I was around 250 steps into the 496 when I realized I had to hurt Reykjavik again.
Normally, I try to avoid mentioning my fiction, but it came to mind almost out of the blue, after I'd hopped off the train and tried to digest what the last fifteen minutes had thrown into my waiting lap. Two 16 year old girls, one in a gray hoodie with "Vail" across it in dark (navy blue?) letters and blue jeans, the other in a black skirt that went down maybe to mid-thigh and a gray hoodie with yellow fabric stitched to the shoulders which covered a black tank top, spaghetti straps in no way attempting to cover the white bra underneath.
They were standing at the Elmonica MAX station when I hopped off the red line, smiling at the raindrops pattering in every direction and momentarily noticed another girl getting off the train with me, the startling pink of the virtually nonexistant fishnet top she was "wearing" over the white halter. She looked like she'd been crying, and it had to have been 40 degrees Fahrenheit out; I offered her my gray fleece until the train came, which she accepted without hesitation.
As she put it on, the pair cooed with inimitably teenage enthusiasm. "Oooh, girl," Yellow Shoulders said, "that's so sweet, you better keep him."
We both ignored them, however momentarily, as the duo discussed dance clubs with an elder gentleman who seemed to regard them with the detached amusement of a man who knows it ain't happening but would still like to fuck at least one of them. He had to have been at least thrice their age; he sauntered off into the night shortly thereafter, leaving the four of us idling underneath shelters. Yellow Shoulders hopped off the bench she was sitting on and walked along the traction strip, on the four-inch-wide strip in the middle what was smooth brick, arms at her sides remindingly briefly of a Kid Eternity comic book cover. Vail Hoodie was talking about Yellow Shoulders' brother, whom she apparently loved with the energy only someone 16 years old could muster. I asked how old they were, and laughed when they told me.
The train coasted to a stop, and we all boarded. Pink Fishnet peeled my fleece off and handed it to me; she was the first to sit down, the first seat inside the door. The duo walked ahead of me and sat near the next door down; I picked a center-facing seat, center of the row as always, and continued to read my book.
Vail Hoodie cocked a curious eyebrow. "Aren't you two together?" she asked, regarding Pink Fishnet and me.
We both shook our heads, mildly amused.
"You don't know each other?" Yellow Shoulders asked, eliciting a similar reply.
"Oh my god," Vail Hoodie gushed.
"That's so sweet of you," Yellow Shoulders added. They both began to simultaneously extol me with praises, none of which I caught. By the time the train slowed to the next stop, Vail Hoodie had asked me if I were in school and Yellow Shoulders had managed to say more words in thirty seconds than anyone ever had before or ever would again.
Pink Fishnet got up to leave, an action I didn't witness until Vail Hoodie waved goodbye and shouted "you should give him your phone number!"
She turned around. She was a pretty girl, just-darker-than-off-white skin, straightened hair that had obviously once been at least somewhat curly, the ridiculous outfit depressingly revealing. "I'm only 16," she said.
"Oh my god," Yellow Shoulders said. She'd taken off the hoodie by then, revealing, in part at least, breasts that probably threw many a male off as to her exact age. I gritted my teeth at my own hormones and stared across the aisle to the empty seats in front of me, past them to the window, showing a tired me with thinning hair and wrinkles under my eyes. I heard Yellow Shoulders say something like "I wish I had that ass."
Conversation began to blur at that point, my senses dulled by a combination of sleep-deprivation, light overstimulation brought upon by a short stint at the Boiler Room, and the general disorientation that comes when one either reads or writes, that internalization akin to a particularly obstinate dream.
I hauled my fleece over my head and around my shoulders. As I got to my feet, I smiled at the girls. Vail Hoodie asked me how old I was, and I told her. She said something about "partying with some young'uns" with absolutely no sincerity and I laughed, saying I didn't party and that I was really quite boring. We cordially said goodbye.
As I stepped off the train, I stepped along the smooth brick, imitating Yellow Shoulders, raising my arms like wings as the train shot away, accelerating with a seemingly improbably rapidity. Before I had the presence of mind to look for their faces, they were gone, leaving a passing fancy of their faces in my mind that will probably fade before I wake up approximately six hours from now, and the reminder that wandering, despite its' rootlessness, makes me feel more at home now than it ever did anywhere else.
So I thought of Reykjavik, a man few (if any of you) know about, a man who doesn't exist anywhere except my thoughts, but with whom I feel a greater kinship than anyone I've met in the flesh. He was happy when last I left him, an ambiguous happy that I didn't feel the need to describe, as I was focused on Paris, focused and waiting, because that's what I felt I needed to become.
I saw the girls in my head, and how the details were fading faster than I could memorize them, and something inside me reached out for something to touch those imperfect, incomplete memories with, something that could tell them everything I needed to tell them, to help them or hurt them according to the fickle whims of the only god that mattered in their world--me.
And Reykjavik, happy and content in a small house somewhere in Italy, reached out and told me I wasn't done with him, as I thought I was a year ago.
It feels good to have a narrative voice again. I missed it, missed the unpredictability of what was going to happen when the words struck the page, missed the release of being assured of something, anything, even the useless, nihilistic actions of people who could never be anything other than constructs in a mostly-stagnant imagination.
