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he
and she 1-16 he and she #1 the temperature was such that it could be called cool or warm depending
on the person. the green trees played host to a picnic in the big backyard.
it was just the two of them sitting on the comforter that was not a picnic
blanket ever before. he always seemed to like her more when she was mad. "I am not like my mother." she reached for the pack of camels.
she pulled a cigarette halfway out, thought for a moment, and then pushed
it back in. the cellophane wrapper and the pack itself was not sure- was
it happy to receive the cigarette back, or did the pack feel useless?
unwanted? it sat perplexed near the blanket in the grass. A woman across the way in the restaurant spoke of the olympic basketball
games- he looked over at their table, and without reservation and a bit
of food in her mouth, the older woman asked, "do you know who won
the game?" he realized that she was talking to him. it sparked a
short and small conversation about another olympic hopeful who by someone's
evil miracle did not make the tryouts. another table joined in- just for
a moment- and then they all went back to their own food and business.
the boy loved it when strangers would talk- it made the world seem so
much more actively welcoming. he wanted to say it, but he didn't want
to seem freaky. he had been trying to enjoy things instead of comment
about them from the outside, even if the comment was genuinely positive. he watched the cars go by outside on the highway and let one of them drive him home to his backyard to when he was with her.she said, with a cigarette finally in her mouth, that they hated each other when they were together. "we should just figure out which plans or circumstances give us problems, and avoid them." he was shirtless on the fabric in the sun. she exhaled quickly to speak quickly. "that's a cop-out." she sniffled gently amidst her strong words. "you have to make things work in all situations." he knew it was true. he said so. he stayed motionless on the grass.
he and she #2 "all these prophesies float around me like multicolored keys bouncing in the sky with tied-on strings." he traced his name on the dusty dashboard of the car. he didn't want to tell her that she held the opposite end of one of the strings. despite her proposed want for him to have everything, he knew she silently sang 'be with me.' it wasn't always secret. she was pretty, but she was beautiful to him in a different way. she had a boyfriend anyhow, and would also be moving back to school soon. so what could he do but secretly love her back. she gave him everything he wanted in one word. freedom. the car turned into the driveway in the woods and they both got out. she went around back to find her boyfriend on the porch.
she rubbed lotion on her face in the mirror in the bathroom while he
wrote in his journal in the connecting bedroom. she was now painting her
nails on the bed. when she turned around on her knees to shut the window,
he saw how nice her body was for the first time. he sipped his beer and
wondered if he would tell his girlfriend if anything happened with anybody.
yes, he did owe her that- but he needed to be with somebody. her swinging
legs danced with the smoky air to the music coming through the speakers.
the spandex shorts confirmed her shape. he took another sip of beer. he
was so tired of his morality bashing down his masculine drives both day
and night but mostly night. the next morning he would call himself lucky
if fate kept her clothes on all night. he leaned back and licked his lips.
he hoped she would think his lips were only dry, instead of dry and wanting.
the waterfall smashed against the rocks below. the lush green of the
quiet palms caught the small drops which resored the sun's gentle cracks.
the roads that circle the site are practically flat with only small pebbles
standing to obstruct he and there. from the road, the rush of water can
easily be heard- the mud underneath the water hears perfectly the silence
of the road. there is a young boy off in the distance his figure at first
so faint, and then only faint. he is wearing cut-off blue jeans and has
a towel around his neck. far away in the city, she thought about him as her fingers softly circled his picture. a tear formed slowly and edged over to fall but never did.
he and she #5 the waitress practically dropped the sprite on the table and went back to the other side of the room. the two of them sat at a small round table with pens and paper. she ashed her cigarette and began to write a story. she did not know where to begin. he just wrote whatever. the lounge was filled with careless chatter. people hurried by outside. they had some time before their flight. every so often she would ask him how to spell something. it was charming that she was so knowledgeable but somehow couldn't spell the word 'lit.' they were an interesting couple. once she told him that their relationship was not much more than eating, fucking, and talking about their past lives. they travelled light. fully equipped with only their notebooks, their
anger, their love, and their insight. he looked at his ticket and decided
they had plenty more time to write. he took a drag of his cigarette, a
sip of his drink, another drag, then went back to his writing.
