Everything about her is beautiful. She wears these colors no one else could ever pull off -- limes and pinks and these ridiculous red sneakers, and her hair isn't ever perfect but her smile is. It's lopsided and shaped like a giraffe's neck, slurred up to one side but so beautifully curved. I like the slope of her nose; it's perfect, and it fits her head perfectly. ...I'm sure there was a better way for me to say that, but at least I wasn't like 'her nose on her face is like an egg on a piece of bread'. I told her I like her colors; she told me she likes my face. I think she's the perfect height, because she's shorter than me, but I feel pretty sure she could kick my ass if I ever did (do) anything to piss her off.

She smells like coffee and cinnamon, but I've never seen her drink coffee and she doesn't look like the type of person who likes cinnamon. I think maybe I just think she smells that way because that's what our house smelled like when we were kids, and she reminds me of home. Not that she's anything like Ella (who I miss and wish would come home), but because she's familiar and comfortable and this masterpiece of something beautiful I've never even seen before. I still don't see her, I know that, I just see what I want to see of her.

Forty pictures richer, and I still can't stop staring at her nose. Thirty-nine, because she stole one and smiled at me awkwardly from across the table, in her colorful glory, with that giraffe smile and eyes like the broken ceramics that shattered over the floor to make a mosaic for her amusement. She won't pick up the pieces -- she'll apologize, but she won't clean -- she'll only smile and maybe bite her bottom lip, itching for a way to scrounge up the pieces into some sort of shape only she can see with her eyes, but she'll clip them with a single click of the shutter and keep them as a promise that the day had happened and our meeting did occur.

She'll twist herself up like a lotus flower and sit across from me like a mini Buddha, her eyes aglow, her skin ridiculously close to porcelain, and I am afraid to touch her because I will break her.

The tattered guitar case lay open on the floor, close to a coffee table that was made of a black steel frame and a solid glass hood. Issues of Rolling Stone acted as placemats atop the glass, prints of bands and artists like The Doors and Led Zeppelin. The glossy finish of the magazines let off a certain light that caused Oscar to glance at the window, and he noted a small tray-table on wheels, that was stark gray in color and held a turn table. How fortunate, he thought, that it even existed -- while he collected LPs and spent many hours of many days searching for vintage music in the shape of records, he knew very little people who resorted to good old-fashioned worship. Instantly, he was drawn in.

The two sat down on the sofa and exchanged glances that were not awkward and were not ashamed. Where one folded his leg for his ankle to prop against a knobby knee, the other sat back against the pillows with his knees spread, using his fingers as aid to guide his fluid tongue over the many stories he'd acquired along his musical journey. They were so alike, yet so different, and nothing as cliche as lovers or dreamers or fighters or winners. They were both losers in their own way, just as they were both accomplishing dreams that were scripted in their eyes and shoveled out their souls like sand onto the table before them. Glossy prints scattered amidst pages of lyrics and titles -- a flower, an unstable emotion, a crescent moon, an excerpt from the Bible. It was present-day D-Day, and to each other, each man was his personal savior.

One such song struck a chord with Oscar, and he paused and held up a finger, dishing out his camera from its neat place in its own bag. While the man strummed his guitar like the ribs of his lover, Oscar snapped photographs of his hands, the strings, his Adam's Apple -- piece by piece, he put the lovemaking between a man and his guitar together, only to rip it apart and shove it back together in another form of magic. In under twenty minutes, the two felt as though their careers blasted them apart and somehow pieced them back together into two perfectly fitting tiles that were lost and subtly found.

When all was said and done, the two shook hands, though no check was signed and no cash was exchanged. There was the clap of a hand on a shoulder, the meeting of shifty eyes who finally broke apart and were lost to the drum of a closing door, it's sloppy clicking sound buckling through each man's head. Against the thrum of their hearts they went in their separate ways, only to take apart their creative capabilities like words from a magazine, cutting and tearing and ripping and clipping their prognoses into seamless talents of a lover's firm voice and a scarecrow's shifty eyes.

O'Brien caught me dozing with my eyes open in his office, and about that, he was not happy. He likes to rub the side of his jaw and narrow his eyes at me condescendingly, and promises he knows exactly what is wrong with me and how to cure it. 'You don't open up enough,' he tells me time and time again, 'how can you expect me to help you when you aren't willing to help yourself?' I look at him with the same dull expression I've always given him, and behind the back of my glazed vision I wonder what sort of therapist I would visit had I been given a list of names and numbers. I think they should have an eTherapy site. Something like eHarmony, where people plug in their problems and it matches them with an expert. None of this 'tell me how you are feeling' bullshit, because really. What is the point in asking the question every. Single. Time? I feel the same. I always feel the same. I have for thirty-something years and my prognosis has never changed, nor has my appetite, nor has my lack-luster ability to sleep. No, the only thing that changes is the level of dosage of my medication.

