The Exit Flower

“I die daily.”
                                                    ~1 Corinthians 15:31
  
    Chapter One

       Her smile was like an epiphany- questions were answered there, between those two dimples.
     His eyes announced themselves before any other feature on his face; framed in a poetic profusion of eyelashes. 
     The two of them were a juxtapsoition, driving down a narrow street in Rome in a post-war Italian beauty: a red Cisitalia. He wore aviators, while the size of her square eyewear rivaled that of Hepburn's in Breakfast at Tiffany's. She delicately smoked a nat sherman out of a slender holder while he clutched his pipe, stuffed with Columbian plant. He tried to play Heindrix and she   swiftly switched to Cash. She liked London - the city and author. He prefered Paris and Gibran. He spoke Italian. She spoke Portugese. She wanted to be an archietect. He wanted to be a painter. He was an idealist; she, a realist. She liked Jameson, he liked everything. Neither of them liked to cry. One of them wanted to live and the other to die.

    They first met the previous  october. Fall leaves crowned the ground with color. There was the delightful deception  of warmth-promising sun and arctic air. Students scurried about from building to building on the University campus, cradling their hot beverges with care. 
     Safe from the cold, in a classroom that had ample windows ommiting the enthusiastic sun, a demonstrative professor was lecturing before a large body of students. He had just made his ethics class watch the Italian film Life is Beautiful. He paced back and forth, debating about what question to pose at the unaffected faces. He stoped in the middle of the room and looked over his class, “What priority has ethics in human responsibility?” His voice was anchored and resolute, “Was it ethical for the father to conceal the truth from his son about being in the concentration camp?” No resopones. Then a junior who always had an opinion when it was in his scholastic interest gave a knowing smile to his two friends beside him. His smile revealed his pleasure; a pleasure that came from reveling in the glory of their friendship, the strength of youth and having done his homework on time. “Well, professor Brown,” he assumed his finest academic tone while the entire room fell silent to hear him speak, “ethics only exist in relation to a situation. In this case concealing the truth was detrimental. The little boy had the right to know that he or his father could possibly die. Therefore it was unethical, for the father came between his son and his son's entitlement to know the truth.” He finsihed in satisfaction with his conclusion. Professor Brown was willing to challenge him on that claim but waited for another student to speak. The classroom was silent. The sun, never concerned about wearing out its welcome, continued to pour forth into the soundless room. The girl sitting in front of him arched her neck back to look him in the eye,  and said “No. Love trumps ethics”. Her assertion was candid as he would later learn everything she said was.  He suddenly lost all interest to argue under that set of eyes directed toward him. Slanted and inquisitive, they spoke as only eyes can. He was trying to understand their violet eloquence. Her mouth fell like a petal: soft and scarlet. The only response he could give was a stupid, unreserved smile. 
     At the conclusion of class, all the students filed out of the room, tapering through the narrow door like water through a funnel. London's friend Alex turned to him,
“Come my good man, all this talk of right from wrong has made me hungry.”
 “Me too. Hey, are you going to Penley's game tonight?” 
“Yeah, are you?”
“Of course. I am always up for playing those dillitantes he brings.”
“They are not that bad.”
“Your right. They are rather good actually... truly alruistic, throwing all their money away on me.” He winked. The two young students went for the door.

    Penley, Kerouac-inspired, cheerful at gun point, life-lover, always held a poker game on Tuesday nights in the backroom of the restaurent he managed. Having newly become a key holder he felt there was some sort of opprotunity to be had, though he was not certain what. Thus the ritual began as a book club for the academically responsible and inspired, and gradually evolved into drunken exchanges of money. There was a paralell to be drawn between this club and Penley's life. Everything Penley sought to do began with nobility only to be, a few moments later, reduced to liquor and smoke. London and Penley were friends on the basis of their ibibing commonalities. Yet even when they are under the influence of drink it was not wise to play cards with them. Those that did could be thought of as brave, or merely indifferent to the weight of their own wallets. 
	Penley was in the habit of extending invitations to strangers, which he was most apt to do when he fancied their personalities or shoes.  Thus there was no anticipating with whom one would be playing in this evening of cards. London enjoyed the uncertainty as he walked along the Fremont bridge towards the game. He slipped around the backway to the kitchen door and pushed through. He was immediately accosted by the host himself, in a room dressed in smoke and laughter.
“City! Have I got a surprise for you!” Penley had a girlish giggle when he was excited.
“Oh have you?” London took off his coat and looked around about him. There were not  many new guys at the bar. He recognized most everyone and had many quick exchanges with these fellow players as Penley led him into the next room. At the end of the high bar and rows of liquor bottles was the card table. Penley slide his hand along the bar and then picked up one of the beer bottles that waited at the end.
“There is no color darker than black.” Penley cheerfully presented London with the Russian Imperial Sout. 
“Ha!” London tried, but could not be surprised by the beer, as this surprise was eclipsed by another. Sitting at the table was the girl from his ethics class. He did not know how she had managed to become part of the boys club.  She was sitting beside Alisterand was speaking privately with him amongst the noise and boisterous explainations moving around them. Alisterlooked hard. She turned away from him and exhaled smoke with an expression that lacked warmth yet was not decidedly cold. London was a little bewildered by her impossible combination of soft and severe features as well as the map that was tattooed on her upper left arm. She caught his gaze and smiled for a moment but was quickly interrupted by Jonny's request for a drink. She rose slowly, and turning to the boys at the table asked gentle, low tone, “Any requests?” 
 Her offer was gallant, as most of her social gestures were. In fact, all of her manners satisfied a code of etiquette for an Edwardian gentleman. She would have been the perfect gentleman, if she were not so beautiful. 
“This is excellent.” London took a swig of the Russian Imperial.“So, shall we play some cards ladies? That’s what we are here for.” 
Penley congenially took a seat. “Though I do not know why you're here London City. You always have rather unlucky hands.” 
“I would rather have my unlucky hands than your unlucky face.”  London responded while shuffling the deck. He looked across the table to his history classmate Alex. “Are you ready for some hold 'em?” London asked challengingly. Alex looked up rigidly.  The guy was a history buff and a bit cocky. London liked to play with him. 
“We are playing hold 'em?” He seemed disappointed. “I have no problem with community cards. . . but I'm no socialist." 
"Neither am I." London replied and dealt the first hand. He looked over at his friend Talin sitting adjacent to him whose anxiety was transperant on his face. "Man, that poker face of yours Tal... you gotta take some time in the mirrior to perfect it, or else you like a sitting duck."
"Oh am I? Hey, speaking of ducks how is your brother?" Talin threw back.
"Graduating from Caimbridge with all the other ducks, and going on to be richer than God." 
"Good. If he is as easy as you to take advantage of at cards you ought to bring him in here... spread around his wealth you know?" Alex interjected.
"I thought you weren't a socialist." London reminded him.
"No. Just an opprotunist."
"Well, we will see after this. Bets to Al." London slapped the table. Alister always betted boldly and handsomely as he had the inexhastible means to do so. If only he had the talent to sustain his bets. By the end of the fourth round Alex had nearly wiped him out. 
"Awe... just how Bismark tried to bluff Napoleon." Alex mocked Alister on his bluff. Alisterdidn't respond.
"Did you just make some historical reference? Because I missed that. . ." London raised his brow.
"Nah. Something about Napolean Dynamite." Penley dismissed the comment moronically. Alisterrose from the table and went for more bourbon; he needed something sophisticated to mend his wounded pride. (passage of time) Next Penley took out Alex and then London took out Penley. As the alcohol level in everyone's blood rose, attention spans plummeted. Alister left his dwindling pile of chips to Taja and went for a smoke. He pushed through the door and inhaled the cold air. It shocked his smoke-sauturated lungs. He walked along the street and saw Alex standing out on the curb with a mopey face. Alisterwent up to him to ask for a light. “Yeah sure.” Alex lit Jonny's cigaratte. He watched him for a moment, his eyes moving the way eyes do when one's mind is caught in debate. “You know, I never met a rich flounder that can't handle the swings of no limit poker. It seems a bit ironic dosen't it?” He laughed in a twisted manner, waiting for Alister's response. Alister turned away for a moment, then he suddenly turned to Alex full on,
 “Well, hope you can take this swing.” 
      At eleven o'clock London looked about the table and realized the players had sifted down to Talin, Taja, and he. If there was one person he would not mind losing to it was Talin. He was a good player and lost money rather pleasantly.  London imagined he would not last much longer. But he was not sure about Taja. She was difficult to read. She had no style nor patterns to her game.  
      It was eleven fifteen. Taja and he looked at each other and then about the deserted table. She was measuring him up as her strong fingers firmly shuffled the card deck. She dealt him a good hand. When it came to the river he called her. It was close. They had matching cards but different suits. He was pleased. 
“Unfortunately in this game, love can be trumped.” He smiled: his diamonds took her hearts. She watched him gather the pot.
“Fortunately no, or you would be losing.” She mused.
The others were scattered about the room, far too amused with their intoxicated selves at this point to be concerned with the game’s ending. 
     “Hey! City! Did you get the pot did you?” Penley threw his arm around his friend. 
“It would seem so.”  He was sober and a bit jealous that he had to remain so the entire evening in order to win.
“Well,” Penley was excitable, “Looks like we both made out well. You won the pot, and I won pot on a bet that you would get the pot.” London said nothing but acknowledged Penley with a half smile. There was a sudden upheaval of protest and cries coming from outside. It seemed to shock Penley into a state of sobriety. Everyone piled outside, London the most composed of them. A bloody Alex lay on the concrete. Alisterwas over him, his body quivering. Taja ran up to him, her steps light and fast like a deer,
“Jonny! Eh, what are you doin?” Her shoulders were raised and her arms
outstretched in her expressive, rather Italian exclaimation. Alisterdid not acknowledge her. The hauter that usually resided in his eyes had been stirred to a sort of heated madness. He looked like an animal... albiet a white collared animal in his Hugo Boss attaire. Taja came close to his face, raising her hands and speaking fluidly in Portuguese as she always did when adamant. Alisterlooked at her but did not see her. His eyes that were rimmed with rage, cooled to indifference. 
“What happened?” Talin gaped.
“Alex mocked Alisterat the table. What else is there to say?,” another player replied. Several guys came in to carry the beaten boy away. As the sensationalism of the fight died the crowd dissipated. London watched on however, waiting for Alisterto snap. He could see it coming. The heat in his eyes rising, too proud to be angry at himself, it was soon to turn on her. And it did. With a threatening look he turned to her. She dauntlessly remained close. He realised London was watching.  He turned and strode away. Taja stood alone in the street for a moment and then followed him.

      London pulled out his winnings from his inner coat pocket and threw them on his kitchen table. There was a letter from his father laying beside the money. He did not have any desire to open it.  He shuffled through assignment papers, bathed and then leaned against his window that overlooked Lake Union from three stories up. He stood there in his bathrobe for what must have been a half hour, staring at the lights and the little people carrying their many things directly below. He had no thoughts worthy of mentioning or recording, but that he felt as though it was the day after Christmas; as though there was nothing left to open anymore. He poured himself a bit of gin.

Alister entered the door and held it open for Taja who had been following him. She was out of breath from trying to keep up with his long strides. He closed the door behind her and turned to put up his jacket. 
“Should I keep the phone close for when the police call?” She asked cleanly.
“The police aren't comming.” He dismissed her comment and went into his bedroom. 
“I will check the arbituaries in the morning for Alex's name.” She called after him.
“You are so dramatic.” He emerged from his room with a bag of blow and knelt down by the coffee table. “The dude deserved it.”
“If it is about deserving you would be in bad shape,” she teased.
“Oh yeah?” He pulled out an ace from his sleeve.
“Was that from the game?” She laughed in surprise. 
“Its an ace up my sleeve. Its snowing,” he poured the white powder on the table.
“I love it when it snows,” She lit a cigarette in one of her long holders and watched him. He opened his wallet and pulled out two dollar bills. 
“Roll those for me babe.” He handed them to her. She bit her cigarette holder to give herself two free hands. She handed him one and then the other and knelt down next to him. He took the first line. She took the second.
“Mmm.” He sat back and rested the back of his head on the couch. She looked strait ahead in a pensive gaze. She shook herself and took a long drag of her cigarette. 
“Makes you feel rather glamerous dosen't it?” He touched her on the back of the head.
“Makes me feel many other things.” She scratched her nose and laughed. She tried to make another line.
“What are you doing?” He playfully scoffed.
“Ok. You show me how to do it.” She put her hands up and handed the job to him.
“Of course.” He did a perfect job. “There you go, beautiful.” He made two. “One for me, one for you. Ta Ta!” He was giddy.
“This reminds me of that night we went to Jazz Alley. Remember in the bathroom?”
“Couldn’t forget.” 
“Really? You retained memories? I just have vauge impressions.” 
“You were just ‘powdering your nose’. That is what you said to the guy thaty walked in on us.”
“It was true.” She shrugged.
“So how did you do at the game? Did you multiply my chips ten fold?”
“That would have only been ten chips.”
“Ooo. First Alex and now you... can my pride ever recover?” He sniffed.
“You can take it.” She jabed him lightly in the ribs with her elbow.
“I don't know, I think you put out my ego like a cigarette.”
“Like this.” She smothered her cigarette in the ashtray.
“Exactly. Good work.”
“Why thank you.” She put her chin on his chest and looked up at him, “Don't you have a final tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” He paused, “I am not worried... the only 'A' I am concerned with right now is this grade of columbian,” he sniffed again. “Oh, I don't think I told you.”
“Told me what?”
“I am going back to Samos.”
“Ithaca? When? To see your family?”
“Two weeks, to answer the former and 'yes', to answer the latter. We are going to go about the islands for holiday.”
“Mmm.” Her eyes wandered to the window. “Can I come with you?” She spoke with slight disinterest so as to diminish the sting of the inevitable rejection that was to come.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You are too pretty to be around my brothers.”
“Really Al, why not?”
“Next time ok?”
“But I don't want to be here all summer.”
“Maybe I will meet you up north and we can go to Venice.”
Taja twisted her lips in thought. Not entirely content with this decision. She agreed, “ok”.
“Good.” Al pulled his arm out from around her to do another line.

 Taja was not listening. She paused. She shrugged and put out her cigarette.
Trotting about the city.

The innocent trills of birds ebbed through the window crack over the stove. Half dressed, Taja poured water into a kettle for Jonny's coffee. She understood how caffine kept the delicate balance of his moods.  Her eyes were tired. She humed quietly to herself. She was expecting her brother to call from Portugal. The room was still and messy. There were cigarette butts and dollar bills rolled up on the coffee table. The New Yorker was sprawled on the leather couch and floor. It was peaceful till she turned her head suddenly at the sound of a cat's scream. Alister shuffled into the kitchen, recovering from tripping over her cat on his way in. 
“Estúpido, Jonny!” She yelled at him.
“Good lord woman, its eight in the morning. Hey, Is that cafinated?” He ran his hand through his bed hair. 
“Yes.” She said quickly.
“Mm.” He grunted as he took a sip. “Very good.” He kissed her on the nap of her neck and took his steaming cup onto the patio with his paper. He crossed his legs. He stretched out his hand, his knuckles still hurt. She gently set down the animal and reached for her clothing that were swung over the couch. She dressed in the living room, keeping an eye on the phone. She quickly penciled her brows and then used the pencil to twisted up her hair. She agily slipped on a pair of little red flats.  She lazily called out towards the deck “I am going to work,  tchau!” But the way she said good bye seemed industrious in comparison to how he nodded without looking at her, taking another sip of his coffee. 
     She ran down the steps of their apartment, hopped into her small cooper and drove towards the cafe Zokas in the Univeristy district. She pulled up quickly, cutting someone off to get a parking space. She walked into the place with wooden tables and chandaliers made of stain glass like those of churches, stepping with eagerness and certainty. A tall, black man that was behind the coffee bar caught sight of her and looked down at the milk he was steaming and smiled. She didn't go up to order, he had just finished her drink and set it on the bar and winked, 
“Good morning lady,” he had a baratone voice that shook one's bones and seemed capable of breaking out into a full-tone spiritual at any moment.
“Good morning Uncle Joe,” she sighed. 
“Ha ha!” He laughed as her eyes widened at the first sip.
 “Oh! strong.” She wrinkled her nose in shock and then pleasure. 
“How was your night?” He still held a smile, broad as though it could touch the world.
“Mmm, “ she thought as she siped and then gave him a look that answered his question.
“Uh oh.” 
“Is that a disapproving look?”
“It very well is.”
“Do you have a break any time soon?”
“Give me five minutes and I will meet you outside.” She went out and he came out as promised, five minutes later.
 “What you readin?” He looked at the book tucked under her arm. She pulled it out and held it up for him to see,  
“Plato Epicteus.” She spoke soberly. He chuckled at her humorlesss expression.
“Whatever happened to comic books? Last time I checked Plato wasn't a very funny fellow.” 
 She went on her tip toes and leaned over the coffee bar.  dimples appearing on her cheeks in a closed smile. She stood there speaking with him
“Thank-you.”
“He finds it so sexy and sensational to render a man unconcious. She spoke with edge and iritation. Uncle Joe gives her a knowing look. She pretends to ignore it.
“Remember our conversation.”
“Yes, but I am so tired of cold mountains!” She moaned to her mentor.
“Did you have a good night?” She tilted her head back with an open smile.
I am tired of cold mountains, she uttered helplessly and a bit indignanat looking off.  after Uncle Joe had talked about being in a realationship as climbing a cold mountain.

 His large hands moved agiliy on the coffee machinery. He made the design of a unicorn out of cinnamon on top of a latte and called out the drink on the bar. She stepped aside and made a sly effort to tip him, but he always out did her efforts.
“Have a good day missy,” he gently ushered her away. Leaving the cafe she had the downward gaze and shy smile of a girl who had just been flattered. Clutching her drink she made light steps across the road to her car and drove to work.

He had nightmares about how the love of his life died in a car wreck

London opened one eye as he lay on his pillow the next morning. He watched the fresh sunlight move about his wall by his coat rack. He had a headache again. He felt dry. He fell out of bed onto his fists and began to do pushups, aruging in his head what he would do with his day. He didn't even consider going to class. He wanted to paint but he had no inspiration. Sixty-six, Sixty-seven, he pumped on his fists while his mind spun. His phone on his desk began to vibrate. He kept up with his push-ups. The phone vibrated till it fell on the floor in front of him. The digital name “Aunt Kelly” showed on the blue screen. He didn't answer. The phone began to vibrate again. Damn. He droped on his elbows, caught his breath and,
“Hello? Hey Aunt Kelly.” His response was monotone. He wanted to passify her and hang up. 
He finally managed to get his Aunt off the phone, Her tart voice still rung in his left ear after he had hung up. He sratched it. As he came closer to the group of boys he noted that Alisterlooked well enough, fully recovered from the other night. He always did recover quickly. 
“Eh London!” Talin greeted him.
“Hey Tal.”  London entered the cicle and first noticed how Penley was wearing a salmon pink shirt and Talin was wearing a light blue one.
“Look,” London pointed at Talin first and then Penley, “Boy... girl.” 
“Ha. Ha.” Penley faked laughter.  “Hey, why weren't you in class this morning City?” 
“Because I was too busy having an inspiring discussion with my Aunt.” 
“Hey London, I want my money back.” Alister joked. “You can't take the pot from my girl and consider that fair.”
“Actually I can, she is a better poker player than you.” He quiped.
“Virtue, diligence and brotherly love man, takes you back to our sigma Phi days don't it?
Stan. Ah, that two year stint. Al was heir to a greek shipping tycoon. He likes shipping as I like painting. Alister was cocky, London was calculated
Al likes America. I like it too. It is just so cold. 
London smiled
“Only this part of America.” She tried to get rid of her accent and cover it up with a New Yorker accent she picked up from watching old American movies.

London, you paint. You were meant to paint. Screw these business endevours of yours. Hell, wallstreet financed Hitler, forget investment banking. Penly tried to bring him around.

