The CuisinArt

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be something I wasn’t: I’ve been a child and wanting to be a teenager, a teenager wishing I were in college, in college impatiently waiting to become a man, and a man, wishing I was a better man. My whole life, I’ve felt like the pet dog at dinner, heeled, on the ground, snout on his master’s lap, hoping, waiting for a chance to have even a morsel of the meal that lay just inches away. With the smell assaulting me, I’d salivate at the thought of devouring it, but only managing to obtain a taste of the crumbs that fell from the kings that sat above me. I’m an old man now. I’m tired. I’m leaving.

The bad weather. It would come one day when the fall was over. We would have to shut the windows in the night against the rain and the cold wind would strip the leaves from the trees in Ithaca. Soon, the aesthetic pleasures of fall would be meddled with and wiped away by the white snowdrifts; our moods flew south with the ducks.

I am going to miss the ducks. They paddled close to my dock. I often went out there to read, or strum my old but trusty acoustic. It needed new strings. Penelope would always throw the ducks bread, and soon a crowd would gather. She loved to imitate their sounds and quacks. I would sit and smile. It was getting too cold to eat dinner out there, but we would often graze on bruschetta and full bodied reds while the main dishes finished cooking. She loved my cooking, as undistinguished as I thought it was, but that had always made me feel all right. The wine and the meal and perhaps a few beers were sure to keep me full, but with enough energy left to write after the sun had withdrawn under the stretching silhouetted tree line opposite our unassuming lake house.

Though still plenty of fine days to be had and enjoyed, the arrival of the dreaded weather was in sight now. Just a few minutes down a darkening road. Left with the choice to wallow or savor, I chose to exclusively wear Hawaiian shirts, drink spirits and work often and with my own heat - along with the new fireplace – that would be warmth enough to avoid the toil of winter living. Though as I architected this mantra, the voice of doubt, which I fought hard to ignore, sang its hymn deep and proud and in stereo. And eventually, it was all I could ever hear.

I left around eight on Thursday. I let P - as I called her, despite her disapproval – sleep, or more appropriately, I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye. I stopped in a Podunk gas station before departure. Gas, oil, wiper fluid; I would need coffee. “Do you need room for cream?” asked the clerk, a girl of no more than 20 with a pallid face still afflicted by the scars and memories of acne and adolescence. “Just leave room for the lid,” I instructed. I always took it black in those days. Her eyes told me she had 15 minutes left in this abhorrent shift of menial, meaningless labor; but the truth was that she had years. In the car, I alternated sips on an organic cigarette and freshly brewed cup to compliment each other for the five hours I had ahead of me.

I recalled that morning: the sky had less color than I could ever remember. When I looked across the endless pine covered landscape of central New York, the sun was nowhere to be seen. Not only that, the atmosphere looked as though the sun had never been there in the first place. I couldn’t stop looking. I knew of the sun. I loved it, it has been a source of friendship. But where had it gone? I looked in all directions. There were no traces of anything save for this endlessly bleak and bloodless sky and this troubled me. There will be eight minutes from the point of which the sun burns out, and the time we can no longer see it’s bright, and resplendent rays. Had that harrowing day arrived?

Hours later, the sky was black and clear and crisp and beautiful. I’d made it. The stars shone and reflected upon my windshield, which was finally clean: I ran out of wiper fluid two weeks prior and since I was driving with a suspended license, under the influence, and over the speed limit, I didn’t want a dirty windshield to arouse any suspicions among young officers who needed to fill their ticket quotas for the evening. I don’t know if it was recklessness, or just indifference, but the prospect of being arrested and losing my car, injected no fear into my bloodstream. I had other things on my mind, yet it was still far from wise to burn bridges I very well would have to drive over again. Ignoring my provident sensibilities, and a phone call from P, I pressed on into the night along the empty, bending road.

Once, in a magazine, he’d read that a liberal application of foreplay could compensate for a sub-par sexual performance. Using this as a template, he made his way down to frolic face first in her forested meadow. There he smelled familiar flowers, heard the soar of familiar moans above, and felt at ease. New plan. He would continue these oral acrobatics until she passed out—or at least until her parents came home.

Concerning gravity, what goes up must come down, while concerning foreplay, what goes down must come up. An unbreakable law of sexual thermodynamics, and it had slipped his mind. In time she wrenched his tongue from her nethers, and placed it between her teeth. He knew then that his plan had backfired. Instead of placation, he had achieved titillation, turning a presumed penetration into an inevitability.

