I've realized a lot of ways I wand to edit this piece since I finished it, so eventually I plan on making some pretty major changes, probably adding a lot more, and cutting a lot of what I already have. Anyways, here's the end of what it is for now:
“And by tracing it twice/I fell through the ice”
=====The velvet moonlight bathed the frozen surface of the lake with a pale glow. Russell and Jeremy sat in the car, parked a dozen feet away. Jeremy continued to furiously drum on the dashboard, accompanying his pathetic attempts to imitate David Burne’s spacey tone on “Once in a Lifetime.”
=====“Let’s go outside,” Russell half-yelled, necessary to crack through the walls of sound from the blaring speakers.
=====“I’d rather not freeze my balls off,” Jeremy replied without skipping a beat in his drumming.
=====“I’m going outside either way. You can wait here.”
=====“Suit yourself.”
=====Russell exited the car, and was welcomed by a gust of icy air, wrapping a thin chilled film across the exposed skin of his face and arms. He could hear the thumping of the music from the car still, even though he’d closed the door. Slowly meandering onto the surface of the lake, Russell scolded himself for not bringing shoes with better treads, the smooth surface of the worn down bottoms of his sneakers sliding on the slick surface of the ice with each step, threatening to disrupt his delicate balance.
=====He wandered farther out into the middle of the lake in a sort of meditative trance, one of the few times in his life that his head was completely devoid of thoughts; the internal silence mirroring the quiet surrounding him; the only sound the whispering of the wind through distant trees, and the almost audible dance of the moonlight across the glittering frosted-glass of the lake’s surface.
=====Russell suddenly found himself dancing in the middle of the lake, whimsically skipping across ice. Russell never danced. At least besides when he was in his room late at night by himself, with the curtains closed on a head full of weed. He could feel the music coursing through him—not that of a particular song, but some strange abstract concept of music, vibrating through his muscle fibers and impelling his limbs to move in a coordinated, continuous motion.
=====Russell felt something stirring beneath him, a slight creaking beneath his feet, but paid it no heed. The profound stillness of the night was broken by a jarring explosion of sound as the glass gave way and the lake opened up to him. The rush of sensations as he plunged into the water was so intense his system shut down; he didn’t feel cold, only numb. The thought of trying to move didn’t even occur to Russell, and even if it did it was unlikely he could’ve moved his frozen limbs.
“The only strings that hold me here/Are tangled up around the pier”
=====Russell was confused as he suddenly felt motion. He heard the sound of a person groaning from exertion behind him. Then he was on his back on the ice again.
=====“What the fuck were you thinking you idiot?” Jeremy asked him, sitting next to him on the ice, his chest dramatically rising and falling as he tried to catch his breath. “No, don’t even answer, let’s just get back to the car before you give yourself goddamn hypothermia or something.”
=====Russell managed to get back on his feet, even though the sensation still had barely returned to his legs. Jeremy helped support him as they made their way back to the car. They shut the doors, turned on the heat, and sat in silence for a few minutes.
=====“You could’ve gotten yourself killed, you know that?” Jeremy asked, Russell detecting a tone of annoyance.
=====Russell nodded.
=====“You’re fucking lucky I saw you dancing out there like an idiot and decided to come make sure you were okay,” Jeremy went on, the anger gradually heightening in his speech with every word. “Or that we both didn’t fall in and freeze to death out here.”
=====“I know,” Russell replied. “Thanks for pulling me out.”
=====“It’s not like I was just going to let you fucking die out there or shit.”
=====Jeremy shook his head, and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “Are you okay?”
=====Russell’s face split with a giant smile. “Never been better,” he said as he turned the key in the ignition. The car was revived with the pounding vibrations as the music turned back on, ricocheting off the walls and windows and filling the car with a bewildering orchestra of auditory sensation.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Alice (part II)
“Set me adrift and I’m lost over there”
=====Russell should have known from the slight hesitation in Alice’s phone message, the stop-and-go rhythm of awkwardness a dead giveaway. But he didn’t realize until he saw the look in her eyes right before she said it to him when they met.