I do believe I am nothing but a lab rat.

In other news, I do not like when my neighbor leaves his apartment, if only because the moment he starts his car he blares rap music for the whole neighborhood to hear. But it's not just rap music, it's awful rap music. It's rap music about food. It's rap music about a woman's rear-end resembling a bag of potato chips. It's a good thing the fellow makes a good amount of money on stupidity, because I am quite sure if I was a female (thank God I am not, I could not stand bleeding from special places monthly, though I do understand it is signficant to keep healthy), telling me my rump looks like a bag of Utz would not exactly get me in bed. I think I will test that on Ella, though. Not to try to get her in bed, but just to see if she even knows the song. She hates rap, which is just as well. The only music she knows how to dance to is slow music, and even then she just sways.

Things are coming along nicely with Valen; I enjoy his music and his attitude. He's a sincere gentleman who takes his work passionately and seriously, and that is something I can relate to. True, we do not speak about the smaller things in life (like women, because I have none), but we do put a little bit of faith and trust in each other for artistic purposes. He is Colombian, and at some point I would like him to tell me more about his heritage, only because I do not have the means to travel and have always wanted to.

Between the bag of chips comment and traveling, I am feeling rather gay.

The room was brightly lit by various lamps that sat on end-tables made of cherry wood, chipped and bruised by (loving) beatings over the years. From his place on the floor behind the coffee table, he read over bits hand-scripted lyrics that were one-liners meant to bring about a kind of photograph others had to see with their inner lens. In the kitchen, her voice chirped and echoed slightly as the tiled floor held no carpeting, and the counters held no appliances, save for a microwave just to the left of the stove.

"I want to keep traveling," she was continuing on, centered in an autobiographical story of her past several weeks. "There's something about this place that could drown a person, Oz. I don't know what it is, but it just felt so good to get out of here."

"It's the soot," he answered gently from his place on the floor, shuffling through scraps of paper that had been torn in the wake of being shattered from the rest of finished songs. "And it's hot. Very hot."

"I just think there is somewhere better for us," Ella pushed up from her place at the table using the palm of her hands, the backs of her knees pushing back the chair for its legs to scrape against the tiles floor in a whine. "What if we went to Venice? Or Spain? Or... Florida?"

"How are we going to get there," his tone was monotone though he tried his best to offer her bright eyes when she entered the room. She was a lamp unto herself; every time she walked into a room, it held a different sort of light. "We have no car," he meant to bite off his words but they leaked out like sewage, defecating on her dreams.

"I know," the smile that had dabbled itself against her mouth like soft cotton slowly sunk into a frown, and she sighed and folded down into a tan plush chair, her arms like sticks atop its overweight armrests. "It was just an idea is all, don't you ever like to dream up things?"

"Sure," he lied easily because he knew if he didn't she would start crying, and he didn't like the way her face got scrunched up and blotchy when she did. With a hip lifting from the floor, he reached over and patted her knee with the palm of his hand before turning back to the lyrics on the table. He felt no need to continue a conversation that was so far off from everything he had taught himself to believe.

"What's that?" She pointed to a small book that had been covered up by the scraps of paper, its face peeking through to say 'hello' in time.

"Stuff I had to write for the sessions," he didn't feel the need to hide anything from Ella, because she was more of a therapist to him than any professional had ever been. "It's only got three things in it," he brushed scraps of paper away from it and picked it up, looking at the cover. He handed it over easily as it was mostly filled with nonsense, and he went back to looking at the scraps of paper, though he really only pretended as he remembered his second entry.

"What's this?" She chimed in like clockwork, her eyes perusing the second entry. "You met someone?"

"Sort of," he shrugged and pushed himself to lean back against the front of the couch, his fingers picking at shreds of paper, though not tearing them. "I guess she's just a friend, though. You know stuff like that doesn't work out for me."

"Don't be so dramatic," she grinned at him over his writing and shifted, folding her legs up into the chair, the journal resting on her lap. "Do you really like her? It seems as though you do."