The next afternoon after listening to his professor drone on for two hours about international trade realations, London called up Penley for a drink. He needed a drink. It was only two, but in New York it was cocktail hour, so why not?  Penley was already at the Ram in The Village having lunch. London treked down to meet him. The out door shopping center was crowded with students, more intent on engaging in consumerism than studying the subject. He entered the restaurant and went to the bar. Penley had just finished a basket of garlic fries and was now trying to mute the smell with whisky.
“Hey Pretty Penny.” London greeted him.  Penley watched him take a seat and smiled.
“What?” London responded to the skly smile evolving on his friend's face.
“Look at you. Youre a mess.” Penley declared bluntly. “You look like a general who just saw his battilion desimated... by the French probably. Humiliating.”
“Like your analogy but I am less-nobly hungover is all.”
“Hey Ralph, can we get a tonic water?” Penley ordered for London.
“And a Black Russian.” London added. Penley shook his head. Ralph, the distracted Austrelain, bar tender quickly slide The Black Russian down the bar, 
“Ah,” London stared into it, “The paradox: there can be goodness in darkness.” 
“Aye.”
“Mm.” London took a sip.
“About the other night...” Penley began, “those boys can be such idiots. That Alex kid really iritates me. If he were better at cards maybe I could forgive him. But hes an idiot and cocky as hell.”
“Bloody as hell now.” 
“Alistercan throw a punch.”
“Yeah he can. I can vouch from first hand experience.”
“You go in a fight with him? You? I don't believe it.”
“Nah. It wasn't a fight. We were in the same farternity at Stanford. I didn't hit him back. I wasn't going to give him the fight he wanted.
We transfered the same year you know.”
“On the same principle.” Penley added.
“Uh, yeah.” London scrunched his lip and looked hard at his glass from a low angle. “Yep, for us over privlieged little brats, rebellion was the only definition of freedom we knew.” London had a hint of discust on his face. Penley looked at him thoughtfully.
“You know what I think?”
“What do you think?” London raised his glass to his lips. 
“You got to get away.”
“I am fine.”
“Youre a mess.”
“I am always a mess.”
“Your usually a classy mess, but now you are a real mess.”
“I am passing that ethics class.” He mentioned hepfully.
“In a rather unethical way I am sure.” 
“I am fine.” London reiterated, trying to convience himself.
“Oh. Ok. Right.” Penley scoffed not unkindly.
“I want another Russian.” He was distressted by his quickly dissipating drink.
“Order a white Russian. Its white like you.”
“Another black Russian Ralph."
“Go away London. Go to Spain or Thailand. Hell Cuba! So long as a happier and tanner you comes back.” 
“I am tan.”  He argued.
“Go abraod. It would do your delicate phycological balance good to get away. Get out of this circle of a place.” Penley demanded more firmly. London didn't answer. He was thinking. He then began vaugly,
  “Hey, do you ever ...” he didn't want to finish his thought.
“What? Say it.”
“I don't know.” He raised his eyebrows in fatigued confusion, “Somethings... somethings wrong. Somethings missing. I feel as though I was not given all the tools or variables to solve this equation. Its like everyone is given the instruments to build a machine but I am missing a screwdriver. But I do not even know I am missing a screw driver and everyones machines are built and they are like whats wrong with you? Why isn't your machine built? I am missing something. I don't even know what it is.”
“Its ok. We will find you a screw driver.” Penley knew how to handle his despondant friend. “Look, When things don't makes sense dont make it make sense. Forcing the matter can result in a great deal of nonsense.” He just enjoyed his own words. With more seriousness he continued, “yeah, we don't got much time in this life, and you aren't given what you want to make something of it. Its like someone handed you a bannana, glove and stick and says 'make something out of that. You got five minutes. And you stall. You say 'but I wanted a hat, a ball and a apple'. But nope. You gotta make a bannana split with a glove and a stick. How do you do that anyway?” Penley bobbed his head back and forth. “But it comes about. It all comes about. So, the concenous is... the verdict is... some foriegn air would do you good.”
“Ha, so the Penley jury decided.” London was fooling with a splinter on the bar, tumbling back into his own world.
“Yes!” Penley slaped his hand on the table and then noticed the time on his wrist. “Oh, I gotta go bomb a test, but if you feel like celebrating my failure later, call me. And think about what I said.” He gave London a look, pointing his finger to his head and then at him. London laughed and waved him away. 
“Go enjoy life!” Penley shouted over his shoulder as he exited, “Don't try to iron it out with reason.”

“Hey did you bomb that test you said you were going to bomb?”
“Nope. I wasn't true to my word. I passed. But don't worry, we can still drink to that, though success is not what we commonly celebrate. We more commonly celebrate failure because it is... well, more common... for us.”
“Don't be such a pessimist, especially on my mother's birthday.” London scolded.
“Its her birthday?”
“So my aunt informed me a moment ago.”
“What class are you passing Pen?” One of the boys asked.
“If you expect me to remember the name of the class you gotta give me another 4.0,” Penley said carelessly.

London sat up late by his window with a double gin and tonic, remembering her.  She was a simple American girl. He hadn't driven since the accident. When he took Taja home 
“London.” 
“I could take you there.” He smiled a tired smile, his pointer finger on his temple and his thumb at his lip.
“I bet you could.” She gave him a sly look and laughed, shaking out a towel.

She was easy to make laugh. 
“Ha.” She turned to the mirrior to adjust her earing, watching him in the reflection as he looked for his phone. She pretended that it was ehxastion which always ended their evenings so early. She knew his liquor cabinet would have some damage done to it by morning, but she pretended this was not the reason he desired her absence. He was tired, sober and tired is all.

The pitbull tied to the tree growled at him when he put money in the musician's case. Goes into Barns and Noble to find a book for his mother who loves Jane Austin but has all her books, finds travel books, the punk helping him looked at each book before he gave it to him.
 He found himself in front of the travel section. He eyes went up and down all the places of the world. Chile. Prauge. Malysia. Scotland. Madagascarr. France. Hm. He liked Paris. He picked up a museum guide. He began to read about Monet. An hour later he called his travel agent. 
CONVERSATION WITH UNCLE JOE

PLANE FLIGHT
There were no first class seats available so London shuffled to the back of the plane with the economy class. He had a difficult time finding space for his large carry-on, much to the iritation of his neighbors. He finally sat down and heaved a sigh. A women with white hair and specticals sat on his right and a gentlmen with profuse facial hair and prolific manual-reading abilities sorted through the emergency pamplets on his left. He folded his hands, stealing glances out the window, again to the iritation of his neighbor whose happiness seemed to be in delicate balance. London hated sitting still. He became edgy and searched for some suitable reading material in his brown leather bag that formally held all his school books. He pulled out a book on the Russian revolution which he did not recall packing. He held the book up and tried to become immersed. His eyes drifted to the flight attendant approaching his row. He flipped a page, keeping one eye on her. She came further down the isle and stoped in front of him.
“Can I get you any beverages?” She asked in a cool, polite tone. The lady and gentleman on either side of him ordered.  
Order water. London instructed himself.
“And for you sir?” She turned to him. He opened his mouth,
“Water. Water. Bottled, refreshing water. Water. Whisky, double please.” He handed her a five dollar bill. She nodded curtiously and made him his drink. 

He touched down in Orly and took the metro to station de la concorde.Went through the ticket hall and down into the underground warren of the metro system. “Place de la Concorde” he instructed the taxi driver. The hotel reminded him of his business trips with his father. He walked across the Aubusson carpet to the yellow and white checkard balcony. Above was a Baccarat chandelier.
Going from a modern cold world to a place steeped in history. Standing on the shoulders of giants. Eastern end of Champs-Elysees. He finds her between the two stone buildings she was studying the architecture when he found her in the square. He sees her near the fountain while walking back to Hotel de Crillon to the left is the embassy of the United states of America. Palais Bourbon can be seen in the background beyond the River Seine. Musee de l'Orangerie in the Tuileries Garden border the Place he went to that museum where he saw a gallery pf impressionist and post-impressionist works of Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Pierre- Auguste, Renoir, Henri Rousseau, Cham Soutine, Alfred Sisley and Maurice Utrillo. A cycle of Monet's water-lily paintings Nympheas under direct diffused light the eight paintings are displayed in two rooms. Place de la Concorde.... The Hotel Crillon served as German head quarters during WWII. The center of the Place is occupied by Giant Egyptian obelisk decorated with hieroglyphics exhalting the reign of Pharo Ramses II. Made of red granite flanked on both sides by fountains. The obelisk is one of Cleopatra's Needles the other two redising in NY and London. London visits both of them on business trips and recalles their meeting place in paris. Bridge de la Concorde leads to Palais BOurbon
In place de la concorde was the guillotine that exicuted Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, Danton, Robespierre. He dances with Taja at Barrio Latino with its spiraling stair case and the dance floor below. Later goes with her to Barlotti for drinks with her and then Cafe de flore with its white canopy and red wicker chairs.
Walking along botiques of the Faubourg St.-Honore. Café Castiglione on the Rue St.-Honoré.
out of my hotel on Rue des Capucines, right into the Place Vendôme, then left into Rue St.-Honoré and the dim warm lights of the Castiglione.
He went to Musee Rodin and walked in the sculpture garden and looked at the thinker, watching carefully the detailing of the muscles on his back. Musee Picasso... Musee Guestare Moreau. Looking at Moreaus water colors he was particularly fasinated by his collection of unfinished sketches. HE locked himself up in his hotel room with Absneith and tried to paint. At cafe marly the waiter came with his crisp white apron and good face. He did not want to anger London so he looked him in the eye and was tactful to not let his gaze linger too long on Taja. London was too preoccupied with his irish coffee to notice the waiter's efforts. The fog-leaden air lifted like the curtain of a stage and the entire city seemed to sigh in relief at the final mercy of sun. London fidled with his stiring spoon on his saucer. He was self contained his long eye lashes made  obvious as he looked down at his paper. Her large, unassuming eyes wakefully watched her surroundings. London thought it was the coffee. But she was always like that. She was shy around him though neither noticed, let alone knew what it meant. She was too forlorn to flirt and made technical observations of London with foriegn candor. He touched his face and realised he had lost interest in shaving for the past two mornings.
the winding boutique streets of the Left Bank, around St.-Germain-des-Près
They aserve wine at cafe marley. She ordered a champagne. Bit into the apricot that was at the bottom of her glass.
Atmospheric beauty
To the south of the square, on 
   the opposite side of the Seine, 
   is Palais Bourbon; to the north, 
   the church of Madeleine. The 
   Champ-Elys*es goes to the west 
   and is ended with the grandeur 
   Arc de Triomphe. However, the 
   fourth arm of the perspective 
   posed a unique problem. The view 
   eastward from the Champs-Elys*es 
   was closed by the Tuileries 
   gardens. The great area of the 
   Place de la Concorde allowed it 
   to link two almost parallel 
   east-west axes: that of the 
   Champs-Elys*es, and that of a 
   new street running eastward from 
   the north-eastern corner of the 
   Place de la Concorde along the 
   northern perimeter of the 
   Tuileries gardens:
   the Rue de Rivoli.

Looking out from his white and yellow checkard balcony in Hotel de Crillon, he watched the illuminated eiffle tower. He inhaled his Montecristo cigar followed by a sip of Glen Garioch scotch. He decided to go down to the hotel bar.
A chap sat with a distracted gaze as copious amounts of liquor passed about him in the crowded bar. There was a seat next to him. London took it.
Meets irish actor at Bar Le Forum 4 Blvd Malesherbes Arr 8 Metro Madeleine. English style bar with 100 whiskies 250 cocktails and again at Flan o'brians old irish pub. London had many friends in Europe, most of which he had no desire to see, save for Terencio.
He ordered a well aged scotch. This irishman was an actor.
Freud didn't know much about the Irish. Sure, he said that we are impervious to psychoanalysis. But what he did not know is that we are truly impervious to whisky. He raised his eyebrows up and down several times very quickly.
Eh, so whats your name? 
London.
London?
Yes.
Whats wrong with you? Are you unaware of the bad blood between the french and the English? Youre name may be London but you don't say it here; not in Paris.  Now, you can say it in the south if you wish. Those countryside dwellers are too busy with their grapes to keep track of England's capitol and other details unrelated to vat barrels and tannons.”
“Well, as we are in an English style pub I will consider myself safe. Whats your name?” 
“Duke. Duke Ireland. Friends call me Duke of Ireland.”
“Of Course they do. What do you do? Do you live here?”
“Of Ireland, son.”
“Of course. Well you will be happy to know that I am not from the city of my name...”
“Why would I be?” He grunted. “I preffer a brit a bloody lot more than a Frank. God only knows why he created the french. But then again, to be English would be terrible too. I was English once. I didn't like it much and I don't look forward to being English again.”
“He is crazy,” London thought. “And when will that be?”
“When will what be?”
“That you have to become English again.”
“When I play Henery the fifth in Henery the Fifth.” Duke faked an English accent. “But enough about me.” Questions exasperated him. “What brought you to this inorganic, tourist-smothered city?”
“I'll get back to you on that one.”
“Good. Because I don't think I could pay attention right now. I assume that you are soul searching. Everyone come to Paris when they are soul searching. You must be looking for some sort of identity baptism... how sweet. I like you.” He grined.
“I like me too. I think we'll get along.” London lifted his glass with a limp wrist.
“We irish still have fun with each if we can't get along.”
“I will take your word for it.” His mind kept diviating to what drink he would have next.

He went to Musee de Cluny, Musée en Herbe, Musee du Louvre, Musée Boleslas Biegas, Musée de Notre Dame de Paris
Perhaps he would go look at Monet's water lilies at  HYPERLINK "http://www.paris.org/Musees/Musee.NDame/info.html" Musee d'Orsay.

Halted merriment with cement grotto branches, wild frozen faces. 
It was such an inviting evening I would have taken a walk anyway and perhaps not in her particular direction, but nonetheless... her feet walked like afraid of the ground and desiring indipendence from it. My gate was even and long. Because one of my strides equaled two of hers she soon noticed my following her. “Maybe the ancients don't forget us. Heaven would be like a curtain call. All the players would emerge from every scene and hold hands though they never crossed paths on the stage. Maybe it all comes about and those ancients will have something to say about us. Maybe they do not disappear down a linear timeline.
The clubers all looked like butterflies in the flashing lights.
the rush and caoss of the evening yeilded to a meditative quiver as rapids come to a still and peaceful end. They walk to the carousel
I am so done with this place.
"I don't believe in Heroes." London said. "Heroes may stay around for maybe ten minutes." 
They were both iritated with one another yet remained in one another's presence as friends.
At the hotel in florence, drinking wine on the roof. The bottle droped to the ground. They climbed down to pick it up and he helped her back into her room. "I apologize for not replying in class to your statement, but it just seemed like a laborous debate upon which I did not want to embark. "Oh I do love that movie." She recalled the day they met. "It was nice to not have to read the subtitles." His ideals come out "When the power of love overcomes the love of power..." 
"oh? you speak Italian?" London nodded. Do you speak any other languages?
"A little bit of English." He winked. While at cafe marley her cell phone rang "Oh. excuse me. She answered in portugese. "Those were some friends from where I grew up." She explained "From where I grew up. Owuld you like to meet them? Her large, unassuming eyes wakefully watched her surroundings. London thought it was the coffee but she was always like that.
His lips flecked with foam. Astern. greasy smile. 
He is not a boyfriend. She corrected him. He is a friend of a very male nature.
She watched London and his friend in open-mouthed amusement. Terencio is the drunk one who quotes shakespeare to her. Penley has more integrity.
He went through life taking any love, whatever love was not busy.
I stray into the shilloueettes the shallowest parts of me, it is a forever attempt to be brought in.
Either I have too many hearts or no heart.
No. He did not let her get away with saying this. "You have one very precise heart and I am not convienced by its frequent vanishing acts. She wanted to grow cold. He was tired.
Who can say why she did not want her life anymore, or why it was difficult for her eyes to open themselves to the day. There was no trauma. I can only imagine it was a dull ache that had no historical explaination and stood like a steady wall between her and her entitlement to light. So she made her own light, but could not hold it for long and it eventually escaped her with no loyalty to its maker... eloping with her joy to the ether.

She can't handle men. He can't handle liquor.
Italy is just loud. He surrmized for her
I am alone. I have no job. There is no God.
Drunk on Grey Goose
When man is self governed there seems to e an anarchy within him. Rosy Childhood. He watched her gingerly approach him. Taja seem flipant and flirtatious but both she and London are searching for a greater beauty outside of the world.
Alistersaid he is going to kill you tomorrow. Penley informed London after Alistersees what friends Taja and London are. He is not a great humanitarian when he is drunk. Jonny's submissive but dangerous-looking friend Orey who had a sulk in his swagger.
He wrote he a note in careless hand and kissed her as though to dismiss her.
The malty taste of beer on his breath. Tears began to cut wet paths. Melange
Empathy lifted the corners of his mouth, revealing gold teeth.
He didn't speak much to Taja even after they decided they were in love.
The ladies had a predetermined dislike for her.
The humidity so great it could wet my lungs.
The pacemaker for the heart of the city. Italians congregated on the shores and in wine bars, too friendly to say 'no', too distracted to ever give a direct 'yes'.
I looked at the mix, a deadly recipe. He tried to drive off the aurora bridge and returned to work a few days later as though nothing had happened and that face on the five o clock news was not him. She found him in his predictable place, the immigrant.
He had an unexamined love for her. He did not wish to look at it and did everything in his power not to. To be accosted with it would a great inconvience.
If anyone asked about “that pecular card player” she would shrug, smile and shrug when they were at a private party in Italy with the friend they borrowed the moped from.
She talked with Terencio and London out on his veranda. The wine made her loquacious and London found it amusing. All three became excited about the world. London played all these fellas and they won tickets to the theatre, they get dressed up, go to their box, feel as though they are in a different world and then sneak off to a different side of the theatre and are close to the ground giggling with tousled hair.
“I am a nice guy.” He was iritated that he even had to point this out to her.
Youre sort of glory has always been rather gorey. London pointed out to Jonny. Alisterwho so tried to remain allies in some sense with London who held much sway and influence in their social arena. His reserve and disernment allowed other's to respect him more than impulsive Alisterwho could't keep his fists at his sides.
The mandolen emerged. If this evening were a portrait, the musican would be the last to be painted. The love affair between a man's finger's and strings is always rather captivating.
Stained glass lit the wide nave and high aisles. The choir and furnishings were destroyed during the war. It enhances the sense of space and simlicity. The carvings of a coiled beast at the doorway.
Snappy stilettos
London observed her boyfriends try to be friends with each other to prove their indifference, it rarely worked. Randy and Jeff Elliot Smit This one just makes me cry man.
“Yeah, well I am not the weepy sort.” London's chest heaved in an internal laugh at their conversation. And a half smile, too disengaged to give a full smile.
her eyes searched his face desperately, as two hands would search for a ring lost in the sand. 

You ought to talk to that man about his ethics
Stoner's eyes. The cleaming of the sun through the gold bottle in the morning.
Saw him in the ditch. “You ok?”
“Oh yeah yeah. I am just relaxing”
I don't like him the way I don't like a cactus or anything else that hurts when you touch it.
I knew if I took a double I would soon be doubled over.

On the crest of life. Brown Gaze. Extravigance and squalor, both had lived their privleged lives in such a manner. More easily satisfied with wine and cheese than mercy.
Wishing to cut the seems of silence with his teeth.
He looked back, trying to recall when life lost its sweetness, or its taste altogether?
His attempts were becoming faithfully futile. dry laughs and wet cheers.
He opened his mouth wide for the amber lava, it felt wide and big enough to swallow his life.
My heart strings have been cut.
His jaw widened like a bull frog's
Please inform me of when I do fall in love, for I would not wish to be excluded from such information.
“Oh, how poetry makes irrespective sincerity.” She was blitheful towards Penley who was drunk and drawn towards her in the absence of his better judgement.
“Those are my words I quoted you.”
“Are you quiet certain? They sounded an aweful lot like shapespear to me.”
“Its true, its true they are mine. Shakespeare just stole the words from me before I was born. And I wasn't born so I could not protest. but now I do protest, most adamently. But you see now shakespeare is dead so again, there can be no argument. Either one of us wasn't born or one of us is dead and we are stealing words from each other and there can be no justice. You will just have to take my word. Take shakespeare's word and make it my word. Is that too great of a request? Is it?”
“It is a great request but certainly, I can do that.”
“Thank-you darling.” He kissed her hand and toppled over. 
“Most eloquent drunk I have ever spoken with she told London as she pointed out his passed out friend.”
Every moment either becoming or becoming undone.
There was an inexplicableness that a writer would waste their time trying to explain.
Well, when you find euphoria let me know and I will bring my own wine and make it even better.
His hands took the paino keys, restlessly going up and down them, creating something of an eloquent tide.
What good is it to gain the world if you loose your soul?
If I got Bali I would consider it a fair bargan.
That evening will always remain unexplained.
A long, unbroked succession of good byes. Heaven like and unanticipated laugh, like a smile that is unaware of itself.
Do you believe in a perfection that does not yield to time or decay?
Cushioned apathy and stoner's eyes. His lips forming an unhappy line. His lower lip tightened as he debated, determing to climb the stepts to her.
almost drove car off Aurora bridge because he couldn't take relapse.
His face too, had been strengthend. His soft, boyish features had chisled away into a strong jaw and determined chin. His nose, though small, was square and sure.  
“You have no faith in human relations? She gave him a long look.
Living in itself can be a bravery.
Cushioned apathy. Syllable. His lips forming an unhappy line. His lower lip tightened as he debated determing to climb the stairs to her.
They all stood in a circle. 
“Can- can I tell you a secret?” He announced to the group. “I'm drunk.”
“How did you manage to become so secretivly drunk?” Taja tried to ask seriously.
“Because I am good like that.” London was proud.
“Ah. Why can't be good like that in front of your superior officers?”  She pointed out

“I don't believe in heroes.” London said. “Heroes may stay around for maybe ten minutes...” He sat reading over the blue book with Jameson and then suddenly through it across the room. Almost drove off the Aurora bridge because he couldn't take the relapse.
She grew up in portugal (He tells her life story). but the crown of her story is that she has these violet eyes. She is like the childhood friend I never grew up with. You know, like the one you would go down to the creek with and put pennies on the railroad tack. This may be the queen of cliche questions but do you believe in me? Yeah that would be the Kings of cliches. 
Alisterwas always sure to to thouroughly explain his successes.
I detect a look of disapproval in your eye. I detect the secent of bourbon on your tounge.
How could I detest a man who admires himself and is excellent at pursauding others to do so?
Don't ever blame a man for being stupid and if you happen to be playing cards with him, thank the guy when you are done.
I am nothing.
Who am I to argue?

Thats a pretty big tease sitting at a bar.