=====“I don’t think it’s working out between us.”
=====He only heard scattered fragments of the rest of what she said—it’s not anything he did…he’s a good guy…still be friends, etc.
=====“I’m really sorry Russell…” Alice said, and Russell could tell from the look in her eyes when she briefly met his gaze before dropping them back to the ground that she meant it too.
=====He couldn’t remember what he said to her before he left. Not even a trace of any of it was left in his mind. All he remembered was the drive back home: blasting excessively loud music not to drown out his thoughts, but to fill the empty cavity inside his head with the vibrations—with anything.
“And I must be insane/To go skating on your name”
=====“You just have to let it go man,” Jeremy said before exhaling a cloud of smoke. “It’s the only thing you can do. It sucks, but that’s all there is to it.”
=====“It’s only been two days,” Russell muttered, taking the bong from him.
=====“The sooner you get over it the easier it’ll be.”
=====“Easier said then done,” Russell picked the lighter up from the ground.
=====“I hear you,” Jeremy settled onto the carpet, propping himself up with his elbows. “Nothing else I can tell you though. No short-cuts for this shit.”
=====Russell inhaled deeply, removing the slide and sucking in every last particle of smoke as he cleared the chamber. He held it in steady for a few seconds, and then relaxed his diaphragm, the smoke lazily snaking out from his barely opened lips.
=====“I’m really sorry though man,” Jeremy said.
=====“Thanks,” Russell replied flatly.
=====They remained silent, staring off into their respective spaces.
=====“I need to do something,” Russell said, breaking the stasis.
=====“Wanna watch something?” Jeremy asked, starting to move towards the cabinet with various DVD’s by the television.
=====“No, I mean like something different. I don’t want to just sit here.”
=====“Like what? It’s two in the morning, there isn’t shit to do.”
=====Russell paused, musing on what to do. “Let’s go to the lake.”
=====“The lake?” Jeremy asked skeptically.
=====“Yeah.”
=====“It’s cold as fuck out.”
=====“So what?”
=====Jeremy took a slow breath, in and out. “I guess we could.”
=====“Let’s go then.”
=====“I don’t think I’m up for driving honestly.”
=====“I’ll drive.”
=====Jeremy eyed Russell up and down slowly, inspecting his condition. “Are you sure you’re okay to?”
=====“A hundred percent.”
=====“Alright.”
=====Russell slowly opened to the door to the hallway, then eased it shut behind them. Jeremy opened his mouth to speak, but Russell shushed him as a reminder. “Don’t wake my parents up,” he whispered, Jeremy nodding in response and dropping whatever it was he was going to say.
=====They crept through the hallway and out the front door. Jeremy was right: it was cold as fuck. They rushed to the car, and both let out relieved sighs when Russell started the car and the heat kicked in.
=====A few minutes later found them gliding down the highway towards the lake. Jeremy was beating his hands on the dashboard, pounding in synch with the drums to the first song on Remain in Light. Russell’s eyes were stapled to the road, staring ahead vacantly, the knuckles on his hands white from his death-grip on the steering wheel.
=====Russell should have known from the slight hesitation in Alice’s phone message, the stop-and-go rhythm of awkwardness a dead giveaway. But he didn’t realize until he saw the look in her eyes right before she said it to him when they met.
=====“I don’t think it’s working out between us.”
=====He only heard scattered fragments of the rest of what she said—it’s not anything he did…he’s a good guy…still be friends, etc.
=====“I’m really sorry Russell…” Alice said, and Russell could tell from the look in her eyes when she briefly met his gaze before dropping them back to the ground that she meant it too.
=====He couldn’t remember what he said to her before he left. Not even a trace of any of it was left in his mind. All he remembered was the drive back home: blasting excessively loud music not to drown out his thoughts, but to fill the empty cavity inside his head with the vibrations—with anything.
