store with blood all over my nose, on my hands. And now people are really staring. I try not to hear what they’re thinking, but I do. Oh dear, they think, this boy is bleeding and drove all the way to the drug store for a band-aid. Or maybe, if they’re kind and think I’m the sort of person to own his own band-aids, they think I have AIDS or cancer or some other terrible affliction, and this blood flowing around my nose is just the visible bit of it, something so trivial when you consider the iceberg of sickness inside that I don’t even care that my nose is bleeding.
I consider heading straight for the Kleenex, ripping it open right there and paying for whatever’s left of it once I’m finally ready to check out. But I didn’t come here for Kleenex, and I was always taught to keep my priorities straight, so I head for the foot care aisle, for the wart that had appeared on my hand. While I’m pondering the different ways I could either burn or freeze away this unwelcome part of my own flesh, my nose stops bleeding all by itself. I don’t dare poke it to check, but if I strain I can see a tiny, darker red scab where this cut was just a few moments ago. I pick out some acid band-aids—incredibly deceptive, I think, that I’ll soon be wearing these and the world will think I’m healing myself all the while as acid is bubbling away at my skin—and I head for the counter, eyeing the Kleenex aisle as I go—but why bother with it now? I put the fake band-aids on the counter and hand over my money—no receipt, thanks, just the change. The woman checking me out pauses before she hands it over. She looks at my hand. Hers won’t seem to open and drop the change, and for an instant it is just suck, hovering above my own. I don’t know if she’s looking at the wart, nasty thing, or the blood that makes it look like I’ve just killed something. I’m about to point to the scab on my nose, as if that were any real explanation, but then the change drops and I can walk out the door, unnoticed again.
So I've stopped here in the median dividing the road I've been walking, completely unsure where the hell my blood just came from, and started searching my body-- a slightly more important variety of the just-leaving-home pocket-check. Wallet? Phone? Keys? Check, check, check. Hands, neck, face? Check, check, and… I pull my hand away from my face. Another streak, splotched against my palm, bright red in the way that you would think was fake if you saw it in a movie. You would sit in the theater and see this bright red blood and say, you’ve ruined the moment, I know this is fake, and now I can see that everything is fake. But here this unlikely color is on my own hand, and it came from my own nose, and moments ago it had been flowing around in my own body.
So, I have a nose bleed. Not a problem, really. I'm headed for a drug store anyway, I can just buy some Kleenex or toilet paper and jam it up whichever nostril, and then walk back home with a white ball of fluff hanging out of my nose. This sort of thing would have bothered the Old Me, the Me from before I started going to therapy, but the New Me quickly rationalized. I realized that no one who saw me on the street (if they looked at me at all) would really find anything unusual about the cotton in my nose— everyone has nose bleeds, and I had never encountered anyone who knew of a better way to take care of one than just plugging your nostrils.
And... and if they looked and pointed and stared at the white fluff on my face, I would be perfectly entitled to scowl back at their ignorance, for who were they to not know what a nosebleed was?
I knew that scowl well—I had received it before, as a child, when I saw a tiny woman get on the bus with a giant powdery gray smudge on her forehead. I had looked at her and she looked right back at me with a face that told me that I was the one at fault in this impromptu staring contest, and not her. She had made this smudge herself-- I knew immediately I had been foolish to assume otherwise. When I asked my brother about it later, he told me that she wore ashes to remind herself that she was going to die. The opposite, really, of a nosebleed, where we wear bloody scraps of paper in our nose to remind the world that we’re not going to die, not quite yet, and we’ll be keeping the blood in our bodies just a little longer, thanks.
My nose is, nevertheless, dripping its own reminder of my mortality. I can taste blood in my mouth now, and the drug store is still a block away. I wipe off my lip and stick my little finger inside my right nostril, then my left. This is far less elegant than the toilet paper method. That, you can wear with pride, with the I-know-what-I’m-doing scowl. But now people will see me and say, look, he’s picking his nose, how silly. I take my finger back out. There’s no blood on it. Unusual.
I rub my nose with the back of my hand, sniffling. Now there is blood all across the back of my hand, even brighter red than before. Ah, I see now. My nose is bleeding, but from the outside. This is a new problem, a harder one to solve. You can’t just stick toilet paper right there on their skin. Or rather, you can, people do, but not for something like this. If its in the right spot, you can point there and say, look, I cut myself shaving. But you don’t shave the outside of your nose.
