Millennial F*ck, an excerpt
I think it makes sense that I scratch rhymes with my too long too clean nails into $1500 digital landscapes made by factory workers with office views of suicide nets. Ok.
Now I’ll read Eichmann in Jerusalem to distract myself from the easy non-choices that are choices to ignore evil which is just ignorance in the first place. Ignorance and lack of information are the playgrounds of chaos. Entropy is handed the reins, and the bit scratches and irritates, you crunch and scrape and pull against it, pawing the earth, blood drips drips to the ground, flounders for a moment, surface tension intact until it collapses and just a dark red stain muddies the stolid brown of the ground.
I guess I’ll turn around and.. sshit|bump> “Excuse you,..me, sorry, my bad” the slurry of slurred words that purloined your confidence and sequestered it behind the ear of the being you bumped into, they’ve decided to ignore double jeopardy and stand you up at your own trial, because “you’re excused” ricochets back to you. Their eyes glance away, an eyelash surfs off the glare of a smooth cheek, fluttering in the pregnant pause between you, hitting the floor and scurrying through the jet streams that navigate the room through table and chair legs and in and out of windows and doors as though each molecule of oxygen and nitrogen and carbon dioxide and argon and the OTHER 1.4% were trying to enter and escape prison with the speed and chaotic certainty of each individual’s softly rasping breath.
They’ve moved on, sat down a few steps away, gambled a surreptitious glance your way, maintained a stoic posture, eyes and mouth tuned to a neutral emotional frequency, a state so measured it implies a conscious undertaking. You’re frozen in time, I mean, where you are..in…in like, space-time. Oh shit..the only way I know where I’m located is because I know where other things are located. Triiippy…damn you got distracted. Attention arrested, taken in for questioning, tortured and..gawd damnit you’re still distracted, and now you’ve been standing in the same spot for what MUST be several minutes. No wait, just 30 seconds…32 seconds. I need to make a decision.
“Hi, um..” I put my hand on the table and their eyes look up at me, big glassy eyes, open and inquisitive, perhaps…
“Yes?”
“No, I just, sorry, can I sit?”
They gesture to the seat across from them. Raw sugar crumbs decorate the seat, then pelt the floor, sent scattered by my haphazard swipe that I had to repeat since I missed a good 2/3rds of the fucking granules.
They clear their throat.
“Sorry, yes, suree.” I slump down, leaning forward and away, hands folded and rested on my lap, clenched and relaxed as I fluctuate between clammy-sweaty anxiety and slow-breath-in artificial zen. I breathe out, slowly so as not to spatter their burgundy leather jacket with errant spittle. It’s a nice jacket.
“I just wanted to apologize, and talk to you, um..sorry I don’t know what to say, the words are escaping me.”
“Well, run after them if you can, I’ll just wait here with my coffee.” They bring their heavily jeweled hand to their face, the light from the window reflects off unpolished silver, makes me squint, turn my head to look out the window, and inhale a stifled breath.
“Did you feel that?” I shivered in the breeze from the window.
“What?” they shiver. “Oh.” they follow my gaze to the window.
“Weird,” they say in a faint whisper. The window is closed. I look back at them, breathe in again.
“So, did you feel it a bit before, when I ran into you?”
“I ran into you, i think.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Ok.” Their gaze pierces mine, stabbing but not accusatory. I flinch.
“The breeze, the same breeze i think, it hit me when we ran into each other.” I nod my head in deference to this compromise. They smirk and shake their head, not quite imperceptibly. They slurp a sip of their latte and I’m momentarily hypnotized by the swirling of the latte art, brown and white and beige spiraling into a bubbly grave, or maybe Nirvana, through a soft-lipped portcullis.
“Yes, and..”
“Well, that’s strange, right? I mean, it’s never happened before. Has it happened to you?”
They shake their head. “Doesn’t mean it means anything.”
“Buuut it doesn’t make any sense. And it happened at a particularly coincidental moment.”
“So what, should we go out, make love, take this as a sign? Shall we go rollerskating and dancing and traveling and end our lives in terrific happiness together, lost in old age?” They blink in mock wonder, mouth agape, then return to their drink, giggling softly, evidently proud of themselves.
“Not necessarily..” I speak softly, my words barely intelligible, then trail off, unsure of how to respond.
“Then what?” They’re bemused by my rickety confidence. I’m slipping through the crack in their smile.
“Well, since it happened, I think maybe we should spend some more time together just in case it does mean something.” I straighten my back, crack my neck, stretch my shoulders, eye their well-manicured hands as they nervously pick at the splintering wood of the tabletop.
“Fine.” They say, in a voice that sounds both perturbed and elated, who’s mixed signal temporarily abrogates my seriousness. I giggle a little too quickly and a little too loudly. Their eyes roll.
“Umm, alright. Lets go for a walk.” They stand up too quickly to be suave and too slowly to be nervous.
As I follow them to the front of the cafe and out the door, the bright-white sun-lit portal they lead me through momentarily invades their silhouette, trapping their edges at 186,000 miles per second, blinding me into a stumble through the doorway.
