BobbyIce
09-18-2011, 06:04 PM
The air conditioner hummed into the landscape of the hotel room. The coastal sun wept into the air, screaming. It fell inbetween the open crevaces of the skin-toned curtains of the room, and illuminated the compact furniture, beds, and weary carpet with elastic, gleaming rays of light. Two children lying in the bed closer to the door sniffed the cool air and drank the sunlight in their slumber. The boy, who's feet had kicked and battled their way out of the green, rose embroidered comforter, quickly withdrew his wild limbs and digits within the warmth of the covers, to escape the frigid assualt of the artificial air. The girl remained as she was, hugging her knees daintily, lips tightly knit together, breathing through her nose.
Two, much older people lay in the bed directly juxtapose to the shyly singing machine. A man felt the warmth of an extension of light that fell onto him from the outside, thawing the still night air that had dampened and reddened his nose. He lifted his hand and drug it lazily through his stiff stubble. His arms lifted and propelled him out of slumber and comfort, and his legs marched him into the bathroom. With the light on and the alarm clock reading five minutes until sounding, he diligently brushed his teeth.
The woman awoke, showcasing her leg across a silk roadway to meet a fortified wall of affection where she could safely rest it. She didn't feel it. Instead her leg collapsed into a deep, lonely dimension of air and space with no presence of humanity to be found. Her eyes, large but controled, crimson with discomfort, but radiating with immense resiliancy, met the image of her husband. She watched him brushing, suds of toothpaste and water dripping from the edges of his mouth. She saw him gazing at the clock, waiting for it to shriek.
"I want a divorce." she said to him, sitting up in bed, resting her back against a pile of grey toned pillows.
His eyes remained on the clock,"Go back to bed."
"I mean it."
"It's too early."
"I'm not happy."
"With what?"
"With everything."
"You want me to fix everything?"
She slid her legs off the bed and inserted her feet into old, dilapidated, sandy pink flip flops. The man rinsed his mouth out with a blue cup of water. She stood and made her way to where her husband was. As she was a few steps away, he closed the door. He began to remove his clothes for a shower. She lay her body softly on the white, cold barracade.
"Why didn't you sleep with me?" she asked through the barrier.
"I did."
"You got up before I did."
"That does-"
She interrupted,"I mean before the alarm went off. I woke up with noone next to me."
He flushed the toilet, and sat on the edge of the tub, children's swim trunks dripping, hanging from the shower curtain bar," I don't like to be woken up by the alarm."
"Then why do you set it? That's so stupid."
"I have to wake up. If I don't set the alarm I may sleep past it."
"You wake up anyway, you always wake up."
"I need the alarm."
"No you don't."
He started the shower quickly, and bathed in near scolding water. She opened the bathroom door and closed it behind her. She locked it.
"Can you talk to me?" she asked.
"Not about a damn divorce."
"Not about a divorce then. I'm just, I don't feel like you care about me anymore."
"I took us on vacation."
"We go on vacation every year, to the same place."
"You never complained, you nev-"
"And that doesn't have anything to do with caring about me."
"Wouldn't I have said okay to getting a divorce if I didn't care?"
"No. You would just live with me, and let me wither away. Because you think you have to."
He stopped the water in the shower, and leaned against the soaked wall,"I don't want to leave you. We can't do that to the kids."
"Is that the only reason?"
"No."
"Then why else?"
A pause.
"Give me a towel."
She grabbed a towel from underneath the cabinet below the sink, threw it over the shower curtains, and slammed the cabinet door.
"There's your ****ing towel."
She burst out of the bathroom and quickly stormed out onto the second story veranda overlooking the morning ocean, her suitcase in hand. Two or three heavy tears cranked themselves from within her eyes, and crumbled sliding down to her chin. She undressed, and put on new clothes in the open of the porch, penetrating out into the air. With her eyes closed she smelled the immense wave of air from the ocean caressing her with love she envied. It was almost divine to her, and more tears fell.
After dressing she stood at the edge of the structure, leaning forward onto the gaurd rail. She wore a bright yellow beach dress and nothing else. The wind tickled her legs. She felt a noose on her neck, but her face forced her to smile.
