Max Davine's Blog, page 4
April 21, 2017
Strange Anomaly
Never imagined what I'd see,
Wandering across the land,
Wonder and strange anomaly,
I rolled down dunes of sand.
Crossed green valleys, open and free,
Atop the mountains grand,
You never will believe,
In the dark I outstretched my hand,
I did not fear that I could not breathe.
On clouds of love where I could stand,
I did not feel, for I could not see,
Nobody beside me did stand,
As I walked across the sea,
Even sweetness became stale and bland.
I came to realize what I did need,
Only your kiss could set me free.
Only you to take my hand,
But now you seem a distant dream,
Like wonder and strange anomaly.
Wandering across the land,
Wonder and strange anomaly,
I rolled down dunes of sand.
Crossed green valleys, open and free,
Atop the mountains grand,
You never will believe,
In the dark I outstretched my hand,
I did not fear that I could not breathe.
On clouds of love where I could stand,
I did not feel, for I could not see,
Nobody beside me did stand,
As I walked across the sea,
Even sweetness became stale and bland.
I came to realize what I did need,
Only your kiss could set me free.
Only you to take my hand,
But now you seem a distant dream,
Like wonder and strange anomaly.
February 2, 2017
The Ending Untold
Tonight I woke from the strangest dream,
I was lost in a place I'd never seen.
In a forest dark, I walked alone,
Yet some tranquil light guided me toward home.
I saw you then, my alighting guide,
Your voice was starlight calling out from the sky.
I journeyed on, you turned away,
Too far you flew and I knew I couldn't stay.
The world began to come undone,
But to my home I knew I had to run.
I fell into an ocean gray,
But I just swam because somehow I knew the way.
Then daylight came, I woke again,
The sun was cold and cruel and nothing had changed.
I didn't cry, though I wanted more,
This wasn't new to me, I'd been here before.
Sometimes at night, I feel your shine,
Somehow I know or wish I left something behind.
You are an island, but your heart's the sea,
In my darkest place still calling out to me.
I know it's there, beyond the night,
Through the valleys over hills and mountains high.
My silver light, my shining guide,
Somewhere calling from your castle in the sky.
But the night is long, I'm growing old,
Our story may yet leave it's ending untold.
Will my guide, fade from the sky?
Is it you calling or an illusion of the night?
I was lost in a place I'd never seen.
In a forest dark, I walked alone,
Yet some tranquil light guided me toward home.
I saw you then, my alighting guide,
Your voice was starlight calling out from the sky.
I journeyed on, you turned away,
Too far you flew and I knew I couldn't stay.
The world began to come undone,
But to my home I knew I had to run.
I fell into an ocean gray,
But I just swam because somehow I knew the way.
Then daylight came, I woke again,
The sun was cold and cruel and nothing had changed.
I didn't cry, though I wanted more,
This wasn't new to me, I'd been here before.
Sometimes at night, I feel your shine,
Somehow I know or wish I left something behind.
You are an island, but your heart's the sea,
In my darkest place still calling out to me.
I know it's there, beyond the night,
Through the valleys over hills and mountains high.
My silver light, my shining guide,
Somewhere calling from your castle in the sky.
But the night is long, I'm growing old,
Our story may yet leave it's ending untold.
Will my guide, fade from the sky?
Is it you calling or an illusion of the night?
December 22, 2016
One For The Heart
I’m not talking to the muscle which pushes blood around my body here. He does a fine job. I’m talking to the figurative heart. That fuzzy, dewy eyed adorer of this and that. That compulsive gift-giver who sits beside the reigns held by my brain, and sues to seize them every now and then. That one which flutters and sings and flushes with promises and issues wave after wave of joyous emotion, like coming home for the first time, whenever he knows he’s in the presence of a certain type of woman. You know, she walks in the room and your insides change color? Your emotions lift and all of a sudden nobody else exists but you two? She’s like a beacon shining in the fog, which somehow feels sweeter for having her light shone into it? That heart. The one which aches and wails and cries and cracks and scars forever when said woman says “eww, no!” Or, as the case of one third of the time (okay, there’s only been three) “Yes! Oh, I’m so glad, I’m so happy….oh wait….wait, that’s wrong…I mean to say….eww, no!” Yes, we’re going to have a talk.
Come out, I want to meet you. Stand in front of me, and show yourself.
Why did I expect something withered, blackened and smashed? Why did I expect pieces of something, rather than a whole? I’m not looking at what I felt like when you were still inside me. I’m seeing something whole! Something shining! Something entirely unknown to anyone but me and yet…already willing to leap across to the next, whenever she joins a group of friends on a night out, is standing by a fireplace on a film set or struts out into a gauntlet of camera flashes, and strikes a slightly awkward but fluid pose. That’s quite frightening, how ready you seem. How healthy, and full of joy. Why are you aching? Have you learned nothing from those scars? Where are they? I felt them, they must be there somewhere…
Anyway, my point is, you have to be more careful! Every time, you leap out. You open yourself, and of course you get stepped on, and destroyed. It hurts me, don’t you see? No, you don’t, do you? You’re just ready and waiting. I can see their faces in your soft red light. Faces the first time I saw them. You’ve kept them. What on earth for? All they did was hurt us! Two of them unintentionally…one of them carelessly…but that’s all they really did. Get them out of there! Get rid of them! For fuck sake, learn! Don’t be so ready to let another one in. Don’t be generous with yourself. You’re only going to cause me hurt.
What do you mean you did learn? I can see from your melancholy enthusiasm that you’ve learned nothing. You’re just going to leap right into that fire again. You’re going to drag me with you. I know it’s exciting, but the crash at the end!
You learned that you’re willing? I can see that! You need to calm down. Lock yourself up! Be harder to win over! No? You got easier to win over, didn’t you? Why?
Because it is not strength to withdraw, to recluse, or to become jaded. It is strength to stand ready and willing to suffer it all again. This may hurt. This may even be embarrassing, sad or frustrating, and you may feel as though you’ve wasted your time…but look again. You wasted months there. Over a year there! Months and months there…and you even had your doubts most of the time, but you went in anyway.
That’s not an indication of your shortcomings. That’s testament to your strength. To stay naïve when you’ve found nothing but pain is stronger than to become cynical and bitter. That’s why you’re better than I am.
I guess I can be better too.
Come out, I want to meet you. Stand in front of me, and show yourself.
Why did I expect something withered, blackened and smashed? Why did I expect pieces of something, rather than a whole? I’m not looking at what I felt like when you were still inside me. I’m seeing something whole! Something shining! Something entirely unknown to anyone but me and yet…already willing to leap across to the next, whenever she joins a group of friends on a night out, is standing by a fireplace on a film set or struts out into a gauntlet of camera flashes, and strikes a slightly awkward but fluid pose. That’s quite frightening, how ready you seem. How healthy, and full of joy. Why are you aching? Have you learned nothing from those scars? Where are they? I felt them, they must be there somewhere…
Anyway, my point is, you have to be more careful! Every time, you leap out. You open yourself, and of course you get stepped on, and destroyed. It hurts me, don’t you see? No, you don’t, do you? You’re just ready and waiting. I can see their faces in your soft red light. Faces the first time I saw them. You’ve kept them. What on earth for? All they did was hurt us! Two of them unintentionally…one of them carelessly…but that’s all they really did. Get them out of there! Get rid of them! For fuck sake, learn! Don’t be so ready to let another one in. Don’t be generous with yourself. You’re only going to cause me hurt.
What do you mean you did learn? I can see from your melancholy enthusiasm that you’ve learned nothing. You’re just going to leap right into that fire again. You’re going to drag me with you. I know it’s exciting, but the crash at the end!
You learned that you’re willing? I can see that! You need to calm down. Lock yourself up! Be harder to win over! No? You got easier to win over, didn’t you? Why?
Because it is not strength to withdraw, to recluse, or to become jaded. It is strength to stand ready and willing to suffer it all again. This may hurt. This may even be embarrassing, sad or frustrating, and you may feel as though you’ve wasted your time…but look again. You wasted months there. Over a year there! Months and months there…and you even had your doubts most of the time, but you went in anyway.
That’s not an indication of your shortcomings. That’s testament to your strength. To stay naïve when you’ve found nothing but pain is stronger than to become cynical and bitter. That’s why you’re better than I am.
I guess I can be better too.
December 19, 2016
Speak Up
The Melbourne acting community lost a wonderful soul this month.
