Such a Moment
This part is the genesis, which could be skipped but is in fact essential. I'm not going to tell you why.
Curly-lashed Freida shoved up against him at the bar; she smiled and asked in her accent what he was having, with a nod towards the spirits rack. He was having beer but he said 'Gin'. 'Would you get me one too?' she asked. The child who was born twenty-years earlier (when the name 'Desmond' was scribbled on a piece of paper) could only flop open his wallet and pull out a note.
'My friends are boring to me, can I sit with you for a while?'
They went outside to a spot beneath an umbrella which would have been green in the daylight. It might have looked nice with the stained wooden table under it, and the wooden planks of the deck, and the wooden chairs.
'I like your shirt,' Desmond said to the horizontal pattern of red and purple.
'It's a sweater, you silly,' she said. 'I knitted it.'
'Then it's a nice sweater.'
---
Now you really have to listen!
Freida's mother called every second night, at that precise moment between 8:29 and 8:30. When Desmond moved in it was the second unusual thing he discovered; the first being the closed room he was not permitted to enter. The door to that room had a hole, straight through the chip-board so that only a flimsy layer of paint on the anterior side seperated the room's contents from the rest of the house. Desmond often had the temptation to poke his index finger through this fine layer but never had the courage in the face of the home's matronly regime.
'You can put your things in the other room. It has a window. You can paint in there, no?'
He liked to cook but it was not a home for cooking; the kitchen was so narrow that the counters almost met each other in the middle, and every cupboard with the potential to become a pantry was filled with clear tupperware containters with blue lids. Freida cooked in there occaisonally, vegetables hopping straight from plastic bag into the pan (sometimes a ribbony receipt would flit dangerously close to the stove's flame), and after dinner she would pack the leftovers carefully away in the abundant tupperware and label it for the freezer. In such a manner was the freezer packed, dinners stacked and labelled like library books, the fridge below home to only three expired mayonaisse jars and a tub of natural yoghurt.
It is easy to imagine that in such circumstances Desmond's artistic skills withered; after a haiatus inflicted by stunned confusion, he returned to his canvas to find that all he could paint was an orange stick-figure in a trapezoid boat. Over three nights he returned with fresh canvas, and when the fourth orange man appeared with its bracket smile he threw his paintbrush down in frustration. At that moment the telephone rang to pronounce the strange moment just before 8:30, a moment which, under the circumstances, seemed perfect for some fresh air.
'Dessie!' cried Freida, tilting over the chipped white railing, cordless phone clutched against her very heart. He stopped in the damp street and looked up to her. 'Will you bring me back a diet Coke?' He nodded and carried on along the asphalt.
Oh, what fate! But as he paid with three dollar coins for the cold bottle, ready to turn around on the mission of delivery which had cut short his adventure before it began, he wondered if it was all so bad; wondered if, after all, an orange stick-man was not a worthy companion - wasn't it his own creation? In that room with a window and an easel, with his suitcase still lying open and empty, what better companion could one have? All these thoughts he was having at a time he should have been having thoughts about the bottle-cap; which he twisted and opened in his vacancy.
The ramifications, you'll understand, were severe.
Curly-lashed Freida shoved up against him at the bar; she smiled and asked in her accent what he was having, with a nod towards the spirits rack. He was having beer but he said 'Gin'. 'Would you get me one too?' she asked. The child who was born twenty-years earlier (when the name 'Desmond' was scribbled on a piece of paper) could only flop open his wallet and pull out a note.
'My friends are boring to me, can I sit with you for a while?'
They went outside to a spot beneath an umbrella which would have been green in the daylight. It might have looked nice with the stained wooden table under it, and the wooden planks of the deck, and the wooden chairs.
'I like your shirt,' Desmond said to the horizontal pattern of red and purple.
'It's a sweater, you silly,' she said. 'I knitted it.'
'Then it's a nice sweater.'
---
Now you really have to listen!
Freida's mother called every second night, at that precise moment between 8:29 and 8:30. When Desmond moved in it was the second unusual thing he discovered; the first being the closed room he was not permitted to enter. The door to that room had a hole, straight through the chip-board so that only a flimsy layer of paint on the anterior side seperated the room's contents from the rest of the house. Desmond often had the temptation to poke his index finger through this fine layer but never had the courage in the face of the home's matronly regime.
'You can put your things in the other room. It has a window. You can paint in there, no?'
He liked to cook but it was not a home for cooking; the kitchen was so narrow that the counters almost met each other in the middle, and every cupboard with the potential to become a pantry was filled with clear tupperware containters with blue lids. Freida cooked in there occaisonally, vegetables hopping straight from plastic bag into the pan (sometimes a ribbony receipt would flit dangerously close to the stove's flame), and after dinner she would pack the leftovers carefully away in the abundant tupperware and label it for the freezer. In such a manner was the freezer packed, dinners stacked and labelled like library books, the fridge below home to only three expired mayonaisse jars and a tub of natural yoghurt.
It is easy to imagine that in such circumstances Desmond's artistic skills withered; after a haiatus inflicted by stunned confusion, he returned to his canvas to find that all he could paint was an orange stick-figure in a trapezoid boat. Over three nights he returned with fresh canvas, and when the fourth orange man appeared with its bracket smile he threw his paintbrush down in frustration. At that moment the telephone rang to pronounce the strange moment just before 8:30, a moment which, under the circumstances, seemed perfect for some fresh air.
'Dessie!' cried Freida, tilting over the chipped white railing, cordless phone clutched against her very heart. He stopped in the damp street and looked up to her. 'Will you bring me back a diet Coke?' He nodded and carried on along the asphalt.
Oh, what fate! But as he paid with three dollar coins for the cold bottle, ready to turn around on the mission of delivery which had cut short his adventure before it began, he wondered if it was all so bad; wondered if, after all, an orange stick-man was not a worthy companion - wasn't it his own creation? In that room with a window and an easel, with his suitcase still lying open and empty, what better companion could one have? All these thoughts he was having at a time he should have been having thoughts about the bottle-cap; which he twisted and opened in his vacancy.
The ramifications, you'll understand, were severe.
posted by bsjezz at 9:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home