Where?

The funny thing is, I noticed all of these details with perfect clarity even though there was no light on him.  The only light was flooding in behind him from the bathroom.

He smiled.

It was a smile you felt.  Perfect teeth, perfect mood for a perfect night.

He said, "Time to go, Jake."

And I said, "Go where?"

"Time to go."

He turned slowly on his heel and walked out of Clark cabin.  I removed the covers, stepped down from my bunk and followed him out.  In the morning, I woke up on the bench next to the door.  I was seventeen.

Quite Lovely

For anyone who's ever watched the end of the street, go watch this.

In the cabin

...clicking on the floor.  I should describe him.

Victoria is tall.  Not touching the ceiling, but tall enough that he commands a certain amount of respect just by appearing in a room, as you would imagine a young general in the army.  He wears a three piece suit, black, topped with an English derby (bowler) hat.  His face is perfectly shaved and holds teeth that are as sharp and white as those of a wolf.  He looks about forty five but his eyes tell you he is much much older.  They are dark brown with speckles of yellow in the right one, something you'll only see a few inches from his face.  His hair, dark dark brown, is cut short and smoothed back beneath his hat.  His black shoes are shined with the sweat of Vietnam veterans.

When he walks, you can hear the creak and breath of the floorboards beneath his feet as well as a much more defined strike of his cane on the ground.  His cane.  Ebony wood, with a gold cap on the bottom where it strikes the floor.  At the top is a wolf's head, straight, not bent over giving his palm something to rest on.  The wolf is alert, jaws open, hungry.

I took a walk with an invisible Friend

Antimatter.  If something exists, there is something that doesn't exist.  If there is a force of existence, there is a force of non-existence.

So that we're clear, Victoria Asher is a man.  Yes, Victoria is a woman's name.  I know this.  You know this.  Victoria Asher is a man.

I first met Victoria when I was seventeen.  He came into my life and took me out of it.  The worst part is that all he did was ask.  It was late at night and I heard the sound of his cane...

Language (from pocketgamer)

As I was digging into iPhone games at lunch, I came across this little essay and immediately wished I had written it.  Funny, smart and young.  Wonderful.

The following is taken from pocketgamer (Spanner Spencer, 5/21/2009):

It's funny how a new games system can actually alter our speech patterns. As I hunt through the App Store now looking for free games, I come to realise how many new words I've been taught since it launched.

'App' seems to have been accepted as a preferable alternative to 'software', while fiddling with capitalisation is now perfectly acceptable as long as the capital letter is preceded with a lower case 'i'.

And even though my spell checker still doesn't like it, 'Lite' is undeniably the buzz word of the iGeneration (you see! Even I'm doing iT now). Even though it's not actually a word, its meaning is understood by every iPhone and iPod touch user across the world.

If something's 'Lite', it's free, but has reduced functionality and, for the most part, has a full version counterpart that you can pay for.

Of course, we could just say 'demo', but that's not yet been approved or copyrighted by Apple, so for the time being we're going to have to stick with Lite.

'Free' is a word that's not going to be so easily put aside, of course. 'Free iPhone games' is the phrase that brings a lot of budding iPhoners directly to Pocket Gamer, so I've spent the afternoon sifting through an iSea of Lite games to dig out some freebie gems just for you. I mean, iYou. Whatever.

Saturation

Lots of things have saturation points.  That's when nothing more can be absorbed or dissolved or sucked up.  It's when a sponge stops expanding and starts losing water as fast as it's collecting it.  It's when sugar can't be stirred into the tea anymore.  It's when your stomach is full.

No matter how much sleep I get, by Thursday (and even more so by Friday) I'm exhausted.  My patience is depleted and my brain starts to close down.  My manners disappear and I react instinctually and negatively.  Normally my spirit animal is a Koala.  Utilitarian (two thumbs per hand), often misunderstood (as bears), angry, petulant, sharp claws, pouch on their belly for carrying contraband, but for now I'll chew a leaf and take a nap.  Once I'm saturated, I become a monkey throwing feces.  I don't stop at insults, I bring in personal information and past experiences about my target and try to bury them deep in cement made of regret and embarrassment.

So then the question is, am I saturated yet?  No.  I'm alright for now.  But I squeeze and squeeze to get the water out and I'm still a little damp.