in the flicker of the theater, his hand reached over to her knee and rested momentarily before sliding towards the edge of her mini-skirt. she slapped him with her right hand, and a few slippery kernels of popcorn bounced from the box she held in her left. the scene on the screen dragged on, and a cough shot up from the back of the large rectangular room. she told him 'just as friends' when she accepted his date offer with her fingers strangled in the jumbled phone cord. she knew that this would happen, but she thought that maybe- maybe- things would be different this time. as she crossed her legs carefully so as not to kick the seat in front of her, she realized that this would be the last time. he looked at her face- half soft amber and the other a gentle strobe of black and white. he nervously laughed, "i was only kidding."
he and she #7 the big gate that usually waved them down the road to the beach was chained shut this time. the old links that looped through the yellow gate and around the yellow pole wanted to apologize; it was only doing its job. she shifted into reverse and turned the car around. he said he was tired, but that he wasn't tired. she said the same thing. they went to the park neatly nestled in a forest and sat on swings. they went slowly back and forth at first, his hands gripping tightly the cool links. she put her fingers through her hair and inhaled deeply in perfect measure as she rose and fell again. he began to sweat as he burst towards the sky. he was so high. she could hear him breathing hard now- it only made her push harder. she let out a squeek of excitement- they let gravity swing them to a stop. they headed off to the merry-go-round, and never spoke about the swings again
he and she #8 the elevator doors clumsily opened on the 6th floor. she stepped in and said hello to him. the doors shut, and the elevator began to ascend. she asked him to push '12' but stopped halfway through when she saw the circle that meant 'floor 12' had already been set aglow. they looked at each other and laughed.
he and she #9 the glossy wood floor saw the reflection of the table that held the telephone. the clock on the other side of the room ticked out four minutes slow before the ring of the phone bounced across the apartment. the long rings took turns with silence seven times before the answering machine clicked on. the purr of the outgoing message crawled on for a few moments before being halted by a beep. crackles of silence came through the two inch speaker. "hi- it's me- i- well, call me- when you get- hello? are you there? call me when you get home- I thought we were, well- weren't we supposed to- just call me."
he and she #10 she sat inside the t.v. looking out at him and seemed to say 'you cannot
have me now or never but how you want me so.' he leaned back in the lay-z-boy
and clunked it back into a recliner. he watched her wet lips through the
tube and mouthed silently, 'yes, yes, I do,' his eyes magnitized to the
tiny red, green, and blue phosphor dots. from upstairs, his wife's voice
whined his name. he was trapped in the television's blue spray.
he and she #11 what was so special about kissing, and why didn't he ever see sparks. did people actually see sparks? and if they did, shouldn't he be seeing them now? they rolled around on the bed, kissing and kissing, and kissing. she slid his tongue in and out of her mouth so rhythmically that soon it seemed like sex to him, and he knew that she was thinking the same. they did a wonderful job of steering away from actual sex. they'd been together for several nights, and either of them under different circumstances would have done it on the first night, but this was somehow different. this made them feel good.
he and she #12 he was at work. she had 3 hours and 45 minutes left to relax. if she were lucky, she could fall asleep and steal peace while he was at home for a change. but kathy was over, trying to meddle again. she had only heard the bad things about bruce. she never heard the good
things. and there were so many- there truly were. he painted brilliant
scenes onto the canvases strewn across the basement. he was very successful,
owning a chain of art supply stores- and was a great lover to boot. "he doesn't beat me, he just hits me sometimes," she said to
kathy as she her fingertip lightly pressed a new bruise she had on her
theigh. "he's a passionate artist. it just goes along with the territory."
she looked down at the vacuum laying on the kitchen floor. suddenly, she
had the strange feeling the whole house was inside the vacuum, and at
any moment somebody could start it. the plates would rattle and shake,
the crystal figures would hop off their shelves in the living room. the
whole while, kathy had apparently been speaking. "hello?? are you
okay? maybe you should see somebody about this." "no, i'm okay.
i'm just tired." she edged around to peek at the living room shelves.