"I don't even know her," he felt his cheeks burn and he glanced out of the window, looking in the opposite direction of Ella. "She's alright, I guess. She's different. I think that's what I like the most."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Where she usually would have hinted at sounding hurt, she only let off a sense of surprise. She admired the way he had written about the young woman, her eyes widening, her mouth's rim curled up in a pleasant smile. "You wrote this like a week ago, and you haven't said anything to me."

"There's not really anything to say," he insisted quietly.

"Have you told O'Brien?"

"No."

"Have you told anyone?"

"Ella, there's nothing to tell, I told you."

From her place in the seat, she only grinned at him, not bothering to read his next journal entry. Glancing up at her, he noticed the satisfaction her face granted over the fact that she was still the first person to know.

"Oscar?"

"Yeah, Ella."

"I love you."

"It means," O'Brien sat with a solemn attitude, his legs crossed at the knee for one to dangle listlessly while the other foot planted itself firmly to the floor, "that we simply won't be able to meet as often."

"Well you know, I am not one to be vulgar or anything, but this is -- this is shit," for the first time in O'Brien's office, Oscar let his shit hit the fan. Not so gracefully, either.

The day had started out very simply: he woke from a light sleep in which he half-dreamed, half-envisioned himself as a young boy with his mother, playing a game of Go Fish; he brushed his teeth and took a long shower during which he used an exorbitant amount of hot water; he dressed in a pair of khaki's and a white polo-styled shirt, which was rather comfortable and stretched easily to accommodate his hunching position over a table which displayed massive amounts of photographs and lyrics. Why he had chosen to go to O'Brien he did not know, and why he was being turned away he especially did not know -- the man was a therapist. He was supposed to be therapeutic towards Oscar. Now, the only thing he'd become was one of the oscillating blades of a quick-spinning fan.

It was not working.

"You haven't been taking your medication," O'Brien pointed out when he glanced at the time sheets Oscar had put together, displaying the start and end times of his boughts of work. "If you had, you would have been sleeping at seven o'clock, for example," he noted and pointed to a specific block of time under 'Tuesday' which also signified the time where Oscar met with Edward for a quick cup of coffee -- quick, as in three hours of Buddha-sitting, fanciful chatting.

"So that's the point," Oscar pushed up from his chair and walked the width of the room, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. "You want me to sleep, don't you? You want me to go null! Don't you see this is why I haven't--"

"I don't want you to do anything but sit down and let me help you," O'Brien said rather curtly.

"No," Oscar snapped and moved to face O'Brien, leaning down to clap his palms against the edges of the armrests on which O'Brien's elbows rested just short of when Oscar slapped himself into his personal space.

O'Brien was simply aghast.

So was Oscar.

"No," he repeated himself. "What you want to do is watch me turn into some sort of floppy fish flopping all over the place." Oscar used his hands, as though they made up for the lack of intelligent language that tumbled out of his mouth. "You are the reason why I can't hold a job! You are the reason why I can't hold Edward!"

"Oscar," O'Brien said rather methodically, "You ought to sit down and stop playing around. This is a session, not a--"

"YOU ARE A THERAPIST," Oscar yelled at him, just before there was a soft knock on the door.

The two men blinked at each other, as though they expected the other to say who they were expecting.

"Were you expecting someone?" Oscar asked.

"No," O'Brien confessed. "Were you?"

"No," Oscar agreed.

Clearing his throat, O'Brien moved from his seat, legal pad in hand, and moved to the door. Pulling it open, he greeted the young woman with a soft smile and softer eyes.

Hello, it's me again. I know I haven't written in a long time, but I've been a little busy with work and all. It's a busy, dirty world out there, but I enjoy getting my hands in it. All nice and dirty, with grit and grime and grease under my fingernails, turning them black like the very ink I am using to write this letter with. Well, scratch that -- the ink I'm using is blue, not black, but perhaps we can forget about that, can't we? I mean, for poetic style, it works well to compare the ink to the grit under my fingernails. Oh, dear. I'm rambling again.

Marcie and the children are doing quite well. Benjamin started his first day of kindergarten several days ago, and Lumeria just turned one. She's got a brilliant mind, that one -- her eyes are the size of saucers (I'm sure that is somewhere in a book, copyrighted, but for the sake of this letter we will pretend it in fact is not), and I do believe she will have Marcie's soft brown curls. Or blonde, I would love her just as much as a blonde, too. Benjamin sprouted his first freckle, just under his left eye. Marcie told me she was giving him a bubble bath and tried relentlessly to wipe away a smudge of dirt just below his eye, until the poor child was nearly bruised and in tears. Then she decided it was a freckle, as no one really has the need to write on our child with a brown Sharpie. I wonder if he will have anymore, perhaps a few will dash across his nose like pepper. I always wished he was a redhead. I love him for what he is, nonetheless, just as my father loved me.