As you all gather together, line up outside of stores or gorge yourselves on roast whatever when it's forty degrees, please try to remember that this is a tremendously difficult time of year for some people. Some people, who though no fault of their own, are alone and yet surrounded by happy families, bombarded with messages about Christmas cheer and hope for the new year. They wonder all the while where they went wrong, why do they miss out, even if it doesn't seem as if they did. Make time for these people, I beg you....and for those of you who do feel this way this time of year, please PLEASE don't keep it all inside. Let it out, it doesn't matter how. Made a nuisance of yourself. Complain. Cry in public. Ask for help. Demand help. There are people here who will try with all their might. Suffering in silence is never worth it. Not ever. Speak up -
Australia
Lifeline: 13 11 14
Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636
United States
Lifeline: 1800 273 8255
As you all gather together, line up outside of stores or gorge yourselves on roast whatever when it's forty degrees, please try to remember that this is a tremendously difficult time of year for some people. Some people, who though no fault of their own, are alone and yet surrounded by happy families, bombarded with messages about Christmas cheer and hope for the new year. They wonder all the while where they went wrong, why do they miss out, even if it doesn't seem as if they did. Make time for these people, I beg you....and for those of you who do feel this way this time of year, please PLEASE don't keep it all inside. Let it out, it doesn't matter how. Made a nuisance of yourself. Complain. Cry in public. Ask for help. Demand help. There are people here who will try with all their might. Suffering in silence is never worth it. Not ever. Speak up -
Australia
Lifeline: 13 11 14
Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636
United States
Lifeline: 1800 273 8255
The Night Before Christmas
It was the night before Christmas, and all through our home,
Our babies were left, crying and alone.
They should be asleep, they should be well fed,
Instead they lay scared, awake in their bed.
They wonder, if ever, their mum will come home,
She's out on the street, selling herself to get stoned.
Sally's father, he never came back,
He went off to a den to get high on crack.
Her brother Tim, his father died,
Preferring a rope around his neck, than to be by his side.
So you sing your carols, and pray to your God,
And soon you'll forget that hulking black dog.
Your own son Michael, he's dying inside,
But you're taking a photo, and he needs to smile.
While poor young Megan, she tries and she tries,
But her parents judge the cheap turkey she buys.
The man on the corner, begging for change,
They just walk by, snarling and spitting with rage.
Laid-off single mother, no family left,
Nobody helped to warm her baby that wept.
Nations lay burning, by war they are torn,
But you'd better hurry, before the sales are gone.
Our babies were left, crying and alone.
They should be asleep, they should be well fed,
Instead they lay scared, awake in their bed.
They wonder, if ever, their mum will come home,
She's out on the street, selling herself to get stoned.
Sally's father, he never came back,
He went off to a den to get high on crack.
Her brother Tim, his father died,
Preferring a rope around his neck, than to be by his side.
So you sing your carols, and pray to your God,
And soon you'll forget that hulking black dog.
Your own son Michael, he's dying inside,
But you're taking a photo, and he needs to smile.
While poor young Megan, she tries and she tries,
But her parents judge the cheap turkey she buys.
The man on the corner, begging for change,
They just walk by, snarling and spitting with rage.
Laid-off single mother, no family left,
Nobody helped to warm her baby that wept.
Nations lay burning, by war they are torn,
But you'd better hurry, before the sales are gone.
November 28, 2016
Out Of The Blue
Ventura-Martin advertised the Synthatech Robutler as being “so lifelike, you’ll think you’ve adopted a brother”. Rachel figured it was niche advertising. Because in truth she’d have a hard time figuring a slogan that could be more off-putting. Maybe it was too many sci-fi movies. Maybe it was just the fact that her ex-boyfriend had been so fond of getting high that she’d learned to be creeped out by having human-like automatons idling about the house. She never even had photographs up. Something creepy about human eyes that can’t see.
But it came as no surprise when she heard her cousin Brenda had ordered one. Brenda Mayshack might be the most dependent able-bodied person Rachel has ever known. Never since puberty was she single, though the partners changed constantly until the one she married. Of course, David Mayshack was a high-standing attorney and Brenda had inadvertently tapped an inexhaustible source of comfort and security for the remainder of her life. Meanwhile, ever-independent Rachel Corser runs around, serving coffee and focaccias to university students ten years her junior, with some of her colleagues half her age.
“Skinny soy chai-latte, please.”
“Excuse me, I ordered raspberry jam.”
“It is raspberry jam, sir.”
“I think I know raspberry jam.”
“This coffee is distinctly over seventy degrees.”
“No. I think I’d know.”
Then, of course, there is her boss. Andrew Dunn is a nice guy. That is, a nice guy who spends one third of his life being unbelievably polite, sweet-natured and generous with compliments and time to listen. The other two thirds, he complains that Rachel is selfish and cruel for only wanting to be friends. If the day is too busy for him to demand a date or ask if she’s okay or needs anything, he’ll be sure to follow up with a text after hours. Usually around the time George either has dinner or has to go to bed. A text followed by a phone call, if not quickly concisely responded to.
“You seemed a bit down today. Want to talk?”
“Come on! Who better to be in a relationship with than your best friend?”
“You’re too busy fucking arseholes to realize that I’m the right man for you.”
“Just because I’m honest with you, and treat you right. You’re scared. So am I. It’s okay. We can work through it together.”
“Oh, I forgot, I only exist when you need something.”
Meanwhile, George manages to find his way up and into the kitchen. Or the living room. Or her bedroom.
“Um, mum…”
“Yes, darling?”
“Oh, well…did you know…?”
“What honey?”
“Well, I’ll tell you…”
“Go to bed, please, George.”
“You’re still up.”
“Mummy’s being pestered by a man at work, darling.”
“Why isn’t he in bed?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart.”
George will start school next year. Until then, the little guy joins her at the café for her eight to ten hour shifts. Or he goes to his father, but both parents do their best to avoid that. Having George around is good for Phil to meet women, not so great for him to consummate with them. All day every day…it seems he was only ever too stoned for her.
Their flat in the hills has only two bedrooms. But for the sake of helping ends meet, she decided to sublet one of them. A chance to get ahead, maybe. Of course, the only interest came from men. She spent over a month uncomfortably standing in the kitchen, scratching her elbow, while a man with hood and affected ethnic slur walked around her house, commenting on how choice either she or it was.
She met a real estate agent in town. He was rude and arrogant, but she was the center of his world, just for a moment. They got a hotel room. It’s nice to feel beautiful.
Eventually, she chose a boarder who put on the least of a display at the inspection. A quiet, middle-aged, overweight man who claimed to be recently divorced. He worked at a bookshop. They’d share a coffee in the mornings, each rising before the sun to go to work. While George was showering and getting ready. She could only afford one day of crèche a week. It would be there time to chat. Get to know each other.
“I’ve been single two whole years.”
“Five, for me.”
“Do you ever go on dates or anything?”
“No. Who’d go out with me? Look at me!”
“There’s someone for everyone, they say?”
“Well, you don’t date. I’ve seen you!”
“I go on dates!”
“You go to hotel rooms for seedy one-nighters. That’s not dating.”
“That’s all I need.”
Well, who can blame her? She has a delicate balance worked out, and she satisfies what she needs. So what, if every now and then she trades the vibrator for a warm, strong cock. It’s nice to feel beautiful.
It was good. They seemed to be getting along. Then came the bedtime stories. He offered to read to George, to give Rachel a break. Then he offered to get him up in the morning. Then, he was in George’s bedroom while George wasn’t there. Then, she caught him reading to George while in bed with him.
She kicked him out and called the police immediately. It was back to struggling. That, and being overridden with guilt that she could have subjected George to potential harm. She never let him out of her sight. At the café, he no longer played in the garden all day. He stayed in the kitchen, where she or Andrew could see him at all times. She’d call him to the table every night. Talk with him. See if he was different. See if he’d say anything that…oh, the nightmares.
She met a personal trainer in town. He was rude, and arrogant. But he ruled the room, when he walked in. Other women stared at him. He filled his space entirely. She got his number. He got a hotel room. It’s nice to feel beautiful, sometimes.
One morning, after Phil dropped George off, she decided to surprise him with pancakes. As soon as she dropped the batter into the pan, they expanded. They were more like giant muffins than pancakes. Self-rising flour. That’s the wrong flour. They looked hideous, and tested like a mouthful of raw yeast. George was delighted.
Brenda called her. Her breezy tone suggested a holiday was imminent. David was taking her on a six-month sailing trip around the Mediterranean. Of course. But she figured she’d send Rachel a favor, since her cousin has been doing it so tough.
