the facade
02-21-2012, 12:28 PM
This is a little something. All comments are welcomed and appreciated. If anyone's interested in reading more then holler and I'll post more.
Daniel - Part 1
Daniel placed the plate on the floor and slotted it into its rightful slit in space. The plate held the weight of microwaved lasagna – half-eaten – and three slices of tomato - untouched. He was about to leave the plate as it was, to its fate, when it suddenly struck him that the fork laid in a tense state. It sunk into the quagmire of melted cheese. His hand suspended over the plate, then he let it sink gradually. Then, his fingers pinched the fork and craned it over to the side of the plate where it finally found relief.
He picked himself up and walked over to the window. The shutters had been turned all the way down. He coaxed the shutters into admitting shards of light and directed the rays into creeping along the floor until they reached the plate and highlighted the contours of its contents. His head nodded with satisfaction. Then, he threw himself into the welcoming embrace of down-blankets and cushions on his bed. It suddenly began irking him that his socks were still on and was about to remove them when something told him to twist his neck towards the open door, through which he had clear sight of the apartment door.
The doorbell rang. It struck him that he had almost expected it to happen, almost - because the opportunity had not yet presented itself. But when it rang, it chimed a bell that this was the logical unraveling of events, the tedious predictability of his story. There he laid, in his bed, caked in unrequited love. It was like a sticky surface that couldn’t be rubbed off; like the fork in the cheese coating of lasagna. There was no detergent for this condition. It rang again, imposing on his being.
Daniel, deciding he had no choice but to invite the event in (for it would seep through the cracks of his fortress either way), got out of bed to welcome the intruder with a pair of sweatpants and socks being the only items to cover his body. He reached the door and stopped short. A curtain parted before his eyes and in its wake it transformed his face into one of misery. He opened the door and there she stood – the future pending on his doorstep. His hand, grabbing the door handle, jerked to partially shut the door. Catching himself, he opened it slightly.
She stood there, looking pretty as ever. She had fashioned her hair to “the undercut” – starting at the line where she parted her hair to let it slant across her keen eyes, she had trimmed her hair all the way down to her ear. Normally, he despised this look. The asymmetry of it bothered him. A face was essentially a scale – if the weight of features squared evenly, it would produce better results (on the other scale). But on her, the bareness of hair on the side revealed more of her fledged cheek and he loved her for having made this choice. Along with the plastic bag of mysterious contents that she held in her hand, she presented herself to him with a smile with hooked edges twirling between suppression and naked smugness, bobbing up and down like a fishing rod that, inevitably, snared him in her hooks.
At his instant defeat, he exhaled loudly.
“Emily, you shouldn’t be here”.
The borders of her smile widened and annexed more territory.
“I wanted to see you”, she said.
“I asked you not to come here anymore”, he said as he opened the door wide open and began the slow journey back to his bedroom. Now her smile stuck, having conquered enough.
She followed behind him, and as her earrings jingled in harmony with her movements he suddenly felt conscious of his long disheveled hair and the furry beard that had accumulated on his face. It left him with a feeling of content. He got into bed, socks and all, covered himself in the blanket and faced the wall.
As she crossed the doorpost, she felt something crumble under her feet. Emily looked down and found a heap of sketches on the floor – all depicting roses in various styles. She fondly thought to herself that, together, they looked like a bed of roses. Emily crouched down and gathered them, stood up again, scrutinized with satisfaction the drawing on the top, stole a glance of the room as a whole, and then her satisfaction ebbed away.
The room was, as it had been every time of her sparse visits, still very well decorated. Ostentatiously expensive furniture held firm ground in the room, owning the curious quality that fine wood had of re-rooting itself to the floor; almost as if stubbornly denying that it had once been part of a tree and that this was indeed its rightful place - the place where it had always been. It didn’t feel right that a person in his mid-twenties should own such things, but she felt certain that it hadn’t been out of humility and a rejection of social class disparity that Daniel had let the room slip into its current state.
Plates were stacked on the floor, looking like an art exhibition of the food pyramid gone awry, with all levels containing processed foods and recording the steady decline towards unhealthy consumption. Half-finished bottles of liquor were strewn haphazardly besides them and with the scattered piles of plates and stacks of books towering over them - a sort of city had been born. The inhabitants – flies circling over their prey– had swarmed in due to the low interest rates (no swatting appeared to have been occurring) and availability of product.
Emily treaded to the bed stand and carefully placed the drawings beside the ashtray – a cesspool of cigarette butts heaped like carcasses during the plague. One cigarette had been placed on the rim and through neglect since its birth - the moment its creator had sparked life to it – the ash had caught up with it until its bitter end at the filter. How could he have deteriorated this much? It had only been a week since they had last met.
“Daniel, get out of bed. Let’s talk a bit.