Her husband opened the glass door to the veranda. She didn't hear him.
"Do you want to get breakfast?" his voice was soft.
"I want to walk on the beach."
"The kids may wake up."
Her arms buckled on the rail. She inhaled deeply and began to move away from her observatory.
"Okay, we'll walk." he said, suprising her.
"Okay." she said, looking him in the eyes. The wind still tickled her legs, and made her smile.
He gave her a smile in return. The both of them tip-toed out of the hotel room, wading through the soft, spinning noise of the air conditioner and their children's pearly, rested yawns and sighs. They made their way through the monotonal bright peach walls of the hotel, like silent marauders of the desert, racing quickly to water. The rays of the sun collapsed against the solemn pillars boasting up the roof of the beach exit area as the two steadily galloped out onto the asetheticly charged rustic wooden pathway to the beach. Every step against the discolored, tainted wood seemed to destroy it more. With great speed the two paced beyond the wobbling decay and onto the sand, going close to the water, close enough to smell it on the swaying tail of the breeze.
Their eyes met, the both of them breathing excitedly from the storming of the shore. They stepped close to one another. A seagull near by squaked rigidly as an early, chilled wave of the morning consumed him. His eyes stole away, and they began to walk. He laughed.
"That doesn't happen too often. That seagull." he said, looking down at the soft, giving sand as passed over it.
"It's sad. Poor bird." she said, looking back concerned for the animal, now drying itself in a patch of sunlight.
"Maybe he had it coming. Can't be too smart a bird huh?"
"What would being smart have to do with it? He's just unlucky."
"Nah, I think all the other birds can avoid it, he's just not the cream of the crop."
"Why, then? Why."
"Why wha-"
"Why is he not the cream of the crop?" her voice was agitated.
He paused a moment, the grimace flashing in his face.
"I guess, he just didn't try hard enough, made bad dicisions. Didn't really care about anything besides himself."
She spoke without feeling,"Why didn't he do any of that? Whats the reason? Is there a reason?"
"I don't know. I don't know anything about it. Why are you asking me this? What are you trying to say damn it? How do you like all these questions? ****!" he jerked himself away, his chin like a dagger into the wind.
She played with the end of her dress, slapping it back and forth as the wind whipped it from side to side. She spoke again, somberly," So some things will just always die. Some things aren't good enough."
He stopped and turned to her, his eyes stern, and concerned.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I haven't made time for you. It hasn't been easy."
"Bull****."
"What? What! I'm trying to get close to you, that's what you want right? I'm really trying!" he sounded off, and the words thundered into the calm morning.
"I don't care if you yell it's still bull****. All of it. You have to try to be happy with me, you have to try to find reasons to stay with me besides the kids. I'm your ****ing ball and chain aren't I? That's what I am to you."
"I love you. I wouldn't be with you unless I loved you. I love you and the kids, you all mean the most to me. Just stop all this, please."
"You do not ****ing love me. This is the first time you've even said that in more than a year. Just admit it, at least be honest. We're just stuck here. We're in hate."
"I don't hate you. I don't hate you goddamn it!" he said throwing his head and face down to meet her eye level. His nostrels flaired.
"No. No you hate me. You will. When they leave you'll leave."
"When who leaves?"
"You are so ****ing oblivious!" she screamed, forcing his face away from her,"when the kids leave you'll go, or you'll force me out,"she let out an accidental suffering wail, tears burst forth in her eyes, she quickly retained her power of voice,"I won't let you set that up for me."
"Goddamn it I am not going to do that. Why would I do that? I won't do that!"
She turned away.
"It's all about you isn't it?" he said, moving in front of her again, the water washing up ghostly following him.
She did not respond to him.
"And seperating the kids. Does that not mean anything to you? Do you know what effect that could have on them?"
"What effect would it have living under two people who don't love each other?"
He lowered his head and let his shoulders give way hopelessly. His body trembled, and his bones felt like a helpless lily in a gorge.
"Okay. Fine. Leave then. When we get back, leave. I can't take this anymore. I don't understand anything that you're saying."
"I didn't say I was going to leave now."
"Oh not now, just later on down the road right? And I'm planning to abandon you?"