The woman wasted little time. She reached across the bed and produced a condom wrapped in orange foil. Lifestyles. Ribbed for Her Pleasure. The man let out a sigh of relief. Good, the ribs will take care of everything.

The man understood the principles of what was to follow. Shaft. Hole. Insert. Remove. Repeat. But three years of rabid porn viewing had muddied his certainty about the particulars. Porn is a world of receded testicles slamming against prolapsed anuses, and 10x zoomed vaginas oozing ejaculate. Porn is a world concerned only with the ends: one that has little time to point out the means.

His penis, an object of unprecedented familiarity, felt suddenly alien and obtrusive. Confused, he started to poke her. Distraught, he poked harder. In a little under 17 seconds he managed to probe her navel, buttocks, and grundle without once making the slightest contact with her labia.

Then it came as a shooting star: sudden, explosive, ultimately fleeting. The nothingness of air gave way to a warm nestling, and even the woman’s face, previously contemplating the mold stains on the ceiling, showed a slight tweak of the eyebrows. But it left sooner than it had come, leaving him yet again to flap his latex sheathed rod in the wind.

It was then that the woman, in a quite literal fashion, took matters into her own hands. He did not mind the ease with which she slipped him inside, but her sudden change of direction left him suspicious.

Moans followed. Not sexy. Monotonous, rehearsed. Like vocal exercises in drama class. He checked her chest for clarification. No flush. No contractions of the vaginal walls, either. Certainly no increase in wetness. In fact, with each passing second he sensed an increasing aridness. Her moans turned to grunts. Her hands flailed, pulling and tugging at whatever she could find.

No, he thought to himself. Something is not right. There’s no way I’m this good. There’s no way I’m even fractionally this good. A woman flopping and floundering perhaps. But a woman writhing?

The revelation came with a swiftness he wished his hips could emulate. She was preparing to fake on him.

A man confronted with unspeakable evil has but two courses: submit and be consumed, or become that very evil in the hopes of destroying it. The man chose the latter. He chose to become what he feared most. He chose to fake his own orgasm.

The desertification of the vagina was almost complete. Time was of the essence. Using what little wetness remained, he built to a steady rhythm. He pulled out only as shallow as he dared, knowing if he slipped out entirely the lips would close forever. In time he began to palpitate his own breathing. Moments before she closed the deal, he pushed himself the full depth of her, closed his eyes, quivered his right leg and held his breath. After a believable three seconds he exhaled an exaggerated breath, fluttered his eyelids, and let a small droplet of saliva splash onto her breasts. He fell atop her, wheezing, snorting, his lips mashed against her collarbone. It was a revolting sight, no doubt. But she could not argue with its authenticity.

“Get off,” she grunted

Not one to upset her further, he pulled out and ran to the bathroom to dispose of the evidence. There he shed a tear of respect for the fallen condom, en route to sexual purgatory, never fulfilling its intended purpose. A face full of denim welcomed him back into the room. He peeled them off to find the woman already dressed, clacking bubbles with her lips, avidly tapping the keys on her cell phone. The man dressed with haste and silence, not quite sure what to say.

She took the initiative.

“Remember the number I gave you when we left the bar,” she asked.

“No,” he answered truthfully

“Good,” she cut.

But a wave of embarrassment did not follow. He felt instead a warm and impregnable numbness. As a somnambulist he left the room, head in clouds, toes dragging across the asphalt. There had been no ejaculation. No pleasure. No ecstasy. The whole experience had more or less resembled a siege on a castle wall. But he was no longer a virgin, because as long as you get it in it still counts, right?

That night he regaled his younger siblings with the mysteries of the fairer sex. He phoned friends, and hinted of a story to tell. A story, unknown to them, that he would embellish and transform at his leisure. No one needed to know every harrowing detail of room 24-17 B. He’d keep certain facts intact—lack of stamina, mismatched experience—for believability’s sake. But the rest was his to do with what he would. Once home, his newfound manhood would glisten and shine amid the drab virginity of his friends. They would flock to him, honor him, admire him, and with a gracious wave of his hand, he would bestow onto them all that he had learned.

In the land the virgin, the man who kind of, sort of, almost had sex is king.

New from Shea, the satyric scribe from San Francisco…
–
This here’s a tale about a virgin.

