gruntingslime
09-27-2010, 12:42 PM
What it’s like to see yourself and not know what to do
It is funny that my worthiest experience was brought on by the hands of another person.
I was working at Collective-Share by the wall spot, on three computers. I could only keep a track of three base portfolios, and they were only for three of the other guys working down the hall, who I was not supposed to meet. They weren’t supposed to know me either. It was a rule to only know the people outside, and keep it out of work hours. So during the day I was confronted with three scrolls of screen that ran ever flowing thickets of descriptions and details.
Forest Whitaker, same name as the actor. Maybe it was him? Sitting in his lonely gray booth, feet dangling off the edge of a stool, staring dumbly at the words: Morgan J. Spitzer,
A catalogue of white dresses and weekends at the manor
with a band of pirouettes.
Really? This man? He would sit, somewhere down the hall behind a tinted window, just a silhouette of a thing, surely in the posture of his descendancy the frogs. But that’s just the way I saw it, in the foggy and mottled mirror provided on the backs of our door.
But where was I? I was excited. At first sight I knew she would alter my destiny and wind me up in an adventure where defeat meant monotony. She was older than my grandmother, yet she had remained a person. She had a look in her eye like the world was fire and she was searching the eternal light. Her hands were burnt and scored by age. She wore a scrapbook of articles and accessories scattered over her person, and she carried a bag. It was not an ordinary bag, not from my point of view at least. In this bag was the final remnants of everything she owned.
I was drawn towards her. She held herself bright and young, inquisitive. She was clean and still held a fresh and open gaze on the world, but I knew she didn’t have any home, for it would bring her down. “Where do you live?”
Was the first thing I said to her.
She did not answer, she was laughing at me. I took it as a good sign, I hadn’t caused any offence in my sudden affront.
My first inclination was that I had become lost. There was nothing I could learn from this woman after all, because she was taking me on. Her fingers had snapped on the back of my neck and we were walking on the grass, coming up to a busy intersection. And “where do we go now?” was the only thing I could think of.
“You don’t need me.” said the woman. “Go on, go.” and she pushed me off. I kept tramping, looking over my shoulder at the back of her retreat in clear sight.
Well alright, I’ll just go home, I thought. And I did, I ended up in bed biting my lip on a full stomach.
The next day, while I was taking the train to work, I noticed the sad sour smell, like sniffing an onion of soap—something pitiful was in the air. I was sitting straight, with my eyes on the back of my chair when the perfume hit. A woman was overburdened, or a child had become lost, sliced away from his parents by the swift doors of the train and carried away into the unknown. A man, beat up and left without a dream in his pocket and nothing but the shag on his chin and the stink of his breath—
I opened my eyes, ready to jump up and sweep in to the rescue. Then I realized that there was I, sitting on a chair across, a big frown swept my mug, and I was aghast by it. The first thought that hit me was, this is not a doppelganger, I’m not hallucinating, this is the guy in the booth.
It is funny that my worthiest experience was brought on by the hands of another person.
I was working at Collective-Share by the wall spot, on three computers. I could only keep a track of three base portfolios, and they were only for three of the other guys working down the hall, who I was not supposed to meet. They weren’t supposed to know me either. It was a rule to only know the people outside, and keep it out of work hours. So during the day I was confronted with three scrolls of screen that ran ever flowing thickets of descriptions and details.
Forest Whitaker, same name as the actor. Maybe it was him? Sitting in his lonely gray booth, feet dangling off the edge of a stool, staring dumbly at the words: Morgan J. Spitzer,
A catalogue of white dresses and weekends at the manor
with a band of pirouettes.
Really? This man? He would sit, somewhere down the hall behind a tinted window, just a silhouette of a thing, surely in the posture of his descendancy the frogs. But that’s just the way I saw it, in the foggy and mottled mirror provided on the backs of our door.
But where was I? I was excited. At first sight I knew she would alter my destiny and wind me up in an adventure where defeat meant monotony. She was older than my grandmother, yet she had remained a person. She had a look in her eye like the world was fire and she was searching the eternal light. Her hands were burnt and scored by age. She wore a scrapbook of articles and accessories scattered over her person, and she carried a bag. It was not an ordinary bag, not from my point of view at least. In this bag was the final remnants of everything she owned.
I was drawn towards her. She held herself bright and young, inquisitive. She was clean and still held a fresh and open gaze on the world, but I knew she didn’t have any home, for it would bring her down. “Where do you live?”
Was the first thing I said to her.
She did not answer, she was laughing at me. I took it as a good sign, I hadn’t caused any offence in my sudden affront.
My first inclination was that I had become lost. There was nothing I could learn from this woman after all, because she was taking me on. Her fingers had snapped on the back of my neck and we were walking on the grass, coming up to a busy intersection. And “where do we go now?” was the only thing I could think of.
“You don’t need me.” said the woman. “Go on, go.” and she pushed me off. I kept tramping, looking over my shoulder at the back of her retreat in clear sight.
Well alright, I’ll just go home, I thought. And I did, I ended up in bed biting my lip on a full stomach.
The next day, while I was taking the train to work, I noticed the sad sour smell, like sniffing an onion of soap—something pitiful was in the air. I was sitting straight, with my eyes on the back of my chair when the perfume hit. A woman was overburdened, or a child had become lost, sliced away from his parents by the swift doors of the train and carried away into the unknown. A man, beat up and left without a dream in his pocket and nothing but the shag on his chin and the stink of his breath—
I opened my eyes, ready to jump up and sweep in to the rescue. Then I realized that there was I, sitting on a chair across, a big frown swept my mug, and I was aghast by it. The first thought that hit me was, this is not a doppelganger, I’m not hallucinating, this is the guy in the booth.