audience participation

Last night. “A volunteer from the crowd?” murmured a croaky voice with a smile that bled through the dark. She stood up, a little too quickly, a little too ready to succumb to the sacrifice. That, she remembers. Let her smoke-filled lungs breathe under the blinding spotlight.

Now. The cherry pits leak red into the closed palms of her hands as she rattles the melting ice in her glass. An orange tree branch dipping into foamless waters, honey skin melting in the tide. She sits back onto the burnt grass, letting purple Chinese shadows dance on her closed eyelids. Time stretches out

Like

the

Loose

String

of her fishnets from the night before. The same blinding light. The same vague shapeless shadows, taunting her from afar, gnawing at her bones. The same disaccord of light striping her eyes.

The stage light, the gunned golden lacquered sun of her southern childhood, was thudding against her cherry-stained, wine-stained cheeks. She opened its parlor doors and let the smoke of its colorless memories edge into her mind. Whistles in the dark. Bills itching her skin like burnt grass.

She could almost hear it again: A volunteer from the crowd? A chronic daydream that latches onto nightmares.

theinscrutableescapee

kabukicho

There was a bar fight in Kabukicho, a gunshot in my ears. Loud, deafening. Empty. An actor, a haunted ghost dragged his body onto the stage, the sticky night grabbing his ankles, a hole, freshly carved out by an imaginary bullet, gaping open in his chest. He trembled as he held a glass in his hand, as if he had wanted to drink to the possible, the impossible, his winces in pain hidden by his mask. All there was was him and the smell of stale tobacco and streaks of red delving into his cheeks. He rattled the melting ice in his glass, reflecting the 80 watt red light venom of his eyes, where silhouettes were pressed against the sliding doors of his pupils, black shadows on which he has never seen the sun rise. The amber flicker of another life replaces his agate grace with sadness, stretches out time like a loose string. He’s playing the last act, chewing on the passersby’s skin like flavorless gum.

theinscrutableescapee

time, show me your hand let me flirt with your cards come on, let me pick one, just one, let me be surprised let the needle of your minutes, of your aces, pierce into my skin let them be the scars of my youth from when I had receipts in my pockets from nights I never lived from when I built castles with the sand of your hour glass from when I unbricked my school with sneers of contempt from when I saw beer in the foamy shores of the Euphrates from when I wrote arbitrary letters on the lampshade dust the simmering silence until the light turned on l o o k a t t h e c l o c k [look at the clock] but the time on the clock had stopped seconds minutes hours three damoclean swords had escaped to hang above my head I used to be so young, never too old never too bold but in three million seconds you’d lay your cards on the table and show me the way out I was never a player at this game the wild shuffled heartbeat of youth was the tremor of the metronome but now now you smile and I don’t know if you’re bluffing or not so please, time, show me your hand.

never too old

theinscrutableescapee

amber & hyacinths

The birthday card was slightly slanted. The front was a clumsy neon yellow with the words “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” written in multi-color capital letters. One of those cone-shaped birthday hats sat on the “B”.

In the shower, she would sometimes press a little stronger against razor blade, letting it delicately and, at first, painlessly, cut into her skin. She would just sit in the shower, letting the toast grow cold, blood trickling along her leg. A spider would creep along the steamy mirror, running across the soft blurry colors of her skin, as if it were ashamed to see her naked.

Her small breasts rubbed against her tight shirt.

She would open the fridge, only to be confronted with a four-day salad and an empty jar of jam. The kitchen countertop was sticky with filth, weeks worth of dishes were piled, a spoon sadly laying on a bowl’s sides, dipping in moldy milk, a fork still sticking in a store-bought quiche, a bottle of vodka stood, open, a never-ending source, empty ones were on the floor.

“Doing that will only make things worse”. That’s what the doctor would have said.

“Fucking moron”, she muttered to herself.

She sat down on the kitchen floor and lit a cigarette. She remembered a conversation she had at the port a few weeks, days or years ago with him. Not the doctor him, the other him.

“Those things will kill you.”

“You eventually will anyway.”

She laughed by herself, inhaling a puff of smoke. That’s when he had given her the week late birthday card. She never kept birthday cards but his was wedged into the windowsill. It was difficult to believe that he would never write another birthday card for her again.

A tightness crawled into her chest, she felt it even in her yellowed fingertips. His name came into mind. Doctor Alban had said that she should get rid of the card.

“Did you ever desire her?”

“I think so”, he said, his stern tobacco-colored eyes were darkened by the night. He was stretched on the bed, his bony ribs creating a bowl of darkened moonlight.

“As a memento mori, perhaps”

“She must’ve been beautiful”

I perceived his nodding in the dark. He stayed silent while staring at the ceiling.

