20070327

Moving forward

There was this fantasy book I read once, must have been when I was a teenager. I can't remember what the book was about, who the protagonist was, or the title. All I remember is the description of one city that the protagonist encountered.

It was a massive moving city. The city was carried on the backs of the countless people who lived underneath it, who were whipped when they didn't move forward. When people under the city died, which was inevitable due to the conditions, they were replaced by people from the city who had fallen too far into debt. The people under the city, their only order was to move, there was no pilot, no steering wheel, no track, they were just moving forward.

20070319

Hot mix pickles

In the pickle aisle, there's a jar labeled Hot Mix Pickles. Through the glass you can see cauliflower, banana peppers, and slices of cucumber, green tomato, and carrot, all floating in brine.

On some weekends, my father would load me and my brother into the car and we'd drive to the grocers to pick up Hot Mix Pickles, as a snack. We'd all be in the aisle, and my salivary glands would be filling my mouth. I'd have to swallow more often to make sure it didn't dribble out onto my shirt. Staring at that bottle, I'd get stabbing pains right beneath my jaw, where it meets my throat. Relief only came when we got home and, forks in hand, we'd dig in.

At the grocers, walking through the aisle now, my mouth still fills up with saliva. But I walk right by the jar, never adding it to my basket.

20070315

Towel

We're all sitting in their basement drinking. Talking about sex and how messy it can get. I mention that I don't understand how in movies and television, everyone's always using towels to clean themselves off. Someone asks me what I use, and I say, I use disposables. Like tissues.

Later, he gets up onto his knees in bed. The wetness spreads and rolls off of me and onto the sheets. He reaches over to the foot of the bed, smiles at me, and throws me a towel.

In the morning, I get up, put on my trousers and t-shirt and head into the kitchen. He's standing there, topless, eating breakfast with his flatmates. Every time I say something to him, I'm talking to his chest and abs.

20070312

Tangle

Empty beer bottles line the counter. The caps, she likes to put them in the ashtray. The ones bent in half are mine. She's slumped across the table, her head in her arms. My fingers are running through her hair, gliding over the smoothness of her scalp. I can feel her hair part as I float through. Whenever I hit a tangle, my fingers stop and I pull my hand back to the front of her head and start over.

She says I should stop touching her but I continue. She says, "stop, you're making me cry." I pull my fingers out of her hair and get up out of my seat, going around the table to stop behind her. I put one hand on her back and rub back and forth.

Her head still in her hands, she looks up at me, her make-up two blotches of darkness beneath her eyes, and she says she's ok. I take hold of her wrist and pull. She says, "what are you doing?" Looking at her, I say "get up." She does.

"Where are we going," she asks. And still with her wrist I pull her into my arms. She puts her head between my shoulder and my neck with her arms folded across her chest, in an X. Both of my arms go around her. She says, "you don't have to be nice to me", as she starts to shake in my arms, "you don't have to be nice to me."

20070310

Tiny hands

Whenever anyone picked me up as a baby, my tiny hands would be pressed against their chest. Arms straight out.

Some people, they'd use the hand on my back to push me into them. But, my father, he says, that when he tried to do that, my arms didn't bend right away and he was worried they would break.

On family walks, back when around the block was the furthest I could go without being carried, we'd still be in sight of the house when I'd fall behind. My parents would look back at me and slow down, and my pace would slow down too. When they stopped, there'd always be a leaf, or an insect, on the ground that I would squat down to get a closer look at. When we got back to the house, I'd catch up as the door was being opened.

20070307

My answer

When they asked me what I'd do, my answer wasn't that I would go out and get fucked. What I didn't say was that I'd be on elbows and knees with one in each hand while getting double stuffed from behind, choking on one from the front. That, ideally, by the end of the twenty four hours, I'd have stuck my fingers down my throat two or three times to make more room.

This was back in high school, the lot of us hanging out in the toilets during lunch hour. We had got onto the topic of what we would do if we were a female for twenty four hours. One of them, he said that he would dress up like a total whore and tease guys. Make them think they were going to get laid and then walk away. Another said he would go to female changing rooms with a hidden camera. One of us, he said that he'd just sit at home all day playing with himself. Everyone agreed with that one.

20070304

It snowed here

We can predict a few things about lunar eclipses. We can tell you when they'll start and when they'll finish. We can tell you if it'll be a partial or a complete. But we can't tell you ahead of time what colour it will be. It could be pink, brown, deep red, orange. And the halo that surrounds the moon during the eclipse, we can't tell you what colour that will be either. Ranging anywhere from bright yellow to a cool blue. And those colours will change as the eclipse goes through it's cycle.

Last night, we had an eclipse. It started at 17:18, became complete at 19:44, which lasted until 20:58, and the moon was entirely visible again at 23:24. Astronomers rated it a 3 or a 4 on on the Danjon scale, which means that the moon was somewhere between a deep red and a brick red in colouration. The halo around the moon was yellowish in colour and quite bright.

That's what the news reports said.

It snowed here.

20070302

With

On the bus, I'm surrounded by all these girls in pleated skirts and white blouses. They're all arguing about who gets to ride in which car. This girl's parents, they're going to pick them up at the metro and so they have to be divided into two groups. This would be easy except Tammy wants to ride with Julie. Vanessa wants to ride with Christie and Sharon. And every time she decides who goes into what car someone pipes up and says, but wait, I wanted to ride with Tammy. I wanted to ride with Lucy. With Christie. With Nikki.

The first family dinner I ever brought my first girlfriend to, there was an argument as to who would sit next to who. It was between my cousins, my brother, and my girlfriend. The table had to be carefully arranged so that everyone got to sit between two people they wanted to sit next to. Me, I sat between my uncle and my grandmother.