I cross my eyes and can see a bead of blood forming off on the right side of my nose, far darker than the obnoxious bright red stuff that is now in streaks across my hand. I try to apply pressure with my finger, and now I look not like someone picking their nose, but some demented Santa, touching his nose with a wink before… what? Going into Kinney Drug?
But its really too late to do anything useful. I walk into the drug store with blood all over my nose, on my hands. And now people are really staring. I try not to hear what they’re thinking, but I do. Oh dear, they think, this boy is bleeding and drove all the way to the drug store for a band-aid. Or maybe, if they’re kind and think I’m the sort of person to own his own band-aids, they think I have AIDS or cancer or some other terrible affliction, and this blood flowing around my nose is just the visible bit of it, something so trivial when you consider the iceberg of sickness inside that I don’t even care that my nose is bleeding.
I consider heading straight for the Kleenex, ripping it open right there and paying for whatever’s left of it once I’m finally ready to check out. But I didn’t come here for Kleenex, and I was always taught to keep my priorities straight, so I head for the foot care aisle, for the wart that had appeared on my hand. While I’m pondering the different ways I could either burn or freeze away this unwelcome part of my own flesh, my nose stops bleeding all by itself. I don’t dare poke it to check, but if I strain I can see a tiny, darker red scab where this cut was just a few moments ago. I pick out some acid band-aids—incredibly deceptive, I think, that I’ll soon be wearing these and the world will think I’m healing myself all the while as acid is bubbling away at my skin—and I head for the counter, eyeing the Kleenex aisle as I go—but why bother with it now? I put the fake band-aids on the counter and hand over my money—no receipt, thanks, just the change. The woman checking me out pauses before she hands it over. She looks at my hand. Hers won’t seem to open and drop the change, and for an instant it is just suck, hovering above my own. I don’t know if she’s looking at the wart, nasty thing, or the blood that makes it look like I’ve just killed something. I’m about to point to the scab on my nose, as if that were any real explanation, but then the change drops and I can walk out the door, unnoticed again.
7.23.2008
What's Important (play)
Jim and Sarah enter, huddled together against the cold. They walk up to a heavy green door that is set deep in its frame. They pause, reading the menu that is pinned by the door.
Jim: See anything good?
Sarah: It all looks delicious. I’m happy with eating here.
Jim: That’s what’s important.
Jim opens the door. A large crowd of people are in the narrow hallway, pushing up against each other.
Jim: Wait here.
Sarah: Okay.
He enters. While he’s inside, Sarah walks to the front windows of the restaurant, and peers in at the people eating. After a moment, Jim appears by her side, still looking in.
Jim: We’re in luck. They can seat us in about twenty minutes.
*beat*
Do you want to wait inside?
Sarah: It’s okay. I like it out here.
Jim: It’s cold.
She takes his hand, still looking forward.
Sarah: It’s not so bad.
*beat*
Jim: I think that man’s waiting on a date.
Sarah: What?
Jim: The guy in there. Right in the middle. He looks excited.
Sarah: I don’t know. Do you think? Maybe.
Jim: Oh come on.
Sarah: What?
Jim: Don’t pretend that’s not what you were doing. Putting thoughts into their heads, wondering what they’re thinking, what they’re doing.
Sarah: Well, I guess…
Jim: I know you better than that, Sarah.
Sarah: Just because I’m a writer doesn’t mean—
Jim: What’s that couple thinking?
Sarah: …He’s thinking about leaving her... he’s thinking about his secretary. But I think she’s just thinking about dessert, right now.
Jim: See?
Sarah: Fine. You’re right, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. Is it creepy to try to get inside people’s heads like that?
Jim: Sarah, it’s one of the things I love most about you.
*beat*
So they’re breaking up, huh?
Sarah: Not yet. But probably. Time wounds all heels or… however that expression goes.
Jim: You’re the English major here.
Sarah: Either way. What’s going on over there isn’t important. He’s happy, she’s happy, it all amounts to the same thing, for tonight anyway.
Jim: So if you weren’t thinking about them, who?
