Spilling Ink in Ecstatic Apathy

I'm Marie. I have many names in fact-but since we all know that which we call a rose by any other name, would smell as sweet-I doubt you care. Hating college student. I write pointless prose and god-knows what else. Periodically I'm even good at it. A proud owner of a time-travelling space-ship. Pen and paper are my inseparble companions on the hunt for inspiration. Let's connect. Creative Commons License
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And has the planet reversed its way back, along the sun-dreched summer path of freshly mowed grass?

And has the ocean boiled up, wind furrowing the reflections of the liquid sun in the pool of carnival stars?

Autumn on her way, pushing away the peach-faced Summer, tearing away the leaves from archaic gold-plated trees, what a hooligan!-hypnotising the nature to sleep. Summer stayed back, like a loving friend giving us more sunshine to drink, pouring warm torrents of joy over our frail bones.

written: summer/2011.

dyingfiction:

there should be a word for that feeling when you are moving through a crowd of strangers, anxiety growing inside of you, rising up to your throat, choking you, and then, out of all the strangeness emerges a face you know, a face you love. there should be a word for that exact moment, that exact feeling, a crashing wave of bliss and relief, your eyes falling on the face of someone you love in a choking crowd of strangers.

Alex was a queer bastard who came round only when he felt like it.

He seemed to be the only person on the entire planet who managed to master the teleportation secret; popping out of nowhere in a little cloud of  visible-to-me-only smoke, and varnishing into thin air as soon the conversation began to run dry.

There was something unbearably grotesque about him, something hilarious about the way he walked bouncing with every step, short, green-chequered blazer, a pair of gargantuan headphones permanently glued to his ears. In addition to that, he had four eyes. Two of them were electric blue radiating scintillating optimism, kindness and confidence that filled me up to the top every time I stood next to him. The other two were crystal clear, set in a black rectangular frames; scrupulous, studying, scanning.

He never introduced himself to anyone. He just thought that it wasn’t important. And he was right. It wasn’t. Perhaps you don’t need a name if you have an identity. You meet somebody once and you know that they will remember you for the rest of their life because of you’ve proved yourself to be unique. Unique as a snowflake. Inimitable.

Every lunchtime he would greet me with a delighted puerile cry, hugging me from the behind and then sit beside me for a solid hour munching his sandwich, absorbedly informing me on everything; from the giant fractals to the latest supernovas to rock’n’roll. Alex was my walking encyclopaedia; he knew dates, people and facts that seemed distant and irrelevant to his field of expertise-science. He was the only person in my life I didn’t mind wasting time on.

Because to me, those were the only hours when I felt that I was properly living my life.

His world had no boundaries and sanity was a stranger in his mind. I often thought that if only one could build a battery powered exclusively by the energy he produced during the day you could easily illuminate an entire city the size of San Francisco; light it up with a billion of rainbow ectoplasmic lights - bring on  Rio de Janeiro!

One day,

        the lights

                 went out.

“Hello Jarvis, and Denis,

         and Janis and all of you-imaginary friends.

I’m so glad to have you here tonight…”

It’s the sudden awareness of utter loneliness that makes me jerk awake at night every now and then. I often have visions of me sitting in some basement of a hundred storey tall sky-scraper, its floors made of crystal glass, secured by shiny beams of steel. There are people walking above me, familiar people, familiar faces. Faces which surrounded me for years, from dawn till dusk, blurring together into a colourful carousel of voices, smiles and gestures. I see them, effortlessly floating above, interacting, smiling at each other, shaking hands, when all of a sudden they stop and look down until they notice me. Ecstatic I begin to wave and shout, like a passenger on a ship that’s about to get devoured by the hungry ocean. But their faces remain cold and indifferent, they tilt their heads to the side like monkeys in the zoo. But who is the monkey? I am the monkey, sitting at the bottom of a vacuum glass well, waving, grimacing, yelling. Their faces remain cold and distant as always.

Like a broken elevator, which hawser snapped under the weight of anguish, my mind catapulted me back to the reality, making me sit up in my half-warm bed. The neon display of my alarm-clock showed 2 a.m, and my head was heavy and hollow like cast-iron, the shadow of sleep long gone from my room through the half-open window.
In the dim light of my bed-side lamp, I studied the walls of my room as if seeing them for the first time in my life. Pictures of faces, the same old faces that stared at me through the glass sheets just a minute ago now smiled in exultation. In the tangle of arms and heads I could see myself, part of a one big happy gang of youngsters, clasping an ivory piece of paper-my college acceptance letter.


There was a phone book lying beside me, longing to be opened, but never used.Time and time again I’d flick through its yellowing pages aimlessly reading through
the names and number I knew off by heart and slamming it shut again.I wanted to pick up the receiver and dial in the first number that came to my head.I wanted to sit all night long and listen to the distant din of familiar voices on the other end of the wire, whispering Chinese riddles and Voltaire to fill in the empty pages of my heart.

And there I was. Slouching against the grease-covered windows, tired, the colour long gone from my face.  I tried standing up straight; regain my natural posture of pure confidence and scintillating arrogance. I tried hard. My very own feet seemed to mock me sliding along the spit-covered floor while my legs were no longer flesh but plush. My face was melting and the gruelling pain in my guts made me feel as if I’ve swallowed a dozen of live snakes.

I thought it would be sad to end my frolicsome days here, in this stinking wagon of the metro-train surrounded by the expressionless faces of people I never knew. People everywhere. We were like sardines in a tin. We were the Terracotta Warriors packed deep hundreds of metres under the city. Silent, indifferent and grey. Everybody stared around the walls, desperately avoiding making contact, studying the kettle and toaster adverts pretending they’ve never seen anything more interesting in the lives.

The train tore along the dark tonne screeching and shaking violently. Ever since I was a kid, the tunnel scared the hell out of me. It wasn’t the dark that made me shiver, but the idea of being drawn into a narrow tube-like opening, like a piece of litter drawn into the drain. The train would speed up, faster and faster, pulling and pushing at your bones, your soul thrashed by the currents of damp heavy air rushing against your body through the open windows. I wandered how fast the train could go. Sometimes it would go so fast that you’d begin to feel as if you were being squashed between two concrete walls. Eventually your mind would drown in the dark pool of never ending din.

I thought of all the hundreds of people who once stood by the same window as I did gaping for non-existent oxygen over the past thirty years of the train’s existence.  Then I thought how many of them felt the same way as I did about the city, about the country, about their lives. How many of them felt as if they had failed their own ideals and the “history” pouring down on them from their TV screens is merely an optical illusion? How many of them felt spears thrown, piercing through the cosmic existence of their soul? How many of them felt like their outer layer of skin was becoming thicker and thicker day by day with lies like a tortoise shell impermeable to beauty and emotion?

Meanwhile somewhere across the ocean, the day rushed on with cool breeze.