Tomorrow, I repaint our fence. It's picketed, around a lawn that is nearly unbearably green, and nearly overrun with weeds. I hired our neighbor, Tyler, to pull them for me -- he's a bright boy, with sand-colored hair and green eyes. Wiry. I like him, though; he's quite chipper, and I think he is going to take on a newspaper route. It will be good for him to learn more responsibility, though I heard he does quite well in school. I'm sure he does; both of his parents are highly intelligent (I know no one in this neighborhood who is not), and we enjoy playing bridge and sipping tea. They are English, as if one could not tell.

Ella is well, she sends her love as always. She promises to include a bible verse, as she told me, 'Oscar, please tell Jane Fonda I will include a bible verse for you to add to your next letter.' And so, I've done just that.

Jesus. Christ. That's about all I can think.

"--tant, I need to find Ella."

Why. Why won't. You go. Away.

"Oscar, are you there? C'mon, I know you didn't hang up because it didn't click, and I hear you breathing. Which is a little annoying, but I love you too much to let it really bother me, and besides I just really gotta find Ella and I think you know where she is because you always know where she is, probably because she's at your house still which looks nice, by the way, I saw it painted up and stuff and it's pretty decent, has it always been white? Or maybe that's cream, I don't know-- Oscar, for Christ's sake, are you there?"

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

"OSCAR."

"YES. Jesus, I'm here."

"My name is not 'Jesus'."

"Fine. Here I am, Margaret."

"OSCAR FOR FUCK'S SAKE."

"Such language, my God. I don't know where Ella is; she is not my twin, you know."

"Yes, but she practically lives there, doesn't she?"

"You watch us with binoculars, don't you."

"Ha, ha, Oscar. Very funny."

"I'm not kidding."

"Stop being a wise ass and tell me where Ella is!"

"She has a phone, why don't you call her?"

Or jump off a bridge?

"Because-- because she is usually at your house!"

"You're stalking me."

"I am not."

"Yes you are."

And killing me.

"I am not!"

"Yes, you are. Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"...Christ."

"Cooper?"

"I think Ella is at her house, why don't you call there."

"Why do you have to be so flat all the time, Oz?"

"I asked you not to call me that."

Ever.

"I forgot."

"Okay."

"...so Ella is at her house?"

"Yeah, probably."

"Well what are you doing?"

"Not much."

Just trying to get off. The @$#%&!^. Phone.

"Would you want to go for a walk with me?"

"I thought you were looking for Ella?"

God, You hate me, don't You? This is worse than purgatory.

"I am."

"So... go find her."

"I am!"

"Okay?"

"With you?"

"Is that a question?"

"Fine. With you."

"I'm busy."

"Doing what? You just said you weren't bu--"

"I'mcleaning."

Cleaning? Yes. I do that often enough.

"Cleaning what?"

"My bathroom."

"You're talking to me while you're on the pot?"

"I'm wiping the toilet, not my ass."

"...You are so vulgar sometimes."

"Sorry."

"It's cute."

A beep.

"Hang on. --Hello?"

"Oz, it's me. What are you doing?"

"Ella, thank God."

"What?"

"Nothing. Where are you?"

"Home, are you busy?"

"No. And you might want to leave."

"Why?"

"Because--"

"Hang on, my doorbell just rang."

He was lost.

At 9:03, his palms became clammy and the skin of his face hung loosely, just as his jaw unhinged itself and let saliva creep to the corners of his mouth. His eyes, bloodshot and stillborn, remain lifeless and fixated on the television. The itching in his fingers only got worse, and they drummed harder against his kneecaps, which threatened to bruise as he was a delicate man. His toes tapped inside his socks, his socks sweat inside his shoes, his shoes drown against the carpet, the carpet looked like blotches of sand speckled across an airy ocean. The pulse behind his ears that thrummed on like wardrums was deafening; it evoked a small whine that gurgled up from his throat and licked at his tongue. Slowly, he brought his heavy hand to his mouth, smearing saliva onto the back of his hand blindly, and without the weight of his hand, his knee pulsed vigorously in an up-and-down motion, caused by the bouncing in the ball of his right foot.

It was then, Oscar became restless.

