yeah right now, but not that often.

[our decadency]

<center>You were laying on the carpet
like you're satin in a coffin.
You said, "Do you believe what you're sayin'?"
Yeah right now, but not that often.

Are you dead or are you sleepin'?
Are you dead or are you sleepin'?
Are you dead or are you sleepin'?
God I sure hope you are dead.

Well you disappeared so often
like you dissolved into coffee.
Are you here right now
or are there probably fossils under your meat?

Are you dead or are you sleepin'?
Are you dead or are you sleepin'?
Are you dead or are you sleepin'?
God I sure hope you are dead.

Now the blow's been softened,
since the air we breathe's our coffin.
Well now the blow's been softened,
since the ocean is our coffin.
Often times you know our laughter
is your coffin ever after.
And you know the blow's been softened,
since the world is our coffin.
Well now the blow's been softened
since we are our own damn coffins.
Well everybody's talkin' about their short lists.
Everybody's talkin' about death.

You were laying on the carpet
like you're satin in a coffin.
You said, "Do you believe what you're sayin'?"
Yeah right now, but not that often.

Are you dead or are you sleepin'?
Are you dead or are you sleepin'?
Are you dead or are you sleepin'?
God, I sure hope you are dead.


Angeline Weatherbee</center>

[our decadency]

She was all sticky joints and spidery eyelashes, her hair pinned into a tight bun at the back of her head. A businesswoman, but in what business? The kohl around her lids smudged and blotted into a faded sort of perfection, if one could call anything she did perfection. One knee overlapped the other and she smoothed the thick tweed of her skirt, even though it didn't need smoothing.

"I heard you paint houses." It was archaic, anymore, something that had been mis and overused so many times in movies and books that even the police didn't catch it anymore.

She laughed.

"I do." It was easier this way, to play it off like some big joke, in the middle St. Mark's Square, in Venice, where traffic came and went like the wind. There were always bodies around, there was always someone to hear but there was never anyone listening.

"Then I've got a job for you." The man across from her had a thick eyebrow, just one, that stretched and crawled like a catepillar across his forehead when he spoke.

"Send the details to my office, signore." She didn't look Italian because she wasn't. Her skin was too fair, her eyes too light, her hair growing mostly on the top of her head.

"But-- I thought we had a meeting..." He looked startled at the prospect of putting these things into writing, the atrocities he was about to committ against his wife. Or at least pay to have the committed.

"We just did. Now, here is the address. Put them in mailbox number Nine labelled Color Palettes and then I will contact you after I've gone through what you give me. I will need her schedule, I will need your address, anything important -- and then we'll have a proper meeting. Do you have the downpayment?"

"Six thousand is a little high for just this --" He started, but ceased when she turned her eyes sharply to the left, like she was listening to something in the distance. He didn't hear anything.

"Mm, too much you say? Then I suppose I'm not worth your time. Good day, signore." Rising to her too elegant feet (they didn't match the occupation), she gathered her handbag and took one last sip of her chardonnay. More than not, she was giving him a chance to make up his mind.

"No, wait. Here." Reluctantly, the man in his mid-life crisis years was handing over a brown envelope and eyes crinkled at the corners. "You can make it painless, right? I don't want her to suffer."

The plea didn't pull any strings in her heart, there were none left attached. "Mm. Contact me and we will discuss it further, later."

She wasn't very tall, she was rather plain and if it weren't for the stiletto's and skirt, she might not even have been very pretty. He watched her pick her way through the crowd and out of eyesight, reaching for her cell phone as she disappeared.

"Pronto -- oh, yes hello Signora Barleschi, how are you? Mhm, I did just meet with your husband. Six thousand. Yes. I'll have it to you by the end of the week. Have a good flight, Signora Barleschi."