"Just leave me alone."
"Fine."
He left. She heard the sloshing and pounding of his feet, tearing through the sands. They turned into viscous stomping down the wooden land bridge to the hotel. The ocean rolled over and over again, creating a spiraling symphony of harmonius resonance. Wind swirled thoughtlessly over the unstable sand. She tried to think, but she only heard in her head what surrounded her. Deafness felt to her, like home. As the coastal sun began its feast on the white sands daosed in carosine, she sensed the luxury of her voice fade with the morning, and began suffering indefinately in the afternoon. Her feet traversed alone, lost in the soundlessness of the open air, back to the hotel.
The cooing of the sleeping young still resounded in the air, and the room was quite chilled. He had the bathroom door closed and locked. Shaking, turbulent hands searched through the various pockets of his duffle bag. A pill bottle slipped out of its holding place and dropped to the floor. The crash brought down his pulsating eyes. Shame hobbled into his legs, and he fled the vision of the bathroom mirror. As he went to retrieve the bottle the door to the room opened slowly and quietly. A few mouse steps were heard, they seemed to stop outside the bathroom door. After a few millenia of wait, they continued outside onto the over looking porch.
He sat against the solid, closed, white door on the smooth floor, studying the bottle that rested in the waning grasp of his hands, stinging from the falling cold air. The shaking man pulled his head up with his eyes shut tightly, not breathing.
"We can make it. We just have to live." he whispered gently, biting his lower lip.
As he opened the pill bottle, she ended the conversation outside.
"Okay." she uttered lightly in the wind. "I can make it, it'll be okay. I just miss you. I need you." A voice sounded back. The beach's whirlwinds clammored in the distance. "Send me the address. Okay, goodbye."
She pulled her ear away from the phone, and stoically gazed at the shining screen awaiting the address to be sent. As it did, he threw his head back and swallowed several of the pills in a jerking rapid motion. His head struck against the door bluntly and loudly, she heard it. He listened to one of the children stir, and lept up to open the bathroom door, his thoughts were clouded. She saw the message flash into view, and nervously, erratically, threw open the sliding door to the inside, as her husband was exiting the bathroom.
The two of them met one another in silence and pause. A vacuum seemed to be inbetween them.
"Goodmorning mommy, goodmorning daddy."
Both looked back at the waking young, smiling, walking around, and talking. They went on living into the afternoon on vacation with the kids. The wind blew all day.
Two, much older people lay in the bed directly juxtapose to the shyly singing machine. A man felt the warmth of an extension of light that fell onto him from the outside, thawing the still night air that had dampened and reddened his nose. He lifted his hand and drug it lazily through his stiff stubble. His arms lifted and propelled him out of slumber and comfort, and his legs marched him into the bathroom. With the light on and the alarm clock reading five minutes until sounding, he diligently brushed his teeth.
The woman awoke, showcasing her leg across a silk roadway to meet a fortified wall of affection where she could safely rest it. She didn't feel it. Instead her leg collapsed into a deep, lonely dimension of air and space with no presence of humanity to be found. Her eyes, large but controled, crimson with discomfort, but radiating with immense resiliancy, met the image of her husband. She watched him brushing, suds of toothpaste and water dripping from the edges of his mouth. She saw him gazing at the clock, waiting for it to shriek.
"I want a divorce." she said to him, sitting up in bed, resting her back against a pile of grey toned pillows.
His eyes remained on the clock,"Go back to bed."
"I mean it."
"It's too early."
"I'm not happy."
"With what?"
"With everything."
"You want me to fix everything?"
She slid her legs off the bed and inserted her feet into old, dilapidated, sandy pink flip flops. The man rinsed his mouth out with a blue cup of water. She stood and made her way to where her husband was. As she was a few steps away, he closed the door. He began to remove his clothes for a shower. She lay her body softly on the white, cold barracade.
"Why didn't you sleep with me?" she asked through the barrier.
"I did."
"You got up before I did."
"That does-"
She interrupted,"I mean before the alarm went off. I woke up with noone next to me."
He flushed the toilet, and sat on the edge of the tub, children's swim trunks dripping, hanging from the shower curtain bar," I don't like to be woken up by the alarm."
