Wannabe
Second NaNoWriMo failure “Who do you think she’s meeting? She leaned in and whispered, “She looks important.” She licked her lips and nestled into her seat, slouching with her feet propped on my side of the booth. I pretended to stretch as I scoped out the woman behind me; she looked elegant, that’s for sure: a Jackie Kennedy wannabe. But a lot of women are. I shrugged and stirred my coffee. “I always imagine women like her to sip their cups of black coffee with such integrity, like fucking debutants wielding machine guns. You know, because the straight coffee puts hair on your chest.” I nodded and she went on, “I have to put in so much sugar to even stand sipping it, but I think I’m allergic to it because it goes straight through me, that’s why I stick to tea. But maybe it would be good to have now, then I could be skinny like her. Maybe it would help.” She cackled and expected me to take it lightly, too. I didn’t react. “What is with you tonight?” I raised my eyebrow. Exasperated, she tapped the front of her head like she does when she gets irritated. “Fine, do you want to talk about it? You want to talk about it? Fine, we’ll talk about it. Talk, if you want to fucking talk about it so much. Talk, talk, talk, talk!” I stare at the tabletop. She stared at me and taped her finger and stared and taped and finally was so overcome she had to launch herself to her feet, upsetting my drink and hers, “Well, if you have no goddamn ideas, then I’ll figure it out on my own. I’m glad you can be there when it counts, you selfish prick.” And then she sat back down with a tremendous plop, exhaling all of her fervor. “Can you give me a fucking cigarette?” I flipped her the pack and she lit it on the candle. I asked her if she’d made up her mind. “If I don’t, I’ll never look the same. Do you think that bitch could has been that stupid?” I peered over my shoulder; she hadn’t.
So, about this whole NaNoWriMo thing…
I am not really in the novel making business… I ended up with micro fiction instead.
I didn’t know when I met her. Everyone called her a scamp and I expected that, but I didn’t know when I met her that I would get stuck. Hammered to the wall, pinned, sunk, stuck. I didn’t expect it from such a scrawny girl. She looked very different with her down—and her dress off—but with her hair down, she looked so small, so innocent like one of those little blue flowers. That doesn’t make sense, but I still thought it. She even made me think of the future, and no one made me think of the future.
I told her I was just doing my job. I told her that it could broaden her world and others’, too, if they knew about it. Of course, I fumbled. She called me a murder, I called her a bloody papist and she spat in my face. I wrestled her to the ground, restraining her arms. That was the first night we made love.
And in her heart she kept a tiny metal labyrinth, fitted with fireflies caught in jars and honeysuckle blossoms littered the ground, just for us; it was to where she could escape and find our happiest time even when there was only frost and harsh words. Even after they took me away, I watched her as she would search the fields and the marshes, lost, her mind riddled with holes, and I would guide her home. I would command a firefly to lead her through the barley to her bed, where she may dream of honeysuckle, and I may guard her, so she may never feel the bite of frost.
1/11/12
That awkward moment when
you realize you’re on the Internet for no reason and you keep searching for things to do when you could just go to bed.
But you don’t.
It gets worse during the school year.