His eyes only welled up twice in the time I knew him... when he quoted TS Elliot and...
I am trying. I really am. I must request your patience Taja. ” He was sincere, yet not pleading. “I just needed a break from my promise.”
“Ok.” she said throatily. “I don't want to argue about this anymore. I am tired. Whatever it is you hate about me I agree.” HE was through with his promises. She gently mentioned AA. He went to the meetings on his own and when it came to the fourth step he began to make amends to her. 
Refusing to give an explaination in her usual rebellious manner. 
The man at the bar didn't like me. He didn't look at me except to steal icy glances, colder than the drinks he served. He kept measuring me up while shuffling his glasses. HE had been speaking with Taja and somehow made it up in his mind that that meant she ought to speak to anyone else.
“Hey.” He called to him. “If I tell you I am her brother can I get my drink” he said on his fifteen minute delay of his gin. “People are alot more patient when they are drunk. But seeing as I am not drunk, you are taking too much time for my taste.”
Dendiction in ink. 
The sky blue lighting that comes at two in the morning. The canvas taller and longer than himself. Mutted blue, darker blue even and seperated colors on the pallet. Dipping horse hair in blue and then red, mixing it together. It was white, all possibility. 
In the coloseum it was dusty and solom where the gladiators used to play, he lite a cigarette looking over the circular desert. She took a drag. The mediteranean sun was making its exit behind a cloud and her arms shivered. Not so long ago their two frames would have been surrounded with Romans cheering and screaming at blood drama below. But now there were no screams. It was quiet and she wanted another drag. He gave her his cigarette and coat.

At the hotel in florence, drinking wine on the roof. The bottle droped to the ground. They climbed down to pick it up
The repeated appearence of the subject on his tounge made it so it became brief in its appeal. To get him to stop his questions when drunk is the greatest triumph for drink makes him persistent in things he does not even care about.
He always tried to get the world to cooperate with his happiness.
I wish I could cut through the democracy of art. But as is there are many portraits on paper. So much so I feel as though I could make a decent garden of them.
You love him don't you he looked up to her in a pitiful drunken state. You love the bastard.
She hesitated. She did not want to say it. She put her chin on her shoulder as though it would make her seem less acusing when she said “we both have our respective lovers.”
That troubling threshold. 
I thanked her for her company and she departed the next morning. Clean cute, white collared Jonny. She was arguing with a street vendor. I wanted to go back to the hotel and bath so I told her to meet me at the cafe near the vatican square. She came later with the necklace draped triumphantly about her neck. Of course she won.
The seats are full he spoke in an unhappy, italian-leaden english. Shapeless tempests.

I love you.
Lord I am bored with this subject she declared when Alistercame back to her trying to make amends.
They both sat as though draped over the gilded horses, as though listening for silence to speak her peace. Her smile suspends my fear of death for a moment.
I would not mind that substance that hides beneath your skin and runs with your pulse if it had not beat me to your heart. 
Nothing would please her more than to play the song over and over and over.
Stop being so hapless she said impatiently.
I am a good man. I am. 
oh. now is it my turn to tell a funny joke? Inked benediction
She took the flowers and watered them dutifully. 

Glittering Rome with gold, marble, bronze now ruins or the Titanic, man's glory sunken and rotting in nature's belly. Landing in a place in time and never knowing those who will come after us, but reminences and clues to those who went before us maybe times is just a very thin wall that may be crossed. I don't want to be writen on the cold pages of history. This is Paris, the air carries philosophy with it. Aye. He made no effort to be charming. This is Paris, philosophy rides in on the wind. Particularly in the Latin Quarter. His comment made her look up and the apples of her cheeks rose. Gilded horses and pink columns by pissarro.
“Do I have to write it? Could I paint it?”
“Yes.”
“I would do a portrait of Venice... during the era of Doges. Do you know that painting by Giovanni Migliana of St. Marks square?” She cokced her head in thought. He continued to help her
“Some of the people are faint and moving like phantoms and the sky is melting and there are three patriot flags drooping.
“Huh. But Migliara did that portrait... what about one  that has not been done before?”
'If you were a city I would paint you. Can I do that or is that cheating?”
“Yes.”
“If you were a city you would be the sort with lots of detours and aimless detailings... unnecissary roads..”
I would? Well, if you were a city you would be... Rome I think. With lots of accidental remains and a lingering past.” 
He saw the portrait of Taja on Quais d'anjou. Her flighty spirit seemed calmed in his presense she put her chin on her shoulder and would revel in the feeling of safety.
 A riot of hippies and gypsies asking how can your persona increase my person? Boho beat baby doll shaby chic piss and posh. Penley was feeling passionate and noble quoting Shakespear's henery the fifth we band of brothers. You few, you happy few.
The unmarred are those who are not aquainted with life. People comming out of the Notre Dame, about the flute player in rivlutes. The girls at the university did not like to befriend such beauty. I wonder what that homeless girl would do for five bucks you know? How open she is. Alisterwas being crass and unethical. You know when you are lonely or your girlfriend is not satisfying. Alistersaid. London approached Jonny. I am a good guy. I really am Alisterassured London. Oh. ok. Is it my turn to tell a funny joke now? Words have never failed me before. Words never failed me.” He was angry. “I never needed to rely on the negotiation of a fist. But you see, I had this revelation.
Oh? Alisterhumored him. 
“Yes. I realized... God gave men knuckles for a reason.” Jonny's expression changed a great deal after London clocked him.
We are our own obstruction to our dreams.
 Please don't take my only friend away. She pleaded. unsmiling. Too polite to be amusing. Good bye then she said spritely. Good bye. Having the eye of an architect she enjoyed the pleasing symmetry of his face. He is a man who has struggled much with himself she thought.
Looking at the mythic ruins. You know what the mystic Rilke siad? No. She turned to me. Something like “Things are nothing more than accidental remains from another time and life that is not and should not be ours.”
 Water moving along the ancient aqueducts that became more talkative pouring over stone that is in the forms of angels and other ancient things. Walking down a Paris boulevard. But about those moments, there was no estrangement and that was their anomaly. We stood apart, watching the ebbing picture, their lungs binding and releasing 
He looked about him in the train station, realizing the space about him was begining to grow vast.
My younger self? There is not much to say of him. He was a desperate miserable boy running about like a bull.
He watched her with Clive. He stood expectantly, she stood rebelliously. The difficulty to begin all over again.
We both knew one another's vices.
My Dear Girl, I have imagined you have writen me and spoken to me of many things, like the way the architecture of the human face is the greatest architecture and what your mid day thoughts are and how you found a starfish in one of the many waters you were swimming in in your nomadic life. But at the end of all these things I imagined you wrote “and I love you.” And I wished to respond in bold exclaimation the same. But I am composed. I will save this for the end of my letter. So I speak of usual things. such as the weather and my conversations with uncle Joe (Which are never usual but I mention it anyway)
Conversation was difficult for him. Tried to stare down the silent room.
The ebbing picture. How did you find this place? I don't know. I don't remember. It must have been on accident
Railway station at Pyramid of Caius Cestius to Palazzo Venezia. 
A palace at the foot of Capitoline Hill, the red lights, a bloody glow.
She stoped in the middle of the door way. “What are you doing?”
 He stood timid in his nice suite “I was pretending to be an airplane.” He explained shyly. She looked at him, wanting to take him seriously and biting her lip. Her laugh would have been bold and resplendent if allowed to bloom.

I can not be sure of the exact date, but I lost that arguement with myself about a week ago roughly. He would drink and wake up with less friends.
A life full of absent masterpieces.
Cappelle Medicee looks stripped of facade. Michelangelo's unbuilt, comply interlocking sculptual facade of Columns pilasters moldings and panels.
It was a funny little dance she did, side stepping reallity. When we realiised it was too difficult to change we imagined privately that I was not a drunk. And it progressed from imagination to bitter denial. Denial is always bitter and can make one a bit mad.
Common talk.

Their last night in Rome they sat in the blue lighting atop Hotel Forum overlooking the Forum, flaxen Palatine rising behind it, Colosseum to the left, Capitoline to the right and adjacent another mega lomaniacal monument: the White Victor Emmanuel that honored Italy's first king. All the mythic ruins.

If you were commissioned to write the cities portrait. What would you write? She asked perched on her plastic horse.If you were comissioned to write the profile of this city what would you mostly mention?  I don't believe much in heroes, historical or otherwise. Because she was watching him very closely she noticed a subtle repulsion at the mention of heroes and she tactfully drew away from the subject.
I would like to be well aquainted with this world. Well shall we both go get aquainted? He offered her his arm.
He called them all sweetheart
The smooth muscles of her face rose about her fine cheek bones with such aesthetic grace and pleasure and seemed to frighten her female counter parts who could not master such a magnificent smile.
It stood there, perfectly erect between us. But neither of us had the courage to name it, call out what had really been happening.  I actually believed there was nothing in my inner coat pocket. Denial can make one a bit mad.
I thought that your flask was keeping you company enough. Her words exited her lips in cool simplicity.
Severe, high, high cheekbones, pensive, forward gaze. She did not like the nakedness she felt and threw him a glance thats only purpose was to be unapologetic. He caught her in insincere laughter conjured only for Clive's enjoyment. 
“You sold out.” He walked with direction and indignanace.
“Don't be so dramatic. We all sell out.” She looked the other way.
“No. No. Youre sold. You got nothing left. You can't pretend anymore.”
“Oh, but pretending is such dear fun.”  He didn't say anymore and she didn't like the rough silence. She suddenly turned to him in inappropriate cheerfulness, “Dosen't a brandy sound lovely?” Her inviting smile was so well placed on her lips that it almost seemed natural. He held a study gaze on her.
“Just tell me how you do it.”
“Hm?” Her tone was light and inconsequential.
“How do you do it? Don't you find it exhasting? To live so many different versions of yourself, even versions that are not you... I would have punched out long ago.” He looked at her sincerly. These words finaly ended the happiness she found so difficult to keep. Her happiness was easy to end when it had no foundation. 
“It is not that much trouble to do really. I just imagne away a part of me. If I can not imagine it away I just cut it off.” She explained obediantly and raised her brows to see that he was satisfied with her answer. She always became a bit indignanat when he disarmed her so she was not too curious to know if he were statisfied. His eyes were sad. She wanted to distract them from her. She hated it when he looked at her so.
“So how about some brandy?” She repeated the offer. 
“Have I ever declined such an invitation?”
“I didn't want to be presumptions.”
“We are too old of friends for that.” They made out for Paseos.

She had a general disregard for herself and she never troubled anyone. She was tactful and agile in human matters, abandoning her emotions in her common, hasty manner.
He went into the cafe that she mentioned several times in her letters to Uncle Joe. 'Do you know of a girl petite brown hair oh! violet eyes, that was her landmark. The owner's expression widened. She used to come and write. He went out into the street, walking alon Rue ..... and kicked a rock, it landed before a painting... many paintings and their maker seemed to be growing a grey hair thinking it would hit one of his pieces. Desole! He hastily apologized. The paintings caught his eye. He felt awakened. He picked one up of a girl's back and she had a backward gaze that was violet.
“Is this drawn from life?” He asked
“All from life.” The painter smiled proudly.
The man smiled. There was something missing to his smile. “Don't worry darling, I get my two front teeth for Christmas.”
Rivelets.
A long lie. I am good at secrets. I wish this were not so.
Quick flowers for everone of my failures.
You are silly without being funny. She said with serious, bright eyes. When she found Austin cheating on her. When she broke up with Alisterabout the cat she lost composure. The words landed hard on her tounge, on the threshold of becoming portugese. Finally she regained composure and said to Alister“It is not a difficult choice. I always preffer cats to dogs.”
He is self governed, but the system was anarchist.
I am always at war with myself.
she had a deep innocnece that he fancied the world could not distroy with its shallow instruemnts. He enjoyed being a commodity to the female population.
Wheres Austin?
Oh. I don't know she spoke with disinterest, biting her nail and did not move her eyes  to look at me. I was grateful for her final disinterest at the subject of  Austin. Austin with his clumsy charm and big wallet; I hoped he was across the world or at his own funeral. He did.
Are you drinking anything? He asked.
“No. But I will have a lemon drop if you will order something dangerous... and maybe I will have a sip of yours too.”
“ Ok. Charlie, a lemon drop and a shot of 151. Make it a double. “
“I said dangerous, not deadly,” she paused, “you look important.”
“Interview.”
“Hopeful?”
“Of course.”
“Good.” They were both silent. “Are you happy?” He finally asked.
“No. But that is what the drink is for.” Her eyes got big as Charlie slid her drink towards her. “Thank-you Charlie.” She turned to him. “You?”
“Yeah.” He lied. He was particularly good at it that evening.  “I didn't know you liked lemondrops...”
“Hm. I don't.” 
“Oh.” He eyed her. She was playing with the straw and looked up. 
“Oh. No. I mean, I don't usually. Normally I don't. But, its good to try new things... isn't it?” He dosen't look at her as he sips. 
“I'm always telling you so. Good to know you occasionally listen...”
“I'd listen more than 'occasionally' if you 'occasionally' said something worthwhile.”
“Ha.” He leaned back, pleased she was with him again.
“Throw not pearls away on...”
“Don't say it,” she spoke fast, yet not snappy. She began to drift again. He knew it. He found himself playing with his straw too. He was annoyed and stoped. He followed her line of sight and sighed,
“That waiter is quiet poised isn't he?” 
She murmered assent. Drifting.
“I have something to tell you.” He spoke as though throwing down an anchor.
“Oh? Is it rather serious? If it is then let us wait till we have another drink.” 
“Ok. Charlie! Another double 151 please.” London quickly ordered. 
“So eager.” She laughed. 
“Yeah. Well, 151 is my lucky number.”
“You feel pretty when you have enough of it.”
“Yeah, and everyone looks pretty when you have enough of it.” He winked. Her laugh was interrupted by a yawn.
“Will you take me home?” She asked.
“Yes.” He grabed her coat for her after inhaling his third shot. With both of their coat collars high, they looked mysterious as they went out the glass doors. They walked in silence, their hands in their coat pockets trying to stay warm.
        When they came to her front steps he  remained at the bottom while she ascended. The shadows changed on her face as she looked back at him. He looked at her, and lost courage. Good night London. I will see you in the morning for coffee hm? The key jingled in her hand. He was still studying the shadows on her face.
“I don't want coffee.” 
“Well tea then.” She absently amended her proposal.  
“Right.” He mimiced her absence. “No. No. I don't care for tea either.” He became agitated and didn't know what to do with himself.  She looked confused with good reason. 
“Oh, and what was it that you had to tell me?”  She remembered.
“Oh...” He reached his arm up and rubbed the back of his head. His debate to confess to her was settled and he suddenly resigned himself to the impossibility of the situation, “Yes. I just meant to tell you that I lost ... “ the second part he said with difficulty, “...I lost the argument with myself that i do not love you.” Despite his stress he was candid. He assumed a careless manner common to those who are ready to be defeated. She was silent for a moment. 
I just ruined everything. He thought. That is ok. Its ok. I like to ruin things. I must, for I do it an aweful lot. I put things on pedistels just to see them fall. I build sand castles just to knock them down. But- She was smiling blithely. His thoughts were quieted. She stepped down to him, twisting her neck and resting her chin on her shoulder. "Tell me how you stood that argument with yourself for so long. For I lost the same one a week ago, rougly... but then again, you were always better at arguing than me." London kept a fixed gaze on her. With a more pleading look she quietly added. "But please don't take my friend away. You are my only friend."
"Mine too." 
"Damn." The rare tears made a noble attempt, but could push through. She looked down to deter the failure of her composure.

Her previous words and his pervious whisky had made him bold.
the rush and caoss of the evening yeilded to a meditative quiver as rapids come to a still and peaceful end They walk to the carousel
The pigeon’s shadows flurried over her face revealing little streams of light like the reflection of water on skin.
She bore down upon her brazen nature with all restraint and strength. 

But of course. You have the reserve, that backwardness, the difficulty of being looked in the eye, but that is mostly because of your highth.
demand that one of them help him retrieve a cork that had been lodged in the neck of the bottle. “It is an emergency” he decided, because “the wine can’t breath.”
We weren’t palying with jokers, we never were.”
“Then why are you still here?” 
What do you deal? he watched him pull out seven bills, Benjamin Franklin's face on every one.
"Cards."
He thinks its stylish and sexy to render a man uncncious.
Armando, Ettore, Fedele, Guido, Chal, Keyon, Kipp, Langley, Mander,  Penley, Ziggy
in case you didn't notice by the heavy silence that was not a very well recieved amendement to the problem.

A part of me needs to die. Yes, well... there are always parts of us that need to die and I prefer to keep those exclusive little pieces of me atrophied with scotch, or perhaps a wine with good character to make up for my lack thereof. 

Splitting water
bendiction in ink
Hotel Regina Place des Pyramides 75001 Paris Tuileries Quarter Belle-epoque interior. Chartier unpretencious fin-de-siecle restaurant. Boef Bourguignon and Pot-au Peu Musee Grevin is near by.
This place is so... steeped in history.
Grace comes like an ungovernable wave, that extends... oh how it extends!

It would take awhile to grow acustom to the gutteral sounds of English after hearing the smooth, supple romantic languages. 
The monotone voice over the intercom kept intterupting his thoughts, of which there were many. His head ached from the gin and tonics he had on the flight. The floresent lights were too bright for him. He picked up his car. The familiar smell of leather and aftershave sealed his sense of being home. Driving along I-5 north he saw the twilight kissing the city the streets were open and airy, expansive, clean, American. Simple, less mystery. He drove down to Queen Ann where he had promised to meet Penley for a drink. Walking through the grand wood and iron doors of Pasoes, he turned to his right. Penley was leaning far over the bar being expresive with his hands to the bar tender. London walked up to him and declared “Eh! You make me feel like I'm in Italy again.”
“Its what I do.” Penley claped him on the back. The bar tender eyed them in secret pleasure while pouring Bushmills. Penley  looked at London's disheveled apperance and chuckled. You gotta be tired of all that European wine. Allow me to order you a real drink.”
“I have to admit my pallet has been developed. I may not have the heart of a gentleman, but at least now I got the tounge.” He raised one eye brow.
“Well, the male heart and tounge are all too interchangable with European women.” Penley considered.
“Fortunate for us blokes who have no heart.” 
“Ah ha!” Penley slaped the bar, “You are inspired I can tell. So tell me, was I right or wrong in sending you away?” London held onto his mouthful of beer for a moment as he thought.
“Genius.” He replied after swallowing.
“Heres to that!” Penley raised his glass, “And to your health...” he took another swig, “and happiness”, another swig “and a long life with many successes so I do not run out of excuses to drink.” He finished his glass “Ah,” he opened his mouth and shook his head in refreshment.
“You would never run out of excuses to drink.”
“I am blessed.”
“Heres to that.” They made another toast. London fell silent as his mind began to reminise of his trip. A tempered smile began to appear on on his lips. Penley looked at him suspiciously, then declared,
“Uh oh!”
“Hm?” He was jolted out of his memories.
“You are infatuated.”
“What?”
“You always become distant when you are infatuated. Who is she?”  He turned attentively to London with his elbow on the bar.
“You become more and more random.”
“Who is she?”
“Ha. You are doing a superior job of amusing me than usual.” 
“Who is she.” 
“Its too exhasting to be infatuated. I prefer to not engage the activity as of late.”
“Ok. Who are you in love with?”
“I don't fall in love anymore. I am too intelligent.” This he enjoyed saying.
“Lord! I send you away to get your 'screwdriver' and you come back damn wisful. I ought to send you to industrial China next time.” Penley disaprovingly took a shot.
“Nah. She is not... shes not that sort.”
“What sort?” Penley was keen.
“The sort to fall in love with. She is like... like the childhood friend I never grew up with. You know, like the one that I would have played down by the creek with and put pennies on the railroad tracks.”
“You met her in Florence?”
“Paris, actually.”
“I don't know if I believe you.”
“I did meet her in Paris.”
“No. I don't know if I believe you are not in love with her.”
“Pen, your the one preping for law school, you will always win any arguement so I will not even make the exhasting decision to refute your suspicious.”
“Good, because I know my suspicious will be confirmed anyway.”
“Shes across the globe. Anyway, hows your grandfather?” London tried to find anything for the sake of a different subject.
'Oh, he never dies. Only pretends to.” Penley didn't like his choice of subject change.
'Everyone has their idea of a good joke” London considered.
“Yeah, but it gives false hope to too many family members.” Penley's joke fell flat.
“Hey, did you finish your book?” London was quick in finding another subject.
“Well, I decided that there is no need.”
“How do you figure?” It was London's turn to be disapproving.
“Simple. I will just title it, 'The Incomplete Works of Penley Wralf.”
“Brilliant. May I can shove all my half finished paintings between the pages as well?”
“Sure. You could start a new genre. You just have to tell the public that the vauge works are finished and they will believe you. They will believe you.” Penley began to slurr his words.
“How many of those have you had?” London pointed to Penley's glass that was empty once again.
“I don't know. I lost track.”
“Well, at least you have something you can follow to completion. But theres no nobel prize for whisky consumption.” 
“But I am sure the buzz of recieving a nobel prize is similar to this.”
“Ha. If it were true I would be writing a book.” 
“Its good to have you back City.” 
“Good to be back. I think I am going to need a cab to get home. Rot, my first night home I can't drive. Your a damn fine influence.” 
“Call a cab. Call a cab,” was all Penley could say.”