Luckily, there is medicine which addresses the symptoms: good coffee, drumming, sex.  Sleep and exercise work as well but since they're a part of my life anyway, more meds are needed.  When taken on a regular basis, any of these will keep you from blowing a fuse.  There is also a cure: Max.  Max is almost two years old.  He's a combination of Border Collie, Aussie Shepherd and psychic.  He cures all and he's all mine this weekend.

One more night, one more day, then it's off to Fishers to desalinate.

Pins and Needles or Panic Attacks

"Goodmorning!"  That's what I want to exclaim to the world.  Or at least to the other people in my office.  But I don't think I can look anyone in the eye.  Because I fell on my face last night walking from the bathroom to the bedroom.  Because my legs were paralyzed.  Because I was sick.  And I fell asleep on the toilet.

Buffalo chicken is delicious.  So is Chinese food.  Which one provided the Ides of March in May last night?  Probably both.

After a wonderful dinner with sister and mom, I took a cab home, unpacked from a fantastic weekend (see, "Three from Dudley"), and got into bed before eleven.  At twelve fifteen, midst a nightmere of epic proportions involving kids from middle school, kids from summercamp and kids from France, I woke up thinking my stomach was tearing itself in two.  So I went into the bathroom and waited for the inevitable.  I'll spare you the details but after it was over, I was completely exhausted from the experience.  I closed the toilet seat and sat on it with my head in my hands and my elbows on my knees -- remaining in the bathroom just in case I felt ill again.  Sometime later, I stood up and walked to my bedroom.

Then my legs froze up.  It felt like there was sand in my veins and every muscle twitch sent bone zapping tingles through my body.  "What the hell is this?" I thought.  Then I looked at my clock.  It was 1:30 am.  I had been asleep in the bathroom for over an hour cutting off all circulation to my legs the entire time.  Shit shit shit.  Not knowing quite what to do, I decided I may as well let myself fall over and crawl into bed.

Some people have dreams where they're naked at work.  Others have dreams they never graduated College.  I don't have those dreams but I do fall asleep in the bathroom and crawl around in the middle of the night.

Three from Dudley

Beer is better.

Composition is better.

Kids are better.

Saturday

This one is for Jarek.

My mattress is 15 inches thick.  My blankets are Egyptian cotton.  The blinds on my window are dark bamboo and my walls are burnt orange.  I have two tapestries: one is dyed indigo and the other is a mud cloth.  Both were handmade in Mali.  (Both are Ilana's but I'm babysitting them.)  I sleep in the Astoria version of a Ghanaian paradise and I set it up this way for one reason: Saturdays.

Before I describe the grace and beauty, the ballet suite, the delicate creme brulee that is my Saturday, I should run through the other days of the week.  Monday I wake up before my alarm, make lunch and ride my bike to work.  Tuesday I wake up with my alarm, make lunch and walk to work (it rains).  Wednesday I wake up with two hits of the snooze button (rehearsal that night before) and then climb sorely on a bike with a half-assed lunch.  Thursday I wake up with my alarm, feeling refreshed.  I pedal hard to work and hard home and then have a hard rehearsal.  Friday I wake up after pounding the snooze for almost an hour and curse the day God invented time.  I bike to work and curse the day God invented other people.  I sit down at my desk and curse the day God invented desks.

And then Saturday.  Sweet Saturday.  Maybe I play a gig tonight.  Maybe a movie.  It's like the millisecond after making love when every perfect possibility is within arms reach.

On Saturday, I wake up at 9:30.  The sun stirring the walls lights my room like the inside of a womb.  For the next half hour, I lay in bed turning thoughts over in my brain: a grocery list, a drum fill, an unwritten song, a bizarre sexual position, whatever.  Then I fall back to sleep for an hour.  When I wake up the second time, my room is a little brighter but no less comforting.  I grab my iPhone from the couch next to my bed, check my email and the New York Times.  Not really, though.  You can't take information seriously when you're lying naked between Egyptian cotton and 15 inches of Sweden's finest engineering.

After getting out of bed, I Skype (video-phone for those born before 1984) my girlfriend.  I make sure I do this before putting on any clothes just in case she's studying in the library.  A wise man once told me, "Never pass up the opportunity to be naked in public - keeps you humble."  Words to live by.

