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This floor, it taunts me; patronizing me with its blank stare and emotionless eyes. This floor, it dares me; challenging me to confess hidden desires and express suppressed dreams. It holds me in its gaze, an unbreaking gaze that tears through my thin façade to the truth beneath. This floor, scuffed and scratched understands me and lulls me out with a song of turbulence. It makes me forget the present, and sends me tumbling back into the past. Each time, with renewed vigor, I find new crevices and movements to explore. This floor, it holds my soul – but not tonight; tonight it merely mocks my distant steps, and unable to rebuke with fire, I walk away.
I entered my kitchen and stared at the sterile walls in a vain attempt to find inspiration; I’d been doing a lot of that lately. I can’t seem to feel anything meaningful. Techs, I put them incoherently together and pull my hair in frustration. I went for walks, I meditated on black winter nights, and I listened to music – music with history, with memories, emotions. Yet despite it all, I found myself lost in the traffic of faceless strangers, unable to regain control.
Often I’d lose myself with friends and realizing my carefree state, I’d stand to dance. But again, when faced with that marble wall I found myself impotent. I struggled, I fought, I pleaded and begged, but the music would not come out.
I could only spend so much time within the confines of my apartment, which in every floor and stereo mocked me.
As I stepped out of my building, the cold chill of city night hit me suddenly. The air was polluted with sounds of cars and people, both of which I narrowly avoided walking down the concrete valley. It was still early and the party wouldn’t begin for a while, yet I had no reason to be home. I took in the smell of eggs and coffee, which after a day devoid of food, and years devoid of home cooking, called me to the hole in the wall from whence it came like a siren.
A blast of heat scorched my face as I stepped into the small diner. There was a ‘seat yourself’ sign, so I took my place in one of the plastic-covered booths. The restaurant was deserted, save for an elderly couple eating a mashed potato dinner, and a few scattered patrons seemingly lost in either the turmoil outside, or a plastic covered menu.
The waitress came in and took my order with a jubilance laced with contempt. I sat idly, staring at an upheld newspaper that blared the latest scandal. A city official had been dishonored for accepting bribes, not entirely shocking. As I stared at the picture of the humiliated council member, the reader put down the newspaper apparently sensing my stare. I found myself suddenly locked in her eyes.
Her eyes took me back with a smokey-blue clarity that despite their coolness pierced through me. I looked down to her hands, still holding the paper, and felt surprise that I hadn’t realized a woman was holding the article. Her fingers were long and slender. There was an elegance to her hands that was contrasted by the sprawl of red paint on her palms.
I realized she was still looking at me and felt conscious of my disheveled appearance. However the connection was broken when the waitress returned with my plate. Embarrassed to have been caught staring, I focused on my food and didn’t look up as the waitress again left.
“You look like you haven’t eaten a real meal in days.”
I looked up and was startled to find the woman sitting across from me. Her eyes were even more breathtaking up close, and as I continued searching them, I realized that her words were still hanging in the air. Shaking myself into the present, she let out a laugh, apparently aware of my stupor. “I didn’t see you come in,” I said.
“Well you were quite occupied with your plate of food when I came over,” she responded, taking a slice of toast with her hand. I looked down to where the piece of bread had lain and looked up again finding her looking at me with a telling smile.
“So did you already eat or are you still waiting for your order?” I asked, recalling that I hadn’t seen her with anything but the newspaper and a glass of water.
“Oh no,” she began, “I’m just here passing the time until I’m ready to go.”
“Go where?”
“I’m not sure yet,” she said laughing, somehow her response made me more uneasy than it seemed to have made her.
“So then how will you know when it’s time to leave?”
“I leave when I get the impulse to,” she explained, never breaking eye contact.
“Meaning you sit here, or more accurately, loiter, until the owners come by and kick you out?” I said this jokingly, but immediately regretted my words, sensing that I had gone too far with this woman whose name I still did not know.
“Not quite, the owners know me and I stay here until they leave, but I’ll head out usually when the streets have died down a little.”
“In this neighborhood, you’ll be waiting into the morning.”
“I didn’t mean the streets around here.” She said coyly.
“Then which?” I asked, intrigued by her veiled statements. She looked away and smiled; I felt my body tingle. She looked back at me and took my hand into hers and focused on I knew not what.
“Your fingers are crooked and the skin on your palm looks dead, yet they don’t look like the hands of a laborer. Rather they look abused, like you haven’t been careful with them.” She looked back up through fallen strands of hair.
I was amazed by her; she seemed completely removed from a self-consciousness that inhibits so many people, myself included.
“I’ve spent a lot of time on my hands, and I’ve taken a lot of falls,” I replied.
“Oh…” she said, seemingly expecting more, but I wasn’t ready to divulge further. I smiled and again looked at her hands, the red paint screaming out to me like some mystery waiting to be answered. I grabbed her hand and turned it over; the sight was more vibrant than I had imagined. It was a fresco of color: yellow peach flanking orange calluses; a red hue throughout, like an undercurrent of life, and long, intersecting lines that she had followed in ink. And on top stood a bombardment of red paint that no longer seemed to contrast but rather flow naturally throughout.