“And I must be insane/To go skating on your name”
=====“You just have to let it go man,” Jeremy said before exhaling a cloud of smoke. “It’s the only thing you can do. It sucks, but that’s all there is to it.”
=====“It’s only been two days,” Russell muttered, taking the bong from him.
=====“The sooner you get over it the easier it’ll be.”
=====“Easier said then done,” Russell picked the lighter up from the ground.
=====“I hear you,” Jeremy settled onto the carpet, propping himself up with his elbows. “Nothing else I can tell you though. No short-cuts for this shit.”
=====Russell inhaled deeply, removing the slide and sucking in every last particle of smoke as he cleared the chamber. He held it in steady for a few seconds, and then relaxed his diaphragm, the smoke lazily snaking out from his barely opened lips.
=====“I’m really sorry though man,” Jeremy said.
=====“Thanks,” Russell replied flatly.
=====They remained silent, staring off into their respective spaces.
=====“I need to do something,” Russell said, breaking the stasis.
=====“Wanna watch something?” Jeremy asked, starting to move towards the cabinet with various DVD’s by the television.
=====“No, I mean like something different. I don’t want to just sit here.”
=====“Like what? It’s two in the morning, there isn’t shit to do.”
=====Russell paused, musing on what to do. “Let’s go to the lake.”
=====“The lake?” Jeremy asked skeptically.
=====“Yeah.”
=====“It’s cold as fuck out.”
=====“So what?”
=====Jeremy took a slow breath, in and out. “I guess we could.”
=====“Let’s go then.”
=====“I don’t think I’m up for driving honestly.”
=====“I’ll drive.”
=====Jeremy eyed Russell up and down slowly, inspecting his condition. “Are you sure you’re okay to?”
=====“A hundred percent.”
=====“Alright.”
=====Russell slowly opened to the door to the hallway, then eased it shut behind them. Jeremy opened his mouth to speak, but Russell shushed him as a reminder. “Don’t wake my parents up,” he whispered, Jeremy nodding in response and dropping whatever it was he was going to say.
=====They crept through the hallway and out the front door. Jeremy was right: it was cold as fuck. They rushed to the car, and both let out relieved sighs when Russell started the car and the heat kicked in.
=====A few minutes later found them gliding down the highway towards the lake. Jeremy was beating his hands on the dashboard, pounding in synch with the drums to the first song on Remain in Light. Russell’s eyes were stapled to the road, staring ahead vacantly, the knuckles on his hands white from his death-grip on the steering wheel.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Alice (part I)
(Note: all quotes from the song "Alice," by Tom Waits)
“And so a secret kiss/Brings madness with the bliss”
=====Russell stretched his legs out even further, the back of his head planted in the slightly stained tan cushion on the back of the couch, his back stretched across the seat; his legs and butt suspended in mid air, not actually making contact with the couch. His gray eyes wandered across the ceiling as he ran his right hand through the slightly tangled waves of dark brown hair piled on top of his head. A handful of people sat around him in a vague circle, sprawled on the other couch, chairs, and even a couple of them on the ground.
=====“Russell?” A voice to his right impatiently intoned.
=====Russell rolled his head to the right on the cushion to look, and saw Jeremy’s hand extended towards him, a joint wedged between his index and middle fingers, a thin curling trail of smoke dancing in slow motion through the air from its tip.
=====“Just take it man,” Jeremy repeated, shaking his head slightly.
=====Russell carefully extricated it from Jeremy’s fingers, taking care not to drop it. His fingers brought it to his lips, and he inhaled deeply, feeling the tendrils of smoke creep through the folded labyrinths of the walls of his lungs. Straining to hold it in, he could feel his heart pounding to the music from his Darrell’s speakers in every vein in his body, pulsing to the beat of the bass behind the screaming of Jimi’s warbling electric blues riffs. A cloud exploded from his mouth as he coughed, unable to hold it in any longer. He took another small hit after the brief coughing spasm tapered off, and held out the joint to his left as he exhaled. A fuzzy hand reached out in his peripheral vision and took it from his outstretched hand.