Boxers, coffee, (still chatting with the girlfriend as I've now covered myself).  A pair of jeans, a phone call to my mother, a walk around the living room a few times.  Socks, eggs & bacon, an episode of (insert favorite British television show here. This week for me, it's Spaced).  Work for the band on my computer, clear out my inbox.  Practice the drums and now it's time to go out because it's Saturday night.

In one half-day, an entire week of work, rehearsal, cycling, filing, phoning, struggling can be turned to nothing but dust and memories.

Her and Me and the End

She smells like every want your adolescent mind has ever desired.  Some men notice her like a focused dog: momentarily distracted, only to return to the task at hand.  Not me.  When a girl she’s wearing walks by, picture a giant, slow-moving sound wave bruising my eyelids and rolling my head back.  The first time I met her was a snowy day in seventh grade.  She was drowsing lethargic on a cute girl in French class.  I had to sit next to her for forty-two minutes straight trying not to pass out.  She was so fucking present, like a fog.  When the bell rang, I hurried outside, guzzled thin air and threw up.  Thinking back, it makes sense that she would like French.

I’m getting ahead of myself.  I’m on my way to work, on the N-train.  I loathe my job just like everyone else in the car.  That’s why we all push so hard getting in and out: because on the subway, it’s acceptable to take your aggression out on the people around you.  I miss my girlfriend, away at grad school.  God I miss her.  Things would be better if she was here.  As I looked up from turning my thoughts over and over in my head, the doors opened and in she came.

When I was a senior in high school, a kid I knew drove his car into the highway divider.  That’s what the police said.  He wasn’t drunk and there was no one else on the road.  Just him.  Middle of the night.  I had dreams about it.  I dreamt that I was driving a blue Ford Explorer, alone in the dark on the cross-county parkway.  I looked to the passenger seat and saw no one.  I glanced at the road, at the radio, then again at the passenger seat and saw Victoria.  In my dream Victoria was a man, forty some-odd years old, thin hair slicked back, stubble painted on a gaunt face, hollow eyes, and teeth that weren’t quite crooked but were far from straight.  Despite his appearance, in my dream he didn’t smell like anything.  I was so alone.  He smiled at me and I knew he was the End.  Then he grabbed the steering wheel and launched the car into the divider.

As I watched her in the subway, I remembered her appearing here and there in college, usually on young, attractive women on the go.  She never wore girls who used too much make-up.  Never really diversified her population.  When I moved to New York after graduating, she showed up no less frequently or infrequently.   The hair-dresser’s assistant, the girl walking down the street, the brunette leaving the pizza place.  Once, she was on a very unattractive heavy-set German!  I think that was either an accident or a lapse of judgment.  She’s never worn my girlfriend or any other girls I’ve dated.  Thank God.  I wonder if she can live forever.

Today, she was wearing the program-coordinatorish girl standing in front of me on the subway.  The girl was very pretty: mid twenties, wavy brown hair, green eyes.  Her blouse accentuated her breasts, slim stomach and long neck.  She wore a dark skirt, nice shoes and jacket to match.  I was taking all of this in, when in an utterly unpredictable and unprecedented move, she left the train.  Let me clarify: she left the GIRL on the train.  Thinking back, I should’ve seen that as a warning.

Trains are heavy.  Trains feel heavy.  As the engine turns the wheels, I can feel the resistance; I can sense the effort, the struggle against gravity and friction.  A moment ago, the train I’m riding eased passed normal.  Unperceivable at first, then more pronounced, the car was rumbling through the tunnel without gravity or friction, faster than the force of the engine pushing it forward.  The only resistance came from the inconsistencies of the train tracks, whose rhythm and push were much quicker than usual.  In addition, the windows revealed the kind of darkness in the tunnel that stretches space to infinity.  Every few seconds, the wall outside the car scraped by my window reinforcing what my body was telling me.

Click.

The veins and tendons of the bench I sat on swelled and buckled exploding paint and plastic everywhere.  The shattering of the floors sounded like an accordion of dead leaves.  The windows turned to powder and the walls to bent bread.  The lights ticked out as a hundred people were forced towards the front of the car like tea in a French-press.  Clothes luffed like dead sails.  Skin rippled like a hurricane cove.  Bones held, flexed, broke, splintered, shattered into a collapsing crimson bonfire.

But all of this was lost on me because at the exact moment that the train hit, I thought of her and how she left.  It turns out I was right: smells don’t wear death.