"Then why do you set it? That's so stupid."
"I have to wake up. If I don't set the alarm I may sleep past it."
"You wake up anyway, you always wake up."
"I need the alarm."
"No you don't."
He started the shower quickly, and bathed in near scolding water. She opened the bathroom door and closed it behind her. She locked it.
"Can you talk to me?" she asked.
"Not about a damn divorce."
"Not about a divorce then. I'm just, I don't feel like you care about me anymore."
"I took us on vacation."
"We go on vacation every year, to the same place."
"You never complained, you nev-"
"And that doesn't have anything to do with caring about me."
"Wouldn't I have said okay to getting a divorce if I didn't care?"
"No. You would just live with me, and let me wither away. Because you think you have to."
He stopped the water in the shower, and leaned against the soaked wall,"I don't want to leave you. We can't do that to the kids."
"Is that the only reason?"
"No."
"Then why else?"
A pause.
"Give me a towel."
She grabbed a towel from underneath the cabinet below the sink, threw it over the shower curtains, and slammed the cabinet door.
"There's your ****ing towel."
She burst out of the bathroom and quickly stormed out onto the second story veranda overlooking the morning ocean, her suitcase in hand. Two or three heavy tears cranked themselves from within her eyes, and crumbled sliding down to her chin. She undressed, and put on new clothes in the open of the porch, penetrating out into the air. With her eyes closed she smelled the immense wave of air from the ocean caressing her with love she envied. It was almost divine to her, and more tears fell.
After dressing she stood at the edge of the structure, leaning forward onto the gaurd rail. She wore a bright yellow beach dress and nothing else. The wind tickled her legs. She felt a noose on her neck, but her face forced her to smile.
Her husband opened the glass door to the veranda. She didn't hear him.
"Do you want to get breakfast?" his voice was soft.
"I want to walk on the beach."
"The kids may wake up."
Her arms buckled on the rail. She inhaled deeply and began to move away from her observatory.
"Okay, we'll walk." he said, suprising her.
"Okay." she said, looking him in the eyes. The wind still tickled her legs, and made her smile.
He gave her a smile in return. The both of them tip-toed out of the hotel room, wading through the soft, spinning noise of the air conditioner and their children's pearly, rested yawns and sighs. They made their way through the monotonal bright peach walls of the hotel, like silent marauders of the desert, racing quickly to water. The rays of the sun collapsed against the solemn pillars boasting up the roof of the beach exit area as the two steadily galloped out onto the asetheticly charged rustic wooden pathway to the beach. Every step against the discolored, tainted wood seemed to destroy it more. With great speed the two paced beyond the wobbling decay and onto the sand, going close to the water, close enough to smell it on the swaying tail of the breeze.
Their eyes met, the both of them breathing excitedly from the storming of the shore. They stepped close to one another. A seagull near by squaked rigidly as an early, chilled wave of the morning consumed him. His eyes stole away, and they began to walk. He laughed.
"That doesn't happen too often. That seagull." he said, looking down at the soft, giving sand as passed over it.
"It's sad. Poor bird." she said, looking back concerned for the animal, now drying itself in a patch of sunlight.
"Maybe he had it coming. Can't be too smart a bird huh?"
"What would being smart have to do with it? He's just unlucky."
"Nah, I think all the other birds can avoid it, he's just not the cream of the crop."
"Why, then? Why."
"Why wha-"
"Why is he not the cream of the crop?" her voice was agitated.
He paused a moment, the grimace flashing in his face.
"I guess, he just didn't try hard enough, made bad dicisions. Didn't really care about anything besides himself."
She spoke without feeling,"Why didn't he do any of that? Whats the reason? Is there a reason?"
"I don't know. I don't know anything about it. Why are you asking me this? What are you trying to say damn it? How do you like all these questions? ****!" he jerked himself away, his chin like a dagger into the wind.
She played with the end of her dress, slapping it back and forth as the wind whipped it from side to side. She spoke again, somberly," So some things will just always die. Some things aren't good enough."
He stopped and turned to her, his eyes stern, and concerned.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I haven't made time for you. It hasn't been easy."
