chapter one
11-01-04 935 words
Framed in the smokey dim azure light cast upon him unfiltered through the large screen , dr. william spheren rodwell glanced coldly , unintentionally at the banal antics of the obscure television program's performers . grade b actors willing to endure the silliest of public humiliations for a slight glimpse of fame , a modicum of fortune and even much less of a swallow of dignity .
more weary than scornful , will took another very deep breath and quickly blew it out along with a loud gust of noise as if in the process , casting a net into a mythical sea in hope of capturing some vestige of hope , some fragment resemblant of inspiration . in the mist of what was now almost his fiftieth autumn he had slowly grown to hate what his life offered.
Not so much his own living was it that he actually hated , but the gradual enveloping lack of true promise he believed that life for him held . so long had he endured this lacking that he felt as the years went past the growing suffocation of a steady tightening of a relentless thick cord around his neck.
From the television , especially at this late Sunday night/monday morning hour , he expected neither enjoyment or stimulation , but instead sought only the reassurance of the mundane prattle of the sounds of other humans to serve not as company, but simply as confirmation of existence or perhaps more correctly , a distraction from it .
the lowered volume of strangers voices in perfunctory ritual of conversation provided him nothing more than backdrop soundtracks of other beings lives... lives like the common images of tired commuters trodden over the years step by step onto the retinas of his eyes. sad victims eaten up daily , shrivelled and shivered by the chill of the prospect of endless daybreaks wasted on the early morning train forced from the shelter of warm beds and lukewarm spouses by the jarring crack of the alarmclock's whip.
their lives probably no more meaningful than his own ... or those of the occasional stray souls in their haunting of the night ...other frustrateds... the dark circles of futility deeply tattooed and worn by time into the skin beneath the eyes, like badges of defeat for people whose thoughts or words lived totally disconnected from any logic or serious meaning for him to recognize .
the dull noise of the tv was no different from the hushed conversations witnessed from the melancholy of cold avocado green vinyl mock-leather boothseat of the mostly empty midnite diner that he had not too long ago vacated .
the taste of the diner's throat-scorching oily , brackish coffee with its drab, unapologetic bitterness that no amounts of artificial cream or sweetners could improve , still annoyingly lingered upon his scalded palate as plainly as the memory in mind's eye of the yellow bile colored paint which had in places , simply given up and revealed , walls as cracked and scaly as a reptile's aged skin .
Will sat alone under the faint hum of the long, cloudy horizontal pillars-- white tubes of glowing neon lighting , unsymphatetically glaring down from the ceiling on sallow faces below .
the generic style of a lounge singer of 40's era standards whimpered her lament recorded for posterity on the old jukebox placed at the front corner of the diner near the cash register .
He had dutifully waited at the rundown "all-nite" eatery for more than 40 minutes , but no "blue sari" , no "tanned coloured pretty hindu woman" , no "Inu" had shown her face as promised .
When the raspy voiced , makeup-caked, post-menopausal, 11 to 7 shift waitress began her third trip to refill his coffee cup , her eyes instinctively fixed upon him with unbroken contact.
she quickly smoothed her high pile of tinted hair , smiled with lips normally smeared with too much lipstick and pleasantly asked , if Will would like another piece of two day old apple pie , but he politely declined .
the short drive back down the road to the jug handled on-ramp that led to the highway and the brief trip to his motel room seemed to take forever. when he arrived he did not bother to remove from the car the plastic bag containing the fifth of imported finnish vodka he had paid twenty-five dollars for , or the half gallon bottle of sweetened lime juice that he had bought to go with it . he also left in the car the red heart-shaped box of godiva chocolates , the 'talking birthday card' that accompanied it , and the novelty gift shop's handcrafted large brown teddy bear with the crimson ribbon neatly tied into a bow around the stuffed animal's neck .
"stood me up" , he thought , " musta got cold feet" , the racing stream of the words within his head paused as if momentarily dammed , "or maybe she was just being a evil little bitch, toying with me ... never intended to show all along " , the thought broke free as the dam quickly burst.
