Gravitational Sounds

February 8, 2018April 6, 2018 ~ Piece, of the Sky

Gym Leader Agatha

Alli walked barefoot by the sea. The sand was cold in the morning air. The waves were rolling back and forth, crossing oceans to get here. Alli turned and faced the east; the sun looked like it was rising out of the water. The golden rays hit the rocks, the forgotten shrubbery, shrewn around, and the window panes of the beach house behind her.

Constant undulations. Water that came halfway across the world, to this shore, hidden in some corner of the Keys, a silent island chain. Alli watched a wave bring in some limp plants.

Sitting down on the beach, Alli picked up handfuls of sand and let them run through her fingers.

“What would you have me do?!” Alli had yelled, months ago.

“Offer me a future!” Jan had yelled back, the night they had broken up.

And Alli had moved up north with Dallas, the debonair esper of Pennsylvania, self-assured, confident, and devastatingly beautiful.

“I would have given the world for you,” Alli had said.

“But you didn’t,” Jan had replied.

“You didn’t, and you won’t,” the words resonated from that time, ping ponging off old memories. The perennial swirl of New York and Florida.

“You don’t have to give up on me,” Alli had said, lying on the couch. Dallas held a rag full of ice up to her forehead.

“That’s the fever talking,” Dallas had responded. Alli had been working through some bug she had caught in Melbourne. “It must have been the crayfish in your bibimbap,” Dallas said.

They had both gone to several restaurants, including the offending Asian fusion joint. Dallas had said she was going to look at various Okinawan karate dojos, to see if she could buy one. But the premise had been running a little thin, even then. As Alli would soon see, Melbourne was only a foreshadowing.

“I want to be there for you,” Alli had mumbled from the couch. Dallas had dabbed away some sweat with a handkerchief, “You’re here for me, right now.”

The New York loft was receding from view. “Tell me I am right for you,” Alli had said, hovering in the darkness.

The spring buds were falling to the earth and the trees were unfurling their newborn leaves. “You’re not giving yourself any room to maneuver,” Nealy had said.

They were sitting in the park during the afternoon; the sun was gaining strength and beating down on them and the other chess players.

“I had a bad start,” Alli laughed.

“Yes, that was a horrible opening,” Nealy had said, “What were you thinking moving your knight way over there?”

“I was going to bring it in and position it in between your queen and your bishop. A knight fork.”

“An ambitious plan, in the best of times,” Nealy sighed, taking another one of Ally’s pawns, “Checkmate.”

“Tell me I am the one for you,” Alli had said, standing in between worlds.

“If I write you out of the will, what will you feel about that?” Jan had asked, turning around in her chair.

“Nothing,” Alli had sneered. When she left, she left for good, closing the screen door, walking out into the night, the endless crashing of waves and the peerless moon.

On the beach, in the increasingly hot morning, Alli let another handful of sand run through her fingers. “Are you going to do that all day?” a voice behind her said.

Alli spun around, still sitting on the surf; Nealy stood behind her, surrounded by the tall beach grass, “Are you going to come in for some crêpes, or what?”

Somewhere in the bottomless pit of space, echoed a thought, reaching back across time, splitting into pieces, stretching the distance traveled, in a second, by a photon careening at the speed of light: “Tell me I’m your one and only.”

not afraid of the darkness

Songs:

1) slosylove:

2) Vanilla:

3) コンシャスTHOUGHTS:

4) Sade – “Nothing Can Come Between Us”

5) Michael McDonald – “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)”

Counterfeit Movement

February 7, 2018April 5, 2018 ~ Piece, of the Sky

IMG_20110920_153850

Alli walked down the street; sweltering evening heat radiated off every surface. Steam rose from the underbelly of the city. The sun was a bright light at the bottom of a canyon of skyscrapers, a candle waiting to be extinguished.

Wiping the sweat off the back of her neck, Alli stopped in Nate’s Papaya Dogs. The yellow and white signage greeted the disinterested, chewing silently, staring, eyes focused on unknown points, and hunched over the mica table top counters.

The heat from the streets pressed in on her temples. Despite this, she ordered a tiny, white china cup of espresso. The beverage came back lukewarm and milk had been added to it. Alli sipped distastefully but drank the rest of the concoction.

Nealy clambered up on to the spinning black seat beside her. The waiter wordlessly brought the latecomer a Reuben, with A Thousand Island Dressing, and some fries. “Do you know that they hose out this place at 3 AM?” Nealy asked.

“No, I didn’t know that,” Alli said, eying her cup, and wishing it were not empty.

Her friend made a swift gesture in Alli’s direction, and the waiter appeared again, this time, with a new cup of espresso. This one was hot; Alli savored the taste of the ground beans. Fresh Arabica coffee, probably sourced in bulk, from Borneo.

“Thank you,” Alli said, “I see you like to come here often.”

The sun reflected off the aviator sunglasses perched on Nealy’s head, “Order the omelets and flapjacks.”

“But it’s Nate’s Papaya Hotdogs…” Alli said.

“Just do it.”

Alli ordered the food, and the same waiter brought the breakfast out in under five minutes. The omelet was whipped up fresh: American cheese, little cubes of pink ham; the flapjacks, thin and easy to tear, soft and light.

“How did you know that they could do this?” Alli exclaimed.

“I pass through here on my way home, from work, late at night, usually at 2:30 AM,” Nealy said, “I’m here when they start throwing the last customers out.”

Alli ate silently for a few minutes. The sun’s rays filtered through the diner, touching wrinkles and folds in the diners’ faces, and a hundred crumbs lying on the black and white, checkered floor. Hundreds of feet had worn down the tiles, leaving thousands of soft lines and scuff marks.

Alli used the flaky pancakes to mop up the savory cheese sauce from the omelets. “I will be right back,” Nealy said. She stepped outside, and lit a cigarette, in the waning, orange light, snaking down the buildings.

Alli cut the omelet slowly and watched the fry cook in the back hustle around an unseen grill. She could imagine the perspiration bursting from his pores, dampening the white apron, unknowingly running off a contorted brow into the cascade of grease popping on the stove.

Nealy returned, mopping her forehead. That afternoon, it had been a hundred degrees in Central Park, a flat, baked, green postcard in the middle of New York City.

“Do you want to come with me to Shanghai?” Nealy asked.

Alli put down her napkin, “When?”

“Two months from now.”

The espresso cup was empty again, “How? Why?”

“Don’t ask why,” Nealy said, “Just say yes.”

The waiter appeared out of the din and haze, on the other side of the counter, and refilled the espresso. “A cappuccino also, please,” Alli said, wiping her face.

“It’s for the venture capital firm,” Nealy continued, “but I do not want to go alone. We can eat shark fin soup and fugu, flown in from Japan.”

“How can you say that?” Alli asked, looking away. She downed the third espresso, in one go. Dallas had left, just one month ago.

counterfeit movement