"Bull****."
"What? What! I'm trying to get close to you, that's what you want right? I'm really trying!" he sounded off, and the words thundered into the calm morning.
"I don't care if you yell it's still bull****. All of it. You have to try to be happy with me, you have to try to find reasons to stay with me besides the kids. I'm your ****ing ball and chain aren't I? That's what I am to you."
"I love you. I wouldn't be with you unless I loved you. I love you and the kids, you all mean the most to me. Just stop all this, please."
"You do not ****ing love me. This is the first time you've even said that in more than a year. Just admit it, at least be honest. We're just stuck here. We're in hate."
"I don't hate you. I don't hate you goddamn it!" he said throwing his head and face down to meet her eye level. His nostrels flaired.
"No. No you hate me. You will. When they leave you'll leave."
"When who leaves?"
"You are so ****ing oblivious!" she screamed, forcing his face away from her,"when the kids leave you'll go, or you'll force me out,"she let out an accidental suffering wail, tears burst forth in her eyes, she quickly retained her power of voice,"I won't let you set that up for me."
"Goddamn it I am not going to do that. Why would I do that? I won't do that!"
She turned away.
"It's all about you isn't it?" he said, moving in front of her again, the water washing up ghostly following him.
She did not respond to him.
"And seperating the kids. Does that not mean anything to you? Do you know what effect that could have on them?"
"What effect would it have living under two people who don't love each other?"
He lowered his head and let his shoulders give way hopelessly. His body trembled, and his bones felt like a helpless lily in a gorge.
"Okay. Fine. Leave then. When we get back, leave. I can't take this anymore. I don't understand anything that you're saying."
"I didn't say I was going to leave now."
"Oh not now, just later on down the road right? And I'm planning to abandon you?"
"Just leave me alone."
"Fine."
He left. She heard the sloshing and pounding of his feet, tearing through the sands. They turned into viscous stomping down the wooden land bridge to the hotel. The ocean rolled over and over again, creating a spiraling symphony of harmonius resonance. Wind swirled thoughtlessly over the unstable sand. She tried to think, but she only heard in her head what surrounded her. Deafness felt to her, like home. As the coastal sun began its feast on the white sands daosed in carosine, she sensed the luxury of her voice fade with the morning, and began suffering indefinately in the afternoon. Her feet traversed alone, lost in the soundlessness of the open air, back to the hotel.
The cooing of the sleeping young still resounded in the air, and the room was quite chilled. He had the bathroom door closed and locked. Shaking, turbulent hands searched through the various pockets of his duffle bag. A pill bottle slipped out of its holding place and dropped to the floor. The crash brought down his pulsating eyes. Shame hobbled into his legs, and he fled the vision of the bathroom mirror. As he went to retrieve the bottle the door to the room opened slowly and quietly. A few mouse steps were heard, they seemed to stop outside the bathroom door. After a few millenia of wait, they continued outside onto the over looking porch.
He sat against the solid, closed, white door on the smooth floor, studying the bottle that rested in the waning grasp of his hands, stinging from the falling cold air. The shaking man pulled his head up with his eyes shut tightly, not breathing.
"We can make it. We just have to live." he whispered gently, biting his lower lip.
As he opened the pill bottle, she ended the conversation outside.
"Okay." she uttered lightly in the wind. "I can make it, it'll be okay. I just miss you. I need you." A voice sounded back. The beach's whirlwinds clammored in the distance. "Send me the address. Okay, goodbye."
She pulled her ear away from the phone, and stoically gazed at the shining screen awaiting the address to be sent. As it did, he threw his head back and swallowed several of the pills in a jerking rapid motion. His head struck against the door bluntly and loudly, she heard it. He listened to one of the children stir, and lept up to open the bathroom door, his thoughts were clouded. She saw the message flash into view, and nervously, erratically, threw open the sliding door to the inside, as her husband was exiting the bathroom.
The two of them met one another in silence and pause. A vacuum seemed to be inbetween them.
"Goodmorning mommy, goodmorning daddy."
Both looked back at the waking young, smiling, walking around, and talking. They went on living into the afternoon on vacation with the kids. The wind blew all day.