multinational home of flapjacks

There’s a certain uneasiness when you’re the only three patrons in a 24 hour establishment, watching the staff lazily clean up nearby tables or loudly wonder why you’re still there.

It’s kind of hard to ignore when you’ve been there for a good chunk of the day, shooting the breeze with a revolving door of friends that make the whole experience feel like a drawn-out talk show taking place within the confines of a restaurant booth stocked with books, board games, and various other time wasters. It’s hardly a bad thing, but suffice to say that there isn’t much to do when you’re sitting around on worn brown vinyl with literally a couple of your friends, whiling away the hours and waiting for a visit from either a somewhat irate waiter trying to close out their shift or the next in the line of visitors who decided to stop by. It’s a time to get to know someone you’ve met only hours ago. You can exchange war stories, take a walk around the parking lot to aid in digestion and prevent diabetes from setting in, or you can watch as an errant bead of syrup coalesces and hardens on the table.

And that’s exactly what we did. We talked of life, traded stories of vary degrees of hilarity, pondered pseudo-philosophical quandaries and the latest goings on while the sun was bright enough through a window to cast starkly contrasting shadows from coffee mugs. That shadow would slowly shift as the conversations progressed, partaking in the natural ebb and flow of lulls and laughter that comprises most interpersonal exchanges. The sun would listlessly progress its way across a perfectly azure sky about as listlessly as we played cards or talked about the opposite gender, all in the pursuit of some more well wasted time.

That day, for the first time in a very long while, the sky was that shade of blue that told you everything was pretty much okay. There was nary a cloud in the sky, and the wind blew in such a way that told you to at least put on a light jacket, for chrissakes. That doesn’t happen very often in this town, where the weather tends to range from “Fuck the world, It’s fucking hot!” to “Thanks Climate Change Cold” with periods of intermittent “Vaguely moist, sort of cold, and definitely dreary”. But for us, that day when it was none of the above was spent within the confines of a booth. You don’t get stir-crazy, you get bored and too full for your own good. It is, however, a perfectly novel idea and a perfectly good reason to have people visit you, which is worth the price of admission. Only the greatest of conversation can start with “So, how long have you guys been here?” or “You guys are absolutely insane.”

A twenty four hour restaurant’s name isn’t meant to be taken seriously. But I and some friends tried to take it seriously, and we almost made it. I’m going to wait for the day when I can stare down a a sign that says “Open 24 Hours!” with a stern expression and say, “That shit is completely true.”

nothing else can be said

His heart snaps in half every time he walks past her.

Nothing else can be said.

make that choice already (something fictitious)

He hesitates, holding off the urge to lay his heart on the table in the hopes of her accepting it.

She was the kind of person that would rather stab it with a BIC pen, before dousing it in BIC lighter fluid and setting it ablaze with a Zippo. Her actions would be precise, methodical. Her eyes would be vacant, face expressionless throughout the whole process. Emotion was for those that deserved it. Uncap the pen, stab the heart in the left ventricle. Crack open half a dozen cheap lighters, pour the mass-produced butane onto the bloodied heap. Flick the Zippo lighter, toss it towards the pen. The table would also go up in flames, but that would just prove her point.

His moment’s hesitation results in a three-foot wide gap between him and her. They sit, in silence, staring at a wall.

Rather, he was staring at a wall. She’s scribbling notes with an old fountain pen, because her old BIC was reserved for stabbing his heart sometime down the line. The notes were written in neat cursive handwriting, which required a fair bit of finesse compared to his illegible script. A slender hand gripped that old fountain pen, refilled hastily earlier in the morning. Slightly tanned skin. A striped blouse that oddly reminded him of a children’s book character that one had to recognize in a crowd. She readjusts herself, ever so slightly, a jean-covered leg crossing over the other equally jean-covered leg. They were the color of deoxygenated blood. Hair the color of oak draped over that red and white blouse. Naturally wavy, he noticed. Round eyes the color of maple staring intently at a notepad, a mouth grinning if you were lucky enough to see it. Not many people were. He wasn’t staring at the wall anymore.

“Fuck.” He blurts.

“Excuse me?” She replies, almost hastily. Her hand guides the fountain pen halfway back onto the paper. “Wait, were you staring at me?”