A virgin who came to Disney to ride the rides, and stayed behind to ride a woman.

There are some who might call him a hero, and others who’d call him a fool, but then again the line between the two has never been but a hair thin.

His story doesn’t get told too much. Common lore favors instead the tale of the virgin woman. Wherein man is cast as the hornet: a savage insect who rends a flower’s virginity with multi-pronged perforation pistil, spewing white-hot trauma inducing poison. The myth is so injurious that unassociated third parties still trouble to craft consistent pollination metaphors.

Yes. His story is less told. But it is replete nonetheless with its own unique mortification.

To frame his story, let us take the aforementioned metaphor, polish it a mite, and turn it on its axis. Viewed like such, we see that long before he became the hornet, man began his sexual journey as the carpenter bee—incommodious, oafish, cumbersome, spending more of his day in congress with the wood surrounding the nest than the nest itself. A life spent fluttering six inches from the bull’s-eye.

Yes, a carpenter bee has wings and a man has a penis but neither is too sure what to do with their given extremity. Still, the man was willing to brave this uncertainty for the opportunity to understand the mysteries of the fairer sex.

Many people talked about it. The Juniors spoke frequently. The seniors spoke more. Even the occasional sophomore hinted at an understanding. He wanted in, and Disney seemed as fitting a place as any to gain membership. Look hard enough, the innuendo is there: Mickey; Minnie; phallic train cars penetrating dark, cavernous tunnels.

By day the man trolled the parks; by night he trolled palm-lined walkways of his resort. Orlando was rife with young vixens. Blondes. Brunettes. The occasional redhead. The man would have been happy to cast any as the willing damsel in his tale. But there was one he hoped for above all the rest.

A brunette, with eyes of a deep, snakeskin color, and a porcelain face that reflected a mastery of symmetry. She was the type of woman who made flowers bloom as she passed and wilt in her wake. She bore the figure of an hourglass, and not only in her curves, but in her ability to effect time. She had unrelenting nipples, and wore only that which would highlight such an anatomical curiosity. She was anthropometric perfection, the Sandwoman who dwells only in the wettest of dreams.

With her he always kept it innocent, hanging back to watch her from afar. He’d like to think he did it out of common decency and respect for the chase. Hazard instead it was the flimsy stitching of his bathing suit and a hair trigger erectile response that stayed his course.

Came the day he happened upon a bar. Virginity, they say, loves company, so he ordered a Pina Colada without rum. He nursed it conservatively, and a steady influx of adolescent males soon turned the pair of virgins into a crowd. Perhaps they came to the bar to find women; but perhaps, too, they came unconsciously to avoid them. If so, they picked the appropriate joint. Most of the night the bar remained estrogen free. Until she arrived.

The woman blew in as a wayward ship run aground by an invisible tempest. Her spandex framed camel toe, and halter-top accentuated cleavage had no business in a place of boys dressed by their mothers. She nursed her cigarette in front of a no-smoking sign, and through the puffs the man could see snakeskin eyes, which until that very moment had been but a mirage.

The man felt the sudden pull of his erection. Fate, it seemed, had put him in this very bar. His mother, however, had put him in a pair of triple stitched cargo pants. No hard-on short of an immaculate erection could defy the durability of those seams. And it was a good thing too. Because she was headed his way.

Cut from the impending adolescent flirting and flash forward to room 24-17-B.

Prostrate naked upon pastel sheets, ass angled at 15 degrees, with two fingers reaching behind to explore various curiosities laid the woman. Framed in the doorway, wearing an XL Gap sweatshirt with no pants, double palming a sweaty erection stood the man. A look of confusion etched upon his face as he struggled with both the vision before him and the unsettling fact that his pants lay ruffled 12 feet away yet his sweatshirt remained upon his shoulders.

He always knew his impending sexual performance would be abysmal. He had only hoped that his relationship to the girl in question might lessen the mortification. Given an equally nascent virgin, for example, shared ignorance might have negated inexperience. Or if he were to meet a soul mate, a sense of cosmic destiny and overarching synchronicity would nullify the need for any kind of carnal fulfillment.

But the truth of the matter was that he was a carpenter bee lost in a place carpenter bees have no business being. The jungles of Disney grow thick and arboreal, and the flowers are unforgiving.

He would have to stall…
–
Tune in tomorrow for Part 2…

From Dylan…

–

I had married a Succubus but
Didn’t realize till after we’d wed
Emerged a vixen so oleaginous, I
Had to escape from the Demoness’ bed!