I looked up in wonder; unsure of how to respond to the canvas I had laid hands upon. All I was certain of is that I was intrigued by, and absolutely loved her hands, and their bold statement of self. She was looking back at me, her face overcome with an anticipating grin. I looked out the window and saw through steel bars the last rays of ay launching their assault in a violet streak of rebellion, but being increasingly crushed under the speckled blanket of night.
I turned back to her and spoke: “ I was going to go to my friend’s studio afterwards for an unveiling. I don’t know if you had plans, but I’d be glad if you’d be able to join me.”
She gazed at me with the first serious expression I’d seen from her; I realized my heart was racing in suspense. “Of course I have plans,” she began,” I’ve told you that already,” my heart sank. She lowered her eyes then after a moment looked up again with a mischievous smirk, “but it’s still too early for them.”
She stood and called the waitress, asking her to bring a bag for my food that I hadn’t been able to finish. We began to leave when suddenly I turned to her, and finding question in her eyes, let out an embarrassed chuckle as I asked her name.
View she responded and then asked me mine. I stuck my hand out and stumbled as I introduced myself, “Train.” She brushed my hand aside and embraced me firmly instead, saying handshakes were for strangers; I felt myself get lightheaded as her hair tickled my face.
My friend Marc lived in a small, one-bedroom studio apartment that he used as his sanctuary, often retreating days at a time emerging only after he had created several sculptures of an impressive caliber. The air inside was polluted with dust and there was a fine layer of crushed stone in places Marc had overlooked.
As we entered the smell of tropical fruit and marble intermingling was overwhelming, was the claustrophobia from people shuffling between a dozen or so sculptures. There was music playing but I couldn’t make it out over the sounds of plates and people talking. Marc spotted us from behind a table covered in food and waved us over.
He looked to View and me and smiled a grin that I imagine only a fox could smile. “So who’s this you’ve brought?” He asked exaggerating a tone of authority, ”I don’t recall putting a ‘plus one’ on your invitation.”
I shook my head and played along: “I don’t believe I got any such invitation, I just came by to pay you a visit and I find you’re apartment filled with these things,” I knew the best way to tease Marc was through his work. I didn’t know that apparently View did too.
“Well it’s a good thing your friend brought me along,” she said, “It looks like you’re going to need help getting rid of all those repulsive images. I say, they’re hideous, even got a crowd gathered.”
We all laughed and any sense of unease immediately evaporated. But not being one for modesty Marc confessed to us: “ That might have stung you know, had I not already sold every piece in here.”
I gave an imposed look of shock mixed with horror and replied: “You mean to tell me I’ve come too late to buy this ‘twin vaginas’ sculpture?” I motioned to the mailbox sized sculpture that looked in amazing detail, exactly as the name indicated.
“By god, that was the second to go my friend”
“Pray tell,” I said, enjoying myself, “which was the first?”
“The ‘Adam and Steve’ love relief actually.”
We could no longer keep up the charade and burst out laughing, Marc most heartily of all. “Well, while it’s been a pleasure chatting, I do have other, more appreciative guests with whom I must mingle.” He began to leave then turned back and added: “have a pleasant evening you two.”
View looked around seemingly amazed at the collection before her. “Your friend has quite a peculiar taste,” she said smiling. I looked around and laughed. It was blaringly true, Marc had always pushed the envelope and tonight was no different.
“It’s alright, you can say it, Marc’s more flamboyant than a pink elephant. He’s always been amazingly skilled and has an appetite for pissing of contemporary thinking,” I explained.
“It’s quite apparent. But how did you two meet? Are you a sculptor?” she asked somewhat apprehensively, apparently meaning more by the question than I knew.
“No I’ve known Marc since high school. We both have a lenient perspective towards rules and convention; a fact that has kept us close since.”
“Oh,” she breathed. We turned to look at another sculpture, it was of a soldier wearing nothing but a helmet and an upside-down gun. There was a group of people discussing it, their tone turning sharp.
I turned to her and explained, “Marc has always been gifted, a virtuoso some called him. But he’s an anarchist in his heart, and so he’ll often make a piece that is seemingly laced with controversy and that speaks a diverging message. He refuses to answer questions on it, which only adds to the fury of the debates. He does this simply to confuse, he hates how people will look at his work and try to explain it, saying they’re ignorant to try to use words, and so he creates pieces like this, devoid of actual meaning simply to stir people up. Again it seems to be working.”
She looked to Marc, who was talking with several stern faced people and said, “You know, I’m starting to like your friend quite a bit.”
I felt a pang of jealousy and smiled, We spent the next hour looking at the other works and talking to guests who all unanimously agreed Marc was a genius with a clear message that would set-forth a new precedent. I had to lower my head at the irony. It was afterwards that we found ourselves alone on Marc’s balcony.
