43 posts tagged “fragment”

"I believe I told you to wait for me upstairs, Bee."

Lamia sighs with that familiar mix of frustration and delight only a sister can feel for an older brother. It has been months―a year, probably, at this point―since she has last seen Schützen, and she expects that this will be the last time they will meet for perhaps another year. From her perch upon a love-seat in the lobby of the Hotel Clematis, she smiles at his appraisal of her, his supreme cool detachment. She knows that he is angry with her for disobeying his wishes (orders, really; it is not like him to "wish"), and that fills her with an absurd sense of joy. Their relationship is like this: calculated, brisk, businesslike. Secretly she revels in it, loves him terribly for it.

"I know, Schü. I wanted to see if you'd actually come down here to find me, or if you would just blow me off like last time."

He smirks: a small twitch of the lip that, were Lamia not his sister, she would not have understood. "I'd never do that to you, dear one."

"Of course not." This is her role in his game: to placate him. "Shall we go up to your office, then?"

Schützen takes a watch out of his vest pocket, checks it, and tucks it away in one deft movement. "You've wasted too much of my time already." Lamia's heart swells: she is proud of this, of making herself a nuisance, of making herself some creature of import to Schützen. They have been apart so long that takes she consolation in whatever attention he gives her. "You know that the wedding is soon."

Suddenly her smile disappears.

"No, actually, I didn't," she replies, eyes flashing as she looks past him toward the front desk. A group of schoolgirls in uniform mill about the desk, improbably amounts of luggage barricading them from the leers of suited middle-aged passers-by. They giggle as the men pass, as conscious of their power as they are afraid of it. Their laughter reminds her of the tides of the ocean: spontaneous, organic. "I don't recall ever receiving an invitation."

"I sent one to whichever address you gave me last time you moved." His voice is smooth, malicious. "Rather, Mae sent it out."

The name hangs in the silence between them: a curtain, thick damask and dark. Lamia is sure this is a test of her fidelity, her allegiance to him, and she knows that she will submit. She always has. "Give me the date and I'll be there."

"I thought you would say that." Schützen smirks again, handing her a small ivory envelope retrieved from a pocket of his crisp, pinstriped suit. "It's the 28th of this month. Here, of course, in the Grand Ballroom. I do hope you'll attend." They both know he means: Of course you'll attend.

Her heart is heavy in her chest, dead weight. Without words, she nods. It is enough to appease him. A full, rich smile plays at the corners of Schützen's lips: a knowing thing. "We'll see you there. Now you'll excuse me―I have a meeting."

As abruptly as he appeared, he is gone. Lamia watches the throng of schoolgirls, suitcases and cell phones in tow, board the elevator, before readying herself to leave. As the elevator's door shuts, the lobby becomes thick with quiet, and Lamia is alone.

Tonight I glimpsed you in your old age. Why a man's voice deepens as he moves past his prime into his factorial self I'll never understand; my voice will thin and stretch as I become round and full with daughters, rich blood. Even so, your unkempt elder-self, humming a verse like a Degas painting, passed through the door stridently, as if commanding me: Distill these thoughts into words. Like this dark stranger you will be untrained and coercive, an unintentional muse, your notes insistent as they descend from your sharp tenor to the bass I do not yet know but already love; you too will pass through the door into the dim, unremarkable streets.

The beautiful part of picking up a girl who works the deli counter at a supermarket is that she must always be at least eighteen. There are no questions of a woman's age, then; no awkward admissions that one is underage and therefore not a real target for my lust. A utilitarian concept, for sure, but then, I'm like that: a utilitarian kind of guy.

"There ain't no heaven and I been doin' fine, jus' fine."

Hello, rain. Hello, vanity.

"I feel so low -- all hookers and gin."

What does your name mean and why did your parents choose it for you? 
Submitted by mommy2two.

Queenly chaste statue of a thing.

We watched the watchmaker drown.

It was then I realized the madness of men and the madness of women as separate things, differential lusts: escapes.

I didn't believe there was a problem, not yet at any rate, because there wasn't anything akin to sorrow scratched into his face. If you looked you could maybe see the beginnings of frustration making its mark across his forehead, a few new sullen lines where the skin had once been taut, but certainly never sorrow. Perhaps I wasn't looking hard enough. I've often been accused of looking without seeing. But each night we slept facing each other, our noses barely touching, a sleep so close as to make it impossible to ignore the development of a face's landscape, its new landmarks, when one was awake to complete the study. I rarely slept when we were like this, actually, because his sleep was so peaceful that it seemed to refresh the both of us. With him I was an insomniac: watching him sleep was enough, just enough, to keep me rested through the new day that spread through the blinds every morning. Which is why I feel I can say with some authority that I didn't believe there was a problem, not yet: he gave no outward indication, no notice of the coming loss.