Normally, I try to avoid mentioning my fiction, but it came to mind almost out of the blue, after I'd hopped off the train and tried to digest what the last fifteen minutes had thrown into my waiting lap. Two 16 year old girls, one in a gray hoodie with "Vail" across it in dark (navy blue?) letters and blue jeans, the other in a black skirt that went down maybe to mid-thigh and a gray hoodie with yellow fabric stitched to the shoulders which covered a black tank top, spaghetti straps in no way attempting to cover the white bra underneath.
They were standing at the Elmonica MAX station when I hopped off the red line, smiling at the raindrops pattering in every direction and momentarily noticed another girl getting off the train with me, the startling pink of the virtually nonexistant fishnet top she was "wearing" over the white halter. She looked like she'd been crying, and it had to have been 40 degrees Fahrenheit out; I offered her my gray fleece until the train came, which she accepted without hesitation.
As she put it on, the pair cooed with inimitably teenage enthusiasm. "Oooh, girl," Yellow Shoulders said, "that's so sweet, you better keep him."
We both ignored them, however momentarily, as the duo discussed dance clubs with an elder gentleman who seemed to regard them with the detached amusement of a man who knows it ain't happening but would still like to fuck at least one of them. He had to have been at least thrice their age; he sauntered off into the night shortly thereafter, leaving the four of us idling underneath shelters. Yellow Shoulders hopped off the bench she was sitting on and walked along the traction strip, on the four-inch-wide strip in the middle what was smooth brick, arms at her sides remindingly briefly of a Kid Eternity comic book cover. Vail Hoodie was talking about Yellow Shoulders' brother, whom she apparently loved with the energy only someone 16 years old could muster. I asked how old they were, and laughed when they told me.
The train coasted to a stop, and we all boarded. Pink Fishnet peeled my fleece off and handed it to me; she was the first to sit down, the first seat inside the door. The duo walked ahead of me and sat near the next door down; I picked a center-facing seat, center of the row as always, and continued to read my book.
Vail Hoodie cocked a curious eyebrow. "Aren't you two together?" she asked, regarding Pink Fishnet and me.
We both shook our heads, mildly amused.
"You don't know each other?" Yellow Shoulders asked, eliciting a similar reply.
"Oh my god," Vail Hoodie gushed.
"That's so sweet of you," Yellow Shoulders added. They both began to simultaneously extol me with praises, none of which I caught. By the time the train slowed to the next stop, Vail Hoodie had asked me if I were in school and Yellow Shoulders had managed to say more words in thirty seconds than anyone ever had before or ever would again.
Pink Fishnet got up to leave, an action I didn't witness until Vail Hoodie waved goodbye and shouted "you should give him your phone number!"
She turned around. She was a pretty girl, just-darker-than-off-white skin, straightened hair that had obviously once been at least somewhat curly, the ridiculous outfit depressingly revealing. "I'm only 16," she said.
"Oh my god," Yellow Shoulders said. She'd taken off the hoodie by then, revealing, in part at least, breasts that probably threw many a male off as to her exact age. I gritted my teeth at my own hormones and stared across the aisle to the empty seats in front of me, past them to the window, showing a tired me with thinning hair and wrinkles under my eyes. I heard Yellow Shoulders say something like "I wish I had that ass."
Conversation began to blur at that point, my senses dulled by a combination of sleep-deprivation, light overstimulation brought upon by a short stint at the Boiler Room, and the general disorientation that comes when one either reads or writes, that internalization akin to a particularly obstinate dream.
I hauled my fleece over my head and around my shoulders. As I got to my feet, I smiled at the girls. Vail Hoodie asked me how old I was, and I told her. She said something about "partying with some young'uns" with absolutely no sincerity and I laughed, saying I didn't party and that I was really quite boring. We cordially said goodbye.
As I stepped off the train, I stepped along the smooth brick, imitating Yellow Shoulders, raising my arms like wings as the train shot away, accelerating with a seemingly improbably rapidity. Before I had the presence of mind to look for their faces, they were gone, leaving a passing fancy of their faces in my mind that will probably fade before I wake up approximately six hours from now, and the reminder that wandering, despite its' rootlessness, makes me feel more at home now than it ever did anywhere else.
So I thought of Reykjavik, a man few (if any of you) know about, a man who doesn't exist anywhere except my thoughts, but with whom I feel a greater kinship than anyone I've met in the flesh. He was happy when last I left him, an ambiguous happy that I didn't feel the need to describe, as I was focused on Paris, focused and waiting, because that's what I felt I needed to become.
I saw the girls in my head, and how the details were fading faster than I could memorize them, and something inside me reached out for something to touch those imperfect, incomplete memories with, something that could tell them everything I needed to tell them, to help them or hurt them according to the fickle whims of the only god that mattered in their world--me.
And Reykjavik, happy and content in a small house somewhere in Italy, reached out and told me I wasn't done with him, as I thought I was a year ago.
It feels good to have a narrative voice again. I missed it, missed the unpredictability of what was going to happen when the words struck the page, missed the release of being assured of something, anything, even the useless, nihilistic actions of people who could never be anything other than constructs in a mostly-stagnant imagination.