Cosmic Punch Line.
I walk out the glass doors into a thunderstorm. I'm in the blackest of all moods. Goddamned ratfuckers and mouthbreathers. I submitted that paperwork on three separate occasions. I gave them two months warning, and now I'm scrambling to keep my fucking job with them because they're ignorant vile shitweavers. Once again, I know hate. The familiar tingle of repressed violence settles in my extremities. I am in control. I am serenity incarnate. I'm the stillness of the inferno. I'm the quiet after Ragnarok. I am the eye of the hurricane. I am serenity incarnate. I am in control. I will my right fist to unclench. I begin trying to recall an old Germanic word that roughly translates to 'the aftermath of a battle where the blood, gore, and gristle comes to the height of a man's mid-calf but does not exceed the height of a man's knee.'
"Hey Jack,"
I spin around midstep only to catch jet hair and brown eyes. I was so down in my own shit I hadn't seen her. Caught off guard, my heart immediately immolates in a spectacular show of yearning. Jesus Christ almighty, I hadn't seen her standing there. It's like missing the fucking sun. The small part of my brain dedicated to rudimentary social graces immediately recognizes the emergency and slams into action, but I'm a marionette. Everything I'm saying I've said a billion times before, and panic begins setting in as I desperately grapple with the very nature of the conversation we're apparently having.
While grasping for some semblance of my usual stiletto wit I find myself staring at her shoes. Black Converse-styled. Black canvas contrasted and highlighted with white rubber stained with usage. Her jeans are somewhat ragged stitched together with what appear to be safety pins. The holes in her jeans have none of the yellowing indicative of strong hole-creating acid or chemical treatments, and most of the warp fibers of the weave are frayed or broken. No strategic fading. It's either authentic wear or hand distressing. So hard to tell these days. She's wearing what appears to be a clingy white men's undershirt with a band logo free-handed across it in permanent marker. Various chokers and necklaces made from materials such as hemp, metal, and glass beads, are arbitrarily layered over each other. It's not high punk, nor the ligan of punk chic that washed across the shores of every mall of America. It's toned down to preserve its power, but still hits all the societal shorthand called for.
I reflexively begin cataloging piercings before I divert my eyes to the mountains off in the distance and the dark clouds rolling over them. The mountains take on a deep purplish green hue with the notable exception of the scar. Right now the scar is a color that can only be described as 'scab red'. I can see where rehabilitation efforts have planted grasses and attempted to lay down the beginnings of an infant forest, however the sheer amount of unnatural stone formations and the red color of the rock in the area punches through our trifling reclamation efforts. I know the soil in that area will stain your clothing a rusty orange.
Every now and then there's a quick blink of lightning in the distance. A few moments later I hear the low rumble of thunder, and a few moments after that I hear the same low rumble as it rebounds off the nearby mountain range. It's as regular as waves at a beach. I hear a slight patter coming off my jacket and I suddenly realize I'm standing in the rain. If I took two steps towards her I'd be sheltered under the building's entrance, but I choose to remain exposed to the elements. I can feel the temperature slump as wet streaks created by the rain evaporate off my jacket. The jacket is waterproof. I feel some droplets falling from my left sleeve onto the back of my hand. I turn my head up towards the clouds and for the first time register the raindrops being driven into my face by the wind in wave after wave of half-mad selbstopfer attacks. The storm has been approaching briskly. I feel the lining of my jacket slick with the rain and consider zipping up. Once again, I choose to remain exposed to the elements.
I take a deep breath. The smell of rain, in fact the smell of any moisture at all, always brings me back to New England. The air is also thick with the smell of lightning. I note a lingering scent of cigarette smoke coming off her that mixes with the other aromas in the air to fashion an utterly enthralling fragrance. It's a tincture of lightning storm and smolder. It's almost industrial in nature.
Suddenly there's a crack of lightning directly behind her. The superheated fractal cast down from the heavens whets all the textures to a razor sharp clarity. Then everything about her is lit up in high contrast. Her hair becomes black as spun pitch, while her skin becomes pure ivory. The glint from various silver and steel piercings is scorched into my retinas. In that moment she is everything that is beatific and terrible in the world. I'm lost in the eternal abyss of brown eyes.