She points to the man sitting by himself.
Jim: Oh. Blind-date guy.
Sarah: Him, yeah, but I don’t think he’s on a blind date. Look at his eyes. He’s not just excited, he’s in love. See the way he’s fidgeting with his briefcase? I think he’s going to propose tonight. And to a wonderful woman.
Jim: …Wonder-girl is late.
Sarah: She just wanted to make sure she looks her best tonight, that’s all. It’s a special occasion.
Sarah turns her attention to the couple again. Jim notices her watching and draws her closer.
Sarah: Thanks… it’s cold.
Jim: I know.
An attractive woman passes by them, and the man looks up to see her pass by the window. He brightens immediately-- she doesn't seem to notice him. She then enters the restaurant.
Jim: You really think that guy’ll propose?
Sarah: I’m always at my most optimistic when I’m with you. It’s a good night. I don’t see why not.
The woman approaches the table with the man sitting alone.
Sarah: ...I love you.
The woman sits down. The man gently grabs her hands, and looks her in the eyes. After a few words, the woman starts crying, and then takes off her ring. The man looks horrified, then completely expressionless. He gets up, leaves the table and the restraunt, bumping violently past Jim as he goes.
Sarah looks close to tears.
Jim: Hey, let’s go inside and get warm. I’ll bet they’ll have a table for us any minute now.
Sarah turns and looks at him.
Jim: How about this. Let’s go back to my place. I can make you mac and cheese. Even some chocolate milk.
Sarah: That sounds delicious. I’m happy with that.
Jim: That’s what’s important.
Please Please Please (poetry)
Labels:
poetry
Allow me, at least, to protest the idea that the moment had been planned.
Promiscuity lingered in both our minds, of course,
And we were in my bed long before the crucial instant arrived,
before my fingers left yours to nervously scratch at the hem of your jeans.
But believe me when I say that the breathless shock I felt
When I kissed you for the first time
was genuine.
I never planned to have it happen. But...
...but we both thought of it. I can't deny that.
When your roommate, your stalker, and your proteges,
And my friends, and my brothers, and my former lover,
had left the two of us alone,
and we were faced with no more excuses for our shared procrastination,
I asked if you'd like to see that movie we had both reminisced about.
And you paused.
Perhaps this was the crucial instant.
After thinking one thousand thoughts I'll never know,
When you said yes, and went to your room for booze,
did you hope to find courage at the bottom of the bottle?
The alcohol filled our heads with sand,
and as physical contact sent shock crackling through our minds,
is it any wonder that we were reduced to glass?
The water that had been draining away into the ocean past our feet,
sucking them into the sand and fixing us in place,
had crashed back into us in this one
unexpected wave.
And the water pulled away again,
but now you were nowhere to be found.
You told me later how you had bruised like an apple,
all the while believing you were still wearing
the protective skin of an orange.
But you've never liked metaphors,
and you still scrunch your nose,
and claim not to understand,
how you could be any kind of fruit.
Promiscuity lingered in both our minds, of course,
And we were in my bed long before the crucial instant arrived,
before my fingers left yours to nervously scratch at the hem of your jeans.
But believe me when I say that the breathless shock I felt
When I kissed you for the first time
was genuine.
I never planned to have it happen. But...
...but we both thought of it. I can't deny that.
When your roommate, your stalker, and your proteges,
And my friends, and my brothers, and my former lover,
had left the two of us alone,
and we were faced with no more excuses for our shared procrastination,
I asked if you'd like to see that movie we had both reminisced about.
And you paused.
Perhaps this was the crucial instant.
After thinking one thousand thoughts I'll never know,
When you said yes, and went to your room for booze,
did you hope to find courage at the bottom of the bottle?
The alcohol filled our heads with sand,
and as physical contact sent shock crackling through our minds,
is it any wonder that we were reduced to glass?
The water that had been draining away into the ocean past our feet,
sucking them into the sand and fixing us in place,
had crashed back into us in this one
unexpected wave.
And the water pulled away again,
but now you were nowhere to be found.
You told me later how you had bruised like an apple,
all the while believing you were still wearing
the protective skin of an orange.
But you've never liked metaphors,
and you still scrunch your nose,
and claim not to understand,
how you could be any kind of fruit.
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