He was mute and sullen. Jonny's words  were warped
Alister has a duality in his preppy reputation as a standford transfer and being a very street savvy, smoother talker.
This story is about how love is possible despite the numbing techniques we learn and cling to with white knuckles.
Meet me at Victrola's, she instructed him. He didn't. He had a deal. It wasn't blow this time, it was heroine. He was dealing the drug of his friends overdose and death. She finds out and the next time she sees him and she tells him “You are silly without being funny.”
She finds in his pocket a gangster roll and a few remaining ounces of heroine.
Clank and drank.
Not the fine taste of Pilsner... 151
Our ambigious exhasted realations, she filing her nails incessently.

Yellow fishing nets, a storybook spectical, harmonious architecture, Lindos lighted square cafe.
Her words like a shrug.
I must confess I thought you were english. You had the reserve, the profile, the backwardness. I was going to apologize. I was English once when my papers got mixed up. Yes I was english once and I didn't like it much and I don't look forward to being English again.
 You don't like  London?
Ha. In my opionio London is large without breadth, dissonant without diversity and a bit backward.
What must she do to gain your approval?
Get a good wine bar.It is not that difficult. But the British seem to think it is.
But good. I can befriend you now that I know you are not English.
Epiphanies about painting Honfleur (impressionisms's source) Vieux Bassin inner harbor meandering over the Tancarville bridge. Graced by the light that was sure to have made an impression on Eugene Boudin in the open air courtyard of Notre-Dame-de-Grace
The gulf of Naples its violet hewed waters at sunset matches the rich shade of the mountains, silhouetted by a strong and passionate orange sky that slowly forfeited its vehement vibrancy to  the colorlessness of night.
A frighteningly beautiful arabesque. 

I found her perched on a rock in her usual pixie-like manner, sketching the old mans face; stealing it on paper. She was trying to grasp the achitecture of the human face. It is the most difficult thing to do she said. 
I walked away and told her I would meet her in the morning at the book store. She was arguing with the vendor, saying the necklace was not worth thirty euro. The next morning she was wandering the rows of book shelves with the necklace falling about her collarbone. The soft leather of her boots slouched about her ankles.
Charlottle street hotel. Since the birds have taken your breakfeast (at Place Vendome) allow me to buy you some.
The ancient centre. Piazza Navona, Flamboyant, Baroque Fountains riding down Via Del Governo Vecchio or Corso del in ascimento and turning onto Corsia Agonale into Piazza Navona. White umbrellas
North east Rome: Piazza di Spagna Caffe Greco Funny to imagine Goethe or Byron getting a cup of espresso here. Rather sophisticated. The fontana della Baraccia at the foot of spanish steps. Italian architect Francesco de Sanctis: Rococo design a pecilure shop owner came up to them in Piazza Navona, their vespa was  missing moments later.
Piazza s. Petro
Narrow streets of Naple's Quartieri Spagnoli (Spanish quarter)
The old fishing quarter on the island of Procida in the bay of Naples burnt yellow. The steep village Positano Amalfi Coast. Ancient Greek world Siracusa.
Church for las scene Baroque interior St. Ulrich in Ortisei. Camogli Rosa Art-Nouveau style villa winter garden veranda summer terrace, view of old fishing harbor of camogli hills of monferrato. Swollen current
Found her wit hte birds at place Vendome. She leaves the restaurant with warm lighting because he talkts to her about these many lovers. You seem to enjoy me most when I am angry. 
No. I just prefer heat to cold.
His voice became shaky under stress. Comming back to america was like awakening suddenly from an elegant and unlikely dream.
You get shot down.
Sometimes it is better to get shot down than be successful in a large house with the space between you and your heart growing vast. When you get shot down you still have your wounded heart. It may be only half pumping, but its pumping. But at least it is not like one of those wretched January mornings where nothing moves.
Out on lake union in a boat. Smooth apron of water. Like a painting where the dark colors rise to the foreground.
Cafe des Deaux Moulins along Rue Lepic.
La Table de Joel Robuchon Avenue Bugeand and Rue de la Pompe. Place Victor Hugo (carousel) Hotel saint Merry (He sleeps on the floor) 
Izzy was her loquacious friend whose company, he anticipated, would not be very condusive to the recovery of his headache.
Marble quaries of Carrara Portofino (beautiful cade) Milansese woman. For  a Paris breakfast Ma Bourgogne 19, Place des Vosges, Pavillion de la Reine. Rue de Turenne intersects Rue Saint- Antoine. Turn right, or on Rue de La Bastille is Bofinger. We could be cliche and go to cafe Marly. And we walked along Quai Francios Mitterrand. 
You don’t want to know about them. Admit it. You must develop the skill of hiding your disinterest, for you can not do it at all.
As the sun dug further into the horizon there was a bloody glow
as the sun always forfiets her blue stage to the stars.
But here, this is the thing he pointed at him with the two fingers that held his cigarette, you gotta hear the crown of her story. Ok, She has violet eyes he spoke very intently.

You have taste. Not good tast, but taste all the same.
Building tolerence becomes more expensive. 
Don’t be so material. He poured him another glass. 

A dull and flat tear hovered in the corner of his eye, grossly underrepresenting his emotions.
A civil war was going on inside of him. His passion was disolving and she anticipated his bitterness that was to follow. And determined how she would respond: with that logic and reason that burned like a blue flame.
And within your utter soloist frame, you shiver and think- the only comfort is Brandy. But no, even that seems cold and unhelpful.  
To be irrational is to be immoral. 
You must be the most immoral person on the planet. 
Yes. HE smiled. I am lucky that the Gods favor me. Or I would be in trouble.
You are rather dislestics, the dogs favor you, not the gods. Forgive him, as the dogs ran up to greet him
Alley ways of water with swans peddaling through. A little town with a river running through it and the commerce pushed up against the bank. Residents piled high atop the shops and the mountains as a crisp and uneven backdrop. Steeples were upon higher buildings and flower pots poking out of windows, greenery draping down the aged stone walls.
You gotta be firm. You must seperate yourself and establish the very difficult word "no". Try it on this guy. he will be too drunk to remember our experiment. The man with the wild beard and neon green shirt that had a blank stare.
I am content with our acquaintance, that is to say I lack the ambition to further it. She said to the drunk man as London made her practice what to say to men. Was that any good? She asked uncertain of her performance. 
The leaves quivered in the presence of the sun as she illuminated their silhouettes, their veins and vulnerabilities.
The Place smelled of oranges, as though such juices were within the misty spray of the eager sea; anxious to reach beyond the golden shore to the town. It was upon this excited current 
The murmur of the sea, little waves tackling one another.
His voice was even, even the way one will hold a knief level to make the most efficient cut.
Her very expressions were of such an odd mixture of gaity and hopelessness that they seemed to have hues and tones as colors do. When her eyes did not rise to meet the supposed felicity of her lips it roused a sense of loneliness within a spectator, as one witnesses in the sycynctness of her eyes the great disappointment and loss of how we are meant and attempt to be, but can only sketch the idea. One's imagination could easily complete her expression so as to imagine her with a face full of perfect happiness. And some did... in particular, Clive drew his own idea of her state of being and superimposed it onto her artful attempt of a happy face. So together Clive and she made out well: she always representing a vague sense of happiness and he filling in all the gaps to complete the illusion that she was indeed, in a state of bliss.
Her lip quivered with the uncertainty of an autumn leaf shivering alone on a branch... facing the threshold of winter. A beauty which is always changing, as paintings do under different lighting. 

The wind came upon him like a challenge. He leaned into it, determined to make it back to the hotel in the time he had excpected. Eventually it forced him up against a wall. Not literally, but he wished to terminate the feeling of needles hitting his skin, and so went up against the outside wall of a Church. He laid his head... his wet curls, against the silent stone, his breath heavy. He looked scornfully out at the wind-torn street “If God expresses himself through the weather than he has too many personalities,” he grunted, putting his hands to his lips to warm them. He then turned his ear to the wall, thinking he heard a noise. A fragile tone vibrated through the barrier, coming to his ears in fractures as it was faint. He looked through the window of the cathedral, the only one that was not stain glass. Obscured by the rain drops streaming in irregular paths was the profile of a girl. She was making the sounds, seated before an expanse of keys; her soft expression was devoted downward. He watched for a moment, his eyes changed from what they were when looking out at the hostile wind. He soon turned out again, preferring to brave the elements than wait for them to subside. 
pedimented screens canted across the corners give the rectangular Place Vendôme the aspect of an octagon.
He was halted by the sight of a legion of winged things... a swelling passel of pigeons so numerous that the object which they flocked about was fully hidden amidst their wings. Notre Dame was a backdrop to this flurry of feathers; its rock stature so heavy and resolute against the ruffling and swooning of the capricious creatures.  The wind like fingers, ran across reminiscent strings of its history. The shapeless tempest brushed his cheeks as curiosity carried him toward the birds. He was only eight paces shy from them when the legion took flight, fluttering away like some aerial myth, soaring into an empyrean dome... abandoning the lonely yet statuesque frame of a girl. She looked over her shoulder to see the uninvited guest, thus disclosing her identity as Taja. She wore an open and artless expression that closed in a resolute smile upon recognizing London. They had never been formally introduced and knew one another's faces but not names. He narrowed his eyes.
“Hello." He said.
"Hello." She returned in equal measure. He was still caught in surprise and she looked down and laughed shyly.
"I'm Taja." She realized the need for a formal introduction. 
"London. " He paused. "My diamonds took your hearts remember?"
"Oh, was that the way of it?" She was enjoying their uncanny meeting.
“What are you doing here?” He  asked.  Her face adopted a generous smile. 
"Well, I was trying to eat my breakfast but these birds beat me to the task I am afraid."
"Ha. So they did. But I mean what are you doing in Europe in general?"
"Oh. Well, Alisteris visiting his Family in Greece. I am going to join him in a few days and take the train south. And you?"
"I like Europe." He did not know the answer to her question. And even if he did know he was sure it was a boring reason. "Since the birds have stolen your breakfast may I buy you some?"
"I am hungry."
"Where to? Cafe Marley?"
"Mmm." She lifted her shoulders in pleasure of the idea. "I was actually craving an attractive cliche."
Do you speak any languages?
"A little bit of English." He smiled broadly with a tooth pick in his mouth.

Rendering tears in this emotional dessert
"What would such a city done to deserve such censure? Or perhaps the question better is what must it do to gain your approval?"
"It is not what it has done but what it has not done."
"And what has it not done?'
"The city would have my full praise if it had one good wine bar. It is not that difficult, but the British seem to think it is."  She looked at him like a knowing friend. He ignored his enjoyment of her look by asking the waiter for the bill.
"I suppose it i best we do not got to London then. Though I enjoy the city it is sharp and expensive and I haven't much money." She agreed.
Well, I haven't much of anything else. What a compliment we are." He flopped his handsome payment on the table.
"Indeed." 

Pacing along the bridges, Pont Du Carrousel. Pont des arts pont neuf.
The feeling of a tear falling along the groove between your eye and nose. It lingers like a wet kiss and gently evaporates with the emotion that persuaded it to fall. 
 The rustic hotel was made pretty by vases stuffed with flowers and eclectic, rich-colored rugs. A tired and ill-humored receptionist scowled at Taja's drunken state. “Nessuni visitatori!”1  (N visitors) She warned London. London cheerily dismissed her order- “Perché dunque la malinconia? Sorridere mia bellezza! Domani la notte sarà il suo giro prendere bevuto.”2 (Why so melancholy? Smile my beauty! For tomorrow shall be your turn to drink.)  She glared at London as Taja and he disappeared around the corner. 
“Don't let her prudish demeanor and modest neckline fool you. She is an incredible alcoholic, She loves it and becomes jealous whenever she sees someone else with it.”
“Shall I apologize?” Taja asked

Neither indulged their emotions . . . or paid them heed for that matter.
You could see the viens running through his forearms. She bit her cigarette.
The lip stick left on her wine glass. She had made her exit. He generously tipped the waiter and followed her our the door.
Swimming under bridges of rock into the Aegean. Milos greek island eating fish cooked in clay pots beneath volcanic sand. Exploring catacombs. God was feeling ingenuine when he made me.
 She shrugged, the water from her sip still in her mouth as though she had forgot to swallow, for her mind was somewhere else, remembering something. And though she was ungaurded, I suddenly became too frightened to investigate her thoughts. 
Through the warm, sometimes sulky streets of Rome .

      Stuck in traffic in a mid day lull. She sat with her cheek on her hand, blowing air through her lips in innocent frustration as she kept inching forward and taping her breaks... inching and taping. She looked over her shoulder, a smile evolving on her face as she recognized London next to her. He saw her. He shook his head at the mess of traffic, she shrugged her shoulders in helplessness. He reved his engine in jest. She threw back her head in laughter. He made a gesture to the carpool lane. She nodded, abandoned her car and made her way for his passenger seat. She entered the car and breathlessly urged, “Hurry! No one can know it was us who left it. My car was going to be repossessed anyway.”
“Yeah, its fine to leave it there.” London said casually. “People will just look at the abandoned car and simply think someone became enviormentally concious really suddenly.” He Enjoyed this moment mostly because he loved making the tires squel. The carpool lane was all theirs.
The leather interior, the quiver of shifting gears. Safe in that small world as daylight dimmed.
“Where are we going?” She asked. He shrugged. “Good.” She curled her knees up to her chest and looked out the window.
Sitting in the snow and sun on fifteenth avenue on the metal table and chairs outside of victrola. Steam rising like a prayer between us. Our thoughts climbed walls of memeories .
on the mediteranean watching our sand castles be stolen by  waves. 
“Do you miss home?” 
“Yes. But I don't think of it as home. Some places, no matter how much time you spend there or how many memories, they just don't feel like home. Do you know?”
from felled souls and soil
What is king Kong about? Power.
A gorilla
The carmel lighting swept over everyones' skin with forgiveness. I didn't know how in such warm lighting you could be using the cold, cold instrument of reason. The music seemed to melt with the light and everything seemed soft and inseperable (save for us). We were the oddity to the evening, for we were very seperable and with every vowel I felt the skism between our head and hearts widen. But your lips did not stop. They were gentle and rhythmic like the music, yet what sliped out from between them was not so. It was moments like this that made Europe not my favorite place. And I could not stand the apperance of being close when there was a divorce in our every glance to each other.
Watching your beauty decresendo in the tense lighting of time. Sitting on the balcony of a paris pad. There was some argument about how seattle's coffee was better than that of Paris. He was removed, perfect and sophisticated, Alisterwas. 
The branches strangled over the foreground of the suns final display. As it melted, the branches lost their shilouettes.
revered phantom.
Stop reading me she objected to his looks he gave her.
I just know when your voice dips low like  you had either not gotten your morning coffee or your soul is shorn once again between two worlds. The pain of living in two worlds shows itself in you when one world begins to disappeare and half of you is cut off...  its as evident as though you were missing an arm and a leg and when I ask why you are limping, you just dismiss the question, saying the ground is uneven.
I feel as though I am in a ring with a wild monster and I have to face it, or it will jump on my back this time it will lunge and have no mercy. How do you kill such a beast? Such an ugly face? I must become more ferocious. I cricle and circle and circle trying to determine how I shall come out triumphant. It was so much simpler to decieve the world with an imitation of victory. So I must really fight this time. I summoned my courage. There was none of which to summon as I can not longer rely on liquid courage. So I scraped my bones and the bottom of my soul to find some bravery and I wont cower now, if I die, I will die standing, even if on one leg.
undivided awe.
I have made this letter for I have not had time to make it shorter.
The sad eyes of statues each in naked poise. In their struggle and desperation. Some contemplative, watching the pigeons affectionately in the pavillion below them.
   Her voice always seemed to be brimming on a catching a cold, deep and hoarse and would dip lower when she was saying something very serious or very funny.

The sunrise reminds me of my mother... the sunset of my father. 
As though the stars decided they wanted to be bold for one night

We were night lovers. You always made me smile, but I never showed you. And it was easiest to conceal this at night, when the shadows shrouded my pleasure... the pleasure you brought.  This haunting music would play and you were a godess for a moment. You knew what I was thinking and would contradict me... climbing over chairs in the opera house. “Godesses don't do that”, your clumsy legs tried to tell me.
Like undulating silk the waves reiterated their powerful grasp over the sand.

 He smiled at him, “I like you man. I really do. But I am not going to do you the favor of fixing your face with a fist.” He winked and tapped my shoulder.
When I asked you later about your tatoo, you said
“It was supposed to be a map of the place I grew up, but the artist messed up. So now I have a tatoo of some place on me... but I am not sure of where it is. Maybe I will find it someday”
talking about all the people in his support class. Chase who always seemed to be weeping on the inside and yet always shoot from the hip
It is raw and the stale sun comes through. It is still and everything hangs in a way that disallows me to escape it. Every imperfection is opened wide and I have no mystery. That is what light does: kills the shadows.
Rain drops angerily stampeding on the winsheild.
Everything about us was subtle and sincere: her necklace dipping between collar bone and chest. She  hung about the metal, spiraling bar.
She gave up wanting to be seen and the aproval of others had left her inquery.
She knew I was drunk, even as she pretended to study. She kept brushing her hair away from her face when it didn't need to be brushed away as I poured whisky into my coffee. It was no secret
The realm of the heart is too often invaded by reason. She was the only perfection I had known in my world and she was blighted out with a swift brush of God's hand. seraphic emblem.. His ego politely withholds its appetite during conversation.
He finally left the circle of men to search out his undoubtedly drunken friend. He walked out of the smoky room and was embraced by the light music of the waltz as he walked  around the ballroom towards the area where refreshments were being served. As he walked he came into earshot of the light chime of the piano in a nearby room. The mission for which he had originally started out for was erased from his mind. Curiously he followed the sound into a spacious room where large portraits hung about the walls and ample windows permitted the delicate rays of the moon to pour in, creating dark-blue lighting which spread over a grand piano. There a girl sat, gently provoking vibrations which seemed to tickle the air in the room. She was the bold girl who interrupted the circle of men a moment ago with a kiss.
 Her hair tumbled down her bare back in no particular direction. The sleeves of her dress fell down either shoulder.  London stepped closer, intrigued by the ghostly notes she possessed through the piano and the grace of her skin. She was startled at the noise of his footsteps and abruptly turned in trepidation. At seeing the safe figure of a man, she was calmed and softly laughed at herself for her irrationality, though still rather flustered.
She recites to him, her eyes did not deviate from his face.
it is like talking to the dear genius.” She spoke of the dead man fondly.

“Well, do you see that poor young girl over there?”
“Yes...why, she is quiet elegant, not poor at all! What in your mind has confused her with being unfortunate?”
“Mm,” Taja candidly shrugged, “Only that she made the common mistake of falling in love.” Before London could answer she turned his attention to another young lady. A fleeting suspicion crossed London's mind She is an actress, though her greatest talent is making men fall in love with her. It is a talent she develops quiet diligently actually. I can not find fault with her though. As my father says, 'a person ought to use their gifts', and she does.
“Awe. I should stay away from her then.” London leads them into another part of the room. Taja looks up at him knowingly.
“You are not the kind of man that falls in love.”
“Really?” London's height required him to lean back a little to look her in the eye.
“Yes, you are not. You are too intelligent.”
“I don't know about that, but I am wise enough to not fall victim to flattery.” He catches her. She quickly directs his attention to the next introduction.
“And this man. The tall one over there.  The one with gray hair and a long nose who seems very angry... he is Mr. Nolan. Though I like to call him Serrano De Bergerac. He is quiet poetic and actually a musical genius, but he does not know it. Watch.” Mr. Nolan was demonstratively arguing with three men and was very adamant about the subject at hand, for his arms flailed in objection to what one of the men had said with superior repose than he. Upon realizing the scene he was making, Mr Nolan quickly composed himself as well and lowered his voice. “See, his vocal crescendo is more perfect than any I have ever heard.” Taja giggled. 
A painter, when he first awakens must notice the light, if there is any.
I do not know where Clive was this evening but I had a happy suspicion that his absence may be a trend from here on out. Right now my car is my leading lady, bottles of Chianti are my dinner partners.
At the party it seemed to be a happier time. Alisterwas not there, but there were men to make up for it. Giselle came to him, flirting with the entire room, males and females alike. It was her way, she kept a sophisticated distance. London did not think of it. Like an inherited memory. So afraid of the aloneness that she trusts. 
Oh. you are making sense again. No. really. I understand. Penley was intelligent and surprising with the wisdom he had behin his extroversion. You must understand. I can be halfly in the moment... but this drink take me away from places, even places I do not want to leave. The hour felt unfamiliar as I was usually sleeping at this time and we secretly left memories there. The museum 0aura it emits from its many ancient walls.
My conversations with uncle joe are never usual, but I mention them anyway... I speak of school work. So now I have stated all that is nessicary to end with "I love you." But it is no good. In all those words and mentionings these words were bellow the surface carrying my pen like a heart beat. My passion has become strong in its silence. So I do not say it yet. I wait. But I d not know what else to mention. So I speak of memories because these are the only rings we wear. They trump any diamond I must say. million-fold assent.
Oh, his fighting. He finds it so stylish and sexy, siply for the senationalism of it all. She shruged. Penley with his arched nose and chops.
Uffizi Florence Allegory of Hurcules Dosso Dossi Venus of Urbino
In the AA meetings all his entries to Conversation and sharing were blunt and  brief. Something of the way he said 
Daddy"
His well kept silence on the subject now made him vhement and forceful but he did not loose his gentleness.
Perhaps I have the false hope this man does that you will write back.
Back when it was legal to smoke in bars. Our lives were a consumation of the ancients words and texts. A bendiction writen in ink.
Saturn Goya Muso del Prado Madrid (Devil eating son, a strange visualisation of self distruction, of drinking. Dream-like manner. Franz Dvorak. Are you still fond of me? London asked Penley. The Tub Edgar Degas Musee d'Orsay Paris. Expansive Ebony. Metropolis by Groz Madrid. Watching the water lilies and then went to Monet Musee de l'orangerie Paris. He found himself not board, but cold on the inside and unable to let in the specticals before his eyes. He kept himself from despondancy by analyzing the architecture and art with the reasonable part of him; the part he had not thrown away.