And then I spin around on my heel, and let out a quiet laugh as I walk off. I can recall all of two words from the short conversation I just ended a few seconds ago. And then it dawns on me. I've seen a Manila Bay sunset. It was a scarlet sun that painted black silhouettes of both infinitesimal sailboats and great tropical volcanic peaks as it plunged into the sea. I've seen a blizzard in the Rockies. Massive white plumes of ice crystals that dwarf even the mountains they were violently ripped from by the wind. By the time I get in my car I'm gasping for breath with tears rolling down my cheeks. I attempt to regain my composure as my laughter-wracked body and mind wrestles with a single thought: through sheer happenstance she's leapfrogged over all those visions as the ultimate in esthetic magnificence and she is never, ever, ever, going to know.
"Hey Jack,"
I spin around midstep only to catch jet hair and brown eyes. I was so down in my own shit I hadn't seen her. Caught off guard, my heart immediately immolates in a spectacular show of yearning. Jesus Christ almighty, I hadn't seen her standing there. It's like missing the fucking sun. The small part of my brain dedicated to rudimentary social graces immediately recognizes the emergency and slams into action, but I'm a marionette. Everything I'm saying I've said a billion times before, and panic begins setting in as I desperately grapple with the very nature of the conversation we're apparently having.
While grasping for some semblance of my usual stiletto wit I find myself staring at her shoes. Black Converse-styled. Black canvas contrasted and highlighted with white rubber stained with usage. Her jeans are somewhat ragged stitched together with what appear to be safety pins. The holes in her jeans have none of the yellowing indicative of strong hole-creating acid or chemical treatments, and most of the warp fibers of the weave are frayed or broken. No strategic fading. It's either authentic wear or hand distressing. So hard to tell these days. She's wearing what appears to be a clingy white men's undershirt with a band logo free-handed across it in permanent marker. Various chokers and necklaces made from materials such as hemp, metal, and glass beads, are arbitrarily layered over each other. It's not high punk, nor the ligan of punk chic that washed across the shores of every mall of America. It's toned down to preserve its power, but still hits all the societal shorthand called for.
I reflexively begin cataloging piercings before I divert my eyes to the mountains off in the distance and the dark clouds rolling over them. The mountains take on a deep purplish green hue with the notable exception of the scar. Right now the scar is a color that can only be described as 'scab red'. I can see where rehabilitation efforts have planted grasses and attempted to lay down the beginnings of an infant forest, however the sheer amount of unnatural stone formations and the red color of the rock in the area punches through our trifling reclamation efforts. I know the soil in that area will stain your clothing a rusty orange.
Every now and then there's a quick blink of lightning in the distance. A few moments later I hear the low rumble of thunder, and a few moments after that I hear the same low rumble as it rebounds off the nearby mountain range. It's as regular as waves at a beach. I hear a slight patter coming off my jacket and I suddenly realize I'm standing in the rain. If I took two steps towards her I'd be sheltered under the building's entrance, but I choose to remain exposed to the elements. I can feel the temperature slump as wet streaks created by the rain evaporate off my jacket. The jacket is waterproof. I feel some droplets falling from my left sleeve onto the back of my hand. I turn my head up towards the clouds and for the first time register the raindrops being driven into my face by the wind in wave after wave of half-mad selbstopfer attacks. The storm has been approaching briskly. I feel the lining of my jacket slick with the rain and consider zipping up. Once again, I choose to remain exposed to the elements.
I take a deep breath. The smell of rain, in fact the smell of any moisture at all, always brings me back to New England. The air is also thick with the smell of lightning. I note a lingering scent of cigarette smoke coming off her that mixes with the other aromas in the air to fashion an utterly enthralling fragrance. It's a tincture of lightning storm and smolder. It's almost industrial in nature.
Suddenly there's a crack of lightning directly behind her. The superheated fractal cast down from the heavens whets all the textures to a razor sharp clarity. Then everything about her is lit up in high contrast. Her hair becomes black as spun pitch, while her skin becomes pure ivory. The glint from various silver and steel piercings is scorched into my retinas. In that moment she is everything that is beatific and terrible in the world. I'm lost in the eternal abyss of brown eyes.
And then I spin around on my heel, and let out a quiet laugh as I walk off. I can recall all of two words from the short conversation I just ended a few seconds ago. And then it dawns on me. I've seen a Manila Bay sunset. It was a scarlet sun that painted black silhouettes of both infinitesimal sailboats and great tropical volcanic peaks as it plunged into the sea. I've seen a blizzard in the Rockies. Massive white plumes of ice crystals that dwarf even the mountains they were violently ripped from by the wind. By the time I get in my car I'm gasping for breath with tears rolling down my cheeks. I attempt to regain my composure as my laughter-wracked body and mind wrestles with a single thought: through sheer happenstance she's leapfrogged over all those visions as the ultimate in esthetic magnificence and she is never, ever, ever, going to know.