For some newlyweds we had quite the dwelling
A place atop a hill with twenty-five rooms
All surrounded by marshland and mire
With an inhabit of her womanly ruse

For leviathans she had quite the beauty
Though a chthonic she looked tanned in the sun
Not carious, at least not on the outside
But on the in she was well over done

She didn’t sleep and had impressive peripheral
So my skedaddle had to avoid the day
I needed desperately the cover of sable
In aide to avoid her covering gaze

In her repast the night I had planned it
Slipped her opiate to addle her limbs
Then used that moment to slip out of the side door
While she collapsed to the parquet languid!

Then came the moment of my anagnorisis
As I tromped through the Buffalo Swamp
The gangly devil who I left behind was
The only woman I ever would want!

So went to return to my darkly lit quarters
Fetch my true love and sorely apologize
But as I lifted my feet from the peat stirred
A snake so deadly when it bit me I died!

The pain was quick but the poison was quicker
I fell in water and was numbed to excess
I could have lived to die with my darling bloodsucker
Instead I died with a snake and regret!

A new entry from Shea:

On Valentine’s Day, while some sipped champagne, composed fruitless love letters, or, more accurately, masturbated using homemade lubricant of tears and self-pity, others converged amid gathering storm clouds to exhaust their own romantic frustrations and sexual aggressions in a much different manner. Below is one man’s recollection of what truly happened that day.

–Two thousand, contiguous, nameless faces. A light drizzle. Heavy fog lingers over the Bay. In the distance, storm clouds foreshadow the events to come. Even the women and children have been called to arms. I scan the masses. There are no allegiances here safe what fellowship and love entail, and even these bonds are uncertain when pillows are involved.

–Phone calls from invisible sources. Where are you amid this madness? I’m next to the statue? What statue? Actually it is more of a structure? What structure? Its pretty abstract so I’m not sure what you call it. Nevermind, I’m going to wave my red pillow in the air. Yes, I am aware there are about a hundred red pillows in the air. Mine is the one near the statue. What statue? Actually it’s more of a structure…

–I am alone. Utterly, utterly alone.

– Off in the distance a light thwack of matted goose against corduroy. The sound precipitates a contagious frenzy that circles outward until my hand is no longer my own, raining down upon the button nose and ovular face of a bearded Spaniard in khakis.

–The fray has begun.

–It does not take long for the first feathers to burst from their cotton linings, leaving one to speculate what part their owners played in such an early release. Tricky knife work, or a premature exertion of excessive force? The feathers hang in the air listless, like ash from a volcanic eruption. Some see the airborne threat, and bring masks and bandanas to their mouths. We not previously versed in the terms of this peculiar battle must do without.

–A circle forms. Contained within a man in a chicken hat. “Chicken hat,” screams the crowd. We stop our small conflicts and swarm upon him like moths to the flame. We are the mob and the mob asks no questions. One feels sorry for the individual who thought a chicken hat would suit the festive nature of this battle. One feels sorry for all the hapless souls who brought backpacks, hats, or any clothing accessory easily identified in the sea of flesh and pillows. Panic sets in. I begin to question how my own outfit will be perceived amid the madness. Jeans. Black Shirt. Blue flannel. Wait, how blue? Medium blue. Phew. Facial scars? None of note. Hair? Sweaty and mousy, but not spiked enough to stand above the crowd. Pillow? Red—but, then again, its Valentine’s Day.

–Predictable, little warrior. You are a prisoner to your zealotry, and thus you must swing first. I find my timing. Side step. Grab your pillow between my elbow and ribs. “You cant’ Grab my pillow, it’s a rule,” you say. “Rule, MWUAHAHAHA. There are no rules in pillow fights,” I thrash your rule abiding face with my pillow of anarchy, bringing your perfectly ordered little world to a standstill in a shower of feathers. I watch in ironic horror as you twist my own maniacal laugh back upon me. I am left with a limp, tattered shroud of linen. You hold a mace of hardened goose and a score to settle. You beat me senseless. Without weapon I flee. The ground is littered with the dead. Gutted, sinewy strands of tattered goose lay muddied with footprints, and soiled with spit and sweat. I search the cotton gore for an intact pillow. Please. Please. Success. It will take some time to grow accustomed to the new weight. But I am optimistic, even in these dark times.