He was grecian with long black hair that was like frozen waves from his stick products. With and eager, open, freckled face.
Dying in my own thoughts. Knawing black canger eating at the soul. Drinking this wine with you is to know god. Silky finish, supple tannons
I like the girl, but she can not handle men. I like the guy, but he can not handle liquor. 
Mr. Uristean was attempting to captivate her with tales of his military days, which Taja only understood to be an expression of his self patriotism. She stood by the window and was constantly raising her glass of wine to her lips as he stood very close to her face and  she wrinkled her nose at the smell of wine and cigars on his breath. His chin disappeared into his neck as he threw his head back in laughter at one of his own jokes. She took this as a signal that she should laugh as well. But other than his outbursts of laughter she knew not when to laugh. She would smile, and when it seemed as though she smiled too much she would become serious and nod. She would have continued in this manner of exaggerated docility; (servile Abjectly submissive obsequious, duteous reverential saccharine cloyingly) directing her eyes to him in forced and mocking attentiveness 
The rain cooled the sultry air, washing away its sweetness. As the sun was dismissed, it  suffused the roof tops with it's retreating light, oddly illuminating Taja's flaxen  complexion as she stepped into its presence. Her pale gown falls lightly about her shoulders. Her hair is twisted up carelessly, tassels tickle the nap of her neck. She grabbed a handful of her dress, revealing her bare feet as she mounted the slant of the roof top as London led her,  the light casting subtle shadows about his cheeks and lips. He grips the neck of a wine bottle with the other hand, speaking to her of Italy. They bravely settle themselves on the apex of the roof of Mr. Estell's villa.
“Oh look, I forgot wine glasses...”  Taja starts at her realization. 
“Have you  never drank wine without a glass?” London pretends to be astonished. 
“No... I never have.” She laughs. London jabs the wine cork with his pocket knife and opens the bottled.
“You just put it to your lips like so.” London demonstrates for her.
“Awe! You make it look so easy. Watch as I shall spill some all over the roof.” As she reached for the bottle London noticed nine beauty marks on her  upper back which had always been covered before by the lace of her dress or her hair. Taja lifts the bottle and chokes on the quick flow of wine into her mouth. London looks at the dots carefully; four on her left shoulder blade which made an asymmetrical square. The fifth mole was at the base of her neck. The sixth was a few inches below and on her right shoulder wing. The remaining three moles curved about her spine, the last one off to the far right. His eyes trace over and over the perfect points on her muscular back till he recognizes its shape.
“You have the constellation of a Draco on your back.”
“A what?” She shudders in freight as the name brought the image of a dragonfly to her mind.
“Draco. It is the constellation of a dragon. I can show it to you when the stars come out.” He traces his fingers over she honeyed complexion again to make sure the dots were in the exact place of the stars. “There is a mythology behind it.”   
“Oh? As there seems to be a mythology behind everything you know,” 
“Oh there is is there?” London smiles at her offhand comment while still fascinated with her back.
“No, I didn't mean you are... that is, you are not a liar. ”
She interrupted his examination of her back by turning to face him, her astute eyes examined his face. “You are simply talented at adjusting reallity... I can not deny that it is a good talent to posses. I'm actually impressed.” She says earnestly. 
“Oh?” Amusement plays on the corners of his lips.
“I really am."
“-Honesty has many faces.” 
“As does a monster.”  London stares at her, as though trying to penetrate and alter the incredulous look in her eyes. But she unwaveringly stares back.
“What would you like to know?” He tactfully offers. 
He searches for words that would satisfy. his mind gathering all of its memories into stark awareness: a very discomforting place. He tried to level what was  recoiled and unwilling to be brought to surface. “Have you ever thrown down everything you ever had in one day... in one moment, for a chance to possibly get back everything you had lost, or was taken from you before?” As London looked away towards the flourish of finespun color before them. She studied his profile and his expression... lest it divulge something that his words did not. “I am lost. Or should I say, I have lost  everything.” He continued. “Have you ever done that?” He directed his question toward her with a rawness that would cover itself and withdraw if he did not willfully open it up and hold it outward. His eyes wanted her answer. She looked at him almost abashed for having elicited such honesty. She resolved to meet him with the same sincerity.
“I have lost many things. My mother I lost... I have lost her.” She repeated as though hearing the words for the first time. “And I would give... my life, my heart...  if I could see her one more time... just once more.” She almost seemed to be making a plea to God, and an exquisite one at that. A heavy pause ensued and then she slightly laughed “But I never did try to throw away everything trying to get her back. Because death isn't very negotiable in that way.
Between their silence flutters the lilting good-byes of birds, saluting the day with their whistle. Taja's eyes intently gaze at the pastel horizon, slightly narrowing as they were immersed in thought. Finally she wily breaks the silence
A man's intuition is like a bat's eye sight.
“I am in love with her.”
“You are infatuated with her. You do not love her.”
“Oh I do not?” London laughed at Terencio's presumption. “How do you know?”
“I can see it. I will probably be able to tell when you are love with someone before you do.”
“Is that so? Then please do not exclude me from this information when the time comes. How would I ever figure myself out without you Gio?” London uttered sarcastically, though amused.
“I don't know.” He said with thoughtful earnestness. “You would need more than a map and a compass.” 
London hit his arm.
Tears gathered in her eyes as dew drops gather at the center of a rose.
The street lights cheerfully devoured the darkness hovering above; softening the stark black sky. Its glow was reflected in Taja's roguish eyes as she deviously smiled at London. She strode briskly to keep up with his strides; her cape billowing down to the concrete, landing in folds at the hem of her chiffon dress. They approach the playhouse and she turns to him. “You have to be confident. We have to pretend as though we have our tickets when we enter.” She instructed him.
“Please tell me why we are not paying again?” London tipped his hat further over his eyes in embarrassment.
“Because all of the seats are sold out. And besides it is dearly so much more fun to sneak in.”
“Have you ever been successful at this?” He felt a rush of uncertainty wash over him at the thought of being caught.
“Of course. But it will be ever so much more easy to accomplish when on a gentleman's arm. It does not look so suspicious. People do make eyes when they see a woman alone at a theatre.”
“Where will we sit?” London tried to find a reason to not follow through with their plan. 
“The best places in this theater are where there are no seats.” She smiled mischievously.
“Will they not bar us from the door when they see we have no tickets?” London slowed his gait.
“Come on!” She firmly took his arm and they strode to the entrance of the theater and halted. The usher and door man both stood square and planted at the entrance.
“Plan of action?” London whispered to her.
“Darling?” Taja spoke loudly enough for everyone around them to hear.
“Oui ma chere?” He replied promptly, playing along. 
“My earing...” she frantically fingered her ear lob, “...did I drop it?” She gave him a dramatically worried facial expression, fitful for a women who had lost her child. London was impressed by her seriousness. 
“No wonder she likes theater.” He thought. “Were those the ones I bought you only last night?” He mustered frustration. She nodded. “Good God. It is a wonder at how you  have not lost  your wedding ring.” He threw up his hands and turns to search for the pretend lost earing as a highly couple strutted up to the doorman. The two monopolized the doorman's attention with their air that only the wealthy can posses... and while the usher was preoccupied, Taja put the earing she had been holding in her hand into her ear and swiftly lead London inside.
 “Beautiful!” She throws a broad smile toward him at their success.
“Let us hope it doesn't turn ugly.” London winked back.
Gold and red carvings chiseled the insides of the dark theater. The designs blurred as they quickly climbed the broad stair case that lead to the private boxes. “I have never seen so much black and white in my life.” London indicates to all the men in their suits gallantly striding up and down the stair case.
“Quick.” She lengthens her strides. “I thought I saw the usher coming this way.” When they reached the second floor an elderly crowd decorated in jewels and pocket-watches peered over their theater glasses at them as they hastened past. 
“You speak French?” Taja's question is stifled by a whisper.
“You act?” London returned with the same surprise.
“Yes, well... not really. Most of my education came from sitting backstage in a little theater on the corner of 9th and La Borne. I would sit with all the face-painted actors between rehearsals and have intellectual conversations amidst the sawdust air. They were always making wooden contraptions there.” She reminisced fondly. London unwittingly smiled at her. 
“I am actually part French, or so I've been told.” He rolled his eyes.
“You don't know?” Taja They saw the flash light of the usher not far behind them.  Taja impulsively pulled him into a dark corner and wrapped a curtain around them that was there for the purpose of an unoccupied private box. 
“I am sorry that your first acquaintance with the theater should be so... so... impersonal.” She indicated the red curtain warped around them, making it impossible to see the stage.
“The best places in the theater are where there are no seats.” He quoted her. She shook her head and blushed. 
“I didn't mean to be hiding behind a curtain.”
“This isn't my first time in a theater. In fact, this isn't my first time sneaking into a theater.” London lied to reassure her that she had not ruin his initial experience. Taja's mouth slightly dropped in awe as though her opinion of him had been greatly elevated upon hearing these words.
“You should have told me.” She gave him an playful expression of betrayal. “We seem to have similar ideas about how to spend time.” She joked and shuddered at the feeling of wet hair on her neck. “Its hot.” she twisted uncomfortably as though trying to rid herself of her clothing. London looks down at her skirt.
“I don't know how society can think it is fair.” London shook his head.
“Think what is fair?” She whispers distractedly as her mind became preoccupied with the sound of the usher's foot steps. 
“To inconvenience a woman's movement by pressuring her to wear fashionably long skirts.” London seemed genuinely disturbed by this injustice. Taja thought for a moment.
“I suppose it is their way of making sure that we don't get into trouble. Like the chains that they make prisoners wear so they can't get away from their cell.”
“It serves its purpose well.” He sarcastically made reference to the trouble she had just managed despite this restriction.
“Oh! Can you imagine the things I would do if I were a boy?”  She was delighted by the thought.
The audience began to applaud at the closing of the first scene. She peeked out from inside the curtain. “They are so well trained.” She observed with amusement. London leaned over her and looked out at  the rows upon rows of gloved hands gingerly clapping. 
“It is so strange, I would think that they were all self-applauding; reveling in the feeling of diamonds dangling off their ears and congratulating themselves that they are doing as the wealthy are are expected to.” London waggishly mused. 
 Despite their attempts to be inconspicuous, London and Taja soon found the burley, but well dressed silhouette of the usher towering above them as they crouched low while peering out from behind the curtain. Taja froze but London instinctively stood up, irritated by the interruption. The fact that he stood a good two inches above the man gave him confidence.  
“May I be told what the reason is for this interruption?” He pretended to be withholding an Italian temper.
“Is everything fine here?” The usher look more suspicious than concerned.
“Yes, everything was fine.” London was emphatic on the past tense. 
“I am only here to ensure that all of our paying guests are comfortable,” the usher returned the emphatic gesture while looking from one to the other curiously, not sure what to make of the prospect. 
“And you call these private boxes!” London scoffed. 
“Shh!” The usher tried to make him lower his voice. London turned to Taja. “Really darling, I am quiet finished with the theater. Even the doorman are actors, for you can never be sure if what they tell you is true,” he turned back to the usher. “We asked for a private box, you said it was private... and here we are being interrogated.”  He waited for Taja to help. She had been watching his performance with a girlish delight which gave them both away. 
“We liked this view best.” Taja attempted to contribute while still wrapped up in the curtain. “You know... it is most comfortable for him. He is kind of shy,” she added with the intention of helping the situation. London internally winced.
The usher hesitated a moment, looking from London to Taja. Finally deciding how to deal with the odd situation he assumed a light humor, “I am quiet impressed with your act I must say young man. Maybe they should put you on that stage. Now, off you go, quietly and softly. I would not punish such connoisseurs of theater as yourselves.”  He spoke confidentially. London realized there was no victory to be won through his dramatics.  The usher hid his amusement as he watched the couple unwrap themselves from the curtain and chuckled at  their leave.
I chose to live my life and my life alone.
He missed finals and so did not see her for a time. Their next meeting place was on a trafficed highway.
Lets see how many cliches we can create in a night with blondes dancing on the bar and making drunken Tajakes over and over and over.
 I dont know a Jack Shit. But I do know a Jack Daniels and I am going to go celebrate with him because I just failed my test.” 
I see.

They entered the rustic place that smelt of leather and resognated with the sound of students typing on laptops. I am going to see uncle Tajae.
Uncle Tajae this is-
-Rapheal.
Like the angel. He had a voice that was worthy of worship.
Sure, I am sure no one would understand the association, but I am pleased you do.
Whether or not she was beautiful was answered in her honest and resolute presence. Such an extraordinary strength resided therein; dissolving the question of what beauty meant altogether. 
She mind kept wanting the figure to be him, that several times it made the man London. Hope rose like a wave as he turned his face toward her and when she saw his face the white crest... her reverie, was shattered on a shore of disappointment.  
This is where she is before she sees London for the first time after she left him, close to the end secene.
Taja slowly walked over to the French doors that led out to the terrace. Hints of evening began to break through the afternoon ambiance. The light maturated from a dusty to rosy hue over the city. The city lights winked at her, coaxing her to come away from her disenchantment. But she stood there, neither blocking it out nor taking it in with her eyes. The colors in her eyes were aroused to intensity by the crimson lighting.  She searched for all the large houses amid the tall buildings and could picture in her mind all the ladies powdering their chests and faces for some party that evening and wetting their lips with color so as to whip a man's head around in the direction she would walk. 
She looked down to the rose bushes below her. She never noticed how far the distance was between the balcony and the ground.
“Mmmm...” She thought, imaging tipping over the rail into the roses below. “How lovely it would be if it did not hurt to die.” She said aloud. It was a pathetic sight as she leaned over the rail timidly and very alone, like an orphan girl flirting with the idea of running away, yet did not, for she feared someone would miss her. She lightly dropped the idea as she grew bored with the thought, and withdrew from the terrace. 
As the week continued she found herself in a listless state of which, if she had the energy, she would not tolerate. She had not the strength to dress herself in a cheerful disguise She had released her strong grasp on hope she had held so dearly. She slipped into despondency. She was quite awkward with this newly felt depression and knew not how to behave. She did not become self pitying or mope, but baffled as to what to do with her arms, her eyes or stomach. Dazed and hungry with her hands uselessly hanging at her sides she wandered from room to room, with no intention at all, or will or want of anything.
It was the sort of fog that makes one mistake lamp posts for human shillouettes. A man was tap dancing alone after the last train left. The place seemed to be the beginging of a new era... characterized by abandon as the lonely echoes of tap shoes were carried down the tunnel. It would seem all the souls had fluttered out of the universe and it was only the tap dancer with a stolid blue eye upon him.
A Boutique in Prauge:
their constant sparkle and cool charm
His eyes swiftly glided along the displays and quickly stopped as they met with a large pearl mounted in gold and silver, set with three  European-cut diamonds. Perse crystals were encrusted in gold and intertwined in a way to make a choker. Their amethyst reflection in Terencio's eyes created a twinkle. Their mystery and danger allured him. 
“May I help you sir?” The women addressed him with suspicion. Terencio looked up slowly as she surveyed him with stark bright eyes. His mind froze as would a rabbit in the light of a hunter's lantern. “Would you like to look at this piece here?” She pushes him to pursue its purchase. “It is a three diamond rose-cut with a natural pearl measuring approximately six millimeters.  The entire size of the piece is 24.3 centimeters. Let me take it out for you.”
“No... no thank you.” He smiles. “I was just... rather fascinated by it is all.”
“Uh huh.” She continues to retrieve the piece. 

“Terencio! What are you doing here?” Terencio abruptly turns around at the sound of a cheerful voice to see Taja with curious and delighted eyes. “How lovely to see you.” She genuinely offers him a broad smile. 
never so relieved to be in her spritely presence. The assistant, with her hard lines tightening about her narrow lips where she held all her displeasure with the world, impatiently waited for them to end their interaction so she could coerce the impressionable customer into the necklace's purchase.
“Are you buying yourself a necklace?” Taja teased him as she sees the necklace the lady is holding out for him. Terencio did not know what to say or do as he  looked at the necklace like it was a large restaurant tab.  Taja noticed his reaction and looked upon the piece and then up to the lady; wrinkling her nose and shaking her head and in a polite, socially cultivated voice asserted- “We don't like it.” 
     The sales lady looked at Taja as though she had personally insulted her. Terencio's worried expression transformed into grin at Taja's blatantness. The two of them stepped away from the counter.  “They always try to take advantage of polite people. You just have to be rude.” She explained. “But, the thing is, you can not let them accuse you of being uncouth. You have to act sweet... and then they can accuse of being neither socially ungracious nor stingy...” 
“It was a dreadful necklace though.” Terencio interjected, still distraught over the situation. Taja laughed, “You have finner taste than most men I know.”
They would both become angry and reel off in Russian and portugeuse and by the end of their bilungal rampage they felt as though they had understood each other perfectly.
When she found out I had broke my promise and lied to her about being sober she left. She agiliey side stepped an elderly couple while exiting and I had to run to catch up. She walked quickly... lightly and quickly. It was pouring rain and her hair was soaked by the time I reached her to step in front of her. She avoided me and tried to walk off. I stepped in front of her again.
“Im going to try again baby. Just wait.” I flung myself at her feet *figuratively*. She pivioted around and gave me a steely look, like the way her eyes flashed the first moment I meet her. She spoke slowly,
“I am waiting. I am just going to go wait where it is dry. I may sound crazy, but I like dry things now.” The rain poured down her cheeks and they looked like tears. I took her face in my hands and tried to kiss her, while feeling foolish and impulsive.
“your lips aren't dry.” She pushed me away. “And you are not my favorite person right now.”
“I told you I was sorry. It dosen't happen overnight Taja. It takes time...”
“Yeah, it dosen't happen overnight. It dosen't happen in the day either. So tell me, when does it happen? When?” My mouth hung open dumbly.
She had the tact of something tame and the Tajay of a wild thing.
A man of little mystery and gentle as though afraid. He was placid and slow in an undefinable androgenic way and had a smile that was incessant and ingenuine.
Never did there exist a more vibrant adieu than that of the sun disappearing from this particular part of the earth on this particular night. Like a flower girl reaching for the eclectic hues of flowers in her basket, the sun threw her rays streaming through sound sky and they fluttered over it like a biblical epic or something unforgivably beautiful. Such a spectical was an inherent inconvenience to the traveler who did not wish to be halted in his steps. Portraits such as this were not meant to encourage industry or productivity but pose as a savior from such concerns.
The feeling of a tear falling along the groove between your eye and nose. It lingers like a wet kiss and gently evaporates with the emotion that persuaded it to fall. 
Her body like an illuminated fortress.
I would like to see a star explode. The sun is like a portal to the unknown brilliance of perhaps something very good.
One of the first stories told after paradise was shattered was that of a brother turning upon a brother.
Her little frame shook as she described the blue print. She was indeed, little and mighty. She insisted she must show it to me. So we went back to her place.
We made our way up three stair cases and came to her number. The first thing you notice about her apartment is the slanted ceilings. They were severly slanted, making the place not advisable for those who were clastaphobic. In her room there were blueprints spread out all upon her floor and bed. She brushed through them and retrieved a specific one she wanted to show me. I could feel her excitment  pulsing through her little body even from where I stood. “Look.” She said, spreading it before me so I could see, “this is the house I imagine.” The blue print was larger than I had anticipated. It almost took up her entire bed. It was simple and large with a touch of elegance. I could not read blue prints very well but I could tell that much. “This is the stair foyer. You can't tell on a two dememsion but it spirals up.” She gingerly expTajad. “And this is the painting room overlooking the garden. I thought of you when I did this part because you always say natural light is best. So I made big windows. And, the hallways are long and wide. It gives a sense of mystery. Yet it is very open with a sense of closure because every room is its own end. One does not lead to the other.” Her slight finger traced over the seperate ends of the house. “And here,” She turned the print over, “this is the best part. Look, this is the first thing you see when you reach the top of the stairs.” And it was the best part. She had vividly illustrated a succession of arched windows pouring light onto the top stair. They seemed like a line of soilders, or elegant gaurdsman in their uniform line. She sighed with pleasure at the sight. And I could not move my chest for a moment. It was lovely.
I am not waiting for you anymore. I am hoping for you, not waiting. It is so much more difficult to hope.
What a delightful deception when the sun shines yet it is cold.
The sweet agony of wanting to fly and not being able to. I would wrench myself wide if it meant that I would be large emough to hold your heart.
You were the girl every good boyfriend was not supposed to look at.
Clean your side of the street. Well the truth is, I became a little obsessive compulsive about it and scrubed it with a tooth brush.
You bewailed the fact that I was not strong. But now I am.
I wonder if God cries when he sees where we look for love. But the sun rises yet again, so he has not yet lost faith in us.
Never assult a man's strength or a woman's beauty. For it is writen. It is the seventh commandment: thou shalt not kill.
The human body is so fragile and exploited, plastered in print to be diminshed by a thousand glances. Promise me I will never find you there, nelt to a billboard selling everything that was given you, for a chance to survive. It is not a good bargin, because to survive in this world means a slow death... better to live fully here and die fully. Yes. That is what Uncle Tajae taught me.
No one was there to see me mess up  or get better. Good night Taja.
It is not about waiting.... it is about wanting. Do not fool yourself.
I wish there was simply one sort of love. One.
You can't wrestle a relationship to surrender, or force it into obedience. We were friends, in the truest sense of the word. 
Lidia, who was a blond and thought she was my secretary, would shamelessly live out stereotypes to the fullest. She swung her hips slowly when she walked. Her cadenced gate was well practiced. Her heels accented her movement with regular clicks. It was the clicking, not so much her daily attempts to seduce me, that was agitating.
Having a concierge simply so that there was someone to which they could feel superior. Without such people we could not feel successful or exclusive. Their art and color is rather discordant. The VIP alcove. Sleek, silver, windowless. Frivolity. Love has become a category on Craig's list or in the New York Observer.
People may think I threw away everything, but I prefer to throw away my life and prospects than to throw away the life that Twain spoke of: “Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thought that is forever flowing through one's head.”
So I comfort myself in my decisions. 
I collect relics from Egypt, it give me a sense of exoticness.