"you know i wouldn't give a shit if you didn't call me crying at
two in the morning-" "well that's because you are my friend.
you are my friend, aren't you?" "yes, you are, and that's exactly why i can't stand to watch you go through this!" kathy's voiced elevated to mock her, "if he does this one more time, im leaving." "yeah, i guess you're right," she sighed up and away from the table. it was clear that she stopped listening to kathy long ago. she opened up the refridgerator door and grabbed a beer. she paused for a moment before grabbing a second. she shut the door quickly- a rush of air ticked pages of a calendar on the other side of the room. looking out the bay window at the sea silently, she sat with her fingers peeling the tag from the cool wet bottle.
he and she #13 she served him coffee. she wore a nametag on her white blouse. "cute
girl," he thought, "but that's all." he spun the salt shaker
gently as her voice caught his ear from the kitchen. her face was beautiful-
a beautiful box… so well structured. beautiful in its architecture,
he begged fate to pull her around the corner again, so he could see the
masterpiece her parents painted not more than 20 years ago. her smile…
her smile… and the way she holds her eyes. her snappy hello and pursed-lip
smile for whomever. these things made her 19 years old. her face beamed
naivety- perhaps that's why he liked her so- the bundle of innocence inside
her head- at least til now and holding. she would want him in the worst
way- and wouldn't understand the rigor. the lightheartedness, the pure
safety distance he would offer. he felt ten years older than she was,
but he was only two. he looked at her strong beautiful neck. long. he thought about leaning
over and tapping it so gently with his lips- underneath her jaw bone halfway
between her chin and her ear. it would be a soft kiss- yet slowly hard
enough that he could feel her jaw bone just below his nose. he would move
up to her quickly and back off slowly. he would lie in his bed and look out the window with tired, caffiene pumped wide eyes. his love life was a constant road trip down the same highway- back and forth- to hell and back, every single time. lust- confusion- breakup- more lust- pick her back up- he knew the highway by heart. he must've made the trip a thousand times- every passenger was slightly different at the beginning: a wonderfully tasty stew of looks, spirituality and intelligence- pure savvy no matter what. by the end of the trip they would all end up a little more similar: drowning in a pool of faults, shortcomings, and the slightest facial blemish, before he became so ill at the sight he had to dump her off right on the shoulder and speed away. he'd be back though. he craved a cigarette badly as he eyed his cup of coffee. he laughed
to himself as he imagined the next time she came to the table. "go
away!!" he'd yell at her. she would be horrified- the restaurant
would fall completely silent expect for the tinny radio in the ceiling-
a woman laughing about the traffic she watched from a helicopter. "go-
you don't want me! you'll only get hurt!" the manager would already
be on the phone to the police. they had to get that loony out of there.
they would love to kick his ass themselves, but they couldn't possibly
in front of the other customers. they had to hit him to stop his screaming
as they shoved him into the plastic back of the police car. the words echoed in her head as she stared at the television in her bedroom. the walls were flickerly flushed with greys and blues. she had always pegged him as a weirdo. he'd come in and write for hours at a time. just drink coffee and smoke like a banshee if he had cigarettes with him. she turned off the television and stood up from her bed. she walked to the bathroom to wash her face in the mirror. she stretched her eyes as far as they would open on their own. she squinted at her beautiful portrait. there was a small tickle just underneath her jaw bone. she slid her right hand up her side and onto her neck halfway between her chin and her ear. she sniffled as she squinted again. she reached over and flipped off the light.
he and she #14 the road crept on into the balmy night. she said to him "i want
to take you away for awhile- you would bring your guitar. i would feed
you and make you healthy. no beer, no drugs, no cigarettes. far away-
near water. i want to take you away and just love you.
he and she #15 the clock above the mantle read eleven-oh-seven. geraldo rivera's voice was coming from the living room to the right. he wanted badly to leave. he tapped his foot. she came down the stairs and sat on the third from the bottom and put on the tennis shoes she had in her hands. still eleven-oh-seven. 'shit' she whispered. she turned and ran up the stairs. eleven-oh seven. eleven-oh-eight. she ran down the stairs and straight to the door. she swung it open and looked back at him- "c'mon," she said, as if she had been waiting for him the whole time. the road to the usual restaurant was under construction, so they went a different way tonight. the moon in the periwinkle sky was they same moon that watched over all the other cars on that side of the planet. watching the worriers and the confident- the frightened and the bold. they arrived at the restaurant five or ten minutes later than usual, but it was the same great diner all the same.
he and she #16 they sat in a cool night's desert under a curving blanket of stars. that
evening, they were the only two people in the world. they were alive alone
apart from culture's pull- fate's generosity snapped them out of politic's
shackles- free to simply live, and interact with each other, each other's
other, and no-one else. the world was built for them.
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