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my inner feminist is wrestling with my inner valley girl. i'll let you know who comes out on top. till then...
towards the melting sun
He refers to me now, my friends tell me, as his ex-puppy. I know i should probably be mad, or even mildly upset, but i can't even work up enough energy to do more than feel a little uncomfortable with it. "He's such a fucker," Arianna declares for me, taking an indignant drag on her cigarette. "Yeah," N?al sighs, "i'm glad you two didn't work out." It's not my fault, i want to say, either in protest or in my defense. It's just that i fell in love with him and he didn't even want to fuck me anymore. I say nothing, however, just continue walking along the sidewalk with them.
We are Christmas shopping downtown, our faces reflected back to us in the looming windowpanes that flank us as we walk through the crowd. N?al and Arianna start to talk about whether or not they think that Neal's mom will like the crystal figurine he bought her.
We were at the beach, he and i. He was exceptionally playful on this day, darting in and out of the waves, splashing the water that is like liquid salt at me, tackling me in the sand. He was touchy, physical, like he'd finally decided that i'm not carrying a disease or a live electrical current, like it was okay for others to know that there was something between us.
All day we slathered exotic-smelling suntan lotion on each other, we lay on the blankets he'd brought and looked up at the puffy clouds, eating sandwiches, grains of gritty sand grinding against our teeth. We waited until we were so sunwarmed that we couldn't stand it anymore and waded out into the ocean until we were in cool water up to our chins, jagged fragments of shell dissolving into sand under our feet. If i were telling this story to Arianna and N?al, i would say "it was perfect," and sigh, but it really wasn't. I was too busy trying to figure out why he had changed all of the sudden, too busy trying to figure out what i had done and what i could do to keep things this way, too busy accepting the fact that this was a one-time thing to enjoy it while it lasted.
When the sun started to dip dangerously close to the extinguishing water, he tackled me. We wrestled around a bit, knocking over the little red and white cooler, spilling ice on the ground. He ended up on top of me, pinning my wrists and my legs, smiling dangerously as he held me against the sand.
This story doesn't end like you think it will, like you think it should, i would tell N?al and Arianna. It doesn't end like you want it to.
He rolled off of me, sat there in the sand next to my worn out, sprawled out body. His pinning me down had pushed me in to my own little divot, and as i lay there, head cushioned by the smooth silt, he began to drop handfuls of sand on my belly.
I lay there as he began to scoop up the wet sand with both hands, dropping it on my haphazardly at first, and then, as he covered me, with the careful grace one would use when building a sandcastle. He buried me in a hump that reminded me simultaneously of both a beached whale and one of those Indian burial mounds my mother dragged me to see when we were still living in Wisconsin. I lay there until i was no longer sure where i ended and the sand began, until i was afraid to move for fear of disturbing the smooth hill that encased me, until i was no longer sure which way was up. I lay there, breathing shallowly, as he picked up a seashell and placed it at the top of the mound. "X marks the spot," he said as he brushed his hands against his thighs.
He squatted there for a moment longer, his long fingers wrapped around his knobby knees, then stood up and started walking towards the water. I raised my head carefully and watched him. He didn't stop like i thought he would when he reached the licking ocean, but kept walking, not missing a beat, disappearing into the water in time with the pounding of my heart. When he was up to his neck he started swimming towards the melting sun, arms cleaving the water in long, hard strokes.
I watched him till i could hold my head up no longer, then lay my head back on the sand. Above me, the sky was starting to reflect the color of the water, deepening into the blue of loneliness. I lay there, unmoving, watching the world slide into night as the sun dissolved into the water.
I can't tell you why i didn't get up. I only know that it was for the same reason he left me, the same reason the sun returns to the killing ocean night after night.
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Wow.
Damn.
Powerful.
Damn.
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Holy shit. Wow is right. That was so cool gollum. I was totally transfixed. I didnt even hear someone come in to my room. Definately some of your best ever! Keep it up! God, I love your writing!
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"What about him? What are you doing with him?"
"What you should be doing with me..."
Proud family member of Jelymo, gollum, Kelly, Dano, Jaxom27, 5Cats, Fenix and others.
I believe you can't appreciate real love until you've been burned
"Om Namaha Shivaya." ~ Dano
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Well written doesn't begin to discribe it, and my own words seem useless, and so I return to the man that is to me more legend then real, more god then man: "I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslateable.... I sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world....."- Walt Whitman
You do.
[This message has been edited by Coke Cans (edited November 03, 2000).]
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*blush* wow. i've been given a barbaric yawp. you have no idea how honored i am...
thanks everyone.
-g
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Sometimes i think everyone on this board is crazy. The rest of the time i'm sure. -Dan :)
somehow i see [gollum] clinging to a tower and rousingly calling for a new world order. -starky
food is food & sex is sex
i'vehadmyfill
iwanttodefect
-ra di o he(a)d
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This is definitely a good one. Reminds me of Sherwood Anderson (one of my favorite writers -- and he was even from the Buckeye State!) in the way it builds up to a central moment of revelation or change.
take care
---jones
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"what Marie's not gonna do"
new chapters in Works & Days
a punk rock romance in words, music & art
http://www.freehomepages.com/worksanddays
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if this isnt a real experience you were describing, then you're a really great writer *G
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"they've been going in and out of style....but they're guaranteed to raise a smile"
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