“Very”, he finally said.

She knew that he still loved her.

The faucet was running. Maybe it had been running the whole time. Probably.

She got up to close it, her long, untidy nails uncomfortably enclosing around it. The metal left a cold impression onto her hand. She remembered.

His eyes weren’t brown. They didn’t deserve to have a color. They were all the crumpled paper poems, they were all that she had searched for in vain during her entire life without exactly knowing what. They were the sneers of incomprehension, they were an abandoned shivering cold desire, sticky with the poison of indifference. They were a neon yellow happy birthday card, with one of those cone-shaped birthday hats on the “B”.

#short story #spilled prose #prose #spilled thoughts #words #aspiring writer #proseriot #writers #writer #re-bumbleblossoms

theinscrutableescapee

the sun was poorly tuned, still glimmered in the dark so I poured him a drink; post-curfew happiness

theinscrutableescapee

17

they were all desperate

to light your cigarette

only seventeen years old

but lips leafed in gold

I stopped believing in god

the moment I saw you,

you sepia-toned haunted ghost

you keyed the words

of your own stolen bible

on the edge of my tongue

your eyes were a pool of dusk

where I saw shadow puppets

dancing on candlelight

rose-pricked skin

and I had only ever seen

the rosy dawn

that never dared to kiss me

at the end of the night

you’d be gone in the morning,

and I’d still feel you

against my skin

as if you had been

my very own

living nightmare

as if you had said the things

you had never thought

never said

but that I had always longed

to hear.

theinscrutableescapee

poisoned apricots

under the frozen floorboards

of a sick child’s heart

theinscrutableescapee

punch-drunk

There were indistinct screams and catcalls coming from every angle of the dark abyss. They echoed up to her ears, but all she could hear was the thudding of her own thundering heart. The lights around her were bright, blinding. She felt the impression of an arm on her shoulder, water gushing down her throat, drops falling onto her bare stomach, mixed with the sweat.

“Come on, you gotta go the distance...”

“Tyler, she’s punch-drunk.”

Punch-drunk. “Punch-drunk”, she said, the words hazily forming on her lips.

“That upper-cut busted her ribs, the girl can’t even walk straight, let alone land one. She’s either gonna get knocked out or the judge’s gonna call it a technical.”

Knocked out clean.

A warm breeze blowing onto her face. Apartment buildings were towering around them, the sun red in the glass windows.

“So you see, he was all like punch-drunk and then he like threw a jab and then this uppercut that perfectly landed on his jaw. Like this look. And then BOOM he got knocked-out clean, it was the most beautiful thing I ever seen I tell ya.”, he said as he jumped down from the table he was standing on top of.

“One day, I’ll teach ya how to box ya know.”

“Me? A boxer? Don’t be silly.”

She suddenly felt a sharp, twisting pain in her ribs.

A bell rings.

“Round six!”

“Come on, you gotta get back in there. Remember, she’s a swarmer so try to block her right…”

Her mother’s crying.

“He should have never practiced that sport. Your father always said that it’d end badly”.

Her face met the blood-covered floor.

“One! Two! Three! …”

“It’s over Tyler. For fuck’s sake!”

“Four! Five!”

“Sawyer...”, she said, tears lining her eyes.

“Six! Sev-“

She got up and rose both of her gloves.

theinscrutableescapee

2003

Postcards from Saigon

yellowed pictures

pants rolled up to his knees

dark ray bans

thick rims

raindrops on lips

or raindrop lips

his eyes,

a different shade of brown

those that say

“buy me a beer

before I change my mind”,

dusty eyelids

a scar

lingering

under his eye

a dog-eared book

in his hand

where he wrote in the margins

These

are

the

lines

that

prove

that

my

existence

is

a

mistake

but you only read

the pencil prophecy

after

you had kissed him

after

he had taken

all of those

painkillers

after

he had written that letter

saying

“I too

was once loved,

but not by you”.

theinscrutableescapee

tonight we’ll see the stars

“What’s his name?”

“Suzuki…Or was it Nakamura?”

Edvin didn’t say anything as he opened the matchbox that had been in his pocket and carefully plucked a match out. In an abrupt motion, he struck the match. A small flame kindled at the end of the wooden stick. He carefully observed it, letting it take his full attention as his thoughts went blank. He didn’t want to think about her. But he couldn’t control it. His eyes crawled towards hers. An uncontrollable smile formed on his face as he broke out in a nervous chuckle.

“How do you say ‘fire’ in Japanese?”, he asked, feeling the tears bordering his eyelids.