=====Russell was rather pleased with his current state of mind—several beers and lung-fulls of pot mingling, wrapping his brain in the a thick wool blanket of hazy detachment; all sensory input muffled, jumbled as it came through the layers of substance-induced insulation. A figure leaned over him in the center of his pixilated field of vision.
=====“Wanna come talk with me Russell?” a female voice emanated from the figure—it was Alice.
=====Russell willed his eyes to focus, and he could see the light reflecting off her dilated pupils, twin pools of jet-clack ink surrounded by the thin line of her deep-green irises.
=====“Sure. You can sit here,” Russell replied, gesturing to the empty seat on the couch next to him.
=====“Alone,” Alice said, extending a hand to help him up.
=====Russell stood up without taking her hand—he didn’t need any help—and followed her out of the room. Beads of sweat formed on his palms, and he could feel the beating of his heart picking up ever-so-slightly. Alice led him to a room down the hall, to her room. She sat down on the edge of her bed, and he sat beside her.
=====Russell became a bit disoriented, thoughts flitting past in his head before he could even process them—what should he do?...should he try to kiss her?...what if he sucked at it?...did she even like him?...what if she freaked out if he tried something?....did she want him to do something?...why was he so bad at knowing what to do with this stuff?...why was he so nervous?...what should he do? He felt he was watching a merry-go-round on crack spin in front of him, trying to focus on each animal as it flew past, but they were going by so fast he couldn’t even focus his eyes on one before it would disappear from his vision, never letting him get even remotely grounded.
=====His head spun faster and faster, until Alice leaned in and kissed him. He was too stunned to kiss her back.
=====She pulled away.
=====“I’m sorry…I thought—” She started.
=====“No…I do…” The words stumbled of his bewildered mouth.
=====“So you do want—”
=====“Yeah.”
=====Alice smiled, and he lost himself as they leaned in and kissed again.
“And so a secret kiss/Brings madness with the bliss”
=====Russell stretched his legs out even further, the back of his head planted in the slightly stained tan cushion on the back of the couch, his back stretched across the seat; his legs and butt suspended in mid air, not actually making contact with the couch. His gray eyes wandered across the ceiling as he ran his right hand through the slightly tangled waves of dark brown hair piled on top of his head. A handful of people sat around him in a vague circle, sprawled on the other couch, chairs, and even a couple of them on the ground.
=====“Russell?” A voice to his right impatiently intoned.
=====Russell rolled his head to the right on the cushion to look, and saw Jeremy’s hand extended towards him, a joint wedged between his index and middle fingers, a thin curling trail of smoke dancing in slow motion through the air from its tip.
=====“Just take it man,” Jeremy repeated, shaking his head slightly.
=====Russell carefully extricated it from Jeremy’s fingers, taking care not to drop it. His fingers brought it to his lips, and he inhaled deeply, feeling the tendrils of smoke creep through the folded labyrinths of the walls of his lungs. Straining to hold it in, he could feel his heart pounding to the music from his Darrell’s speakers in every vein in his body, pulsing to the beat of the bass behind the screaming of Jimi’s warbling electric blues riffs. A cloud exploded from his mouth as he coughed, unable to hold it in any longer. He took another small hit after the brief coughing spasm tapered off, and held out the joint to his left as he exhaled. A fuzzy hand reached out in his peripheral vision and took it from his outstretched hand.
=====Russell was rather pleased with his current state of mind—several beers and lung-fulls of pot mingling, wrapping his brain in the a thick wool blanket of hazy detachment; all sensory input muffled, jumbled as it came through the layers of substance-induced insulation. A figure leaned over him in the center of his pixilated field of vision.
=====“Wanna come talk with me Russell?” a female voice emanated from the figure—it was Alice.
=====Russell willed his eyes to focus, and he could see the light reflecting off her dilated pupils, twin pools of jet-clack ink surrounded by the thin line of her deep-green irises.
=====“Sure. You can sit here,” Russell replied, gesturing to the empty seat on the couch next to him.