“No.” He lies.

“You liar.” She says, as if able to sense the narration.

“I was looking for Waldo. Apparently you slept with him, because you’re wearing his shirt.” He retorts. Payoff. Crisis averted, for now.

“Rude. At least I’m not some prep school reject. What did you do, fail because you couldn’t keep your parlez-vous separated from your sil-vouz-plait’s?” She snaps back. She flashed him a smug grin, her eyes closing with glee for a grand total of two seconds.  He was indeed wearing a wrinkled shirt and hastily tied tie. He also didn’t quite know how to respond to her. Concession of defeat, nonverbal. 1 – 0, lady in red and white to serve. Damn. Damn if that urge to break open that chest cavity of his to reveal to her that stupid, sentimental, so easily smitten heart of his.  And boy was he smitten. Even if her reaction would be the same it always was. Apply surgical glove. Proceed to grasp and tear out that blood-pumping muscle. Stab with BIC pen. Douse with cheap butane. Light on fire.

Oh, what little did he know. Behind those eyes of maple that were three feet away from him was a mind not entirely unlike his own. With what time he wasted staring at the wall she had already thoroughly analyzed him. The prep school reject look kinda worked. Face was decent enough to kiss. He was someone she could talk to for a little. Someone she wouldn’t immediately crush. Saying he was someone she could love was taking it a little too far. Too bad she was really good at hiding all other feelings other than general contempt. She looks up from scribbling nonsense on that notepad. “Dammit, you’re staring again.” Indeed, he was. She wonders if he’ll take the bait. That utterly contrived bait. Quite frankly, she was kind of tired of playing the soul-crushing ice princess. But he didn’t know that.

Take the chance? No, he wouldn’t take the chance. Would he? Fuck what the prevailing notion that’s flowing through his head. He could take the chance and act on this love unrequited. Was it love, now? Fuck. A moment’s hesitation is what got to him last time. What would be the best course of action? A bead of sweat begins the marathon run from his forehead to his jawline. His hands grow restless.

“Well, uh, I guess I should go then.” He finally responds.

Approximately sixty thousand miles away from the pair, a quiz show is being recorded at the exact same time. The contestant, a flop-sweat addled university student is on the verge of winning a lump sum of money for answering a simple question. He panics, his mind racing between his gut notion and a leap of faith. The camera pans across the audience, paid to sit in suspense. The host is calm, cool, collected, suave, and various other adjectives to describe the most interestingly normal TV host in the world. He starts asking the contestant what answer choices he’s narrowed it down to. The university student’s voice cracks before speaking. Five seconds. He goes with his gut notion. A tense fifteen seconds. The sound of a buzzer.

“Sorry kid, shoulda went with the other answer,” the most interestingly normal TV host says, with feigned sympathy.

a tempest of thought (something prosaic)

I’ve gotten in the bad habit of not sleeping.

Case in point, it’s currently 8:13 in the morning as I start typing this essay, and I haven’t slept since 11 yesterday morning. Sure, I haven’t been up for twenty-four hours, no, the last time I did that was sometime during the summer, despite my body’s best efforts to make me pass out on a friend’s couch. This is still an unhealthy amount of staying awake on my part. For the past week or two I’ve been averaging five hours or so of sleep during the week, making up for it with half-day long sleep marathons during the weekend. I have friends that call me during those marathons, and they often tell me I answer the phone with a distinctly irate tone.

I’ve yet to find a reason as to why I’m being this stupidly irrational. Before I started writing this, I was watching television on the internet (even though there’s a television no more than six feet away from me) while fighting the urge to close my eyes and doze off for a bit. I probably would be dreaming of unicorns instead of blasting some sad songs through earbuds to keep me awake. At least when I do finally sleep, my dreams will be of tragic space operas in which I, the protagonist, meet the girl that will always be there but I will never have, pine for her affections for upwards of two years before finally offing myself in a theatrical fashion because she found someone that had the gonads to ask her out for space coffee. Tragic-space-opera me could have asked her out for space coffee, but tragic-space-opera me is afflicted with the same tragic flaw that I’m afflicted with.

I tend to think too much.