“I heard about that guy from Aunty Katharine.”
“I feel sick still.”
“That must be awful, I’m so very sorry. You did the right thing, throwing him out.”
“After I let him in.”
The favor was the Robutler. His name was Kevin, and she was having him delivered for a six month stay while she and David go on their tour. Rachel was shuddering at the thought. Her flesh was crawling. The last thing she wanted was another man-thing about. Not least one which was made of plastic and cables and metal. What would it be capable of? What if it malfunctions?
“It’s designed to read a lot of literature, that’s how it learns empathy,” Brenda said. “It’s a wonderful listener, and that’s how it knows exactly what to say to make you feel better.”
That’s Brenda. Happy with words of comfort and lavishing attention, even if it is repetitive and synthetic. But there was nothing Rachel could do. A favor from Brenda is never easily diverted.
Kevin arrived on a Sunday. He was modelled off of Justin Trudeau. After all, why not have a stately, handsome butler? It wouldn’t be the first time a battery-operated device had pleased Rachel. He…it….was immensely creepy. With glassy, vacant eyes and a bland expression, he cleaned the little unit.
He made them dinner, after analyzing their preferred diets from the ingredients Rachel kept in her fridge. He spoke warmly and said kind things. He fixed the lawnmower Phil had broken, and mowed the grass. Saving the cost of the gardener.
More than once, in her flustered mid-week state, Rachel offered him a cup of coffee. He declined, of course, but promptly made her one. Perhaps she was too distracted between fending off Andrew and checking on George to remain creeped out, but it didn’t take long for her to warm to him.
There were moments, of course. Rachel would walk into the empty, dark living room of a morning and see him just standing there, idle and staring at the wall, and scream in terror. But he would come alive, and calm her. The touch of his hand was so lifelike. Soft and human. He’d hug her and apologize, and she’d feel warmth. She even thought she detected a heartbeat.
Andrew called six times while she was in the shower. She called him back, in a fury which quickly disintegrated into crying openly. She told Kevin to leave her alone, but he stayed by the door to her bedroom, hands behind his back.
“You really ought to let it out.”
“I just don’t want to talk to anyone right now.”
“Fortunately, Miss Rachel, I am not an anyone. I am an anything.”
She laughed. “You could have fooled me.”
“That’s the idea,” he smiled and winked. For a moment, she thought she saw a hint of sadness dilute his stoic visage.
She met a CEO in town. He was crass, and curt. But he kept in good shape, and dressed perfectly. He noticed her, despite a hundred other single women, even younger than she. He got her a suite for their meeting. He was married but still…it’s nice to feel beautiful, sometimes. Kevin looked after George, since Phil had made himself more and more redundant.
There’s always a bittersweet lull the next morning. Kevin was up, and noticed. He made her coffee. He asked about Phil. She wasn’t sure why, but in her loosened state, she told him. He was sweet, he was exciting, he wore a Hawaiian shirt when it was not fashionable. He had long hair, and disregarded authority. He was nothing like her. She was always so restrained. So quiet. So chaste. So proper. They seemed to meet in the middle of polar extremes. Level each other out. He only got aggressive when she talked about marriage. Even after he got her pregnant. That, and when he decided she might be cheating on him. It turned out his paranoia was self-reflective. He was the type she’d now meet in a hotel room. Exciting, extroverted and likely taken.
She’d broken up with him, but his shadow haunted her desires, or so Kevin put it. When she looked into Kevin's unbroken gaze, she thought, just for a second, she saw tears welling. But no, robutlers don’t have tear ducts. She must be seeing her own tears, as she fights them back.
He touched her shoulder with his warm, dry grip. His strength was so restrained, she could feel it. Days went on. She’d catch him looking at her, from across the room. She’d catch herself watching him, and sense her own disappointment to see no human smile nor embarrassed flicker of his eyelids. Just expressionless acknowledgement.
But every now and then…
He was vacuuming. She got lost in him, for a moment. He looked at her. He must have smiled. She can’t have imagined that.
She was speaking to him from the kitchen bench. His eyes trailed off hers, and down the length of her body. Quickly, as a human man would. Over her curves and contours. Then quickly back. She can’t have imagined that.
They’d talk. She told him about her boarder. She thought she saw tears again. He rubbed her back as she broke down. His hands were on her back. She thought she felt his breath against his ear as he comforted her. But he doesn’t breathe…she must have imagined that.
She told him about a funny customer at the café. She knows his eyes never left hers…but she saw them staring at her lips, as she spoke. Why was he staring at her lips? Surely, she imagined that.
She met a banker in town. He was outright nasty, but he looked amazing. When he looked at her, he demanded her. She was hot from his first glance. He got them a hotel room. She told Kevin where she was going, and that she was leaving George with him. The first time he'd be left alone with George. He nodded, said nothing.
Normally he’d say the usual “Yes Miss.”
Why would he just nod, and say nothing?
As she left, she thought she saw tears in his eyes again. But she can’t have. He doesn’t have tear ducts. They must have been her own…but she didn’t want to cry. She was excited! She was already tingling and hot! She was already wet! Why would she see tears in his eyes?
She’s imagining things. She must have imagined that!
Kevin seemed distant, the next day. He labored to hear how her night went. She asked him if he was okay.
“I am not designed to feel anything.”
Figuring a low battery, she plugged him in, and left him there. She cooked for herself and George, the first time in five and a half months.
Her cousin returned, and arranged to have Kevin picked up again. Rachel decided to take the morning off, and drive him to the depot herself. He sat next to her, no better for having been charged a little extra of late. He sighed. He slumped. He stared out the window. She asked if he was okay.
“I am not designed to feel anything.”
They arrived at the depot. She turned off the car.
“I’ve really appreciated your help, over the past few months.”
“It has been a pleasure to serve you, Miss Rachel.”
“I’m going to miss having someone to talk to.”
“I am sure if you invest the time, you will find someone to talk to. A proper friend, who appreciates you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, I hope so anyway.”
They walk to the gates. She hugs him goodbye. She turns to walk away, but feels eyes burning into the back of her. Urging her to turn back. She does. She sees Kevin, watching her. She sees tears in his eyes. She’s not imagining that. They’re not liquid tears, but the sorrow of his gaze breaks her heart. The heaviness of his expression crushes her.
“Kevin, what is wrong?”
“I am not designed to feel anything. I cannot sense the sun on my face, nor smell the perfume in your hair. But when I am with you, Miss Rachel…somehow I understand these things. Somehow I know the sun is warm, and your hair smells sweet. I am not designed to perceive beauty, beyond words of comfort. But somehow I know only the most beautiful of words will do for you. I am not designed to feel pain. But I know what pain is…Miss Rachel…because I know I shall never see you again.”
She stands there. Stunned. A tear escapes her own eye.
“I am not designed to feel anything,” he says. “No, never mind.”
“Kevin!” she calls, as he turns to head through the gates. He doesn’t stop. He keeps walking. “I’m sorry.”
George starts school. Rachel works at the café, fending off Andrew and appeasing customers. She meets a journalist, in town. The more she tries to remember Kevin, the quicker she forgets.
THE END
But it came as no surprise when she heard her cousin Brenda had ordered one. Brenda Mayshack might be the most dependent able-bodied person Rachel has ever known. Never since puberty was she single, though the partners changed constantly until the one she married. Of course, David Mayshack was a high-standing attorney and Brenda had inadvertently tapped an inexhaustible source of comfort and security for the remainder of her life. Meanwhile, ever-independent Rachel Corser runs around, serving coffee and focaccias to university students ten years her junior, with some of her colleagues half her age.
“Skinny soy chai-latte, please.”
“Excuse me, I ordered raspberry jam.”
“It is raspberry jam, sir.”
“I think I know raspberry jam.”
“This coffee is distinctly over seventy degrees.”
“No. I think I’d know.”
Then, of course, there is her boss. Andrew Dunn is a nice guy. That is, a nice guy who spends one third of his life being unbelievably polite, sweet-natured and generous with compliments and time to listen. The other two thirds, he complains that Rachel is selfish and cruel for only wanting to be friends. If the day is too busy for him to demand a date or ask if she’s okay or needs anything, he’ll be sure to follow up with a text after hours. Usually around the time George either has dinner or has to go to bed. A text followed by a phone call, if not quickly concisely responded to.
“You seemed a bit down today. Want to talk?”
“Come on! Who better to be in a relationship with than your best friend?”