=====“Alone,” Alice said, extending a hand to help him up.
=====Russell stood up without taking her hand—he didn’t need any help—and followed her out of the room. Beads of sweat formed on his palms, and he could feel the beating of his heart picking up ever-so-slightly. Alice led him to a room down the hall, to her room. She sat down on the edge of her bed, and he sat beside her.
=====Russell became a bit disoriented, thoughts flitting past in his head before he could even process them—what should he do?...should he try to kiss her?...what if he sucked at it?...did she even like him?...what if she freaked out if he tried something?....did she want him to do something?...why was he so bad at knowing what to do with this stuff?...why was he so nervous?...what should he do? He felt he was watching a merry-go-round on crack spin in front of him, trying to focus on each animal as it flew past, but they were going by so fast he couldn’t even focus his eyes on one before it would disappear from his vision, never letting him get even remotely grounded.
=====His head spun faster and faster, until Alice leaned in and kissed him. He was too stunned to kiss her back.
=====She pulled away.
=====“I’m sorry…I thought—” She started.
=====“No…I do…” The words stumbled of his bewildered mouth.
=====“So you do want—”
=====“Yeah.”
=====Alice smiled, and he lost himself as they leaned in and kissed again.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Landscaping (part II)
=====“They went to the bathroom,” Aaron replied.
=====“Oh, okay.”
=====“You want some Jake?” Aaron asked me, extending a bottle of champagne towards me. He must’ve gotten it from one of the early-teenage kids that walked around selling alcohol (the same way we got the wine earlier) while I was spacing out.
=====“Yeah, sure.” I held out my plastic cup and Aaron poured a sizeable amount in, the foam overflowing and trickling down the side of the cup onto the grass and my hand a little. I jettisoned the drink into my mouth, downing it in one gulp, and felt the liquid heat surge down my esophagus.
=====Aaron kept talking to the girls as I stared at my empty cup, debating whether to have some more. Their words buzzed around the background of my thoughts, relegated to white noise without the filter of my conscious mind to make sense of them. I looked up to ask Aaron for another glass, and all three of them were staring at me with a look of anticipation.
=====“What?” I asked, thoroughly confused.
=====“You should take her offer,” Aaron said to me with a smile.
=====“What offer?”
=====“I asked you if you wanted a French kiss,” Alyssa said in an incredibly matter-of-fact manner.
=====My mind went of like one of those Chinese fireworks, filling with the explosions of billions of neurons firing like crazy.
=====“How could you turn down a French kiss from a real French girl?” Aaron asked.
=====My hands were tearing out grass by the handful now.
=====“Umm…”
=====“We can do it better than any American,” Marin said, her smile a mirror of Aaron’s.
=====“Well?” Alyssa asked with an undertone of impatience this time.
=====“Uh…” My throat contorted, trying to resist allowing any answer to pass through. “Sorry…I…no thanks.”
=====“What?” Alyssa leaned in slightly, not having heard my response.
=====“No thanks…” I managed to eke out, my eyes falling to the grass.
=====Alyssa and Marin looked confused by my response, but not quite as much as Aaron.
=====“Come on man,” He said. “As I said, how could you pass that up?”
=====“Why not?” Alyssa asked me, her eyes locking in on mine as I looked back up at her.
=====“I don’t know…” My grass pulling reached a crescendo, my hands trying to keep up with the frenetic pulsations of my heart. “I’m just shy…”
=====“Shy?” Marin asked.
=====“Why not?” Alyssa repeated, still confused.
=====“It’s nothing personal. I’m just...” My voice trailed off.
=====“He’s just shy,” Aaron interjected, mercifully ending that line of questioning. He paused a second, then turned to Alyssa. “I’d be glad to though, if the offer’s still on the table…”
=====“Sure,” She replied. They leaned in towards each other and made out for a few seconds before pulling away from each other. Marin gave Aaron a questioning look. He grinned, and then leaned in towards her as they repeated the process. My eyes remained fixed on my hands as they continued their gradual destruction of the area of the lawn directly surrounding me.