Through no fault of my own, really. Well, actually, all the fault is placed on my shoulders. People have been telling me to think of the future lately, and I don’t quite like to think of the future. I (along with my tragic-space-opera counterpart) have deluded myself into thinking the future doesn’t matter as much as what’s happening right fucking now, after all, I barely remember the past on my own accord and the future is something that’s a glimmer on the horizon. Even if that glimmer on the horizon is a bullet train propelled by sheer power of will (and rocket fuel), I’ll still think that it won’t take two seconds before smacking me in the face. I’ve told myself that what counts is what I can do now, with my hands, with my words, with my tired but willing disposition. Currently, they’re all occupied with this, whatever this is.

My birthday’s in a few days. I’m still very, very young and I already consider myself to be tired. Maybe it’s the fact that in the bureaucracy that is my brain, Sunday’s minimum quota for sleep hasn’t been filled yet. It’s also because I’m reaching the end of a twelve year long chapter of my life, and quite frankly, twelve years of the same thing, eight hours a day,  five days a week for 180 days of the year can be a bit tiring. The future holds longer hours and more days of the year for an even longer period of time, I’m sure, but hell. I haven’t experienced that yet. Instead, I’m on the precipice of whatever leads to those longer hours for more days of the year. And it’s absolutely terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. I have to say it twice for good measure, because adding too many adjectives wouldn’t have the same effect as repetition, even though I’m pretty sure that works better with the spoken word. Childhood is effectively over for me, whatever sense of security I’ve been coddled into is about to be stripped away. What I’ve built up over these past twelve years, when I finally gained a bit of sentience, of independence, in matters of social interactions and whatnot, is about to be stripped away as well. What I have before, effectively what I have now, shall never be the same.

I don’t like that thought.

One by one I see the people I have grown to trust come to decisions for their years to come without so much as blinking their eye three times in quick succession or writing a bullshit angst-driven essay. They’re to disperse themselves to the winds, directed only by their desire for who they want to become. I have a hazy notion of who I want to become. Things are staring down at me, forms I must fill out, money that has to be earned, so that I can have a semblance of direction. I’ll reiterate that once again I’m absolutely terrified of wandering aimlessly when I really should have an idea of where I’m going, and doing so without the readily available consul of the people I’ve grown to trust.

Family is one thing, but friendship is an entirely different story. Someone once told me that a city like New York is a very fast city. It’s a city travels at a breakneck speed, the friendships that you form with the people you meet are ephemeral at best. The idea of an ephemeral friendship bugs me. To pour your heart out into a glass of ice, a cold, unfeeling vessel that starts to melt away as soon as you start pouring your heart into it is something that I don’t quite like. To think that you’ve laid your soul bare to someone that will just fade away eventually isn’t really something I like to think about. It’s something that I really don’t like happening. But we’ll all fade away eventually. And even that’s something I really don’t like thinking about, for reasons that for those who know, know. We’ll all fade away eventually. I’ve come to grips with that, actually. It’s still terrifying, but I’ve come to grips with it.

I was told over Jack in the Box that I’ve really not liked change since I was a child. I’ll eventually get over whatever caused this thousand-or-so word verbal spillage, though my ship’s gone more than a bit off-course I’ll manage to find my way back to where I’m supposed to be. I’ll hope to whoever’s up there (if there’s anyone up there at all) that the genuinely interesting people I’ve met will continue to be in my life because for the first time for some time, I’ve found a handful of people that I wouldn’t want to let go.

All I can really do is keep sailing and let this tempest pass.

Inadequate to anyone

The afternoon sun slanted into the shabby living room, highlighting all the minuscule airborne dust particles. A short plump lamp with a velvet shade lent to this light, along with the glow of the high definition television that was currently in use. In front of this T.V. was a plush brown couch, and on that couch was an unkempt man. He didn’t have work that day, so he spent the day the way he’d spend any other free day on his hands: in front of a screen. He lazily followed figures on the screen with half-closed eyes.

The sound of the back door opening suddenly interrupted his sloth-like state. Then came the noise of a leather bag being laid heavily on a marble surface, its various metal parts clinking softly. This was followed by a lengthy, unpleasant sigh.

“So this is how you spend your day?” came the precise feminine voice he had known for years, a voice that was now unexpectedly harrowing. “This is exactly how you spent last weekend, and the weekend before that, and just about every other weekend you have ever had in your entire life.”