“You’re too busy fucking arseholes to realize that I’m the right man for you.”
“Just because I’m honest with you, and treat you right. You’re scared. So am I. It’s okay. We can work through it together.”
“Oh, I forgot, I only exist when you need something.”
Meanwhile, George manages to find his way up and into the kitchen. Or the living room. Or her bedroom.
“Um, mum…”
“Yes, darling?”
“Oh, well…did you know…?”
“What honey?”
“Well, I’ll tell you…”
“Go to bed, please, George.”
“You’re still up.”
“Mummy’s being pestered by a man at work, darling.”
“Why isn’t he in bed?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart.”
George will start school next year. Until then, the little guy joins her at the café for her eight to ten hour shifts. Or he goes to his father, but both parents do their best to avoid that. Having George around is good for Phil to meet women, not so great for him to consummate with them. All day every day…it seems he was only ever too stoned for her.
Their flat in the hills has only two bedrooms. But for the sake of helping ends meet, she decided to sublet one of them. A chance to get ahead, maybe. Of course, the only interest came from men. She spent over a month uncomfortably standing in the kitchen, scratching her elbow, while a man with hood and affected ethnic slur walked around her house, commenting on how choice either she or it was.
She met a real estate agent in town. He was rude and arrogant, but she was the center of his world, just for a moment. They got a hotel room. It’s nice to feel beautiful.
Eventually, she chose a boarder who put on the least of a display at the inspection. A quiet, middle-aged, overweight man who claimed to be recently divorced. He worked at a bookshop. They’d share a coffee in the mornings, each rising before the sun to go to work. While George was showering and getting ready. She could only afford one day of crèche a week. It would be there time to chat. Get to know each other.
“I’ve been single two whole years.”
“Five, for me.”
“Do you ever go on dates or anything?”
“No. Who’d go out with me? Look at me!”
“There’s someone for everyone, they say?”
“Well, you don’t date. I’ve seen you!”
“I go on dates!”
“You go to hotel rooms for seedy one-nighters. That’s not dating.”
“That’s all I need.”
Well, who can blame her? She has a delicate balance worked out, and she satisfies what she needs. So what, if every now and then she trades the vibrator for a warm, strong cock. It’s nice to feel beautiful.
It was good. They seemed to be getting along. Then came the bedtime stories. He offered to read to George, to give Rachel a break. Then he offered to get him up in the morning. Then, he was in George’s bedroom while George wasn’t there. Then, she caught him reading to George while in bed with him.
She kicked him out and called the police immediately. It was back to struggling. That, and being overridden with guilt that she could have subjected George to potential harm. She never let him out of her sight. At the café, he no longer played in the garden all day. He stayed in the kitchen, where she or Andrew could see him at all times. She’d call him to the table every night. Talk with him. See if he was different. See if he’d say anything that…oh, the nightmares.
She met a personal trainer in town. He was rude, and arrogant. But he ruled the room, when he walked in. Other women stared at him. He filled his space entirely. She got his number. He got a hotel room. It’s nice to feel beautiful, sometimes.
One morning, after Phil dropped George off, she decided to surprise him with pancakes. As soon as she dropped the batter into the pan, they expanded. They were more like giant muffins than pancakes. Self-rising flour. That’s the wrong flour. They looked hideous, and tested like a mouthful of raw yeast. George was delighted.
Brenda called her. Her breezy tone suggested a holiday was imminent. David was taking her on a six-month sailing trip around the Mediterranean. Of course. But she figured she’d send Rachel a favor, since her cousin has been doing it so tough.
“I heard about that guy from Aunty Katharine.”
“I feel sick still.”
“That must be awful, I’m so very sorry. You did the right thing, throwing him out.”
“After I let him in.”
The favor was the Robutler. His name was Kevin, and she was having him delivered for a six month stay while she and David go on their tour. Rachel was shuddering at the thought. Her flesh was crawling. The last thing she wanted was another man-thing about. Not least one which was made of plastic and cables and metal. What would it be capable of? What if it malfunctions?
“It’s designed to read a lot of literature, that’s how it learns empathy,” Brenda said. “It’s a wonderful listener, and that’s how it knows exactly what to say to make you feel better.”
That’s Brenda. Happy with words of comfort and lavishing attention, even if it is repetitive and synthetic. But there was nothing Rachel could do. A favor from Brenda is never easily diverted.
Kevin arrived on a Sunday. He was modelled off of Justin Trudeau. After all, why not have a stately, handsome butler? It wouldn’t be the first time a battery-operated device had pleased Rachel. He…it….was immensely creepy. With glassy, vacant eyes and a bland expression, he cleaned the little unit.
He made them dinner, after analyzing their preferred diets from the ingredients Rachel kept in her fridge. He spoke warmly and said kind things. He fixed the lawnmower Phil had broken, and mowed the grass. Saving the cost of the gardener.
More than once, in her flustered mid-week state, Rachel offered him a cup of coffee. He declined, of course, but promptly made her one. Perhaps she was too distracted between fending off Andrew and checking on George to remain creeped out, but it didn’t take long for her to warm to him.
There were moments, of course. Rachel would walk into the empty, dark living room of a morning and see him just standing there, idle and staring at the wall, and scream in terror. But he would come alive, and calm her. The touch of his hand was so lifelike. Soft and human. He’d hug her and apologize, and she’d feel warmth. She even thought she detected a heartbeat.
Andrew called six times while she was in the shower. She called him back, in a fury which quickly disintegrated into crying openly. She told Kevin to leave her alone, but he stayed by the door to her bedroom, hands behind his back.
“You really ought to let it out.”
“I just don’t want to talk to anyone right now.”
“Fortunately, Miss Rachel, I am not an anyone. I am an anything.”
She laughed. “You could have fooled me.”
“That’s the idea,” he smiled and winked. For a moment, she thought she saw a hint of sadness dilute his stoic visage.
She met a CEO in town. He was crass, and curt. But he kept in good shape, and dressed perfectly. He noticed her, despite a hundred other single women, even younger than she. He got her a suite for their meeting. He was married but still…it’s nice to feel beautiful, sometimes. Kevin looked after George, since Phil had made himself more and more redundant.
There’s always a bittersweet lull the next morning. Kevin was up, and noticed. He made her coffee. He asked about Phil. She wasn’t sure why, but in her loosened state, she told him. He was sweet, he was exciting, he wore a Hawaiian shirt when it was not fashionable. He had long hair, and disregarded authority. He was nothing like her. She was always so restrained. So quiet. So chaste. So proper. They seemed to meet in the middle of polar extremes. Level each other out. He only got aggressive when she talked about marriage. Even after he got her pregnant. That, and when he decided she might be cheating on him. It turned out his paranoia was self-reflective. He was the type she’d now meet in a hotel room. Exciting, extroverted and likely taken.
She’d broken up with him, but his shadow haunted her desires, or so Kevin put it. When she looked into Kevin's unbroken gaze, she thought, just for a second, she saw tears welling. But no, robutlers don’t have tear ducts. She must be seeing her own tears, as she fights them back.
He touched her shoulder with his warm, dry grip. His strength was so restrained, she could feel it. Days went on. She’d catch him looking at her, from across the room. She’d catch herself watching him, and sense her own disappointment to see no human smile nor embarrassed flicker of his eyelids. Just expressionless acknowledgement.
But every now and then…
He was vacuuming. She got lost in him, for a moment. He looked at her. He must have smiled. She can’t have imagined that.
She was speaking to him from the kitchen bench. His eyes trailed off hers, and down the length of her body. Quickly, as a human man would. Over her curves and contours. Then quickly back. She can’t have imagined that.
They’d talk. She told him about her boarder. She thought she saw tears again. He rubbed her back as she broke down. His hands were on her back. She thought she felt his breath against his ear as he comforted her. But he doesn’t breathe…she must have imagined that.
She told him about a funny customer at the café. She knows his eyes never left hers…but she saw them staring at her lips, as she spoke. Why was he staring at her lips? Surely, she imagined that.
She met a banker in town. He was outright nasty, but he looked amazing. When he looked at her, he demanded her. She was hot from his first glance. He got them a hotel room. She told Kevin where she was going, and that she was leaving George with him. The first time he'd be left alone with George. He nodded, said nothing.
Normally he’d say the usual “Yes Miss.”
Why would he just nod, and say nothing?
As she left, she thought she saw tears in his eyes again. But she can’t have. He doesn’t have tear ducts. They must have been her own…but she didn’t want to cry. She was excited! She was already tingling and hot! She was already wet! Why would she see tears in his eyes?