—Amidst a particularly hazy storm of white feathers and the pungent odor of farts, released comfortably and openly in the confidence that no one will ever identify the asshole of origin, two men fight opposite one another. Perceiving a presence behind them they turn, pillows drawn. Their eyes light up. Their embrace is as vicious as the swipes of their pillows. How long has it been since they last saw one another? How many have they lost along the way? The questions do not linger, and the reunion is soon shattered. Love has no place in a pillow fight. Not even on Valentine’s Day.

— Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. You once taught me a valuable lesson. Relationships based on intense experiences never work. I should have paid heed to your advice. Knocked to the ground with a sideways blow to the face. A defensive reflex, my feet swipe the floor like antennae, feeling for my assailant. I connect with her shins, bringing her down on top of me. Eyes lock, lips meet. We do not part, but instead steal a moment. Our lips are sweaty and the kiss is sour. Yet we hold. “Make out,” I hear, and realize my mistake too late. Pillows guided by anonymous hands pummel us like shoes in a dryer. Is it their jealousy that fuels them? Or is it a painful reminder that one must never let sex obscure the task at hand? Especially when pillows are involved.

—A miracle. Among pillow induced pain and feather related emphysema, I find an old friend. We agree to join forces, fighting back to back. We fight small fish at first. Graduating soon to dual wielders, and similar duos. From the distance lumbers our greatest challenge. He rises high above the crowd like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or an Ultrasaurus in a new growth forest. “Get the Giant,” cries the masses, and once again we are united by purpose. He has physics on his side. One by one he flattens his assailants like hapless moles in circular arcade prisons. Some attack his thighs. Others attack his abdomen. His blows are powerful, but they exhaust him quickly. Soon he ceases his attack. Was it the combined might of our pillows? Or in the distance did he glimpse more supple prey? Who knows what he sees with his giant’s eyes?

—Thirst consumes me. I meet someone and ask for water. She provides Fresca. It offers no refreshment and leaves a sour taste of over processed grapefruit in my mouth. What is Fresca? What is its purpose for existing? Why does grapefruit need to be carbonated? I spit the remnants about the crowd. The girl follows suit. Our actions enrage a pack of Asians. They swarm upon us, fueled by a sticky, grapefruit flavored vengeance. I look upon Lady Fresca. Her eyes speak of courage and loyalty. We are bonded in this Fresca debacle, she and I. I know then that she will follow me until the very end. I, on the other hand, will have no part in such madness. I grab her by the shoulders and toss her into the hoard. In the ensuing confusion I flee.

—The fray continues, but I will no longer play any part. I reconvene with my friends at long last in front of the statue, which is perhaps more accurately a structure. We share stories of battle, sipping interchangeably upon water and beer. We wonder had this been Lord of the Rings how quickly we would have died, and how we would have met our ends. We settle upon seven seconds, though allowances are made for protagonists.

—I arrive home. I go on to cap the night in true warrior fashion—with beer and pizza, though to me it tastes like mead and mutton. I revel in my moments of glory, and toast to the fallen. Finally, returning at long last to my chambers, I put the day to rest in a most fitting manner: I lay down my weapon, and allow it at last to fulfill its intended purpose.

And the more he thought, the quicker he thought, and the quicker he thought, the sooner he became aware of himself, and the sooner he became aware, the more he thought about his bland outfit, and the more he thought of that, the faster he walked, until he came but a step from colliding into the counter and ball rack behind the lanes. In a sudden and swift move, graceful as his bowling stroke, he slid out of the way, narrowly avoiding the embarrassing scene of spilling water on himself and ruining this moment and his entire month hence.

Approaching the table in front of his lane, he stole one more glance and saw that her eyes remained facing his direction.

He set his cups down, inhaled deeply, but through his nose. He did not want her to see his skittish preparation. He faced her. His cell phone - which lay on the table - rang. He turned, saw his sister’s name on the display screen and nearly collapsed from sickness. He hit the silence key. Avoiding his sister was not a scenario he was unfamiliar with. When he looked up, the woman tilted her head bashfully, and manufactured a coy smile. He felt reinvigorated and set down the phone.

He took a step, only to hear the phone ring, yet again. This time, however, it was his work. And this time, he had to support himself on the table, because he truly thought he might collapse. He promptly silenced it, and without a moment’s hesitation, in a rare feat of spontaneity, walked over to her.