He turned to look at her. She wore black heels, a black pencil skirt, a black coat, and a baby blue button up shirt. Her sheen dark hair was combed long and straight. She almost looked beautiful there standing in the kitchen, dressed professionally, her hair aglow in the light, her dark green eyes open wide in disbelief at the travesty she had finally come to realize. He couldn’t think of anything to say, even if it was to save all of humanity.

“Can’t you even defend yourself? I’m your wife, can’t you keep me in line? No…no you can’t keep anyone in line. It was cute at first, it was cute for a long time. You were so passive and weak I had no choice but to pity you, no choice but to take care of you and love you. I enjoyed being the boss when we were in college, and even for the first couple of years of our marriage. But now we have kids…kids for Christ’s sake! and I have to raise them and you!”

She smacked her carefully made-up forehead with her shaky left palm, which slid down to cover her eyes. “I-I’m sorry,” said the man on the couch as he stood up slowly, awkwardly,”I’ll go pick up the children today…”

She removed her hand from her face, slamming it on the kitchen counter. “Is that all you have to offer? Aren’t you going to change? Or at least say you are willing to change like all the other times? You know that would be a lie now, I guess, and you never could lie to me. You’re the nicest person I have ever known, but you’ve never been able to get mean, to man up. You can’t be an innocent child forever, goddammit, grow up!…I can’t believe I married a ten year old.”

The man stepped towards her, stretching out his arms. He just wanted to hold her, to forget that everything was wrong and that it was all his fault. He knew this would happen. He knew things that were once beautiful but now ugly would enevitably end.

“A hug? Really? So you’re offering a hug and to pick up our kids from school,” she said, in that utterly disbelieving tone she had used earlier. She picked up her bag and withdrew her keys from her pocket. “No thank you. I will get the kids, and I won’t be having your hug anytime soon.” In one swift aggravated motion, she opened the door. “I’m not coming back until I have a lawyer.”

With that promise, she was gone. She kept almost all of her promises, especially the important ones. The man sat back down on the couch, the T.V. still glowing and begging for attention. The mournful flakes of dust in the diminishing sunlight were beginning to vanish.  He didn’t cry. Deep down, just within reach of the finger tips of his conscience, was a place in him that didn’t care about anything at all.

a change in character (for the most part)

“You’re the only person I know that would find everything that’s wrong with sleeping with a beautiful lady.”

Robin backs up this statement with an accusatory point, a manicured finger directed squarely between Simon’s eyes accented by the sound of half a dozen thin, metal bracelets. Indian bangles, she had called them earlier, when they were waiting for a table. A lazy waiter carrying decaffeinated coffee asks if Simon wants a refill. “Is it regular?” He asks, ignoring Robin’s statements, for the time being. The waiter lies about the contents of his old tempered glass pot. Simon’s cup is refilled, and is promptly mixed with a packet of cane sugar. “And now, you. You’re the only person I know that would opt out of one of our patented discussions for some foreign dude.”

Robin scoffs. “Different circumstances, jackass.” She pauses for a beat, brushing an auburn lock of artificially curly hair from her eye. “Special circumstances, you know that.”

“This is, too.” He replies, after sipping a decaf coffee that is mistaken for a regular. The placebo effect in action. A rusted chime hits a glass door, reminding Simon of his surroundings. Him and Robin found themselves within the confines of a fifty year old building, a diner that had established itself as one that was pretty damn okay, by his standards. Simon was the one who was slowly overcoming his own neuroses, and Robin was the one who guided him through it all, slipping him the phone numbers of ‘nice girls who would dig the vibe you have going on’, as she always put. The hopeless romantic finally found himself some hope. Before long, there would be that significant-in-all-senses-of-the-word other amongst the stack of napkins and scrap sheets of paper.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Robin scoffs again. The waiter makes another pass, quietly checking the contents of the pair’s mugs. He fills Robin’s half-empty mug with whichever pot he brought along with him. He wasn’t bothered to check. She ignores him. “Seriously, Simon. So you took a girl to dinner, and you obviously got kinda far with the girl, otherwise you wouldn’t have that dumb grin on your face, and now it’s the next day–the next fucking day!–and you’re bitching to me about how selfish you are for doing that. Or, doing her, rather.”