It takes a complex constellation of events for a heart to become so divorced from love. But I can relay how this happens... after all, it was my life.
I already made my quota of broken noses for the month. 
Now I exit meetings hoping futily that you will be there, your lovely shilouette in the drivers seat.
Life was so empty before her entrance. Mundane repetition and predictability were encrusted in my every action, my every cell as I would wake up to the sound of raindrops welcoming themselves onto my window pane (the sound of rain drizzling from a dark, gray blanket or incessantly pounding on my roof) 
She reached deep, beyond my heart, I always wondered what lied there. She was the only one curious enough to find out. 
I did not know what was left of me... my soul was a waif... like a luckless sailor who can only curse the wind, not change it.
There was always laughter or music, never was there a break in sound large enough to allow solitude in. I started painting. I believed myself to be a closet Picasso, but more graceful with the brush. However, Brandy always made me feel I was greater than any artist that had ever lived. Though when I looked upon my creation when she had left, my landscapes looked like sloppy bouquets of green beans and autistic poppies.
Compound of arrogance and grace. Hedonistic beatitude. Enmity, mutual hatred.
“Selfish moronic” Alex mumbled once Mark had gone. I would have continued on with my work and ignored Alex if I had not heard him persistently festering over his computer. Finally I commented, with the reminisces of Walt Whitman running through my head from last night, 
“It is trite and unfair to call him selfish.” I leaned back in my chair so as to obtain view of him. Alex looked up with all astonishment. We rarely spoke about anything beyond the sphere of work, and not even then if it could be avoided. He frowned at the fact I had discovered his disgruntlement. I continued, “beyond the fact that such comments would swiftly entail unemployment for you, it is more just (and safe) to say that Mark simply participates in an unnatural amount of self service.” Alex's eye slightly rolled and seemed to say God you are boring, and completely unnecessary.  
“Thanks Gabe,” he offered false gratitude coolly, “But taking one philosophy class to graduate was enough for me.” He turned away.
“Your lifestyle would suggest otherwise.” I muttered, denying myself the impulse to whack him upside the head and thus turn upside down his narcissistic, little world. Instead I continued to muse loudly,
“It is interesting. I don't believe there is anything that impedes the intellect more than egotism.”
“What?” Alex abruptly responded. I was more than willing and ready to clarify for him what I had meant, even using him as an example, but when he saw my readiness he quickly added,
“never mind, I will not even venture to inquire what you are speaking of or how it correlates with anything.”
“You need not inquire, you already know if you have any knowledge of yourself.” I scoffed silently. “May I add that nothing interferes with one's industry as much as vanity...”
“Excuse me Socrates, but perhaps you would like to go find a more inquisitive student, I am momentarily trying to file reports.”
“Glad to hear that I have bore you into a state of productivity, I should have learnt to do so sooner.” Alex raised his eyebrows at me with intentional hauteur and then warily mouthed the word Okay while slowly turning his neck back to his desk. I smiled to myself; disdainful, but rather amused.
Misfortune must exist for love to be demonstrated.
Once she understood how your mind worked she adjusted accordingly. One foot in both worlds. At least he has a reputation. That is what created infamy, the desire to be known, regardless if for bad or good. 
He told me i infuriated him and we both announced our mutual hatred over several glasses of gin.
She was my choice of poison. My thoughts quieted under the piquant assault of her touch. The icy lava rolled down like a slow-motion reach for the pinnacle of pleasure, deep within me, the cave with impenetrable walls except by her.
My love, my reverie, she only makes you forget that you have a greater design than to drink.
Filling the spaces of silence, rearranging the world, transforming the dark underbellies of clouds to flaxen laughter, as though she had command of the sun, or at least its affects. Never have I encountered such a surge of jealousy. 
Even at breakfast it renews its recognizable light. But then my familiarity with her drifts and there are aspects of her undiscovered or untouched. She is a novelty within her mystery. And I can never be quenched of her presence. That British play write evidently did not understand the nature of our love as he wrote “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” She had a quivering silence that always befell me and I could not stay angry at her long. I did not even notice that I had been wearing the same shirt for three days straight. I continued to flounder in terms of appropriate attire, and  my hair made me contemplate an occupation more suited to my appearance, such as a mad scientist. I could draw no conclusions at this point, for despondency is baffling. There is not one cell in the body that can muster concern for something as trivial as bed head. How does one unravel oneself when their hands are tired, how does one forge desire when there is not interest? I kicked a stone on the walkway and it landed at the feet of another approaching me.
Lies need infrastructure to stand. And what a great infostructure it was. Commands a view. baritone.
Once she understood how your mind worked she adjusted accordingly.

Everyone has their realities and their theories, their dream worlds and boxes.

Riding in the evening with his cat, cop pulls him over. How he used to be and how he fell out of the system.

 I had never missed something of which I had been so unacquainted
A learned love. A very messy usage of it at that. A learned love, however messily used
The privilege of  walking a cobble stone lane
I was told you have become an angel 

Her deep, sweet voice still navigates to my ears, and I shiver, remembering the mirage she is, and the kind of superman she made me. The ones with plastic capes and ropes attached so he can fly. I still thirst, and I know not when it will be quenched or who will quench it. And I still need an ending to my story. But I will simply leave it at that... for humans, unlike our stories, do not have endings.

As light bends through a prism, or a legion of birds ascend as a pinnacle to a graceful end, the light extended... farther than the shadows of trees.

Driving back from my meeting I was determined to not speak of anything but trivial things. You liked to crack me... or so it seemed. But while I was attempting to overcome this impossible feat of sobriety I would be strong- alone. You knew I was proud. I could tell by that wiley smile of yours that tried to remain secret while you were in the drivers seat. This would make me indignant, especially at red lights when the lighting made you exquisite and then you were both beautiful and knowing... what a dreadfully disarming combination. I dont want questions so I turn on the radio and Hendrix is playing. You asked me a question. I just shruged. You don't like to pry so you switch the station and land on Tajanny Cash. I dont know why you always do that.
They treat  you as though you were not one of them. They condescended you, pretending to compliment. But you know how the world is. You know how to survive... some times it means not living for a time, putting forward a pleasing expression and laughing at crude Tajakes. Knwoing when to be socially cultivated or deranged. The only face you do not wear well is your own... 
Waiting in the car in the shadows for me to emerge from my meeting. I felt as though I had just come out of a boxing match, with my fists still by my sides. I didn't want you to be there. I didn't  want to see you. not when I was this weak
But her Tajay would slip out without permission and she was vulnerable to the world while she laughed with her whole being. 
languor and limestone Elegant mullioned two-lighted windows with leaded glass panes. 
If I could live by one creed it would be your smile. It tells me my purpose... suspends my fear of death for a moment.
If you can not give yourself... not OF yourself... but your entire self... then you can not live.
And that can not be agreeable. she added
Bloody marys in the morning with eggs. We open the newspaper and by elven it was completely sprawled over the table. You took out a map of the world, stood on tip toes to retrieve it from an unfettered shelf. We learned everything that we forgot about in school. We made plans to change the world and then scurried to the rooftop for a cigarette. It was a morning and evening ritual. Do you remember? blowing smoke onto the dust covered clouds that bedded the sun before dusk? Your french inhale was quiet good. But mine was better.
I remember looking at you and yes, you seemed tired. But I thought nothing else of it. Now I know why. Uncle Tajae told me. You were exhasted from trying to kill yourself. Your smiles were never weak... but almost. Its stregth was waning. I didn't notice it of course. I just now realised.
She was going to miss her ferry, but insisted that she find this song that was haunting her. So we stoped by a used C.D. store and she ran in, her coat arms falling over her hands as she pushed through the door. Two moments later she emerged. Breathlessly she climbed into the car. “I couldn't find it” she breathed, “ But this little store girl pointed me directly to it. I was so grateful to her... she was my hero for a moment. I love momentery heros like that.”

What happened to Exavier?”
Well, he didn't want to have a cat anymore. He told me it would him or the cat that had to go. And I always preffered cats to dogs. The end.”
Oh oh! I think I just heard your concience prick you. She declared in playful mockery. More than anything I was addicted to you as a drug. You were the perfect drug, and if you had gotten along with my other addiction I think I would have lived forever. What misfortunes arise when both of your crutches won't go together, and I am forced to walk upright.
I summoned them to the light that burns. I waited for freedom to follow with my head in my pillow. I said yes to every accusation. I opened wide my shame and declared whisky had been my salvation. And now... I don't know what now.  There are no words for her handwritten beauty. No words. 
You are not my favorite person right now.
there would be no exits in this house because you would eliminate all unnecissary details in the blue print. I can release you now that I have been released.
Wild abandon.
I love you. I do. And not in a reckless way. Do you remember when I drew the skyline of San Fransisco on your back?
“Where did you find her?” Andre asked with a bit of jeliousy in his voice.
“In a place... In a place between tenderness and madness. And now I have lost her I have become both tender and mad.” I always emTajayed my dramatics more than he did.
Don't shatter my image of you. I try very hard to pick up all the little pieces of you.
“No! Let them lay where they are, just try not to step on them hmm?” The ash of her cigarette flecked on the pavement as she indicated how he ought to leave her image alone.

I caught you in the rain. It was carefully falling on your nose. The sun shot through the droplets and fell everywhere. You shook your head and bit your lip to mute your joy. It was then I realized I could never paint you completely. Joy is so difficult to sketch.

I no longer squirm at the thought of bordem or frantically try to make noise when it becomes too quiet. I have learned Taja, that silence has yet to speak her peace.
Behind the hurricane of thoughts going on in your head. In a world where no one sees you or cares to pull back the hair from your face to see every feature.
One of those days when it seems the heart of the world is being pumped by an iron fist,
we were going to have dinner where the lighting was blue. You leaned on Charlies arm.
It reminded me of how much i preffered holding your square waist to a paint brush.
Where shall I go for intoxication when I can not find your laugh?
OK. So our love was a  bohemian love... that is to say it was not a love at all. I promise one day I will be good enough for you. I promise. I am going to business school to become an investment banker. I will be sensible, not whimsical and you will come back. You will come back.

Some people's lives are writen on their face. You must have lived a very beautiful life.
I spoke with a man who you used to sit for. I suppose you were popular with the artists. He told me things about you, as did the fisherman down by the Biscay port whom you would cast with every tuesday morning. A funny shadow would come over his face when speaking of you. A regualr at the cafe pont neuf had his leg crossed and was viciously chatting with a local. I overheard the name Desdoniea: a name I hear much lately. I asked him about this person, and darling, I discovered you used to work there and I wished I could rewind to a time you were walking in for a morning shift. Those people told me many things. They told me your life was sad. 
I hope you lived it anyway.

The halls seemed to have your echo in them, there was some sense that you were there before I walked into a room that overlooked the arbaritum and there was a bottle of crown royal serving as a vase for a riot of lilies, stuffed genrously into the narrow, glass neck. The interior was neither ornate nor elaborate, but elegant and seemingly ancient... wise. The spiraling stair foyer gave a woeful feeling as one aspires to the top floor and a flood of light baptizes you from a stretch of extending windows. It was such a bold encounter with the sun that one could not help but feel like a soldier, going to meet the light... or the enemy. All too often these two things are interchangable. To come into the light, or to go out and meet it, divides one from the precious cradle of denial and darkness where one can recoile with morbid comfot... or be like a child putting their hands over their face, believeing no one could see them then.
I was a romantisit in the sesne of loving poetry and moonlight. You taught me to have more stanima with people or books... not just reading the most eloquent passage. I now think of myself as a true romatntisist. That is, a person who has unrequitted faith in relations among people.
Lost in a world of smoke and foriegn words. People tell you you are beautiful, so you think ok. I will smile for you, I will say witty things. You like hearing about yourself and my laugh? I will mention you with a laugh. I will be intelligent. I will play every card I got till I have exhasted the entire deck... and breath a sigh of relief when I can fold.
She preffered to go to a more true reallity: the imaginary.

Her eyes wavered they way they did when she was heart broken. Looking at her eyes was the only way to gather evidence for this conclusion. Because she maintained a smile and a happy glow.
Your eyes were my friends in that sense, they were the only ally to the truth when the rest of you had been sworn to lies.
His baritone voice that seemed to always be capable of breaking out into some extrodinary spiritual.
You know why she always carries those books around, holding them to her chest? They were her fathers. Those philosophers were her fathers.
Pills?
Oh yes. You didnt notice she was gone for three days in the hospital?
I couldnt say anthing. Uncle jo continued,
You know, when she did take all them pills there was no one to go see her cept me. I asked her if her family was commin. There were not flowers by her bed, not notes. Nothing. She was so little. I was afaraid to touch her cause I thought she might break. She looked at me with her eyes. You know those eyes, Those big eyes that always seem to be searchin' for heaven, and she said “uncle Joe?” And I says “Yes?” and she was happy I was listenin and says “Do you know what Alexander  did after he concquered India?” And I says no darlin'. What did he do? And she looked at me with this strange gravity. She was so serious it was almost funny. But I couldnt laugh, not to at a face like hers. And she said “He cried... He cried.” She repeated it as though they were two seperate things “he cried. he cried.” I just looked at her. Her serious face melted away to make way for a smile. She grabed my hand with all her boney might and seemed to be restin in my pressence, it was as though her head was restin on my chest even though it was on the pillow of the hospital bed. She closed her eyes, a peacful expression fell over her. I was afraid my presence couldn't hold her. It sounds like a silly thing. But that was how it felt. When I kissed her on the forehead, she held my hand tighter, only let go when she fell asleep.”
I looked at Uncle Joe. I wanted to say something to him. I really, really did. But all I could do was hit the wall. I just had to hit it again and again and again.
I didnt know she tried to die. I didnt know that between the nights we talked about life she was trying to invent her death. She politely never brought it up.
They looked at the austere structure. There seemed to be a chilling moral in the structures. She ran her hand along the sculpture in a revered manner.
He entered the home in Florence, and walked into a two story routunda with a domed ceiling. On eather side was a curved, sweeping stair foyer. He walked down a corridor with a vaulted ceiling that ran between the library and the dining room.
Looking at a museum in madrid. A spanish couple was looking at paintings in hushed tones, discussing a spanish artist. The heat was opressive and there was no wind benevolent enough to sweep in and pick it up off us.
The poor girl was not at fault. To compete with her own apperance was exhasting. IT would take a terribly large personality to eclipse that profile. She herself could not sustain the affection her beauty initiated from the male eye.
Newspapers strewn over her bare lap. She bit her finger nails or lip when she came to a disturbing colum and I could tell when she was reading something funny because a wiley glimmer shown in her eyes. Everything about her was subtle.

No prose, just prosaic.

Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be Alexander, sitting over his many kingdoms, and realize there is nothing more to conqure. Nothing. Your hands can hold no more, and ther is no more to hold. To take everything and have nothing. She put stress on each word, seemingly horrified as she thought aloud. Do you know what he did once he conquored India.
No. What did he do?
He cried. Yes. she said gravely.
Well, I suppose that would make sense. He considered.
Hm?
The greatest frontier had not yet been taped. 
And what is that?
Himself. He had not yet even touched upon the subject. He could not of had the time while he was busy taking over half the world.
  “I asked her what you doing  thinking about alexander? I laughed to myself. Its all those books shes read, those ancient books.
She walked in with this man. Raphael had never met him nor seen him. But he hated him.
 She turned about the room surrendering with attentivness to those under her gaze.
Excuse me. But I tend to be caustic to my lover's lovers.
So you are off to die for your country? I am sure she is flattered.
So delicate and dangerous
What are you drinikng?
Water. His heart pounded.
May I have a sip. Her request was candid. He handed her the cup and turned away. She put the brim of the cup to her mouth.
Do you want to see something beautiful?
 She smiled with her lips parted over the brim, dangerously hovering above his secret. He turned around and shrugged “sure”. She stepped back, took a breath and threw the liquid into the air. It was suspended for a moment in a collection of translucent droplets. Then it fell between them. He looked at her. She looked at him. They fell into laughter and walked off arm in arm.
I hated your steady presence. Your big eyes looking at me. Disappointed I am sure. I was too drunk to recall this detail.
I feel as though I am a closet picasso sweeping landscapes. They seem at night and come morning they look like disoriendted vegitables mangled by autistic poppies.
It would be nice to die young and meet death with a beautiful face.

My boss asked me why I was about to cry. “My foot hurts” I expTajad. I have gotten worse at lying since you left.
Reiterating that her body was sarcred. It became very exhasting.
I feel as though I am slowly bleeding to death since that day.
How i preffered ignorance. What a dear little cage. I feel as though I am not able to walk. I search recklessly for my crutch. Wine, whisky, anything, Take me away. Hide me away. But then it works both ways. It takes me away from places I do not want to leave. Living has lost her allure and practicallity. so pour me a glass. pour me a stupor please. Thank you. You are very kind. Dying takes less effort with you as does living.
Light in an auric plea brought me to my window. And I wish you had seen the sight. It was a seduction of my soul that fell to an echo of quiet love in a mere moment. So passion and self possesion met for the first time in that lighting. And I understood what it means to do everything in the name of goodness.
It took me a moment to look around and realize if there are any glories here they are gentle, and only recognized with a soft smile. There seems to be no great battle ground. I watched a boat dock this afternoon, and that is all.
The smell and taste of Zoka's coffee reminded me of the times she would wake up with a little morning spirit and help me change my life. She always did that.
Found her in some corridor of contentment. Baring the teeth of her being into the words of the ancients. They have not time for the aimless lies our culture devotes themselves to. I wait for the moment when my heart has waned to a cresent and my head is heavy and needs to rest itself on the large words of profets.
He made drinks with his strong, gentle hands. He was very paced and even in his temper and movement a butterfly would feel safe.
My silence is enriched by her silence.
As dreams melt with the carmel sunrise... only fractures that I can not recount with even a sixth or seventh sense... how I wish to retreat to those places where a thousand words ameet the air at once, declared with one voice: yours and mine.
Allow me to be existential this once! The world is an opaque ball upon which I wonder without lust or an appetiet... but prosaic determination. I will find you my dreams say to me. The stale sheets I awake upon hush me into solitude as I think upon how distant I am from your silk body and violent heart. She is not here the day light illuminates. I shut the curtains as to reply “you are useless to inform me of such things.” but I do not touch woman nor drink as I search for you.
All these souls... regardless of their affection for you, knew how to handle your beauty with their clumsy hands. They were like little boys who saw a lovely flower and picked it for their own enjoyment, rather than letting it grow.
He sat in the back of the cafe with a beard that seemed to be suffocating him and collecting bread crumbs and milk on its wirey curls. He was as difficult to approach as it is to hug a cactus. I was certain you must have touched his weathered heart and perhaps even invaded its gnarly chamber on a wing of love.
Her earing chiming in the wind. A haunting illustration of the past. Echoes of laughter... a bell tolls and then rests heavy as the air remembers her lonely claim. I have become less fond of paris. Her monuments and dimpled, sloping statues are like tome stones... quiet and cold. I feel as though I am sleeping among them since you have left.
The clouds hovering close to the earth... tinting the water a cement shade.
His purple eyes were the crown of the story. I feel as though clocks and mirriors were invented after Eve ate the apple.
Laughter desending in scale
A whimsical meeting among all the world's genius“You are not my favorite person right now”
His heart was broken so he was committed to silence. I wanted to correct him and tell him he was being silly to not speak. Everyone's heart has been a broken. He makes me a bit indignanat. The streets were all the more lonely for their cheerfulness, it somehow made more poignant the fact that you were not there.
Ponderously arid. Slipped between his shoulder blades without a fuss. Decline of the day . Parading about in a guise claiming it is love when it is not even a viable mimic. It is maddening.an imposter. sex can be such an imposter, and it betrays us so often, wearing the mask of love.
He is  overprivileged, broad shouldered and was sparing with his emotions. A thick, solitary tear drop fell down her tense cheek.
she had lived a slow death for so long, that to end it under his name would finalize and mark her grave stone, like shooting a lame bird. Her cool dertermination to live dimmed. Balmy soirtiste night person
muse over his brandy, looking down into the glass as though searching for something there. The whistle of the birds slipped through their silence, yet they somehow embellished the quiet.
Brick bridges whose crest supported several half naked limbs dangling off them in the heat of the day. The harmonics of their laughter rose with the heat in an unpretentious rhapsody that annoyed the work-laden fishermen below on their boats.