=====“Oh, okay.”
=====“You want some Jake?” Aaron asked me, extending a bottle of champagne towards me. He must’ve gotten it from one of the early-teenage kids that walked around selling alcohol (the same way we got the wine earlier) while I was spacing out.
=====“Yeah, sure.” I held out my plastic cup and Aaron poured a sizeable amount in, the foam overflowing and trickling down the side of the cup onto the grass and my hand a little. I jettisoned the drink into my mouth, downing it in one gulp, and felt the liquid heat surge down my esophagus.
=====Aaron kept talking to the girls as I stared at my empty cup, debating whether to have some more. Their words buzzed around the background of my thoughts, relegated to white noise without the filter of my conscious mind to make sense of them. I looked up to ask Aaron for another glass, and all three of them were staring at me with a look of anticipation.
=====“What?” I asked, thoroughly confused.
=====“You should take her offer,” Aaron said to me with a smile.
=====“What offer?”
=====“I asked you if you wanted a French kiss,” Alyssa said in an incredibly matter-of-fact manner.
=====My mind went of like one of those Chinese fireworks, filling with the explosions of billions of neurons firing like crazy.
=====“How could you turn down a French kiss from a real French girl?” Aaron asked.
=====My hands were tearing out grass by the handful now.
=====“Umm…”
=====“We can do it better than any American,” Marin said, her smile a mirror of Aaron’s.
=====“Well?” Alyssa asked with an undertone of impatience this time.
=====“Uh…” My throat contorted, trying to resist allowing any answer to pass through. “Sorry…I…no thanks.”
=====“What?” Alyssa leaned in slightly, not having heard my response.
=====“No thanks…” I managed to eke out, my eyes falling to the grass.
=====Alyssa and Marin looked confused by my response, but not quite as much as Aaron.
=====“Come on man,” He said. “As I said, how could you pass that up?”
=====“Why not?” Alyssa asked me, her eyes locking in on mine as I looked back up at her.
=====“I don’t know…” My grass pulling reached a crescendo, my hands trying to keep up with the frenetic pulsations of my heart. “I’m just shy…”
=====“Shy?” Marin asked.
=====“Why not?” Alyssa repeated, still confused.
=====“It’s nothing personal. I’m just...” My voice trailed off.
=====“He’s just shy,” Aaron interjected, mercifully ending that line of questioning. He paused a second, then turned to Alyssa. “I’d be glad to though, if the offer’s still on the table…”
=====“Sure,” She replied. They leaned in towards each other and made out for a few seconds before pulling away from each other. Marin gave Aaron a questioning look. He grinned, and then leaned in towards her as they repeated the process. My eyes remained fixed on my hands as they continued their gradual destruction of the area of the lawn directly surrounding me.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Landscaping
Here's (yet another) beginning to a story, but unlike the other ones, I actually know where this one is going now, so the rest should be up sometime in the near future.
=====I unsuccessfully tried to hide a wince as I gulped down another mouthful of cheap red wine from a tiny clear plastic cup. Two bottles for ten—sometimes quantity beats quality, fuck what they tell you in school. I was pulling up blades of grass one by one as my friends talked to the two French girls, pulling gently and gradually adding more and more pressure, trying to pull up the whitish bottom part—someone showed me how you could do that back in elementary school, ever since whenever I’m sitting on grass I find myself doing it; just another one of my endless nervous habits.
=====We were sitting on one of the long lawns that stretch out from the base of the Eiffel tower in a line, like the red carpet of a movie premiere, but green, and not continuous, but broken into segments. The last electric blue twinges of twilight had long since faded into a deep midnight blue bordering on black. Streetlamps lined the sides of the green, splashing us with just enough pale orange light to see pretty clearly.