“Do I look like I fucking know?”, she answered, her voice slightly breaking on the fucking as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

She blew out the match. A small cloud of smoke slowly whirled, tinting the darkness. Edvin watched the smoke dance with the cold breeze and almost imperceptibly inhaled it.

“You’re probably tired of me”, she suddenly said.

Edvin didn’t say anything and threw the match on the cold ground with a bitter smile.

“Your eyes… they’re not quite blue are they?”, he asked avoiding to answer to what she had just said.

She turned to look at him. The only source of light being the streetlight down the street, she could only make out his silhouette.

“It’s just that, at the party, they seemed a little lighter”, he added, his voice cracking with emotion, justifying the question he had just asked.

She remembered the party. She was haunted by the smell of beer in her nostrils, by how his sweater brushed against her chin, by the foggy music’s unclear words that seeped into her skin and mind…

“No, they’re blue”, she answered, as she got up and walked away into the night.

theinscrutableescapee

coal

He had been working in the mines for the past three months and he was beginning to cough like the others did.

A crooked picture ornamented the otherwise bare wall. That and the piano were his only valuable possessions. He would come back home every night and see both of them, one hanging a little too much on the left, one yawning with some of its off-tune teeth missing. There used to be a midsize mirror on the floor, its back against the wall, but as the weeks passed, as his arms and legs grew thin and as his eyes adopted a permanent look of worry, he had gotten rid of it.

Before lighting the kerosene lamp, seconds after entering through the door, he would sit down in front of the piano and would let his weakened, tired, fingers fall onto the keys. He wasn’t a very good player, he would have to pause between some of the notes in order to cough. He played clumsy nocturnes, only alighted by the moonshine, the grime on his hands making the keys stick to his fingers. It was always quiet, the neighbors were fast asleep and he would be alone with his moon. The tears would trickle onto his cheeks, mixing with the dirt on his face, as he thought of her.

He was scared that he would forget what she looked like. He would slightly tilt his head to the left every day, but the picture was blurry and he was certain that she was prettier in real life. You couldn’t tell by looking at it that she would always say “Keep the change” at the cashier, even though they could’ve used the extra dollar for another day’s worth of soup.

“Keep the change”, he would sometimes whisper. His lips pressing against each other, his tongue touching his palate while he said those three words- it made her seem more real. It was the concrete in the abstract of sentiment, it was feeling her pulse beat against his skin.

The moon seemed far away that night. It looked as if it were crying.

theinscrutableescapee

light-headed

I know a place

where the nights are hidden under a veil of tobacco

I know a place

where lovers wait for the rain to cease, sheltered by a stranger’s open garage

holding stolen beers and each other’s hands

I know a place

where boys with messy hair sit on the windowsill reading Cocteau

I know a place

where people fall in love over a cigarette and a line of Tennyson

It’s a place

where life isn’t so bad

theinscrutableescapee

visiting hours are over

a melody from western japan

sticks to the tears you begin to cry

“visiting hours are over”

the curtains of your heart close

you sit on the stage

and fold

origami feelings

delicate

intricate

intimate

weak

now

you can take off your mask

and let yourself hum

quietly

nervously

and wait

to hear the same tune

from the audience’s side

theinscrutableescapee

note to self

a glimpse of melancholia

in the lukewarm saké

of a child’s laughter

theinscrutableescapee

He stares at the ceiling, a scratched melody bleeding through the thin wall. To his right, the wall was unadorned, in an almost naked, dehumanized manner. A lonely flower was limply standing in a vase, giving him big gloomy eyes, sitting on a small table. The porridge sticks to the spoon that he brings to his mouth. “Mr. Rodler, I will come back to give you your medication in half an hour” The white sheets are stiff against his goosebumped legs, he runs his hand on them, trying to decrease them, pressing his palms against his thighs’ skin. Weekend in a whirlwind weekend in a whirlwind weekend in a whirlwind “Weekend in a whirlwind!” “Mr. Rodler, I beg your pardon?” He bites his lip as the woman takes a last glance at him as she leaves the room. He rubs the back of his left hand against his lips, smudging the porridge bordering his lips onto his hand. He takes, or rather he grips, the spoon and circles it around the ridge of the empty bowl, letting the utensil schizophrenically scratch and screech against the bowl’s metal. He finally takes the bowl, rises it with both hands to his eyes’ level, and looks at his reflection. “Weekend in a whirlwind”. The nurse enters the room once again with a glass of water in her hand and a small tray in the other. “Can he play something else? I don’t enjoy ragtime.” “Mr. Rodler, what are you talking about? No music is playing.” He nervously turns to the left wall as puts his hands onto his ears. The white nurse stares at him with a composed incomprehension. “Why don’t you play some chess? Mr. Saito would, I bet, love to play against you.” “I don’t want him to know what I’m thinking.” “But, Mr. Rodler, it’s just a game.” He vigorously shakes his head as he nervously tugs on the sheets that were tightly held back by the sides of the mattress. “Don’t look at me that way, I beg you.” “Mr. Rodler, do I need to bring you to the upstairs ward?” He stays silent because he knows very well what goes on in “the upstairs ward”. He looks at the nurse and hisses: “Weekend in a whirlwind”.