There was no wind compassionate enough to sweep in and lift away the sweet and oppressive heat. 
Never did there exist a more vibrant adieu than that of the sun disappearing from this particular part of the earth on this particular night. Like a flower girl reaching for the eclectic hues of flowers in her basket, the sun threw her rays over the  sound sky and they fluttered over it . Such a spectical was an inherent inconvenience to the traveler who did not wish to be halted in his steps. Portraits such as this were not meant to encourage industry or productivity but pose as a savior from such concerns.
The trill of a little sparrow.
lost in the streets of rome. unexpectedness.
the Bigatti Veron the fastest car in the world will burn up its tires in 15 min..... but thats ok becaues it will run out of gas in 12 .
He was an escapist... he loved like when he was drunk... especially when he was drunk enough to forget he was alive. Cold intellect, it burns like a blue flame. Walking as two shiloueetes on the railroad track.
We can not touch beauty. Yet it can touch us in places of our hearts that we ourselves may not access.
Renovating an impossible frontier. Formulated principles by which you live your life. They are not innate.
Her inquery for others approval had left her to a dissonat place.
St Germain des Pres back alley
Cafe napolitian. crowd on the boulevard. The terrace of this cafe note.
Avenue de l'opera. Turn off the avenue up the rue des syramides through the traffic of the rue de rivoli.
We went for a drink in at the Stumbling goat in greenwood. London speaking with Penley over honeybees just as he is back from Europe."Living in this franticism trying to grab all the colors of the world and eat them, devour them before you are gone. Take the knowledge, attention glory and if you cant have glory if your cant make it to the podium, then take honor because it is easier to take when you are dying. "
"And then being happy and trying to pull the world into your personal party, but the world does not always cooperate with your happiness."
"No. I am too artless to be a businessman."
She herself could not sustain the affection her beauty initiated from the male eye. Though the poor girl was not at fault. To compete with her own apperance was exhasting. It would take a terribly large personaility to eclipse that profile. 
Escaping to the equatoral waters.
The man at the bar didn't like me. He gave cool glances while shuffling glasses and gin. His manner became such an inconvience to my thought process that I considered using some subtle insult with words. I could insult him with words, but not my fist. Because I knew I would come out second in that department I made the self-preserving decision to keep peace.
He said he wanted to go to italy because it was more beautiful. Poor Ireland. She will miss him. It is funny how often beauty wins the argument. Well it is true with our disputes.
The approval of others waved in and our of her inquery.
We can be animals... or we can be other things. Watching people in the street act like animals is not as pleasent as going to the zoo.
The privledge of a first class education. I know how to work, but playing is what I do best. With so much excess it is easy to fall into drinking. All hell is wrought loose when trying to forge paradise on earth. I did not want her to see how weak I was.
I wish I had reserved the right to refuse a response to your question. But you are irish. I do not think I would have the heart to anyway.
Hendrix said, when the power of love overcomes the love of power then shall the world know peace.
Oh is that all that must happen? She smiled.
I took her up to marshal point. The northern part of the olympics were obfiscated by clouds. Her words wrung out all the liquid courage that was in me and I was dry. The sun had gone to meet the horizon. The day had not much breath left. Egals crowned the skyscape. We stood apart.
What does beauty do with all the breath she steals from us?
Lives forever.
I was craving an attractive cliche
It took a time to grow accustom to the abrasive gutteral sounds of america. I still spoke rather delicately from so much european influence.
The bulgarian barista was only there saterday and sunday. Late nights in that quiet, expensive office.
Looking at all the transperent bottles... so many possibilities... combinations. So many names: Gieshas tears, honeybees. streamlined oak bar. A good place to get lost or drown. I see no horizon. It has been a long time coming. I speak in understatments as of late.
Sorry Uncle joe. I was never very good at saying my feelings. Thats ok. Its why we are given faces son. But I couldn't look at him either. He understood things like that too.
My agitation had suddenly subsided (after telling her that he loved her) and I was prepared to resign myself to her answer. So I waited for it.
My alchoalism out did her love of drink. She tried to be my comrade and understand. She tried to display all her worst drinking habits so as to eclipse mine. But I out did her everytime.
After she left the restaurant with her lipstick on her glass I strode after her. stopped her, turned her toward me. Her hands were wrapped around her waist showing her reluctance to speak. "T. What happened?"
"Oh. I am just tired." She tried to speak inconsequentially.
"Oh, you were tired so you just get up and walk out? ok. What is it." I pressed, my hands firmly on either arm. She shrugged.
"Come on. Lets not play this game. I am not fond of it."
"I told you I was tired." She replied simply, refusing to give more of an explaination in her usual rebellious manner. Beneath there was something burning.
He was threatless
I don't want to argue about this. Whatever it is you hate about me I agree.
Bouts of passion, confessing all these lovely things to her and in the morning not remembering a thing.
Eh! his old time friend came up from behind him. Could you point me in the general direction Rome?
"I think what you need  is to be pointed in the direction of sobriety.
Those who are taken with their own beauty make it difficult for others to be so. She was rather neglectful of her beuaty and thus the job of fostering affection for it was cheerfully placed upon the eyes of Winster who did an excessively perverse performance of the task.
He stood rigidly and expectantly and she agitated and rebelious.

Wishing he could bare his teeth into time and wound her so she could not slip so quickly by.
 Grizzled, Statuette, swilling a featureless plain. 
He must be maddly brilliant.
Aye, or just mad
She is a lady of whom one can not apply the term “difficult’ with enough liberty. She is more bitter than the coffee she makes.
Arid eyes that seemed to have never experienced tears. 
“Do you believe in heaven?” London closed his eyes for a moment and slightly shook his head with a lack of ownership for his words he replied,
“Sure.” Taja looked at him doubtfully and proceeded in ernest
“Well, I am not sure. But I think, if there is such a place, we could never imagine it.”
“Aye. ” It would have been better that his tone was bitter than lacking the aliveness it did. Taja quietly added after the conversation seemed over,
“It does not make sense, as it shouldn't, for what sort of God would he be if his heaven could be explained?” A little creaves had developed between her eye brows, the sort that occurs when one is distressed. London looked over at  her and did not mean to, but smiled.
Give me paris and all those souls fastened to her. 
It would not be. Had your flattery a face it would be the most lovely. There you see, you have no power when your pretty words are confiscated.
But it would be so pleasurable. Aye, I dare not deny it would not be. However, pleasure without love conviction in nonsense. And you, being such a lover of reason and sense, would be rather tortutred in our relationship. There is nothing more common than romance without love.
he escorts her outside. The cry of a violin that resonated from beneath the fingertips of a French musician, slightly faded as they walked out onto the sweeping terrace overlooking the city.
“This music is to sad to dance to.” Taja objected. London ignored her and twirled her under his arm toward the large fountain in the center. Cherubs spouted  water from their lips which sprung freely into the warm evening air, or cascaded down their stone bellies. They were soon caught and picked up into the effusion of music; their feet lightly brushing the ground. He felt tormented  by some real or perhaps only supposed grievance, of which he could not voice nor extinguish. It remained harbored in his chest by the strength of silence. He was acutely aware of her pulse enclosed in his fingers and could not ignore her full-toned laugh echoing in his ear, only to slip and fade (respectively) from him; not sweetly nor bitterly but simply tastelessly.   he hoisted her up on the ledge of the fountain to beguile her and himself from investigating this depression.
“You know...” she gave them a last look, “...perhaps their fashions always change to make up for the fact that they never do.” Her waggish suggestion lured Adley's eyes directly to her mouth which were enticed by the seductive shadows that were cast about her innocent features. He opened his mouth to reply, though he did not know what he was going to say.
 his cheerful manner so as to avoid any possible suspicion of those about him. But he quickly found that the wine and scotch had already disabled much of the guests ability  to maintain a sober state of any kind, let alone suspicion.
 She couldn't withhold a kittenish mirth from her tone
tried to detain her hurt 
her patience maddened him, once again confirming her good nature that was a fightening juxtaposition to his caustic mood. All she need do was look at him and dread swelled inside of him as he felt raw before her open eyes.
she gingerly stepped about the fountain rim. They twirled in silence till Adley tripped on Madeira's skirt, lost his balance and simultaneously they both  tumbled into the fountain  The small crowd that had been lingering outside and watching the couple  with an idle interest, were shocked by the accident. Adley watched the water running down Madeira's shocked expression; wide eyes and open mouth.
“I hoped that dress is made for swimming too.” He laughed.
“Well, it certainly wasn't made for dancing!” She was almost grateful to the water for having brought back Adley's attention. He lifted her out of the fountain.  “Thank-you for dancing with me.” Her limpid eyes seemed to have let go the entire altercation that had passed between them. As she headed inside, water slithered and dripped down her back. 
the monster within him possessed some semblance of remorse or of that anguish which is known as conscience.
He had to squelch his desire to fall before her in shame and ask forgiveness. He stood straight, bearing the discomfort he believed his character to have caused him. Where most men would have interjected an easy “I love you” he was silent. 
The whistle of a swallow stole the silence that would have lingered between them
As all that could be said was, and all else that wanted to be said could not, he parted in silence.
She bitterly yielded as her proud slender neck bent slightly downward;  Adley watched her leave with a clenched jaw, and then diverted his eyes to the ocean. The waves brushed back and forth... illustrating a perfect parallel of his indecision to stay of go after her in a swelling, guilty echo.  
Whatever it is you hate about me, I agree. He was dry.
ruefully
He listlessly stared off to the distance, in the direction the train would be going. The faces about him were strangers, not bearing any semblance of similarity. He felt cold in his skin as though he was in the middle of space alone. The noises began to escalate and his feelings were diluted as though diminished by the rancor. 
“Damn all their indifference.” He need not have said this under hia breath as the din within the station drowned out his words. 
She looks up to him with a steady gaze, ready to take his answer. Adley smiled as his eyes went over her face and then he rested his forehead on hers.
The clock struck the departing hour of the train in an inappropriately cheerful manner. Adley kissed her on the nose 
 She bit her lip as though to withhold tears. But they came. In a soft, warm rush they slid down her sorry expression as did the wet kisses of rain drops.
To be in the company of a viceless person is maddening. It is not so much that I envy them but that I can find absolutely nothing in common with them and it is rather dull. 
She watched Adley with  Beatrice with idle interest, expecting him to be undertaken by her unsurpressable elegance and exagerated femininity. She had watched such developments as one would watch a play that one had already read and knew the ending to. For they were not lovers, but friends, allies at first.
Defrauded by charm or beauty.
suddenly become stony and cold even amid its vibrancy
A man can be good in society and bad in his heart. He may speak all the correct things and exhibit an interest in everybody in a charming way, but when pressed, he would run over a child on a horse to get what he wishes. He is then a coward for he has no candid means of expressing his desires but persuades others to give it to him as he offers first a polite and charming allusion.
She did not look at him but gave him a look. She had innocence without nietivite.
What do you do for a hobby?
He reminds me of veronsky in Anna Karanina
Go on john, tell them, you will be surprised by how many people accept self admiration as a hobby.
Her eyes did not rise to meet the supposed felicity of her lips. It roused within the spectator a sense of lonliness and dissapointment.
Langor and limestone, great grey slabs of uneven stone and when wet with rain resembled a dark and forboding tempest. Bequeath 
Your face is not very helpful in redeeming  your... overall appearance.

a flourish of finallity.
The subtlty was lost somewhere around the lines of his lips.
If he were a symphony he would be one of Mozart’s, too many notes. She reffered to professor brown.
If heaven were logical I would prefer not to be there. For what sort of God would he be if his paridise could be explained?
My dear girl, I have finished school. I imagined you were in the crowd on graduation day. It was easy to spot your face, it never was difficult, even on the crowded streets of Rome. It has been difficult getting through. I now live in an apartment above The Village. Being on the east coast brings me in closer proximity to you. I like to imagine you stand on that shore and face west, I face east... and your eyes are so big I can see them... or maybe it is the stars. I confuse the two. Ha.
    I am worried about work. You keep interrupting me. But I would be a rather board if you did not. While studying for the CFA my mind reinvents our meeting place in a different era. I imagine that if we were to have met in the 1920s it would have been a private poker club. Venusula, that is where we are, and you are wearing a scarf that drapes indipendently from your bones and I need a light for my cigar. You were smiling a great deal to all the players while I checked my chest pockets for a match. You flippantly turn your head in my direction and notice my distress and  angst to inhale this cuban cigar. In aquitted concern you whip out a match and light it on one of your playing cards. I am grateful, for the light and your attentions. 
Thank-you. I say with great delibertness. You shrug and hand me the entire matchbook. I then begin to contemplate what to say. Then, because I thought it would be devilishly clever and witty, I declare “Would you consider it a diplomatic gesture to sleep with your opponent?” You turn and shake your head,
“That sort of diplomacy is only the presidents priviledge.”
“I am the president,” (it couldn't be that hard to believe).
“Oh! Oh ok.” You nod understandingly and then a smile confims you are mocking me. But I still have your attention. This is how I imagine our first meeting in the 1920s... and I am inventing one for every decade, back to the gladiator era. And the CFA can wait. And no, I have not been drinking.

“What do you think of him?” An image of the puggy professor came to her mind, “He is... um, very well rounded. A mild annoyance from our first controversy. 
I awoke with an erry silver lighting leeking into the room. I reached over to feel the smooth dip of your body... but pricked my hand on a rose thron instead.
 I have a cat, a very bachelor thing to have. I named him Tiger. He has the name of a wild cat, but not the assets. Sometimes I think the name I gave him was self projection, though he has a subtle disdain for me. I have never felt so invalidated by an animal before. He does a superior Tajab at this than most humans. He always sits very stately at my kitchen window and glances over at me, or more like looks down upon me. Yet, against his pride, he never fails to wake me up at six AM every morning by licking my cheek or pawing my chest. He quickly retreats to his food bowl the moment I move a limb.
     When I climb out of bed, pieces of my dreams come back to me in haunting fractures.  Reemergences of images of that dream poignantly occur as I brush my teeth while looking into my water-splattered mirror. I have one foot in the dream world and one in reality before I am fully awake. This is the only enchanting aspect of my life: startling myself in my abhorred bathroom and plaid boxers as memories of my dream shoot through my mind at six in the morning. 
     I am most forlorn in the morning, and it takes me whole of an hour to ready myself for work. I am not vain or anything, but I shuffle aimlessly around my flat with wondrously tousled hair and can never find anything. I realized that I should remedy my disheveled apartment, so I hired a maid to come in every Tuesday to clean. As she came every week and put everything in perfect order I developed a subconscious annoyance with the the scent she would leave on all of my bed sheets and the way she would fold and tuck the top of the toilet paper roll as though my home was a hotel room. I often felt the impulse to shove her out my window and yell after her to leave me alone, never mind the fact that I had asked her to come and was paying her. Much of what I initiate seems to end into a feeling of having been induced to do so by another. I finally rationalized that I could never find my things in the morning, so Kitty must still come on Tuesdays. 
      My coffee maker is broken and grinds always manage to fall in. I stubbornly brave its bitterness for the sake of wakefulness, or more so as to not be part of  the stampede of crack-berry addicts bombarding any given Starbucks at seven in the morning. However, after wrestling with my taste buds, I make the eventful decision to forgo my Turkish style coffee, and with a defeatist attitude hit up the Starbucks three blocks from my work. Petra, the only baristia that knows how to make a cup of coffee in the place, is always the first to welcome me. The stoic lighting that surrounds her smile when she greets me in the morning is evidence of what customer service does to a person. 
In fact, I'm sure you didn't know that, since I just made it up. 
We laughed in that rooftop, but slowly you realized I did not stop drinking. I woke up in my bed. You put me there. It was the first taste of what would be our ending... blacking out on your birthday.
There was always laughter or music, never was there a break in sound large enough to allow solitude in. I started painting. I believed myself to be a closet Picasso, but more graceful with the brush. However, Brandy always made me feel I was greater than any artist that had ever lived. Though when I looked upon my creation when she had left, my landscapes looked like sloppy bouquets of green beans and autistic poppies.
“I always knew that among the technical advances of the  21st century, the male's ability to express himself would be one of them.” I was baffled as to how such sarcasm, however subtle, could enter between such innocent lips. I realized that I should be searching for a rebuttal as her comment was, after all, an insult. But when witticisms failed to reach my lips, I promptly threw her overboard. Her petite frame made a pathetic splash in the water of Lake Union.
“How witty of you!” She laughed once her head came to the surface, “always interjecting brute strength where words fail you.” She spit lake water out of her mouth.
“Do you want me to come in there and teach you not to insult someone twice your size?” I stood up in the boat.
“That was my ulterior motive in provoking you.”  She smiled blithely and began to flutter around in the water, as though trying to tempt me to come in. I jumped in and grabbed her ankles, pulling her down and kissing her. We rose to the surface spitting and choking.
“Pond water has never tasted so marvelous.” She shook her sopping wet locks. Stray strands whipped around her face and décolletage .
“Can't we have one conversation without getting sidetracked?” I was referencing to the fact that she could not hold a serious conversation without punctuating the end with humor. She looked at me, the reflection of the water pulsing under her jaw. I anticipated the wily smile that began to appear at the corners of her mouth. She checked herself, biting her lip, earnestly attempting to maintain a serious face.
“Can't we get sidetracked without having one conversation?”
“Hm, that sounds frighteningly similar to the story of my life.”
“I would like to read that sometime.”
“What?” I began to lift her back into the boat.
“The story of your life. You should write a book about it.”
“A book?”
“Yes,” she was excited by her own idea, “and tell them how we tackled each other in the water and changed the world...”
“I need an ending.”
“This could be your ending.” She shrugged her shoulders with her hands folded between her legs, looking about us drenched in the mirthful sun. I began to heave myself into the boat, but it gave way to my weight and tipped over. We ended up under the toppled boat.
“How about this for an ending.” I suggested with a smile. She looked around us in the little dark cave.
“I like this ending.” She concurred after contemplating it for a moment. “It is very upside down.”
Her smile was clever the way it would weight my heart with equal measures of grief and glory
Her glance made people believe that she was promising them something and many often took the liberty of interpreting what they believed it to be and once self-convinced, would not leave her alone till she contradicted their own proficy repeatedly and perhaps afforded them an insult or two. They recovered quickly when another pretty face went by. 
She was fueled by the confidence and gaity to which youthfulness disposes one. And the dangerous, subconcious belief that one is immortal.
I tried to kiss her. She pushed me away. I wanted to push her away too... and put my head on her shoulder. If only these two actions were compatible. 
That if she were a warrior she would be the sort that would definately feel her limbs tremble. She would say 'for our friends' before charging into battle. She would be steady, cheerful... for though she knows that death is not a sonnet nor a symphony, it is a sort of  bidding farewell, falling... thus making it awefully similar to a sunset. And she always fancied the idea of being a sunset.
Depression is a funny thing, whispering dark thoughts in your ear that make you feel schizophrenic and bringing acute awareness to the drip of sink water and the clocks hand moving around the black numbers that keep track of your life. I believe mirrior and clocks were invented after eve ate the apple.
I had an unremitting request for the world; believing that there was a correlation between owning the world and retrieving a loved one. 
Shuttled to and from London. There is here the grand illusion that you are in charge of you're life. I knew the route well enough to fly the plane myself. I casually mentioned this to the pilot  and I believe that I scared him. At first he laughed and then upon noticing my facial expression (I was offended at what a joke he thought the idea was),  suspected my seriousness and his laughter became nervous. 
She drenched the margins. You can not look up love in the dictionary and understand it. I wake with the memory of her lingering on my lips. Perhaps narcissism comes about when we can not love, nor see the beauty in anything else away from our own reflections. 
She is a large woman, dutifully insecure and you are fortunate if she looks you in the eye. She has an extraordinary nose, larger than Serrano De Bergerac's and a double chin that ambitiously attempts to touch her collarbone.  Upon reaching her desk and looking at her face a thought would dart through my mind without permission, 
“Where was Michelangelo when mother nature needed him?” For the following five minutes I feel like a guilty bastard for thinking of my loyal secretary in such a manner and begin my day off with a bitter taste in my mouth. And it is not the coffee. No, it is only my lament-worthy character that causes me discomfort.
She is always beckoning in her silence, she looks to me with a promise in her very presence. Promising.... promising that she can make me big enough to hold love, yet she has not evidenced this talent. 
He likes life most when he is drunk, Mostly when he is so drunk he is not aware he is alive.
He put his head on her shoulder and his broad shoulders shook. There was a water stain on her shirt when he lifted his head. Feeling utterly weak and helpless.
I break his heart so he must go and write poetry.
Her complexion had a clever glisten, suggesting so many ideas and inspirations... too many for me to catch. 
 I was sent spiraling into a new orbit of solace. No longer were my energies dissipated by the small world of strip clubs and cubicals ... she was real and raw... opening realms of possibility so viable that I could not doubt its actuality.  I could go out and meet her or bring her home, but I could not stand my aloneness any longer. Fidelity is difficult when lonely. I ran into her arms where there waited freedom and artistic greatness. She took so much of me with her. It was painful when she left as though my heart strings where torn from their attachment and bridled to some indifferent entity that wasted anything put between its teeth. My heart was so distant, that I could not find it amidst the hubbub of this whirlpool world.
Before I knew it she had climbed around to my window and had her nose in my orchid. Her fine features were set off by her almond-tipped eyes. Her little chin was resolute and her severe cheeks were accented with childlike dimples. 
“Right then, how does coffee sometime sound?”
“Dark and hot.” She had turned toward the window to exit and wily smiled at me over her shoulder.
“I don't know what substance hides beneath your skin and runs with your pulse, but it has beat me to your heart.”
 Imprisoned eyes. 
 She always left me with a headache but I began to realize that the ache made a geological change on my body: my chest. Heartache was the new development in our relationship. I would cry when she was gone. All the world would wash over me and knock my heart to its knees. I  heard a thousand cries swarm my ears and the big, beautiful blue and green globe comes falling down. I can no longer control the electrical-like pulses that shock my heart. But it hurt less when she was there. She pushed back the swarm of voices and demands. She took me away. 
Thief she was, leaving my capacity to love in worthless shards which bitterly cuts any hand that dares to pick them up.
Silence has still yet to speak her peace. For now, we are here forever
She had an instilled depth to her soul which came fourth in the wee hours of the night. She drug me into a landscape of turbulence and tenderness which created an intense cacophony of emotion. So intense, it was the only thing that made me feel anymore. So I would retreat to your memory many a night.
I told God that I was afraid to die and to simply take me away without pain and fear. And I also told him that if he treated my death as indifferently as he had my life, or tried to make me painfully grow through the fear and agony of death, then I would find a different god who treated death with civility.
I have performed enough and am tired of receiving applause and flowers.
Perhaps you would like to know how Alex and I became such indifferent acquaintances when we share all the same interests that would so alley us, such as scotch and cigars. It happened on a night when we were indulging in these very leisures. At the sleek, sliver and windowless Penthouse, Carter, Alex and I went to celebrate the grand conclusion of a project we had all slaved on together. We had reserved  the forum room, and ordered an unethical amount of champagne. It was not long before Carter had surreptitiously slipped off to the Harem rooms  Her voice was deep and sweet like melting caramel.  as she had impeded his mental clarity with her figure. So I decided to answer the question for him.
 denying myself the indulgence to chuckle. 
I did not think my story, or the way I told it, to be convincing, but her response proved otherwise. 
 She did not conceal her wish to leave. And that is how Alex and I have managed to work fifteen feet away from each other for a year, and rarely utter a word in the other's respective direction.
Her abyssal nature, I could never reach her end. She was eternal. Her artful and wily attempts brought me deeper within her story. I was more naïve than a little boy.
She was my choice of poison. My thoughts quieted under the piquant assault of her touch. The icy lava rolled down like a slow-motion reach for the pinnacle of pleasure, deep within me, the cave with impenetrable walls except by her.
My love, my reverie, she only makes you forget that you have a greater design than to drink.
Filling the spaces of silence, rearranging the world, transforming the dark underbellies of clouds to flaxen laughter, as though she had command of the sun, or at least its affects. watch the sun rays relinquish their grasp on the violet horizon. 
Even at breakfast she renews her recognizable light. 
 I did not even notice that I had been wearing the same shirt for three days straight. I continued to flounder in terms of appropriate attire, and  my hair made me contemplate an occupation more suited to my appearance, such as a mad scientist. There is not one cell in the body that can muster concern for something as trivial as bed head. How does one unravel oneself when their hands are tired, how does one forge desire when there is not interest? I kicked a stone on the walkway and it landed at the feet of another approaching me. The privilege of  walking a cobble stone lane

Once she understood how your mind worked she adjusted accordingly.