Simon noticed the dumb grin he inadvertently plastered on his face, before grimacing.

“She could have been a genuinely interesting person, Robin! She was a genuinely interesting person, and I was selfish! Sure, I’m not the first to do this, hell, I’m next in a long line of jackasses who take girls out to dinner for the sole purpose of getting between the sheets, but shit, I feel kinda terrible about it. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been that guy, and now that I’m finally doing that sort of shit, the old me, who I’ve conveniently hidden in the back of my mind, pops up after the fact to scold the shit out of the rest of me.” The coffee had cooled down considerably. Simon took another sip. “Is this really what ’staying casual’ is? Do you, Robin, really go around bedding random guys rather than engage in elaborate romantic trysts with them?” Robin snorted, and nodded. The fact that Simon said she was doing the bedding didn’t go unnoticed. “I seem to fall in love with every girl I meet. So, to do something like this, yeah, I feel kind of selfish.” Simon pauses, holding back a cough. “Shellfish, even!”

“Oh god, Simon, really?”

Changing Seasons, Part 1

Fall

Autumn’s arrival varied from year to year, and this year she was particularly early, something that no doubt caused much distress in the world around her. She swung her legs out of the hollow tree, a giant redwood that just encompassed her abode. She woke sweating, as usual – Summer never knew when to quit – and was greeted by the sound of drums. Autumn perked her ears and listened. After a short while, she realized it was a festival – and not just any festival, but her festival.

It was the festival that sent the blood pounding through her veins, that made her feel alive. The sacrifices sent her into ecstasy. And indeed, there was one of them now. A lone girl tugged a very recalcitrant sow up the trail up to Autumn’s tree. She felt herself smiling – she had never witnessed a sacrifice before, only felt them.

As the girl drew closer, she sensed the cool breath of the wind, the fluttering of leaves that heralded fall, and immediately looked around her. The girl was sharp – it didn’t take her long to stop Autumn, even in the patchwork dress of leaves and bark brown hair. The girl approached Autumn with something nearing on reverence, and with no hesitation dispatched the sow beautifully.

“We ask a good harvest and a simple fall. No more.” Her voice was soft, yet demanding.

Autumn gulped and fought back moans. Above her, the first leaves began to turn.

Finally, “You shall have it.” The girl nodded, satisfied, and with a gracious bow turned and began retreating back down the path.

The sow’s blood flowed freely, etching rivers into the ground, and with it flowed Autumn’s winds. They bellowed out of her, eager and excited. Above, more leaves began to shift. Autumn let out a contented sigh, and began the tedious art of turning the natural world as red as the sow’s blood.

Winter

The first thing to be noted about the woman before him was that her face – a perfect, pale, exquisite visage – was coated in frost. Further inspection showed that the ethereal, frozen face was framed by pale blue hair – or perhaps it was a crown of icicles that tinkled with the faint breaths of air that trundled in from the cave entrance.

The man was so lost in his examination of the rest of her – the inadequate, lacy, immaculate clothing, the pristine white furs draped about her – that he failed to notice her motions.

First it was her eyes, snapping open regardless of the ice that had frozen them closed. Then her mouth moved, cracking the frost around the wicked grin that formed on the once-graceful face. Outside, the wind blew from the north, bringing an unmistakable chill with it. And then, in a perfectly innocent, if slightly hoarse, voice, “What is it, dear mortal?”

The man yelped and leaped backwards, but landed awkwardly and ended up looking like a flailing mass of coats and furs. This elicited a nasty little giggle that sent chills down the man’s spine even as he floundered. The woman of white shifted and peeled herself from the wall, sending ice shards flying and ricocheting off of the cave walls. She walked past the man without a second glance.

Winter tottered like a child towards the cave entrance and emerged to see a glorious fall landscape.

“Autumn, darling, you’ve outdone yourself this year.” As she turned back to the cave, she saw the man staring at her with an awed expression. With a giggle and a wink, she blew a dainty kiss at him. Winter experienced no remorse at leaving him to be found days later in the cave, frosted over, dropped jaw immortalized in ice.

Another giggle escaped, and the first snows of winter began to fall.

Winter had awakened.

(Spring and Summer coming soon.)