“I have nothing to say to you”, he said to the wall.
She crouched down and began collecting the plates and placed used tissues on them.
“Isn’t it time for a shave? I don’t think Freud would have liked you stealing his beard and harboring lice in it”.
“At least the lice keep me company. You should know something about that”.
She gave him a sidelong glance, but since only his back was there to receive it, she decided to ignore it and continued cleaning up what vicariously may have been her own doing.
“Didn’t you have that fancy job interview today?”
“There will be others”.
“Oh, you’re doing the whole starving artist bit?”
“If you’re not gonna respect my feelings then you might as well just **** off”.
Her busy hands, shipping the mess, came to a grinding halt. She slowly erected herself, uncaring of the dramatic effect of the act, withdrew a cigarette from the box on the bed stand, lit it, a short puff followed by extended exhalation and accompanied it with a long contemplative look at him. She placed the virgin cigarette on the rim besides it brother, this time affecting drama and gravity.
“I like the roses”.
A staccato’d “I…” rung through his vocal chords.
She flitted to the window and grotesquely democratized the penetration of light into the room. Daniel did not stir and Emily peeked at the steady progress of the burning cigarette.
“Please leave”.
She got under the blankets. He shuddered slightly - with anger? with fear? She turned him towards her and he gave in like a wafted feather under her elemental grasp. Drawing his tattooed forearm towards her mouth, her lips caressed the inked thorns that cut deeply into his skin. Then, her mouth travelled upwards to finally conclude the journey with a peck on his mouth, the peck whirling rapidly into a crushing wind, enveloping him in a vortex that pulled him deeper and deeper into obscurity. He felt like…no…he was dwelling in wasteland. Suddenly an idea struck him hard in his chest and the wasteland deteriorated around him and he returned to the present moment. He noticed he was standing up. He stopped kissing her and his hands left her full hips and sunk deep into her hair where they found a home.
“I…I think I might…”, he stuttered.
She grabbed his wrists and pinned them against the wall, kissing him aggressively. Heat accumulated in his body, transferred from her panting chest, and flowed down like a raging river to his growing. His hands grappled with removing her pants when she suddenly stopped and took a step back.
She walked leisurely to the bed stand, ashed the cigarette she had lighted earlier, raised it to the air to find that she had made time and that it could still serve its purpose, and took a long puff. Then, she turned to him.
“You don’t. Don’t say it. Come to the kitchen, I brought us cake”, she said and disappeared.
Daniel - Part 1
Daniel placed the plate on the floor and slotted it into its rightful slit in space. The plate held the weight of microwaved lasagna – half-eaten – and three slices of tomato - untouched. He was about to leave the plate as it was, to its fate, when it suddenly struck him that the fork laid in a tense state. It sunk into the quagmire of melted cheese. His hand suspended over the plate, then he let it sink gradually. Then, his fingers pinched the fork and craned it over to the side of the plate where it finally found relief.
He picked himself up and walked over to the window. The shutters had been turned all the way down. He coaxed the shutters into admitting shards of light and directed the rays into creeping along the floor until they reached the plate and highlighted the contours of its contents. His head nodded with satisfaction. Then, he threw himself into the welcoming embrace of down-blankets and cushions on his bed. It suddenly began irking him that his socks were still on and was about to remove them when something told him to twist his neck towards the open door, through which he had clear sight of the apartment door.
The doorbell rang. It struck him that he had almost expected it to happen, almost - because the opportunity had not yet presented itself. But when it rang, it chimed a bell that this was the logical unraveling of events, the tedious predictability of his story. There he laid, in his bed, caked in unrequited love. It was like a sticky surface that couldn’t be rubbed off; like the fork in the cheese coating of lasagna. There was no detergent for this condition. It rang again, imposing on his being.
Daniel, deciding he had no choice but to invite the event in (for it would seep through the cracks of his fortress either way), got out of bed to welcome the intruder with a pair of sweatpants and socks being the only items to cover his body. He reached the door and stopped short. A curtain parted before his eyes and in its wake it transformed his face into one of misery. He opened the door and there she stood – the future pending on his doorstep. His hand, grabbing the door handle, jerked to partially shut the door. Catching himself, he opened it slightly.
She stood there, looking pretty as ever. She had fashioned her hair to “the undercut” – starting at the line where she parted her hair to let it slant across her keen eyes, she had trimmed her hair all the way down to her ear. Normally, he despised this look. The asymmetry of it bothered him. A face was essentially a scale – if the weight of features squared evenly, it would produce better results (on the other scale). But on her, the bareness of hair on the side revealed more of her fledged cheek and he loved her for having made this choice. Along with the plastic bag of mysterious contents that she held in her hand, she presented herself to him with a smile with hooked edges twirling between suppression and naked smugness, bobbing up and down like a fishing rod that, inevitably, snared him in her hooks.