It started in the kitchen. The cabinet door above the bread-maker was thrown open, and piece by piece, every dish was pulled out onto the counter, set down as gently as possible, and lined up according to filth. It didn't matter that every piece had previously been hand washed; they were filthy, and he felt himself vomit in his mouth. Swallowing down his fear and vomit, he took the first dish -- a sandwich plate -- and ran it under scalding hot water. He liked the way the steam hit his face; he liked that he had to wear yellow rubber gloves, that made his fingers look like rubber ducks as they disappeared into the basin of the sink, now partially filled with soapy water. He liked the way the suds made shapes over the plate, the way they were both white in color, but held such different textures. Next came a dinner plate. A bowl. A sandwich plate. A dinner plate. A bowl. He found a rhythm (pattern) and stuck to it, and all went well, until he reached the end. All that was left were two bowls and a dinner plate. The pattern. Frantically, he looked at his pattern and counted and re-counted pieces, his fingers moving to his trembling mouth as he realized his pattern was absolutely ruined. Foul. Broken.

One by one, the pieces fell to the floor to create a shattered mosaic of white against yellowing tiles from the '70s. One by one, he listened to the glorifying symphony of ceramics that screamed and split apart as he tossed them down. When the plates and bowls became shards and specks, the glasses were next. Walking over the broken ceramic, he opened the cabinet just to the left of the sink, pulling down a single glass. Filthy. He ran it under the same scalding water, and let it play with ten rubber ducks. Next, a mug. A glass. A mug. A glass. A mug. It continued until the entire cabinet was emptied, every gleaming glass and mug standing long against the length of the counter. The pattern worked; the pattern was complete. Every glass was clear, every mug was white with a blue band wrapping around close to the mouth of the mug. He felt settled.

After the mugs and glasses were put away, he cried. He cried down at the floor for the mess he had caused; he cried out of happiness that his glasses and mugs were so clean and so beautiful, and so pattern-filled that they did not disappoint them. His tears licked at his cheeks and dripped off his chin, splattering silently as they hit the broken pieces at his feet. It was Ella who interrupted his thought, who saved him from more fierce crying, but who said the worst thing imaginable. On her way in from sitting on the front steps outside, she paused in the doorway of the kitchen and gasped, though not out of shock. Out of regret, for she knew she should have checked the man's calendar, and she knew she should have counted his pills.

By the time he’d worked up enough effort to lean forward and grab a sketch book (filled with writing, not sketches) off of the coffee table and a pen that twirled in his fingers vicariously, his stomach was in knots and his brain was quite similar to the grape jelly he had on his jelly sandwich half an hour before (which threatened to repeat itself). His own paper reeked of lemons, only because he used lemon cleaner, and as he folded himself over an empty page, his teeth raked against his bottom lip until skin tore.

His fingers itched. His stomach hurt. His heart pounded, and his palms sweat.

After twenty minutes of intense labor, the book was put back down on the coffee table and the pen was tucked into the pocket of his Oxford shirt. Pushing up from the couch, he stumbled into the kitchen and picked up the phone, thinking that might be a better way to express himself (after all, his penmanship was absolutely dreadful anyhow).

On the first ring, he felt himself salivate.

On the second ring, he felt himself choke on his breath.

On the third ring, he hung up the phone.

Pacing the length of the kitchen, he sighed and clutched to the cordless telephone, his fingers drumming, his feet shuffling, his breath shallow. He pressed the pad of his thumb to his bottom lip and hit ‘redial’, keeping up with the pacing.

On the first ring, he swallowed hard.

On the second ring, he glanced at the clock.

On the third ring…

“Hello?”

“I—sorry, wrong number!”

She was better than him, with her hardwood floors and furniture draped in silk. She was better than him with her brilliant eyes and her bowed-up mouth. In the chair, he stretched and weighted a knee down by the other ankle, the pearls of his knuckles rubbing at the side of his jaw. From over his frames, he saw her smiling at him.

"What?"

"So she crossed the street?"

"Yeah," his tone was flat compared to her chipper, lovey-dovey attitude. " 'bout time."

"Well?" She asked expectantly, moving to sit across from him at the table, her long limbs folded up behind a cup of coffee.

"Well what?"

"Aren't you going to call her and tell her you saw her?"

He shrugged and glanced at her cup of coffee, an eyebrow cocked. She had never been one for caffeine; even he knew that.

"Decaffinated," she mewed in a flattened toned, her bones growing weary of trying to dig him out of himself.

"Then what's the point?"

"The point, is, Oscar," she paused between words for small sips, swallowing down the milky substance only to choke down her agitation with him, "you've got to show the girl some