DESCRIPTION
A bit of prose? attempting to leave the reader aware of violent emotions - particularly relating to a desire for the floorboards of society to become the ceiling. [499 words]
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
The auth[or] is a mute who is attempting to communicate by means of exageration and extremity. Although the author is known to suffer from a Grandiose Complex-X, this should be taken with a pinch of salt. [January 2002]
Nympholepsy Rowen Ravera
NYMPHOLEPSY:
n., pl. –sies. a state of violent emotion, esp.
when associated with a desire for something that
one cannot have
In a hired-out and dark room white teeth flash
towards edible underwear. The anonymous spectacle
performed before a revealing window perhaps in a
final attempt at contact, intimacy.
Across the street, in Rudy’s Tattoo Parlour,
Mr Brown gropes for his glasses hoping to see
better what he thinks is a clandestine rendezvous.
His view is obliterated by Old Man’s back, who sits
down on his empty beer crate to role a cigarette
and ruminate on the days when his hands bore no
stains. He reaches his hand into his faded shirt’s front
pocket to retrieve his Drum Halve-shag Rolling
Tobacco, and thinks of the days when they
disappeared into the darkness of strange women’s
cleavage. Instead Mr Brown mumbles to the artist tattooing
his soccer team’s emblem, Manchester United, on
his left buttocks cheek (Mr Brown’s attempt at
belonging, that no one will ever see).
The artist doesn’t listen to Mr Brown, and Mr
Brown doesn’t intend him to. He merely needs to
address his babble to someone.
And Alice stumbles down this deserted street.
She thinks that she is wailing for the loss of
humanity and love, but no one hears her. She
passes by Old Man, almost bumping against his leg
as he sits chewing on his hunger for days gone,
but doesn’t see him through her glazed eyes. Old
Man thinks he’s seen a ghost, checks his tobacco,
decides to see a doctor in the morning.
Mr Brown takes a breath and continues to mumble,
“One should accept life. No use kicking and
screaming about it, won’t change a thing. You’ve
got to accept your portion, eat what’s on you
plate. I always say, Don’t you think?”
He takes another deep breath as the artist lets
him feel an acute pain.
Resuming his mumble Mr Brown continues in his
schoolmaster’s way, assured and self-deluding.
“You find real Steppenwolves,” he says, proud of
this use of literary connection, “people who can’t
reconcile them selves to their fate as part of
society. Can’t accept society, its good and bad.
Live in a dream world, they do. Live on sweets
and delicacies. Can’t accept that sometimes you’ve
got to eat your veggies.”
He pauses, raising his head from the artist’s
cushioned worktable and tilting it to the side
as though considering something monumental for
the first time. “Like Alice. Poor Alice,” his
voice is devoid of pity, but rather bristles with
a quiet bitterness, “poor Alice. So torn from this
society, this reality, that she doesn’t even see
me. Walking as though she can't be seen, doesn't
even see me.”
Just then Old Man gets up and moves on, trailing
his empty beer crate behind him. Mr Brown gropes
for his glasses again, hoping he hasn’t missed the
finale. And Alice walks the deserted street
wailing her demented song that only she and no one
will ever hear.
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