She took notice, and immediately sat at attention, rapidly deciding how she would react to the upcoming exchange. Computing dozens of greeting scenarios and the appropriate response to each at computer-like speed, and each one unique, based on how he would prompt her.

When Eric finally did reach his new destination, he was unable to say anything. He’d thought so much about his phone and summoning the courage to just walk there, what he would do once he arrived eluded him. So he said, “Hi.” And she, shocked at his choice, merely returned with, “Hi.” Ken watched from the front desk, cautiously, unobtrusively, but intently.  Eric bounced lightly and fearfully on the balls of his feet, slid his hands into his pockets, lowered his head, and after a moment, the two could manage to produce little more than a mutually nervous laugh.

She was even more beautiful, to him, at such a short distance: Her modest, yet slender stature, the curve of her hips, the loose fitting knitted sweater, which hung over her nervously contorted fists, and her flowing hair made him weak. He’d forgotten about his parents, and his sister’s call, and his job, and all the choices he’d made, that up until this point, had led him down a most undesirable path. He’d also forgotten how to speak.

In the distance, Eric’s phone rang, yet again, and the echo of that electronic ringtone ran up his spine like a platoon of red ants. She glanced over his shoulder and asked if he should take that. Before he could warmly dismiss it, a pile of energetic youngsters plowed through the door of the alley. Eric and the woman shifted their attention to the unstoppable force heading their way.

They’d both wanted a distraction, but neither of the two they were presented with. “Hey Miss. Donaldson!” Yelled a small boy who led the pack towards the woman. “I should,” “-Right, so should I,” they said. They both knew the moment was gone. The difference? The woman thought it was just this moment, but Eric, he knew it was the only moment.

Back at his lane, he felt a cold sweat, and an uncontrollable shudder of his hands. He picked up the phone to see that in fact his sister had called again. The shudder took control of his entire body. Not externally visible, but internally debilitating. He placed the phone down, though he’d wanted to slam it. He picked up his ball. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. This was still his time; his time to escape, however short it was.

He balanced, approached, and like all the other times: Down, forward, slide, release, and pop up. His back leg kicked up, with the faintest bit of life and charisma as the ball rolled its way down the lane. And after a perfect path, followed by perfect contact, 60 feet away, stood one pin- the 10-pin- in the corner, alone amongst the black behind it.

But, being as rigidly stable and uncompromising in the release of his emotions as he was, he just spun slowly on the heels of his plain white sneakers, grimaced slightly and clenched his fist for no more than a moment before releasing. He repeated the process, and threw a ball, which shot down the lane harder than he normally threw it- the spin, less graceful.

The lane sensed this change, and reacted accordingly. The ball twisted at the last moment, and missed the pin. Missed the spare; missed his chance. His phone rang again. The ball returned; he had nine frames remaining and three games after those frames. He silenced his phone, picked up his ball and placed it in his bag. He wiped the oily grease from his fingers onto his jeans, grabbed his coat with the other hand, and walked out.

He made eye contact with no one as he left. Not Ken and not the children and certainly not the woman. He stepped outside, and was struck with a breath of cool, but piercing wind. He thought about the long hours, the never-ending days, and the years that had rolled by like a ball on it’s way to the pins, only to twist just a bit too much and strike nothing but the black tarp.

He thought about the strikes, the spares, the splits, and the gutters. All those frames, all these games, all this time without memories- where had they gone? But he would remember today. He stood outside the alley, alone in the wind, in his horribly bland and self-loathing outfit: a royal blue collared shirt tucked into a black denim pair of jeans over white sneakers. And back in the alley, in the furthest corner of the furthest lane, stood the 10th pin.

It was 4:45, and Eric had skipped out of work a few minutes early. This wasn’t a problem anymore. He’d spent 10 years in the same office, learning the same people’s tendencies. He knew Susan always had a cigarette at 4:35, and stayed outside, pretending to talk on the phone till 4:50, at which point she would return and start packing her things. He knew all of their vices. He did nothing with them, but use them as a means to avoid them. Ducking out was no longer more difficult than slipping in 10 minutes late from his lunch break. He could probably stretch it to an hour.

He despised the outfit he’d chosen to wear today: a royal blue collared shirt tucked into a black denim pair of jeans over white sneakers. It was such a bland and self-loathing outfit. He despised attention being brought on him. It didn’t even match.