theinscrutableescapee

wake up

you write

arbitrary letters

on the lampshade dust

a game

of mental scrabble,

modernity’s

aphasia

the light turns on

v

u

l

n

e

r

a

b

l

e

you are in bed

writing

what you think,

letting your skin

nervously flirt

with unfamiliar sheets,

letting your pen

nervously flirt

with innocent paper,

meeting

your pale lover’s

weak eyes

for the first time:

we all need

to meet

ourselves.

theinscrutableescapee

It’s 12 am and teenagers are sitting down, cross-legged, in a fast-food’s parking lot, some loosely holding a crestfallen cigarette in their right hands, its embers lightly glowing in the darkness, some staring at the cars passing by. They’re playing some obscure artist’s b-sides on a beat down stereo that they all seem to be sitting around. “I’m going inside; so fucking cold out here. You guys want anything to eat? Daniel gave me a coupon for their sodas”, says a boy with piercing grey eyes as he rouses himself, long dyed-black hair peaking out from his over-sized sweatshirt’s hood. “I think we’re good”, replies a red-haired girl, almost mechanically, almost as if she is somehow not allowed to want anything, as she lies back and stares into the starless sky with an empty expression. Another girl in the group, chattering teeth and hugging her knees that she has covered with her large green knitted sweater, is aligning dominos on the smooth cement. “What are you doing?”, asks a boy, his veins visibly snaking under his pale skin and his eyes hidden behind strands of brown curls. “This…is us”, she answers while pushing the first domino and watching them fall, one by one onto one another until the very last one drops down and they are all lying there, inanimate, almost breathless. “The fuck are you rambling on about”, he sharply rejoins. “She’s saying that if it weren’t for Lawrence we wouldn’t be in this shithole”, suddenly says the red-haired girl, a little too loudly, as she sits up to face the other members of the group. “Shut your trap”, whispers the boy in a foggy breath as he nervously turns his head to make sure that Lawrence isn’t in sight. “Don’t you tell me that it’s not true, Anzu will tell you the same”, she continues but now in a lower voice and slightly turning herself towards Anzu, awaiting a response while bitterly putting out her cigarette against the asphalt. “Kat’s right…”, says Anzu under her breath with composure. The boy doesn’t say anything, perhaps because he knew that his friends were right but it hurt too much to acknowledge it. He moves the hair that was covering his eyes and places them behind his ear, revealing mellow cedar eyes that betray his cold demeanor. He peers at the dominos, almost frightened by them. Suddenly, he reaches towards the stereo and turns it off in the middle of “hear what I say and tell me if you still-”. Katherine and Anzu look at him, gaping. “Let’s go”, he says as he gets up and grabs the stereo. The girls remain where they are, puzzled. “Ernest, are you fucking out of your mind? We’re in the middle of nowhere and Lawrence has the car keys”, says Katherine with an anxious chuckle. Ernest begins to make his way across the parking lot, holding the stereo in one hand and putting his other hand into his hoodie’s pocket, ignoring Katherine’s indignant remark. “Ernest!”, screams Katherine as the washed-out boy’s figure progressively blends into the dark horizon. Anzu calmly lights a cigarette as Katherine arises and begins to desperately run after him. “What’s going on?”, says a voice from behind. Anzu turns around and sees Lawrence, insouciantly biting into a hamburger that he holds with his two hands, ketchup dripping onto them. “You really don’t understand, do you?”, she mutters into her green sweater as she watches Katherine and Anzu from afar. “Anzu, what are they-“ “Lawrence, it’s freezing, we’re far from home and we haven’t slept in days, this had to happen at some point.” “You can’t possibly think that this is all my fault!” “That’s not what I said.” “But you seem to think so.” Anzu doesn’t dare to look at Lawrence, maybe because the way that he would look at her would bring back more painful memories. She sniffles. “Are you crying?” “No, I’m just fucking cold”, she says as she rubs her sleeve against her teary eyes, gets up, and leaves Lawrence alone in the icy parking lot. He looks at the dominos laying on the floor and then, almost as a reflex, bends down and grabs them. As he turns the hard rectangles in his hands, he thinks to himself that nothing can be done.