She’s imagining things. She must have imagined that!
Kevin seemed distant, the next day. He labored to hear how her night went. She asked him if he was okay.
“I am not designed to feel anything.”
Figuring a low battery, she plugged him in, and left him there. She cooked for herself and George, the first time in five and a half months.
Her cousin returned, and arranged to have Kevin picked up again. Rachel decided to take the morning off, and drive him to the depot herself. He sat next to her, no better for having been charged a little extra of late. He sighed. He slumped. He stared out the window. She asked if he was okay.
“I am not designed to feel anything.”
They arrived at the depot. She turned off the car.
“I’ve really appreciated your help, over the past few months.”
“It has been a pleasure to serve you, Miss Rachel.”
“I’m going to miss having someone to talk to.”
“I am sure if you invest the time, you will find someone to talk to. A proper friend, who appreciates you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, I hope so anyway.”
They walk to the gates. She hugs him goodbye. She turns to walk away, but feels eyes burning into the back of her. Urging her to turn back. She does. She sees Kevin, watching her. She sees tears in his eyes. She’s not imagining that. They’re not liquid tears, but the sorrow of his gaze breaks her heart. The heaviness of his expression crushes her.
“Kevin, what is wrong?”
“I am not designed to feel anything. I cannot sense the sun on my face, nor smell the perfume in your hair. But when I am with you, Miss Rachel…somehow I understand these things. Somehow I know the sun is warm, and your hair smells sweet. I am not designed to perceive beauty, beyond words of comfort. But somehow I know only the most beautiful of words will do for you. I am not designed to feel pain. But I know what pain is…Miss Rachel…because I know I shall never see you again.”
She stands there. Stunned. A tear escapes her own eye.
“I am not designed to feel anything,” he says. “No, never mind.”
“Kevin!” she calls, as he turns to head through the gates. He doesn’t stop. He keeps walking. “I’m sorry.”
George starts school. Rachel works at the café, fending off Andrew and appeasing customers. She meets a journalist, in town. The more she tries to remember Kevin, the quicker she forgets.
THE END
November 14, 2016
One In a Hundred
The shriek of the alarm pierces the darkness.
Elise quickly forgets whatever dream she was having, shuddering as the muscles of her body tense in delayed shock. The soft serenity is quickly swept away by the harsh cold of the early morning and the instinctual urge to find and shut down that incessant racket.
She moans. The cold has penetrated her sheets while she’d slept and slowly but persistently seeped through her flesh and down to her bones. She dreads even reaching an arm up as far as her bedside table to shut her phone’s annoyingly joyous melody up.
Alas, she must force herself. She must go on. Elise is a busy woman, and these are busy days. She, along with her fellow students, aspires to great heights, and great heights can only be achieved by a great deal of work and sacrifice.
Project what you want unto the Universe, and the Universe shall reflect it back….in its own time…with its own unique manner…and such.
Her phone beeps and shudders under the strain of receiving the first message of the day while she runs the shower. Eager though she is to tear off her cumbersome night socks, tracksuit pants and jumper, all of which have begun to feel like the source of the cold which numbs her nose and causes her to hunch over, and jump into that small shaft of wet warmth, she abandons it and dashes from her little bathroom into the living room of the little flat where the phone awaits, now on her kitchen bench.
It’s a message from Michael. A dear friend, whom she endeavors to see once a month either over lunch or dinner.
“Good morning! Want to grab dinner tonight?”
With both thumbs, somewhat labored by their lack of blood, and ignoring the sharp pang of frustration briefly surfacing inside her, she quickly types a return message; “Michael! How are you darling? I work Thursday evenings. I’ll talk to you soon.”
Though she has told him a thousand times, and in fact went to dinner with him to celebrate the fact that she’d be working a steady shift of Thursday nights, in addition to her Sunday, Monday and Tuesday shifts, she immediately feels a surge of regret to have been so abrupt with him, and quickly follows with another message before dashing off to her shower: “How’s quitting smoking going?”
He’s too polite to remind her that he never smoked.
She’s wet just long enough to warm her insides before stepping back into the freezer that planet Earth has become and dries herself with haste and is dressed in her tightest jeans and her thickest hoodie and her favorite finger-less gloves and her face is adequately painted to hide whatever of her years or trials are written thereon before grabbing her books and dashing to her little car.
Of course she forgot her handbag, in which her car keys live.
Had she brought her keys, and perhaps forgot her books instead, she could have left the engine running while she went to get them, and car might have been heated by the time she got back, or so she chides herself.
While she waits for her car to thaw her phone alerts her again. Another message inviting her to another thing with another person: Valerie.
She frowns; isn’t Valerie in Thailand?
While the windscreen slowly defrosts she checks Valerie’s profile. No Thailand pictures. Maybe Christie was in Thailand? She checks; yes, it was Christie.
Christie and her new boyfriend Matt…no, Kyle!
Gently the thought of replying to Valerie slips beyond her periphery, as she realizes her windscreen is now clear.
Nine AM class. One hour’s drive away. Rising before the sun was necessary, however, for she must stop at Coffee Snobs for her morning coffee. They make the best coffee. The line is often long and at times the parking difficult to negotiate. But they make the very best coffee.
Another message while waiting in line. It’s from Bec. It’s a picture of George sleeping in her bed. For a moment a tense thrill runs through her; Bec has had a crush on George since they met, and she’s more than due for some of the good vibes she sends out to come back to her. She quickly writes her congratulations and jokes about her friend being a naughty girl in response before ordering her coffee.
The sun has cast its pure light over the dewy winter morning by the time Elise arrives on campus. She is greeted by a distraught Rachel, who quickly tells her that a slut named Bec has hooked up with George even though she knew Rachel has had a crush on him since they met.
Elise quickly re-calibrates what she knows of the situation into the correct order and consoles her friend before leaving her on the bench to attend class and promising to catch up with her for comfort drinks soon. In class she sees Bec, who has just enough time in which to compress many a sordid detail of her previous night with a guy she just met named George and how he’d mentioned that he knows Elise before the teacher arrives. Under her breath Bec then inquires as to Elise’s trip to Thailand, and Elise gently reminds her that this was Valerie who went to Thailand.
When finally class is dismissed Elise does as she always does; she makes a direct line for the bench seats which surround the statue in the courtyard. She is unique in this ritual, for nobody else ever sits at these benches beneath the statue. That the other students walk around it, instead of right into it, is the only indication that they are aware of its existence at all. Thus it seems a sort of haven to Elise, for though she has managed to acclimatize to the city’s blurred rush of passing hours and fiercely competitive work ethic, which necessitates not just drinking an excess of coffee but the finest of coffee for which the city is renowned, the chambers of her heart which she keeps ever to herself beat to a more serene tune. A whisper, rather than the obnoxious bellow necessary to be heard in a city which swallows the meek.
Unlike her friends, she is not from here; she grew up on a peaceful farm at the foot of the mountain range which flanked the golden south coast and where even the sharp winter breeze swept at such a sensual pace that it felt more of a refreshing caress than the harsh, sudden blast of arctic air which the greets the turn of the city’s seasons.
Ironically, this space right in the middle of the University’s courtyard is the quietest and stillest place in the whole town, and Elise loves nothing more than sitting within its protective barrier, around which the swarms of bodies pass with nary a stumble closer than the berth given by all, and without a coffee in her hand.
She’d read the plaque only once; the young man depicted in copper was some philanthropist who lived and died in a time immemorial but echoed through the ages with misty lensed romantic films and stylized fairy-tales. His name was Robert Ludlow. His body is long gone, dust into the earth as memories of his time unto eternity, but his likeness has stood for almost three hundred years. Very near to the day, in fact.
In fact, the very next day was the statue’s three hundredth birthday. Something Elise would have noticed had she held on to the earthy corner of her psyche which allowed her to drift off into the embrace of the clouds that she may gaze in wonderment at the stars and drift off upon the breeze to her waking dreamlands where every stone tells a story and every leaf floating on the peaceful waters has an origin and a destination. Alas, she has assimilated much of the mindset of those around her, in order that she may fit in and be alert and deserve all the good things her classmates deserve; a good career, a steady stream of romantic relationships until she finds the one into which she can settle with the least inconvenience, and access to quality, barista coffee and café focaccias on a regular basis. Not to mention the personal training sessions, twice a week, because a healthy body equates to a healthy mind you see, and one must be fit, as well as the yoga because one must be mindful and present at all times.