He’d arrived a time in his life where pleasures were a dying breed. Natural selection was taking over, and in the form of banalities and inconveniences. Almost everything was at this point- an inconvenience. There was his sister. He could hardly stomach the bemoaning scene - where she pried for money and support - that was lunch on Wednesdays. He watched the History channel, although he wasn’t particularly interested in it. But he didn’t want to be included. News, sports, celebrity scandal- he wanted nothing to do with it.

He stopped trying to meet women, or more accurately avoided them, as well- turned off to the whole concept of marriage after spending his childhood absorbing the noise of his bickering parents, and most of his young adulthood trying not to hear the shouts from what was once a marriage, turned adversarial co-habitation.

Standing alone, the only sounds in the alley were the gears churning on the ball return. The ball travels down the lane, up the return ramp and back to his hands- Time and time again; too repetitive to remember. Just an image. He lined up his shot, balanced his weight and approached with a smooth, upbeat stride reminiscent of a dance step. Down, forward, slide, release, pop up. His back leg kicked up behind, with the faintest bit of life and charisma, as the ball rolled its way down the lane. It was poetry in motion, but he never thought of it that way. The sport had become his escapist pleasure, but he hardly allowed it to be even that.

The ball glided along the second arrow from the right, rotating forward and diagonally on its axis toward the front pin, just off center and it followed the exact path he’d aimed for. The ball struck the pins just as he had planned, and evaporating in front of the ball was each pin, with the exception of one. He’d thrown a perfect ball and received imperfect results. He stared at the 10th pin, alone in the far corner of the lane. It should have fallen with the others; it should have been a strike.

But, being as rigidly stable and uncompromising in the release of his emotions as he was, he just spun slowly on the heels of his plain white sneakers, grimaced slightly - certainly not enough for anyone who wasn’t watching to take notice of - and waited for the ball to spit itself back out the return and into his hands. The result was almost as he expected. Of course he wouldn’t get the strike. He couldn’t get a break in any other moment of the last 10 years of his life, he thought, why would he get one in bowling? And had he gotten a strike, it was but a mere confirmation of what he knew should of happened. There was no pleasure, either way. If he couldn’t win, he’d at least be satisfying with predicting that he would fail, unfairly. Feeling justified, he picked up the spare and waited for the next frame. He’d already forgotten the last one.

After the game, he approached Ken, the establishment’s owner and only employee. A rigid business man; willing to purchase or spend capital on what the old fashioned and lifeless alley needed: snack machines, electronic dart boards, an updated food stand, but intransigent on spending a cent more than necessary. Before attending to Eric, Ken ordered a woman, who just entered the building that she’d have to throw her bottle of soda out. “We have soda machines, if you’re thirsty.” Eric gazed at the door, knowing kids were to follow this woman, and his own private lane amongst the beautifully desolate alley was moments away from being intruded upon in the crudest of fashions.

Ken turned to Eric, knowing why he was at the desk, and went straight to the bar. He’d always purchased a pitcher of water, for one dollar, as well. The days were getting longer. Each minute dragged. The weeks felt like they would never end, but conversely Eric also felt that so many years had escaped him, and faster than the pins fall upon contact. Eric hadn’t had any contact in some time.

Each day at the alley was beginning to feel that way. The games were long and grueling, and by the end, it felt as if he’d never even started. Ken returned, not with a pitcher, but with two plastic cups of water, and charged Eric nothing. Eric nodded his head and returned to his lane, a cup in each hand. Ken is a rigid businessman.

As he walked, he turned his head toward the door again, which had yet to have rowdy children burst through. He couldn’t stand children. He couldn’t even remember what it was like when he was one. Was he ever one? Rotating his head back towards his destination, he and the woman, who now sat, embittered and thirsty, met stares. He tried to divert his gaze, casually, but something in his neck kept him from turning.

She wasn’t particularly beautiful, plain but pleasant. Her hair, however, was stunning. It was long, rich, and flowed down her neck, around her shoulders, and dangled delicately and deliberately off her back. In the midst of the inauspicious attempt to be inconspicuous, he noticed that she too, was not turning her head, aimlessly staring at the ceiling, or pretending to find something to occupy her attention until Eric had looked away. 

Decidedly more curious, he saw that she unmistakably smiled at him. What was this happening? Could this be one of those real moments that he’d only seen on screen or heard told time and time again by a burdensome colleague? When you avoid people, you rarely see their eyes, or their smiles, or their hair. You see faces, and fabric, all forgotten by the mind as quickly as it was processed and before you realize it, you haven’t seen a person in years. But this time, he saw a woman.