At his instant defeat, he exhaled loudly.
“Emily, you shouldn’t be here”.
The borders of her smile widened and annexed more territory.
“I wanted to see you”, she said.
“I asked you not to come here anymore”, he said as he opened the door wide open and began the slow journey back to his bedroom. Now her smile stuck, having conquered enough.
She followed behind him, and as her earrings jingled in harmony with her movements he suddenly felt conscious of his long disheveled hair and the furry beard that had accumulated on his face. It left him with a feeling of content. He got into bed, socks and all, covered himself in the blanket and faced the wall.
As she crossed the doorpost, she felt something crumble under her feet. Emily looked down and found a heap of sketches on the floor – all depicting roses in various styles. She fondly thought to herself that, together, they looked like a bed of roses. Emily crouched down and gathered them, stood up again, scrutinized with satisfaction the drawing on the top, stole a glance of the room as a whole, and then her satisfaction ebbed away.
The room was, as it had been every time of her sparse visits, still very well decorated. Ostentatiously expensive furniture held firm ground in the room, owning the curious quality that fine wood had of re-rooting itself to the floor; almost as if stubbornly denying that it had once been part of a tree and that this was indeed its rightful place - the place where it had always been. It didn’t feel right that a person in his mid-twenties should own such things, but she felt certain that it hadn’t been out of humility and a rejection of social class disparity that Daniel had let the room slip into its current state.
Plates were stacked on the floor, looking like an art exhibition of the food pyramid gone awry, with all levels containing processed foods and recording the steady decline towards unhealthy consumption. Half-finished bottles of liquor were strewn haphazardly besides them and with the scattered piles of plates and stacks of books towering over them - a sort of city had been born. The inhabitants – flies circling over their prey– had swarmed in due to the low interest rates (no swatting appeared to have been occurring) and availability of product.
Emily treaded to the bed stand and carefully placed the drawings beside the ashtray – a cesspool of cigarette butts heaped like carcasses during the plague. One cigarette had been placed on the rim and through neglect since its birth - the moment its creator had sparked life to it – the ash had caught up with it until its bitter end at the filter. How could he have deteriorated this much? It had only been a week since they had last met.
“Daniel, get out of bed. Let’s talk a bit.
“I have nothing to say to you”, he said to the wall.
She crouched down and began collecting the plates and placed used tissues on them.
“Isn’t it time for a shave? I don’t think Freud would have liked you stealing his beard and harboring lice in it”.
“At least the lice keep me company. You should know something about that”.
She gave him a sidelong glance, but since only his back was there to receive it, she decided to ignore it and continued cleaning up what vicariously may have been her own doing.
“Didn’t you have that fancy job interview today?”
“There will be others”.
“Oh, you’re doing the whole starving artist bit?”
“If you’re not gonna respect my feelings then you might as well just **** off”.
Her busy hands, shipping the mess, came to a grinding halt. She slowly erected herself, uncaring of the dramatic effect of the act, withdrew a cigarette from the box on the bed stand, lit it, a short puff followed by extended exhalation and accompanied it with a long contemplative look at him. She placed the virgin cigarette on the rim besides it brother, this time affecting drama and gravity.
“I like the roses”.
A staccato’d “I…” rung through his vocal chords.
She flitted to the window and grotesquely democratized the penetration of light into the room. Daniel did not stir and Emily peeked at the steady progress of the burning cigarette.
“Please leave”.
She got under the blankets. He shuddered slightly - with anger? with fear? She turned him towards her and he gave in like a wafted feather under her elemental grasp. Drawing his tattooed forearm towards her mouth, her lips caressed the inked thorns that cut deeply into his skin. Then, her mouth travelled upwards to finally conclude the journey with a peck on his mouth, the peck whirling rapidly into a crushing wind, enveloping him in a vortex that pulled him deeper and deeper into obscurity. He felt like…no…he was dwelling in wasteland. Suddenly an idea struck him hard in his chest and the wasteland deteriorated around him and he returned to the present moment. He noticed he was standing up. He stopped kissing her and his hands left her full hips and sunk deep into her hair where they found a home.
“I…I think I might…”, he stuttered.
She grabbed his wrists and pinned them against the wall, kissing him aggressively. Heat accumulated in his body, transferred from her panting chest, and flowed down like a raging river to his growing. His hands grappled with removing her pants when she suddenly stopped and took a step back.
She walked leisurely to the bed stand, ashed the cigarette she had lighted earlier, raised it to the air to find that she had made time and that it could still serve its purpose, and took a long puff. Then, she turned to him.
“You don’t. Don’t say it. Come to the kitchen, I brought us cake”, she said and disappeared.