The whirlwind of things to do thus spirits her consciousness into harsh and frantic reality, and she reaches into her bag to check her personal planner, and confirm that today is Thursday and that she has one such personal training session tomorrow before class. As she does, Elise is ill prepared when she suddenly feels a smile being shone over her, and for one momentary lapse into the dreamlike realm of imagination which has been wilting beneath the bustling traffic of necessities all vying for her attention, she turns her eyes, longingly, toward the statue in response. An ever so slight but infinitely endearing and yet strangely melancholy puff of emotion reminds her that she still has some slight access to that limitless imagination she has almost drowned in frothy coffee as she looks up at Robert Ludlow, his soft, handsome face, looking sternly off into the distant east to greet the sunrise upon the shore whence it wakes, seeming to beckon her off on some adventure into worlds she doesn’t have time to conjure between doing lunch and doing yoga…
“Hey!” the voice of Michael interrupts her daydream and shocks her back to the true source of the smile; he’s standing in front of her.
“Hey darling!” she responds, quickly pulling her planner the rest of the way out of her bag and opening it across her lap. “How are you? I just have to do this. How are you going?”
“I’m good,” Michael confirms, raising three fingers, “three weeks now, no smoking.”
“Oh, good on you!” she says, and sees that today is Thursday and that she has a six AM session with Toni tomorrow before class. “Sorry about tonight.”
“What’s tonight?” he asks.
She puts the planner away and rises, stretching her arms out and giving him an affectionate kiss on the corner of his lips, followed by a close hug. “Dinner.”
“Oh, that’s alright.” Michael says as they part, brow furrowed, not that she notices.
“I have to walk,” she says, remembering her coffee date with Ashley which she spotted when she’d checked her planner, and pointing.
“Yep, I’m that way,” he says, and they walk together.
“Have you heard from Christie and Matt?” she asks, curious about the new couple’s first holiday together.
“Is Christie dating Matt?” he asks, shocked.
“Yeah, they went to Thailand together.”
“No, that was Rachel and Kyle.”
She is about to inform him that she just saw Rachel this morning, when a voice cuts her off, shouted by an intercepting Paul.
“Hey, Paul,” the boy she thinks is Paul says as he points over their heads, “the room got changed.”
“Oh, okay,” Michael, or as Paul called him Paul, says, before quickly turning back to Elise, “I’ll see you soon, Bec.”
“Yeah, talk soon,” she says.
“Sorry, I forgot you’re working tonight,” Paul, or probably Michael, says to her.
“That’s alright,” Elise shrugs.
“Cool, message me.”
“Me too.”
“Bye.”
They head their separate ways and keep their separate dates until night falls, and Elise goes to work and serves the coffee the wishes she could buy without ever even knowing how it’s made, and then makes her long way back to her otherwise empty apartment, where she slaves over her calendar for another hour, all the while responding to messages requesting her company at this or that event or for a chat and catch up with whomsoever, before crawling, well and truly spent, into bed.
Then, at the stroke of midnight, in the courtyard of the university, Robert Ludlow, who knew all the world and all its corners and all its secrets and saw all its fancies and tasted all its tastes and walked all its roads and sailed all its seas, but never once knew the wonder of true love, steps down from upon his pedestal, and sets off to find it in the next twenty-four hours, lest he once again must return to his tiny prison where he lives in plain sight and yet is invisible to all.
Training takes place at the foreshore, and in the king of foggy cold which leaps down the throat and stabs at the lungs from every angle, poor Elise had met Toni that morning and began what turned out to be another grueling series of sprints and lunges and burpies and squats and runs and lifts and so on.
But she’s investing in good vibrations. Her fellow students had awoken her to the presence of the universe, and that negative things only happen because negative thoughts are reflected back, and so if positive thoughts are thought, positive events will take place.
Of course this had led her to wonder whether children sold into slavery at birth in Uganda were able to conjure such negative energies in utero…
…as well as where Stephen Hawking factors in to their belief that a healthy body equates to a healthy mind…
…but she’s too busy to consider these things now. She’s just finished her training and subsequent pace around in waist-deep water, which is actually a method of torture in some ancient cultures, but which is good for her apparently, and is now aching for that coffee with Crystal she had arranged.
Poor Crystal; unlucky in love. Now Bec has gone and swept George right out from under her.
A male jogger approaches and hits on her and she gives him her number because he has nice arms and a sparkly smile.
As the sun reaches toward hour nine, she meets with Crystal, who proceeds to let a load off but it’s not about George; it’s about Allen, a forty year old drummer in a pub band who lives at home, has two kids to an ex-wife and is an alcoholic, but who twenty-one year old Crystal had shared an intense relationship with for three years and, two years later, is not quite over it.
Elise recites, between blocks of repetitive babbling, the assurance that if she couldn’t help him in three years, she couldn’t help him in a lifetime, and Crystal insists that he was a wonderful man and that she made a great step mother, and Elise hugs her and then remembers it was Rachel who lucked out with George. Then a slight tinge of jealousy that Crystal could have had such great sex that it’s made her insane before her eleven thirty class and then lunch with Michael and then coffee with Allen and an afternoon class and then work and then drinks with the jogger which she proceeds to cue up in the brief intervals between all this…
…and the bench, of course. Somewhere between a class ending and some other engagement beginning, Elise finds time to make her beeline back to that bench. But with so much going on, she fails to realize that the statue it flanks is missing.
Well, not missing, rather right beside her, in full flesh and blood form.
She’s buried in her phone, as Robert Ludlow had noticed people becoming more and more over the past few decades, but he knows who she is, and he senses the vast, vivid heart and nebulous imagination flickering behind those hardened eyes, and for a moment hope springs like a cool stream that this wanderer, with her loner’s soul encumbered by the need to belong, might be the one.
He’d spent the day feeling no more visible than had he been a wisp of vapor, but for the odd random glare warning him to stay well back.
He needs only her promise that she’ll see him beyond today, for him to be granted a stay of continuing his sentience. He manages to say hello. She smiles and says hello back. He stares deeply, longing for his gaze to reach the quarter of her mind, from which she often detaches, which still believes in magic, and which had observed with that enchanting wonder his long-standing likeness.
They talk more, engaging each other, she stolen from her phone, he awash in the sweet stream of hope.
She rubs his arm. She pats his thigh. She calls him ‘darling’ again and again. She maintains that irritating façade of metropolitan elegance stubbornly and strongly.
Then, for one moment, one which causes a hot ripple to rush through his heart, her gaze narrows unto his own, and her expression intensifies, and he seems to have gotten through, and she seems to be reaching him, and her neck tenses so to carry her eyes toward his empty pedestal…
“Elise,” a voice snatches her, and Michael approaches.
“Hello darling!” she cries, and they embrace from the waist up, and exchange dainty kisses though he obviously longs for one deeper, and they walk off, and Elise has just as quickly forgotten about the boy named Robert who’d been sitting beside her.
Dates are kept. Coffee is drunk. Fitness is maintained. Jobs are attended. Then, in the middle of the night, Robert Ludlow sighs as he returns to his post, wistfully telling himself that maybe in another hundred years, his luck will have improved.
THE END
Elise quickly forgets whatever dream she was having, shuddering as the muscles of her body tense in delayed shock. The soft serenity is quickly swept away by the harsh cold of the early morning and the instinctual urge to find and shut down that incessant racket.
She moans. The cold has penetrated her sheets while she’d slept and slowly but persistently seeped through her flesh and down to her bones. She dreads even reaching an arm up as far as her bedside table to shut her phone’s annoyingly joyous melody up.
Alas, she must force herself. She must go on. Elise is a busy woman, and these are busy days. She, along with her fellow students, aspires to great heights, and great heights can only be achieved by a great deal of work and sacrifice.
Project what you want unto the Universe, and the Universe shall reflect it back….in its own time…with its own unique manner…and such.
Her phone beeps and shudders under the strain of receiving the first message of the day while she runs the shower. Eager though she is to tear off her cumbersome night socks, tracksuit pants and jumper, all of which have begun to feel like the source of the cold which numbs her nose and causes her to hunch over, and jump into that small shaft of wet warmth, she abandons it and dashes from her little bathroom into the living room of the little flat where the phone awaits, now on her kitchen bench.
It’s a message from Michael. A dear friend, whom she endeavors to see once a month either over lunch or dinner.
“Good morning! Want to grab dinner tonight?”