Hello all, here’s the latest submission from Dylan. Enjoy…

–

Quimson’s exotic stories of romance were always a source of great entertainment. He was raised on the classic tales of love. The plays, the poems. The films, novels, and songs. And his life, he liked to think, was a reflection of those mediums.

Versed in all forms, he was able to summon up lines from the great poets, it would seem, without any sort of mental pause. Where others found themselves adrift in a sea of thoughts and feelings they could not explain, Quimson’s speech came across as both effortless and precise. His words came out, not as though he had thought of them, but as if they had sought out his mouth specifically. Like the pipes in his throat were the most divine gateway to speech an utterance could hope for, and so it was there they flocked.

He believed in, and could understand nothing but, great passion.

Among all the attributes he carried, people would first take note of how stout a boy he was, with attire consisting mainly of sweaters and an earflap hat, in which he could be seen regardless of season or setting.

After school, atop an overturned chicken crate, Quimson would spin stories of love’s triumph to a mass of his classmates. Children, held suspended from their televisions and radios by one boy’s histrionic telling of a summer courting, or of two lovers rend by society or wartimes. Stories where hardship is endured and characters discover strength through love. Sometimes the love was reckless, sometimes it was mad, but always it was pure.

Often the children had questions. Often the children were not children at all but young adults much older than Quimson himself.

He would address their concerns calmly and warmly, settling their worries by citing Cummings, Shakespeare, Frost, and Dickinson when appropriate.

But despite all the times he had helped the public deal with the woes of the heart, they would always return with new dilemmas and, frequently, new loves altogether. As much as Quimson tried to mirror his life with the romance in his books and plays, his peers seemed to live a carefree existence filled with shallow, frivolous coquetries.

Quimson was not like them. His heart was devoted to Monique - a girl he spent an all too short spring in the company of many years ago. Their initial paths crossed during a year which, to lovelorn Quimson, isn’t remembered by a number but by the event – “The Spring of Monique.” A daughter of friends who would imbibe with Quimson’s parents, Monique was a thin-armed girl, sleek and slender, who would squat in mud for long stretches of time, as was the tendency at the age. During these play dates arranged by their parents, Quimson was captivated fully and found his eyes lingering on her so long he’d forget his mouth altogether, letting it droop toward his chest. But his Monique showed no signs of noticing.

At the close of the spring, as school let out, Monique was whisked away from Quimson. Her father had been offered a new job and so the family of three moved. To where, Quimson did not know.

For that summer, and all the seasons since, Quimson writhed over her absence. Although brief, he declared his time with Monique to be the buds of a romance destined to follow him throughout the rest of his existence. Once a month he would compose a letter to her, opening it with “Dearest Monique” and then stating his continuing adoration for her before the eventual close - “Truly yours…”

Knowing no address, he would rely on the wings of pigeons, or the waves of a nearby creek to deliver the message to her hands.

Quimson composed the letters as he did all his writings, by candlelight, in cursive, using a feather and ink. For school, sometimes professors would make a dire request for type, in which case Quimson had an old typewriter. It was a gift from his grandmother. A number of the keys had the tendency of sticking, but Quimson strongly believed in believing and modern day “advancements,” he felt, alienated people of this duty. Everything was too easy for everyone and true work, he believed, true passion, true love, was a rare sight nowadays.

This thought had been forming in his mind for some time but it invaded his home in the summer of his thirteenth year, before he was to enter the eighth grade. He was in his room when from down the stairs, through his wall, the voices of his parents found the canal of his ear.

He was working diligently on a paper of little importance, lit by a skinny wax candle, feather tip in hand, when he heard the bitter bellow of the word “divorce.” It had sought him out. It found him, as many other words had, and Quimson began to think – the world may very well be heading in the wrong direction.

He felt then, more then ever, the frustration of everyone around him not taking love seriously.

Quimson was able to rely on the satisfaction of knowing his life was based on a larger, a more grand idea of romance. If his life were to be viewed by a writer, there would be the saga of Monique - two young lovers, separated in their youth. Quimson knew that he would go about his life always thinking of her, and she would go about hers thinking of him, then many years down the road they would reunite under unlikely circumstances with a passionate embrace.

But not yet.