We stood without speaking a word, lost in the twinkle of starlight. The sidewalks had stilled and I knew she would soon be leaving. The thought frightened me more than I imagined it could, and I found myself bewildered by how easily I had become attached to this woman. I turned to her and saw calm in her eyes; a quiet strength that I’d never before seen. She turned, feeling my eyes upon her and smiled, then took my hands and kissed me.
Her lips made me drunk and I feared I would fall as my legs lost their strength beneath me. I could feel nothing except her soft lips ad warm hands that I clutched madly. The rest of my senses had floated away and were now looking down upon this scene in wonder. I don’t know how long we were out there for; all I can say is that for the next few days I couldn’t stop sneezing.
When we got back in I asked her, “It’s getting late, will you still go to out?”
She smiled knowingly, “why, do you still want me to stay with you?”
I was taken back by her directness and responded in turn, “yes, I don’t know what it is, if it’s just who you are, or what I’ve felt, but I think I’m in love with you.”
“Okay,” she smiled, then took my hand and led us out.
“Where are we headed,” I said as we got onto the street.
She looked at me curiously and said: “I was hoping you would tell me. It’s your place we’re headed for isn’t it?” I stumbled a little on my next step and didn’t regain my composure for a while.
When we arrived at my place there was no awkwardness in the air, she again, despite being in alien terrain, was completely at ease. I on the other hand felt anxious that I hadn’t cleaned my apartment before leaving, remembering the plates scattered and my clothes lying about.
She again sensed how I felt and eased my worry, saying: “The place is fine, I’d much rather see it as it is then cleaned up. There’s honesty in your chaos, there’s life in these walls. It’s the same reason I sat with you at the diner, you were so absent-mindedly looking at my paper you didn’t even notice that I too was watching you between turned pages. You looked like a mess, like you were trying to get away form something. I could empathize.”
I was unsure how to respond, so I just let my voice flow, “I’m a bboy, but lately I haven’t been able to feel the music inside me.” I let breath escape my lungs. “I can’t find meaning or purpose anywhere; everything in my life feels contrived and forced. I used to feel happy when I wrote; I could express myself and speak things that were hidden to me. But now, it’s like I’ve ran out of life and there’s nothing left to say on my part. I feel empty.”
She no longer smiled and her eyes seemed to be looking inward. I wondered what she was thinking, and though hardly a minute passed, it felt numbingly long. Finally she came back and spoke: “life isn’t meaningless and it’s not without a purpose. I used to feel the same emptiness I suspected and now know you carry. And even though I didn’t feel like I truly deserved to feel sad, I felt despair knowing that the next 50 years of my life would yield nothing. Knowing this, I entertained thoughts of suicide lucidly, seeking to escape the abyss I felt so encompassed by. However something held me back, stronger than simply fear; it was pride. I couldn’t bear the thought of accepting that I was nothing, that my meaning was useless, and so I began to search for a calling.”
“What did you find?” I asked, my life being told by this woman.
“I found,” she began, “that I had been searching in the wrong places. I kept looking to how I could change the world to fit me, but found the task to be impossible. Then I tried to change myself to fit the world, but found that I was too strong to change. After both yielded failure I realized that simply, the two were too strongly established to change. So in a final effort I looked within myself trying to find the flaw that caused me to despair. I saw the good within me and then saw filth upon in its place. I saw the evil within me and then saw light in its place. And so I looked closer and I came to see that they were the same. I had been dividing myself where no lines existed. That I am not a being made up of good and evil nor of a thousand competing
personalities, but rather of one whole, indefinable and unexplainable. I saw that I, and all other persons are a miracle, that we are so special and blessed by the mystery of life; that there is immeasurable beauty in the most common things. I saw this and knew that I could not search for an answer to life for there existed infinite such answers. I felt peace knowing that no matter where I went, it was right.”
I stood stunned, moved nearly to tears from having seen her bear her soul. I walked up to her and held her as I ran my fingers through her hair. We went to my room and explored each other, physically, spiritually, holding no secrets back. I for the first time in my life tasted existence, the unfiltered stream of life for the first time; I felt inspiration.
The next morning I got up to go for a walk, paying care not to wake View. The sight of her sleeping was too precious for me to disturb. I noticed that her hands were even redder than the night before and I thought it curious but left unfazed. I walked for nearly an hour when, despite breathing the city in an invigorating new light, felt drawn back to her. I returned to my building and saw something that hadn’t been there when we arrived the night before.
On the side of the building, in vibrant red paint, was a word seemingly jumping off the concrete wall in an electric ecstasy. I had trouble making it out at first; the letters intricately interwoven. When at last I made it out my heart soared, and though it was undoubtedly unexpected, it felt right and fit perfectly with her image. I read the word once more before entering, bursting with a strange joy, this word was one of the infinite meanings of life I now knew: View.
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Fluctuating Interest
Posted Jul 3, 2008
This was very well written. Excellent descriptions, word choice, and dialog. The story was interesting enough. While at times I was very sucked in, a few seldom times I had to struggle through certain parts. I found your characters interesting, View in particular, and how she interacted with ... (
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