Framed in the smokey dim azure light cast upon him unfiltered through the large screen , dr. william spheren rodwell glanced coldly , unintentionally at the banal antics of the obscure television program's performers . grade b actors willing to endure the silliest of public humiliations for a slight glimpse of fame , a modicum of fortune and even much less of a swallow of dignity .
more weary than scornful , will took another very deep breath and quickly blew it out along with a loud gust of noise as if in the process , casting a net into a mythical sea in hope of capturing some vestige of hope , some fragment resemblant of inspiration . in the mist of what was now almost his fiftieth autumn he had slowly grown to hate what his life offered.
Not so much his own living was it that he actually hated , but the gradual enveloping lack of true promise he believed that life for him held . so long had he endured this lacking that he felt as the years went past the growing suffocation of a steady tightening of a relentless thick cord around his neck.
From the television , especially at this late Sunday night/monday morning hour , he expected neither enjoyment or stimulation , but instead sought only the reassurance of the mundane prattle of the sounds of other humans to serve not as company, but simply as confirmation of existence or perhaps more correctly , a distraction from it .
the lowered volume of strangers voices in perfunctory ritual of conversation provided him nothing more than backdrop soundtracks of other beings lives... lives like the common images of tired commuters trodden over the years step by step onto the retinas of his eyes. sad victims eaten up daily , shrivelled and shivered by the chill of the prospect of endless daybreaks wasted on the early morning train forced from the shelter of warm beds and lukewarm spouses by the jarring crack of the alarmclock's whip.
their lives probably no more meaningful than his own ... or those of the occasional stray souls in their haunting of the night ...other frustrateds... the dark circles of futility deeply tattooed and worn by time into the skin beneath the eyes, like badges of defeat for people whose thoughts or words lived totally disconnected from any logic or serious meaning for him to recognize .
the dull noise of the tv was no different from the hushed conversations witnessed from the melancholy of cold avocado green vinyl mock-leather boothseat of the mostly empty midnite diner that he had not too long ago vacated .
the taste of the diner's throat-scorching oily , brackish coffee with its drab, unapologetic bitterness that no amounts of artificial cream or sweetners could improve , still annoyingly lingered upon his scalded palate as plainly as the memory in mind's eye of the yellow bile colored paint which had in places , simply given up and revealed , walls as cracked and scaly as a reptile's aged skin .
Will sat alone under the faint hum of the long, cloudy horizontal pillars-- white tubes of glowing neon lighting , unsymphatetically glaring down from the ceiling on sallow faces below .
"one fine day my ship will come ...
bright and clean in the noon day sun ...
but why should i sing , if the ship i see...
doesn't also bring , my one true love to me ? "
the generic style of a lounge singer of 40's era standards whimpered her lament recorded for posterity on the old jukebox placed at the front corner of the diner near the cash register .
He had dutifully waited at the rundown "all-nite" eatery for more than 40 minutes , but no "blue sari" , no "tanned coloured pretty hindu woman" , no "Inu" had shown her face as promised .
When the raspy voiced , makeup-caked, post-menopausal, 11 to 7 shift waitress began her third trip to refill his coffee cup , her eyes instinctively fixed upon him with unbroken contact.
she quickly smoothed her high pile of tinted hair , smiled with lips normally smeared with too much lipstick and pleasantly asked , if Will would like another piece of two day old apple pie , but he politely declined .
the short drive back down the road to the jug handled on-ramp that led to the highway and the brief trip to his motel room seemed to take forever. when he arrived he did not bother to remove from the car the plastic bag containing the fifth of imported finnish vodka he had paid twenty-five dollars for , or the half gallon bottle of sweetened lime juice that he had bought to go with it . he also left in the car the red heart-shaped box of godiva chocolates , the 'talking birthday card' that accompanied it , and the novelty gift shop's handcrafted large brown teddy bear with the crimson ribbon neatly tied into a bow around the stuffed animal's neck .
"stood me up" , he thought , " musta got cold feet" , the racing stream of the words within his head paused as if momentarily dammed , "or maybe she was just being a evil little bitch, toying with me ... never intended to show all along " , the thought broke free as the dam quickly burst.
posted by dsekou at 11:34 PM
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