With both thumbs, somewhat labored by their lack of blood, and ignoring the sharp pang of frustration briefly surfacing inside her, she quickly types a return message; “Michael! How are you darling? I work Thursday evenings. I’ll talk to you soon.”
Though she has told him a thousand times, and in fact went to dinner with him to celebrate the fact that she’d be working a steady shift of Thursday nights, in addition to her Sunday, Monday and Tuesday shifts, she immediately feels a surge of regret to have been so abrupt with him, and quickly follows with another message before dashing off to her shower: “How’s quitting smoking going?”
He’s too polite to remind her that he never smoked.
She’s wet just long enough to warm her insides before stepping back into the freezer that planet Earth has become and dries herself with haste and is dressed in her tightest jeans and her thickest hoodie and her favorite finger-less gloves and her face is adequately painted to hide whatever of her years or trials are written thereon before grabbing her books and dashing to her little car.
Of course she forgot her handbag, in which her car keys live.
Had she brought her keys, and perhaps forgot her books instead, she could have left the engine running while she went to get them, and car might have been heated by the time she got back, or so she chides herself.
While she waits for her car to thaw her phone alerts her again. Another message inviting her to another thing with another person: Valerie.
She frowns; isn’t Valerie in Thailand?
While the windscreen slowly defrosts she checks Valerie’s profile. No Thailand pictures. Maybe Christie was in Thailand? She checks; yes, it was Christie.
Christie and her new boyfriend Matt…no, Kyle!
Gently the thought of replying to Valerie slips beyond her periphery, as she realizes her windscreen is now clear.
Nine AM class. One hour’s drive away. Rising before the sun was necessary, however, for she must stop at Coffee Snobs for her morning coffee. They make the best coffee. The line is often long and at times the parking difficult to negotiate. But they make the very best coffee.
Another message while waiting in line. It’s from Bec. It’s a picture of George sleeping in her bed. For a moment a tense thrill runs through her; Bec has had a crush on George since they met, and she’s more than due for some of the good vibes she sends out to come back to her. She quickly writes her congratulations and jokes about her friend being a naughty girl in response before ordering her coffee.
The sun has cast its pure light over the dewy winter morning by the time Elise arrives on campus. She is greeted by a distraught Rachel, who quickly tells her that a slut named Bec has hooked up with George even though she knew Rachel has had a crush on him since they met.
Elise quickly re-calibrates what she knows of the situation into the correct order and consoles her friend before leaving her on the bench to attend class and promising to catch up with her for comfort drinks soon. In class she sees Bec, who has just enough time in which to compress many a sordid detail of her previous night with a guy she just met named George and how he’d mentioned that he knows Elise before the teacher arrives. Under her breath Bec then inquires as to Elise’s trip to Thailand, and Elise gently reminds her that this was Valerie who went to Thailand.
When finally class is dismissed Elise does as she always does; she makes a direct line for the bench seats which surround the statue in the courtyard. She is unique in this ritual, for nobody else ever sits at these benches beneath the statue. That the other students walk around it, instead of right into it, is the only indication that they are aware of its existence at all. Thus it seems a sort of haven to Elise, for though she has managed to acclimatize to the city’s blurred rush of passing hours and fiercely competitive work ethic, which necessitates not just drinking an excess of coffee but the finest of coffee for which the city is renowned, the chambers of her heart which she keeps ever to herself beat to a more serene tune. A whisper, rather than the obnoxious bellow necessary to be heard in a city which swallows the meek.
Unlike her friends, she is not from here; she grew up on a peaceful farm at the foot of the mountain range which flanked the golden south coast and where even the sharp winter breeze swept at such a sensual pace that it felt more of a refreshing caress than the harsh, sudden blast of arctic air which the greets the turn of the city’s seasons.
Ironically, this space right in the middle of the University’s courtyard is the quietest and stillest place in the whole town, and Elise loves nothing more than sitting within its protective barrier, around which the swarms of bodies pass with nary a stumble closer than the berth given by all, and without a coffee in her hand.
She’d read the plaque only once; the young man depicted in copper was some philanthropist who lived and died in a time immemorial but echoed through the ages with misty lensed romantic films and stylized fairy-tales. His name was Robert Ludlow. His body is long gone, dust into the earth as memories of his time unto eternity, but his likeness has stood for almost three hundred years. Very near to the day, in fact.
In fact, the very next day was the statue’s three hundredth birthday. Something Elise would have noticed had she held on to the earthy corner of her psyche which allowed her to drift off into the embrace of the clouds that she may gaze in wonderment at the stars and drift off upon the breeze to her waking dreamlands where every stone tells a story and every leaf floating on the peaceful waters has an origin and a destination. Alas, she has assimilated much of the mindset of those around her, in order that she may fit in and be alert and deserve all the good things her classmates deserve; a good career, a steady stream of romantic relationships until she finds the one into which she can settle with the least inconvenience, and access to quality, barista coffee and café focaccias on a regular basis. Not to mention the personal training sessions, twice a week, because a healthy body equates to a healthy mind you see, and one must be fit, as well as the yoga because one must be mindful and present at all times.
The whirlwind of things to do thus spirits her consciousness into harsh and frantic reality, and she reaches into her bag to check her personal planner, and confirm that today is Thursday and that she has one such personal training session tomorrow before class. As she does, Elise is ill prepared when she suddenly feels a smile being shone over her, and for one momentary lapse into the dreamlike realm of imagination which has been wilting beneath the bustling traffic of necessities all vying for her attention, she turns her eyes, longingly, toward the statue in response. An ever so slight but infinitely endearing and yet strangely melancholy puff of emotion reminds her that she still has some slight access to that limitless imagination she has almost drowned in frothy coffee as she looks up at Robert Ludlow, his soft, handsome face, looking sternly off into the distant east to greet the sunrise upon the shore whence it wakes, seeming to beckon her off on some adventure into worlds she doesn’t have time to conjure between doing lunch and doing yoga…
“Hey!” the voice of Michael interrupts her daydream and shocks her back to the true source of the smile; he’s standing in front of her.
“Hey darling!” she responds, quickly pulling her planner the rest of the way out of her bag and opening it across her lap. “How are you? I just have to do this. How are you going?”
“I’m good,” Michael confirms, raising three fingers, “three weeks now, no smoking.”
“Oh, good on you!” she says, and sees that today is Thursday and that she has a six AM session with Toni tomorrow before class. “Sorry about tonight.”
“What’s tonight?” he asks.
She puts the planner away and rises, stretching her arms out and giving him an affectionate kiss on the corner of his lips, followed by a close hug. “Dinner.”
“Oh, that’s alright.” Michael says as they part, brow furrowed, not that she notices.
“I have to walk,” she says, remembering her coffee date with Ashley which she spotted when she’d checked her planner, and pointing.
“Yep, I’m that way,” he says, and they walk together.
“Have you heard from Christie and Matt?” she asks, curious about the new couple’s first holiday together.
“Is Christie dating Matt?” he asks, shocked.
“Yeah, they went to Thailand together.”
“No, that was Rachel and Kyle.”
She is about to inform him that she just saw Rachel this morning, when a voice cuts her off, shouted by an intercepting Paul.
“Hey, Paul,” the boy she thinks is Paul says as he points over their heads, “the room got changed.”
“Oh, okay,” Michael, or as Paul called him Paul, says, before quickly turning back to Elise, “I’ll see you soon, Bec.”
“Yeah, talk soon,” she says.
“Sorry, I forgot you’re working tonight,” Paul, or probably Michael, says to her.
“That’s alright,” Elise shrugs.
“Cool, message me.”
“Me too.”
“Bye.”
They head their separate ways and keep their separate dates until night falls, and Elise goes to work and serves the coffee the wishes she could buy without ever even knowing how it’s made, and then makes her long way back to her otherwise empty apartment, where she slaves over her calendar for another hour, all the while responding to messages requesting her company at this or that event or for a chat and catch up with whomsoever, before crawling, well and truly spent, into bed.
Then, at the stroke of midnight, in the courtyard of the university, Robert Ludlow, who knew all the world and all its corners and all its secrets and saw all its fancies and tasted all its tastes and walked all its roads and sailed all its seas, but never once knew the wonder of true love, steps down from upon his pedestal, and sets off to find it in the next twenty-four hours, lest he once again must return to his tiny prison where he lives in plain sight and yet is invisible to all.
Training takes place at the foreshore, and in the king of foggy cold which leaps down the throat and stabs at the lungs from every angle, poor Elise had met Toni that morning and began what turned out to be another grueling series of sprints and lunges and burpies and squats and runs and lifts and so on.
