and the city was young. so young you could feel an unnerving exubrance about it. a shining newness that polished the streets and lacquered the pavement in some sort of expectancy. as though at any moment something was going to burst from the underground and give the city something by which to gauge time, and then the city would be able to age. to grow character and resemble something other than a place, where one slept, but rather a beast that was alive and somewhere where someone lived.
It was a time for potential. Where people gathered for the first time, not knowing what they were; without credible employment, without money, in a time of a perpetual war against an enemy that did not exist and would never be defeated. A time in which there was a reason to act a vacuum in which to create a belief.
IT was not the sixties. Not even the seventies. Too much of not enough. The world had grown much more sinister and acustomed to the alternative. The alternative was marketed, commercialised and sold back to the people with a 2oo% mark-up as a mainstream idea that everyone could be a part of. They had always wanted everyone to be a partt of it. And now they realised the only way to make them a part of it was to make them by it.
Not so much the ability of the two people to fall into each others company but rather the atmosphere that pervaded the streets, the households and the minds of evryone in the city. Red wine in coffee mugs, whisky drunk from egg cups, and any drug that could be smoked, sniffed, or inhaled was within a long grasp. The band was in one corner, attempting in vain to snare off hangers-on and attempt to take more drugs and deliver more words to friends who could respond in a drug induced intelligence. An insight that only occurred when sufficient amount of intoxicants had eventually slowed the electrobiological workings of the brain to a fraction of their regular speed that one could mentally unthread thew fabric of time in the space between their thumb and forefinger. Others were already unwrapping the inside of their minds, lying in a coma on the floor or front steps. While the toilets held evidence of the few who had even gone so far as to unwrap the fabric of their stomachs and small intestines over the lime green tiles in flouresent light.
One day an emage capturing device will be hardwired to your brain and the visions of intoxication and acid Vietnam will be reproduced on beautiful 15" by 20" lambda prints for $9.95 at your local chemist. While your there, you may even want to pick up another fabolous batch of the drugs that were responsible for the photos. Needn't ask for reprints. Just restock.
This was the time. He did not want to be entertained any more. Another last mouthful of red and the coffee mug would be place on the floor. Before it would be refilled or a joint could be passed along he must act. She talked - nay - she entertained. The effect was intoxicating. Yet also inspiring. Steve wished, willed, absolutely desired to reply, to entertain her. Despite the fact that he could not bring his mind into coherent thought, his mouth and larynx seemed to just say 'fuck it' and returned to sleep.
"I just think that something should be done you know..." Amy trailed into yet another well developed plan of social card shuffling.
Then Steve reacted. His mouth. His lips. His toungue. Awoke with a sense of fervour inspired by purpose. To entertain. To perform. The anticipation had been built, the foundation laid, it just took the last two hours for his brain to realise the oppurtunity and only a moment for his body to seize it. His mouth was interlocked with hers. Amy's tongue seemingly had a repotoire that extended beyond verbal communication.
Labels: shortstory
¶ 11:16 pm