…34 seconds…37 seconds…
You sit down at your table, pick up Eichmann in Jerusalem again and pretend like you didn’t feel the breeze through the closed window, too cold for the summer, envelop your form and their form as you touched. You pretend like you don’t feel this pull towards them, their fitted clothes rustling as their legs cross out of the corner of your eye. You pretend like you're reading, and they pretend like you don’t notice them get up, deposit their emptied mug in the bin, and slide neatly into the seat across from you.
You don’t look up, you can feel their gaze, exploring and searching. You feel like an object of their amusement. You look up. They’re just staring. Stoic. Not sad, just..neutral. Unruffled. You go back to your book.
They emit a long drawn-out sigh, turning their head and setting their mouth in a *harrumph* of annoyance. Their legs cross and their arms cross and they settle into their seat, evidently camping out to await something that they must assume is inevitable.
“It’s inevitable, this conversation” Their voice is not low, but it’s not high-pitched, it’s comforting and calm, measured. I look up and into their eyes, dark eyes imply a dark soul, if such a thing were to exist.
“Sorry, um, what..what did you say.”
“C’mon, don’t be stupid. Please don’t be stupid..er..at least…don’t be stupid intentionally.” They lean forward with their elbows on the counter, chin resting on the backs of their clasped hands. A smile escapes their carefully concealed mask, and I look down in unintentional embarrassment, returning their smile with a muffled chuckle.
“Ok. Then shall we converse? Enter into a discussion over what was obviously felt by the both of us.”
“You talk funny.”
I blush.
“I don’t mind. I mean, unless you want me to mind, in which case…nah, I still won’t mind.” They sound confident, but it may be an act, they may be just as confused and nervous as I.
“Fine, but we can’t…can we not do it here? I mean, lets put some distance between us and that window.”
“Fine,” they say, in a voice that sounds both perturbed and elated, who’s mixed signal temporarily abrogates my seriousness. I giggle a little too quickly and a little too loudly. Their eyes roll.
“Umm, alright. Lets go for a walk.” They stand up too quickly to be suave and too slowly to be nervous.
I stand up. I clench my hands, wipe the sweat on my jeans, follow them to the door. They stop suddenly and do an about face, but I got distracted by a napkin that blew through their legs and so didn’t notice their abrupt repentance, and so I bump into them again and it is colder and quieter in our little bubble for a half-second, and we both take a sharp breath in, possibly out of fear possibly out of desire possibly out the door.
Your silhouette joins theirs and you both stumble through the the bright-white sun-lit portal, trapping your edges at 186,000 miles per second.
…40 seconds…43 seconds…
They grab your hand and pull you to the door, wrenching your focus away from the grain of the wood floor to the soft symmetry of their face, only their face is grim and determined, eyes wide with constrained fear. They shove you out the door into the glare of the portico.
…49 seconds…53 seconds
“EVERYBODY DOWN. OPEN THE REGISTER YOU WORTHLESS FUCK. AY YOU, YOU IN THE LEATHER JACKET, GET OVER HERE. NOOO, DON’T PRETEND LIKE YOU DONT HEAR ME GET THE FUCK OVER HERE. THATS RIGHT. NOBODY BE THE HERO AND WE’LL ALL GET OUTA THIS JUST FINE. AIN’T THAT RIGHT SWEETIE? EH? EHHHHHH? ANSWER ME WHEN I TALK TO YOU! I SAID: AINT THAT RIGHT SWEETIE? THATS BETTER.
WHAT’S TAKING SO LONG WITH THE REGISTER? YOU’VE GOT 20 SECONDS BEFORE I BLOW THIS BEAUTY’S BRAINS ALL OVER THIS NICE COUNTER YOU HAVE HERE.
FUCK, WHAT’D I SAY ABOUT HEROES? *bang
*bang *bang *bang
Dust motes settle into the blood on the floor, spurned by the squirming limbs of the dying barista. The motes dodge a tackle that lands on the surprised gunman’s face, and coalesce in a puddle at your feet.
A cool breeze from the closed window snatches your gaze from the unconscious gunman and the ‘heroes’ circling him, and tosses it onto the bloodied temple of your chance encounter. Their lips are moving in an unconscious prayer. You sit down on the floor, lay down next to them, their body starts shaking in shock, joining your own rattling form. You pull them against you, stanching the flow of blood from their grazed temple. The breeze continues, warming as it flows. This bubble is quiet. Their breathing slows, plateaus. I close my eyes.
…1 minute…53 seconds…49 seconds…43 seconds…40 seconds…37 seconds…34 seconds…32 seconds…30 seconds…
the wood floor gleams, chatter pitter-patters across the room, glancing off window panes, sunglasses, book covers, eye lashes, your hands, their hands. I sidle up to them, open my hand and gently tap their shoulder, motioning towards the back. They shake their head, and grip my hand too tight.
50 seconds…51 seconds…52 seconds…