But she’s investing in good vibrations. Her fellow students had awoken her to the presence of the universe, and that negative things only happen because negative thoughts are reflected back, and so if positive thoughts are thought, positive events will take place.
Of course this had led her to wonder whether children sold into slavery at birth in Uganda were able to conjure such negative energies in utero…
…as well as where Stephen Hawking factors in to their belief that a healthy body equates to a healthy mind…
…but she’s too busy to consider these things now. She’s just finished her training and subsequent pace around in waist-deep water, which is actually a method of torture in some ancient cultures, but which is good for her apparently, and is now aching for that coffee with Crystal she had arranged.
Poor Crystal; unlucky in love. Now Bec has gone and swept George right out from under her.
A male jogger approaches and hits on her and she gives him her number because he has nice arms and a sparkly smile.
As the sun reaches toward hour nine, she meets with Crystal, who proceeds to let a load off but it’s not about George; it’s about Allen, a forty year old drummer in a pub band who lives at home, has two kids to an ex-wife and is an alcoholic, but who twenty-one year old Crystal had shared an intense relationship with for three years and, two years later, is not quite over it.
Elise recites, between blocks of repetitive babbling, the assurance that if she couldn’t help him in three years, she couldn’t help him in a lifetime, and Crystal insists that he was a wonderful man and that she made a great step mother, and Elise hugs her and then remembers it was Rachel who lucked out with George. Then a slight tinge of jealousy that Crystal could have had such great sex that it’s made her insane before her eleven thirty class and then lunch with Michael and then coffee with Allen and an afternoon class and then work and then drinks with the jogger which she proceeds to cue up in the brief intervals between all this…
…and the bench, of course. Somewhere between a class ending and some other engagement beginning, Elise finds time to make her beeline back to that bench. But with so much going on, she fails to realize that the statue it flanks is missing.
Well, not missing, rather right beside her, in full flesh and blood form.
She’s buried in her phone, as Robert Ludlow had noticed people becoming more and more over the past few decades, but he knows who she is, and he senses the vast, vivid heart and nebulous imagination flickering behind those hardened eyes, and for a moment hope springs like a cool stream that this wanderer, with her loner’s soul encumbered by the need to belong, might be the one.
He’d spent the day feeling no more visible than had he been a wisp of vapor, but for the odd random glare warning him to stay well back.
He needs only her promise that she’ll see him beyond today, for him to be granted a stay of continuing his sentience. He manages to say hello. She smiles and says hello back. He stares deeply, longing for his gaze to reach the quarter of her mind, from which she often detaches, which still believes in magic, and which had observed with that enchanting wonder his long-standing likeness.
They talk more, engaging each other, she stolen from her phone, he awash in the sweet stream of hope.
She rubs his arm. She pats his thigh. She calls him ‘darling’ again and again. She maintains that irritating façade of metropolitan elegance stubbornly and strongly.
Then, for one moment, one which causes a hot ripple to rush through his heart, her gaze narrows unto his own, and her expression intensifies, and he seems to have gotten through, and she seems to be reaching him, and her neck tenses so to carry her eyes toward his empty pedestal…
“Elise,” a voice snatches her, and Michael approaches.
“Hello darling!” she cries, and they embrace from the waist up, and exchange dainty kisses though he obviously longs for one deeper, and they walk off, and Elise has just as quickly forgotten about the boy named Robert who’d been sitting beside her.
Dates are kept. Coffee is drunk. Fitness is maintained. Jobs are attended. Then, in the middle of the night, Robert Ludlow sighs as he returns to his post, wistfully telling himself that maybe in another hundred years, his luck will have improved.
THE END
October 31, 2016
The Joyful Crowd
This house is built for two,
A place for lovers, who bring others,
This is not a place for you.
We didn't think you'd come alone,
Like we said, ask a friend,
Why didn't you just stay home?
Why would you go out like this?
Your tongue's not tied, we thought you'd tried,
At least to find some loving bliss.
Don't you see, it's not the norm!
There is no homeliness, where there is loneliness,
And you've no shelter from the storm!
Go away, you're not allowed,
To another place, and show some haste!
You don't belong with the joyful crowd.
A place for lovers, who bring others,
This is not a place for you.
We didn't think you'd come alone,
Like we said, ask a friend,
Why didn't you just stay home?
Why would you go out like this?
Your tongue's not tied, we thought you'd tried,
At least to find some loving bliss.
Don't you see, it's not the norm!
There is no homeliness, where there is loneliness,
And you've no shelter from the storm!
Go away, you're not allowed,
To another place, and show some haste!
You don't belong with the joyful crowd.
October 30, 2016
Australian Halloween
I used to make my primary school teachers purple with fury by mentioning Halloween. Naturally, I traded my lunchtimes every Halloween season to mention it as many times as I could. I learned the name "All Hallows' Eve", just to twist the knife deeper. So I thought I'd clarify why MY favorite day of spring, the end of the Gaelic harvest season, is much LESS offensive than YOUR FUCKING SHIT:
1. It is a pagan celebration of the dearly departed, a Gaelic feast for the coming winter, and nothing at all to do with commercialism, unless YOU MAKE IT COMMERCIAL.
2. No horses are tortured or killed to prepare for it.
3. All Hallow's Eve is not endorsed by Sportsbet, Ladbrokes, or any of these fucking irritating bookies.
4. Sting will never perform at a Halloween celebration.
5. It is not the celebration of a two thousand year old religious insurgent who was horrifically executed, therefore one would think MORE suitable for children.
6. You wear stupid hats for fun, not for a fashion parade. Plus they cost two dollars, not two hundred.
7. No revelers leaving a portion of the city looking like a landfill.
8. Coca-Cola does not own the mascot for Halloween, unlike Santa Claus.
9. It's not about such absurdities as resurrection, immaculate conception, violent contest between willing humans, or violent contest between unwilling animals such as horses or dogs.
10. It may be about gorging oneself on sweet of corporate manufacture. But so is fucking Easter, so...what?
1. It is a pagan celebration of the dearly departed, a Gaelic feast for the coming winter, and nothing at all to do with commercialism, unless YOU MAKE IT COMMERCIAL.
2. No horses are tortured or killed to prepare for it.
3. All Hallow's Eve is not endorsed by Sportsbet, Ladbrokes, or any of these fucking irritating bookies.
4. Sting will never perform at a Halloween celebration.
5. It is not the celebration of a two thousand year old religious insurgent who was horrifically executed, therefore one would think MORE suitable for children.
6. You wear stupid hats for fun, not for a fashion parade. Plus they cost two dollars, not two hundred.
7. No revelers leaving a portion of the city looking like a landfill.
8. Coca-Cola does not own the mascot for Halloween, unlike Santa Claus.
9. It's not about such absurdities as resurrection, immaculate conception, violent contest between willing humans, or violent contest between unwilling animals such as horses or dogs.
10. It may be about gorging oneself on sweet of corporate manufacture. But so is fucking Easter, so...what?
October 26, 2016
Where I am Someone
Every morning, I wake up alone,
Run some errands, all on my own.
Nobody knows me, nobody sees,
Nobody but me, to see to my needs.
Sometimes I venture, out to the street,
I smile at people, simple and sweet.
Though none of them know, my solitary ways,
That there’s nobody there, to fill up my days.
But evening comes, and to work I go,
I stay in my place, and start on the dough.
I prepare their toppings, anchovies and cheese,
Nobody sees me, says hello or please.
I stay quiet, working, just me,
But without all my work, where would they be?
Where would they eat, of an evening for fun?
These families so busy, they only get one!
Then I go back, to my cold little home,
Where I gave up on dreams, many years ago.
No more hopes, nowhere to run,
Only my job tomorrow, where I am someone.
Run some errands, all on my own.
Nobody knows me, nobody sees,
Nobody but me, to see to my needs.
Sometimes I venture, out to the street,
I smile at people, simple and sweet.
Though none of them know, my solitary ways,
That there’s nobody there, to fill up my days.
But evening comes, and to work I go,
I stay in my place, and start on the dough.
I prepare their toppings, anchovies and cheese,
Nobody sees me, says hello or please.
I stay quiet, working, just me,
But without all my work, where would they be?
Where would they eat, of an evening for fun?
These families so busy, they only get one!
Then I go back, to my cold little home,
Where I gave up on dreams, many years ago.
No more hopes, nowhere to run,
Only my job tomorrow, where I am someone.