Liquor, like an unwelcome woman, calls to me. Her sweet voice navigates to my ears, and I shiver, remembering the mirage she is, and the kind of superman she made me. The ones with plastic capes and ropes attached so I can fly. I still thirst, and I know not when it will be quenched or who will quench it. And I still need an ending to my story. But I will simply leave it at that... for humans, unlike our stories, do not have endings.
I walked upon the plank where the water lapped at its sides. The street lamps, old fashioned and friendly, emanated a gentle glow that was humbled by the sun's aria. I felt so far below a flight of sparrows that flew ahead, soon to be engulfed in the chaste, untouched sky.  I looked upon the orange melding with rouge on the horizon. And as light bends through a prism, or a legion of birds ascend like a pinnacle, the colors extended... farther than the shadows of trees.
Renovate this impossible frontier
She was frightened by the attention as she had become complacent in her seeming invisibility. 
Everyone has their realities and their theories, their dream worlds and boxes.

Her hoarse voice still fresh in my mind. Her animation and odd violet eyes was a difficult memory to dim.
I hated those groups. I hated the contrivance, saying your peace in such a structured order. It made me want to drink even more. Wet, wet, nights. Bourbon, brandy, scotch. Rich mans luxries poured into my body till I could not feel my body any more. I could drown the world with my mouthfulls, it was enough to hydrate my soul... for a time. But there is always this lingering thirst that revels in the fact it can not be quenched by bourbon alone. And I would tear it from its victory if my hands could reach. I would drown it if it could hold liquor, but it will not swallow, it will not fall away.

I lived my life. There. I throw it at Gods feet like an essay upon a professors desk. Writen just to be finished. 

“You are drunk.”
 Im not drunk.  I can be funny. A drunk man cant be funny. He took another swig of his bottle. 
H-hey, do you want to hear a funny story? I just dropped a cigarette in my beer. He luaghed with self amusement.

There was no forewarning of tears.
 I do not even know if my letters have become unwelcome. All i have now are words. And they are failing me. I want to say 'i die' but that was someone elses line used too many time before. So I continue to struggle with these letters like I did in first grade. And hope they will cut a clean line to your heart. 
I am ambitious.  I am foolish.
You would sit there and eat ginger with fish while I drank my sake. Shyly looking across the table with timid pleasure. She would see a face and kneel down to sketch it. She would explain that the architecture of the human face is the most important to understand.
I am tired of asking you for my money.
I am tired of your asking so end our pain here and put the subject to silence eh?
There are no questions sitting in the air. No words required. We both just knew. I miss her.
I sat in the window over looking amsterdam. I light a cigarette and tried to milk inspiration with every drag. One part of my body is always hijacked for the sake of creativity.
There is no point to being immortal unless you can be with those who touched your heart here, in this life.
It is how you bandage, bind your wounds, that determines what sort of warrior you are.
She had a beauty the world would be forced to reckon with. She was a young girl who throughly enjoyed her own imperfections and the affection of others had left her inquery at a rather young age.
It was a strange, balmy rain. Spanish music. For a moment everything was of foriegn origin. There was nothing familiar, but a sweetness, wetness, hotness, sinuously meandering through the open spaces of the street and the minds of passeres by. The rain drops kissing the body everywhere. . . declaring affection for skin painted gold by the art of the sun. 
Her story? Well she has the difficult case of love. It is an affair with the soul that has under gone many disruptions. She made the common mistake of falling in love. I found her in the wet market. The rain was doing a fine job at expressing itself. She groped mangos, searching for a ready one. Red lipstick, White dress. Struggling. She fumbled in the most graceful manner. I wonder if she was ever proud of these paradoxes she made so naturally.
To win this battle you must lay down your sword. 
She had a beauty the world would be forced to reckon with. She loves to chase peoples thoughts. The little seamstress from Ethiopia whose smile was like the sunrise and melted the arctic eyes of her customers...
So the world was very busy and divided and she ran among its streets with them. Pretending her heart was in an iron box too. Because sometimes the human heart is wild and does not like to even be protected.
silence sitting roughly in the air.
While I fingered my gautair aimlessly unaware she was watching me. Catching every note with her ears. I generously caught her eye. It was generous becausee I preffered to retreat into myself during these artistic times. It took me a moment .
The day seemed crafted in her bauty... as though an artists hand were behind it. I wish I were such an artist. can you imagine what it would be like to make a day? with all its lighting and pulse...
It was generous of me because I prefered to retreat into myself when in creative mode. I realized that the crown of her story, those violet eyes, were asking me to play her song. They asked so intently as though the fulfillment of this request would save her. Play me a song... play me a song that will save me. they said. 
For a moment I was scared of what love looks like. If someone would follow you into the dark they must love you very much.
How to bury everything away and trek on. Taking clues and cues from machinery. 
“Every once in awhile the world is like a fairy tail, sometimes better.”
I wonder what men you are with. The ones with barias and mustaches, who paint you without clothing and worship you for a day till their next subject arrives from brazil or portugal. Or that sophisticated breed of business men who pays for everything... even little men to put out your expensive cigarettes. Maybe a longshoresmen or two. I do not care if they are poor and poorly built, if they are with you they ought to be the envy of kings.

I am sorry for all my drunken blunderings baby. But I am not that drunk now. I am getting sober. I am. I only drink to your health and happiness now. I hope for your health and happiness everyday... profusely, incessantly. I am not a drunkard. I just raise a toast to your wellbeing every day and every night. Thats all baby. Thats all. He explained to her in the car after she had picked him up from the Irish Imigrant. She walked into the dimly lit pub and could not see him. Excuse me, have you seen a fellow come in here... He has curly brown hair, tall... about six three? um...
I think he is up front watching the band.
Oh? She turned to the stage where a celtic band was performing. The lead singer was cracking a joke with someone in the audience. She pushed through the people and found London in the middle of the gathering. 
“How did you like that michangelo leonardo?” The lead singer asked London.
“Hey London.” Taja could not make herself heard over all the noise. 
“Nah. Play another one!” London shouted back to the lead singer.
“London!” Taja was more forceful. He turned to her and smiled.
“My name isn't London love. Its Michangelo Leonardo Mackevely.” A great deal of the crowd joined in to say it with him and they all laughed and cheered. 
“Ok Michangelo Machevely, come on. I am getting you out of here.

“Don't act so timid, Handsome. A man like yourself can't deny he has experience with women.” She pursed he lips and threw out her chest. Lodon's smile was free of restraint, though modest in nature and clear enough for her to see. She aptly interpreted it to mean that he was allured by her and continued with her self-compromising behavior. He watched her carefully, his eyes never deviating from her face. She came close and he could feel her warm, sticky breath on his cheek.
“You should come with me.” She whispered. He moved not forward, nor backward. She never met his eye, always casting her gaze to his lips or chest. Finally he sat back and candidly commented,
“You know, you have the most beautiful eyes. They keep trying to trick me into thinking they are gray, but they are blue.” She sat up erect at this and cast her eyes to the side. After a moment she knew how to respond.
“You haven't seen nothing yet, love.” She gushed. London found nothing  further to smile about in their encounter. She shamed honesty in general, whether it be her own or that of another. “Why so sad, Handsome?” She noticed a shadow that crept across his face. London recovered himself and took a shot.
“Just not enough to drink.”
“What do you want?” She offered herself as his solace. London looked at her square. 
“Nothing you can give me darlin'.” A glint of madness shot through her eyes at, what she believed to be, the failure of their encounter. Yet, she was not without composure. She stretched out her hand and became preoccupied with her nails as an attempt of regaining self possession. London  allowed her to gather up all she had flung before him, for he had not touched it.
“Alice.” He knew it was not her real name he spoke but he used it all the same.
“Yes?” She abruptly looked up to him with a face caught in a war against tears. 
“You are rather... lovely. But angels are not meant to be touched by hellions, so I will be going now.” He took his hat and pulled it low and bowed. With hands in his pockets and collar up, he left. And the prostitute watched him, for as long as he was in view.

I envied the way she loved.
Death- Aye, that is a man’s business which he lacks the leverage to negotiate.
Because we were both lacking in that little detail... oh yes, love. 
alley which collected droplets from the sky into clear pools that held the moon's quivering reflection upon its ripples. The street lamps were tarnished and obscure; the thin mist further obfuscated it's lurid light. 
“But what is death to a drunk man?” Adley contemplated with his eyes intent on the stars, shadowed by his wrinkled eye brows knitted in thought. 

“I should know better than to try and provoke pity from you, for if you had any you would save it for yourself.”
Her coruscating eyes were accompanied by a deep and sweet laughter, carried along by her undecided gaze that went back and forth from the gentleman on her left to the gentleman on her right. Her looks so mercurial, occasioned the chime of her earrings, which were elevated high from her shoulders with respect to her graceful neck. Her buoyant mane snaped across her face as she abruptly turned to the open, eager, freckle- faced irishmen behind her. London observes her from a near distance and becomes more closely fixated with her eyes; eyes  which were too easily charmed by her surroundings, and he saw, beyond their animated azure, a cool determination to live. 
As a buoyant, iridescent bubble is popped by the thorn of a frost-bitten rose.
She has sort of... an industrial strength in her gossip.
he looked upon all that he had happened in his life and with an unalarmed gaze saw its rawness and ruin, yet he imagined it beyond ashes and doubt to something ever fixed and undiminished. His goodbye then, was an exhaustive amendment accompanied by an obliging acquittance.
They were trying to write their final papers. But we can not get distracted by such expiditions that were formorly the cause of diminishing our wine collection. He said to Penley as they had tried to start a wine collection.
Always mindful of the impression he was creating. The smooth man who was always mindful of the impression he was creating. 
her undaunted luminous smile
At the party where London meets the most beautiful girl after he gets back from Europe.
clusters of men drowning in the din of their own political banter.
commandeered all the broads in conversation  she lingered outside of the verbose circle of feathers and gossip, not wishing to be obligated to conversation, yet wanting to not appear awkwardly unoccupied. The ladies make no effort to engage her. Her large eyes begin to divert from them and search errantly for some semblance of entertainment as her peripheral conscious
Taja quieted the polemical upheaval of  and irritated gentlemen with her entrance. She strides over to  Clive and kissed him on the cheek in a cheerful greeting. London raises his eyes in interest at Taja's temerarious intrusion. She looks over to London; her eyes dark with inquisitiveness and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment as she notices the annoyance of the company about her due to her ill-timed  interruption. She quickly turned to Clive and inaudibly yet intently expresses something of an apology. 
begins to play the piece he requested, a piece which she detests, save for the ending. She reluctantly follows the notes till she comes to the middle movement at which her fingers agilely skip over nineteen measures and sweep straight to the triumphant ending, holding the last note till it resonated no more. 
They are no joke at all. They all far more resemble a tragedy or a novel of a pitiable sort
She mind kept wanting the figure to be him, that several times it made the man Adley. Hope rose like a wave as he turned his face toward her and when she saw his face the white crest... her reverie, was shattered on a shore of disappointment.  
Do you believe in heaven?
Curtain call
The cry of a violin that resonated from beneath the fingertips of a French musician, slightly faded as they walked out onto the sweeping terrace overlooking the city.
“This music is to sad to dance to.” Taja objected
Cherubs spouted  water from their lips which sprung freely into the warm evening air, or cascaded down their stone bellies.
was tormented  by some real or perhaps only supposed grievance, of which he could not voice nor extinguish. It remained harbored in his chest by the strength of silence.
He was acutely aware of her pulse enclosed in his fingers and could not ignore her full-toned laugh echoing in his ear, only to slip and fade (respectively) from him; not sweetly nor bitterly but simply tastelessly. 
he hoisted her up on the ledge of the fountain to beguile her. perhaps their fashions always change to make up for the fact that they never do.” Her waggish suggestion lured Adley's eyes directly to her mouth. Seductive shadows cast about her innocent features. He opened his mouth to reply, and then said nothing. 
resume his cheerful manner so as to avoid any possible suspicion of those about him. But he quickly found that the wine and scotch had already disabled much of the guests ability  to maintain a sober state of any kind, let alone suspicion.
She couldn't withhold a kittenish mirth from her tone
 She remained patient with following where he led the conversation and her patience maddened him, once again confirming her good nature that was a iritating juxtaposition to his caustic mood. 
Her coquettish temperament was calmed as she came up to London She looked up to him with a undisguised eyes. London resisted any honest engagement.
Honesty has many faces.
as does a monster
These words were his last consolation to himself that the monster within him possessed some semblance of remorse or of that anguish which is known as conscience.
“They are all wrong. You aren't a gentlemen.”
“A rather irrelevant point at the moment.”
“Don't go.” She repeated, wishing she had sounded dangerous enough to make him stay.  The whistle of a swallow stole the silence that would have lingered between them.
“I cana not either, I sm usually so responsible and mindful and punctual.” Terencio joked.
“Stop it now, you are using big english words and you do not know what they mean.”
Hes got a pretty curls dosen't he, he fluffed them for the cashier, who knew well enough to not grant so much as a glance to Terencio. You must streer people toward you physical qualities to keep them from noticing your sour mood. 
You must look on the bright side. So what if you are a miserable alcholic. At least you are not frenchmen going into a battle. To be french and go to war is like a death wish.
 "A French victor is an ossimoro-” he continued and was interrupted,
“-So is a sensible Italian. Thank-you.” 
withheld a glare that desperately wanted to inhabit the face.
She bitterly yielded as her proud slender neck bent slightly downward;  London watched her leave with a clenched jaw, and then diverted his eyes to the ocean. The waves brushed back and forth... illustrating a perfect parallel of his indecision to stay of go after her in a swelling, guilty echo (as he lied to her about his drinking)
ruefully

They ought to put a whiskey cabanet nex to the confessional. That way the confessor has a chance to lighten his inhibitions and much more would be accomplished in terms of aquittance.
You went to confession Thats where you were?
You know, there are certain schools of thought that believe to be irational is to be immoral.
Ah! That is why I go to confession. Terencio aquired a broad grin from how seamlessly his reasoning had played out in his head. 
I love her. He thought and grew furious with himself, and then more so at his inability to be indifferent. 
 Hes got a pretty curls dosen't he, he fluffed them for the cashier. You must streer people toward you physical qualities to keep them from noticing your sour mood. Terencio tried to educate him.
If I were a city I would be the sort constantly under construction. Lots of streets closed and detours. 

I put things on pedistoles just to see them fall.
hopelessly in the middle of the train station. The tall clock tower directly behind him struck the departing hour of the train in an inappropriately cheerful manner. He turned in all directions, the space about him begining to grow vast. A sense of futility descended upon him. He listlessly stared off to the distance. These faces were all strangers, not bearing any semblance of similarity. He felt cold in his skin as though he was in the middle of space alone. The noises began to escalate and his feelings were diluted as though diminished by the rancor. 
“Damn all their indifference.” he muttered

His eyes went over her face and then he rested his forehead on hers.   He kissed her on the nose.  untroubled smile.
Oh, I have a worthy reason to kill the man, London assured Penley.
Dark circles characterized his gaze.  
The sun rays dragged themselves across the pale blue sky. They seemed to cling to it as though wishing to never end the day.
A flag flip flopping in the indecisive wind, were transparent against the damp, doleful sky. A quiescent, salty wind . He was looking for her in Italy
sphere of pleasentry could be chiped with a turn of a card and a hostility would break through like the rapids of an anxious river, reckless and ravaging.
Ok. He walked away. She bit her lip as though to withhold tears. But they came. In a soft, warm rush they slid down her sorry expression as did the wet kisses of rain drops.
I walked through its halls and you were written all over it. It made me feel as though I was home in the same way your body had.
My darling, it has been a year since I last saw you. And it has been evleven months and twelve days since I last put liquore to my lips. I hope you are well. This is the only address I have to go off of so I pray that it is current, and that the failure of your response can be innocently attributed to an absent mind. 
 I was just reminising about our few weeks in Europe together. A friend from school mentioned going abroad for an urban planning program... in Rome as a matter of fact. When he mentioned the name I smiled. Heres to all of our roof top retreats and adventures that brought us to the bottom of wine bottles and closer to God. Dodging traffic on our little red vespa (that the cafe owner stole. I am sure of it). I must confess, I am afraid to return to those cobble stone streets, because I may search for you... and am afraid of what I may not find.  
Being female had not benifitted her much. She tried to carry the posture of a man, but could not quiet manage it.
What a graceful exit. It was her style.
A benediction writen in ink. 
Why not lose your morals while losing at cards? Since all other avenues have been exhasted, it is the only way to milk any entertainment out of the evening.
undiscoveredly close to his heart.
Oh! She said with socially permissable smile, I did not know you were capable of remorse.
All sense of purpose floundered and there was a desolation that wrote a shadow upon the face

It must be terrible to be English. I was English once. I didn't like it much, And I do not look forward to be English again.
He has quiet the disposition to fight.
Is he Irish?
No. Hes dumb.
If it aids you in formulating assumptions about me, I will tell you yes.”
Alisterwas as good at breaking jaws as he was breaking hearts.
the sun's crimson laughter echoed on the crowns of surrounding pines.
She quickly looked down so as to deter the failure of her composure
Whence above the threat of tears, she was able to raise her eyes to his chin, but no further
She gingerly approached  him with a smile that could not hold it's integrity on her lips for long. Her eyes moved about the architecture of his face, their distress calmed by wonder. She cast her eyes down to his shirt as though mustering the courage to look him in the eye

It was the sort of fog that makes one mistake lamp posts for human shillouettes. A man was tap dancing alone after the last train left. The place seemed to be the beginning of a new era... characterized by abandon as the lonely echoes of tap shoes were carried down the tunnel. It would seem all the souls had fluttered out of the universe and it was only the tap dancer with a stolid blue eye upon him.
A cigarette held between her theighs which were partially draped with her slinky dress.
I don't want to see the monster. I kept it well out of my peripheal vision. It was not until I turned a stolid eye upon it that it disappeared into the ether.
Perhaps that is why I am getting better: my entire one sided (occasional schizophrenic) correspondence with you has been a continous amendment. 
Failing keeps me distracted... I can not be bored while constantly being defeated.

The sky was blushing.
As it should be blushing, for the world having treated you so.
His life proved a better argument than his words.
HE wrote to her in this house
I know how difficult fathers can be. You are beautiful and always go to the highest bidder. That is your fault. But it isn't.

If ever the mirror lies to you, if ever a girl gives you a look or the man you love fails to, remember what the ancients said: you are lovely.