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The Strangest Places. |
| Written by Nunyo Bidness | |
| Tuesday, 04 March 2008 | |
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Share it:      He kept talking, sunk into the couch on the living room. He was a mess; in his speech, and out of it. His eyes were round and glossy, lost, like they were on lunch. When I asked him questions, they weren't answered. His mind was venting out, with or without an audience, so I stuck around to help him out if it got too bad. I sat in a secondhand recliner across from the pale green couch he was on and turned on the television. He kept talking, same pace, same tone. "Something attractive about her. Not talking about physically. It was so unrelated to the physical that I couldn't imagine a night with her," he stopped, like nothing was left to say. I got up from the recliner and opened an anthology of stories and thumbed through the contents. A Chekov. He snapped back into it. "More like something you just knew. The first sentence she spoke fit where so many didn't. Not like the last piece in a puzzle. More like a key in a door. And that's what kept me with my eyes open so wide," he paused, and for the first time, looked to me for something. "You know, really looking at it?" I nodded. "It was bad, man, **** was it bad. I was looking everywhere, when I was walking around school or even at restaraunts or stores, just for her." The television was a gargle behind his speech that was building volume. I got up and poured a glass of water. Then I poured another and gave it to him. He was fading in and out of his speech. It went down the same road, reverse or forwards, about this girl. It was the wine talking. "Hell, man," echo of a last hurrah. "I tried. It's just not up to me. ****, do I want it to be. But it isn't, you know?" I nodded. "I just hate losing. And I guess that's all it is, you know? I don't think I ever stood a chance. It was put right in front of me and there wasn't a chance in hell I could win." He was down on himself, harder than most of the time. So sincerely that it made me anxious. "It's just hard. Knowing that she's going to be up there, and I'll never get up there." He turned from me back up to the ceiling. He faded out and the room became silent except for the chattering television. I'd give it twenty before I step out. Better make it thirty, I thought. I muted the television and started reading Chekov from the anthology. His writing is daunting. It is untouchable to the last word. I could spend a lifetime sitting under a tree writing, and I wouldn't be half as good. I finished the story, put the anthology back on the shelf, brought a blanket to him, and picked the bottle of wine off the floor and onto the kitchen table. I finished a glass of water and left the house. That Chekov. I'm going to have to re-read his stuff, I thought. There was something about it, something so perfect, so raw, so unrefined and still so demanding, that once you finished his work, everthing else seemed ugly. Copyright 2008 Nunyo Bidness |
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 13 March 2008 ) |
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