=====I drifted back into the conversation. My friends—Aaron, Ivan, and Peter—were asking the French girls—Marin and Alyssa were the first names that came to mind, but I wasn’t sure whether I was remembering them correctly or just making those up—about Paris. The conversation was fairly amusing to watch, it’s always funny seeing awkward teenage boys trying to spit game at girls; not that I was any less awkward, I just didn’t even put in the effort to try most the time.
=====A sparkling light in my peripheral vision made me turn my head to the tower. Various lights were flashing on and off in a coordinated sequence all over it, a dizzying pattern of light dancing up and down the metal mesh frame.
=====“Does it just come on randomly?” I asked. It was the first thing I’d said in minutes.
=====“No, it, uh…” Marin (or whatever her name actually was) said. Her head tilted slightly and her eyes searched the top of the insides of her eyelids for the words. Her eyes re-descended. “It comes on every hour.”
=====I looked down at my watch: 12:00. “That makes sense.” I said, and then settled back into silence.
=====“I’m gonna go take a piss,” Ivan said as he stood up.
=====“Yeah, same here,” Peter seconded, and followed Ivan as he headed off in the direction of the bushes off to the side of the green.
=====“Where did they go?” Alyssa asked Aaron. We discovered early on in the conversation that if we said anything idiomatic, quickly, or softly (or better yet, some combination of the three), they had no idea what we were saying, since their English was pretty rudimentary (our French was non-existent, and neither of them spoke Spanish, so English it was). We took advantage of it a little, slipping fast-paced slang to each other when we didn’t want them to here something.
=====“They went to the bathroom,” Aaron replied.
=====“Oh, okay.”
=====I unsuccessfully tried to hide a wince as I gulped down another mouthful of cheap red wine from a tiny clear plastic cup. Two bottles for ten—sometimes quantity beats quality, fuck what they tell you in school. I was pulling up blades of grass one by one as my friends talked to the two French girls, pulling gently and gradually adding more and more pressure, trying to pull up the whitish bottom part—someone showed me how you could do that back in elementary school, ever since whenever I’m sitting on grass I find myself doing it; just another one of my endless nervous habits.
=====We were sitting on one of the long lawns that stretch out from the base of the Eiffel tower in a line, like the red carpet of a movie premiere, but green, and not continuous, but broken into segments. The last electric blue twinges of twilight had long since faded into a deep midnight blue bordering on black. Streetlamps lined the sides of the green, splashing us with just enough pale orange light to see pretty clearly.
=====I drifted back into the conversation. My friends—Aaron, Ivan, and Peter—were asking the French girls—Marin and Alyssa were the first names that came to mind, but I wasn’t sure whether I was remembering them correctly or just making those up—about Paris. The conversation was fairly amusing to watch, it’s always funny seeing awkward teenage boys trying to spit game at girls; not that I was any less awkward, I just didn’t even put in the effort to try most the time.
=====A sparkling light in my peripheral vision made me turn my head to the tower. Various lights were flashing on and off in a coordinated sequence all over it, a dizzying pattern of light dancing up and down the metal mesh frame.
=====“Does it just come on randomly?” I asked. It was the first thing I’d said in minutes.
=====“No, it, uh…” Marin (or whatever her name actually was) said. Her head tilted slightly and her eyes searched the top of the insides of her eyelids for the words. Her eyes re-descended. “It comes on every hour.”
=====I looked down at my watch: 12:00. “That makes sense.” I said, and then settled back into silence.
=====“I’m gonna go take a piss,” Ivan said as he stood up.
=====“Yeah, same here,” Peter seconded, and followed Ivan as he headed off in the direction of the bushes off to the side of the green.
=====“Where did they go?” Alyssa asked Aaron. We discovered early on in the conversation that if we said anything idiomatic, quickly, or softly (or better yet, some combination of the three), they had no idea what we were saying, since their English was pretty rudimentary (our French was non-existent, and neither of them spoke Spanish, so English it was). We took advantage of it a little, slipping fast-paced slang to each other when we didn’t want them to here something.
=====“They went to the bathroom,” Aaron replied.
=====“Oh, okay.”
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