47 in 46: Wild World

Jumping back one year to 1971, we are joined by Cat Stevens, speaking more fluently in just over 3 minutes time of his heartbreak than I ever could, even if I’d seventy-times seven times as long to do so.

Now if “Spinning Wheel” was a song that caused my mind to stumble over it’s meaning, Mr. Stevens “Wild World” left me little doubt as to what was to come once “love” bloomed. Sadly, many more times than I would have anticipated.

To follow is what bubbled up while using this track as my prompt, and as always, I hope you enjoy…

She’s gone.

She meant everything to me, and now she’s gone.

I can’t.

I just can’t. I can’t even go on. I can’t because of all the people in my life; she’s the one I thought would be mine forever.

Mine…

MINE!!!

Why can’t she be mine?

Why can’t she just still be mine?

I love her. I love her as I love the sound of the springtime birdsong on a late winter’s day. I love her like I love the taste of hose water in the dead raunch-heat of summer. I love her as I love the smell of warm pumpkin pie slathered in whipped cream during the crisp fall, with air chill just enough as to beckon forth fair warning of the dead season to come. I loved like this, and in ways indescribable. I loved her in a fashion that mere language fails to comprehend, let alone express.

And now…

Now…?

Now she’s gone. She’s gone after another, or after no one. She’s gone and moved on to whatever adventure she felt I could not be a part of, and my heart is suffocating at the thought of it. My mind reels over the impossibility. My soul moans over both her not being here with me, and in her being happy wherever it is that she is now.

Please, don’t misunderstand. I want her to be happy.

I do, really.

I just wish, I wish… Well, I wish that she could be happy with me. She was my everything; my life and my love. I just can’t imagine being alive anymore without her presence and her scent to comfort me, her smile and laugh to warm me, her strength and her bravado to shoulder me, and her innocence and grace to inspire me.

Damn it, she meant everything to me, and now she’s gone!

And I am so alone.

So terribly, frighteningly alone.

Of course, there’s also the family and friends to contend with. What do I tell them about us? How do I ever break it to everyone that she’s gone? How could I possibly explain in a way that would make even a fraction of sense out of this senselessness? I’ll let them blame me of course, for even in her deserting me, I couldn’t stomach to see her slandered. No, I just couldn’t.

I love her that much.

I wish her well, truly I do. And I mean her no harm. Not even after how deeply she hurt me; scarred me. No, not even after all that. Not even though as a result of her treachery I will never love again…

I just don’t know what I’ll tell everyone yet though, to break this news disastrous. But I do know that I need to get out from under this funk just long enough as to come up with some sort of story. I mean after all, the school year IS almost upon us, and of course last anyone knew, we were joyfully together as a happy couple when second grade came to a close.

I just can’t even imagine having to start third grade without her…

47 in 46: Lola

The year was 1970, and what I still consider to be one of the most brilliantly written “shock rock” songs of all time – not to mention a shoo-in to the possible future soundtrack for the life of a certain youngish hero not yet realized – was released unto an unassuming public. 

My tale today is based upon this, a little ditty penned by members of the better Beatles, The Kinks.

I hope you enjoy…

Mommy always looks pretty.

And sometimes, sometimes we have special dinners. Dress up dinners. Mommy makes something that tastes really good, but maybe is not so good-looking, cuz she turns down all the lights and makes us eat with candles on.

Daddy likes nights like this cuz he gets to get dressed up in his brown sports coat with big wide lapels, and his tie that’s even wider and looks like yucky mustard, and all his clothes look like they’re made of heavy plastic. Something-ester is what he calls it. He sez it’s the fabric of the future. It hurts me whenever I wear it. I don’t like it.

I hope he’s wrong about the future.

Mommy gets dressed up real pretty on these nights, these special dinner nights. She makes a big scene of it too. After setting the table and getting us boys all seated (daddy seats himself), mommy runs to the back of the house to get out of her kitchen clothes and to get on her pretty stuff. She even has pretty shoes and shiny things that clip on her ears. Just for the dinner, I swear!

Coming down the hall really slow, daddy whoop-oohs and ahhhs as mommy gets to the table. I’m hungry mommy, hurry up!  I think he maybe even pulls the chair out for her. Maybe, I can’t remember. I do know that daddy won’t let us eat until we all tell mommy how pretty she is. I’m hungry, but mommy is pretty anyways. Daddy gets too pushy sometimes like that.

Mommy was walking in the hall, and I could see her pretty shoes poke out from her dress, every time she put one forward. Her dress is really pretty, it’s so long it touches the floor, and it’s all white, except for the brown and black shapes that someone drew all over it, and mommy musta got it on sale, cuz there’s no sleeves on it, but it does have a tight collar around the neck. She calls it a mock turtle’s neck, but I don’t understand what that means. There is no turtle’s neck anywhere on her dress, I looked. Mommy’s dress is sorta tight, and I think it’s that something-ester thing again, but hers is soft and silky, very silky. I like it when I have mommy’s dress in my fingers. It feels good. Daddy sez the dress hugs her. I don’t know how a dress can do that without hurting after a while.

I touch mommy’s dress when she’s not looking sometimes. I go into her bedroom and just touch her things. They’re all soft. Not like daddies and mine. Not hard plastic. Mommy’s stuff is nice. And it fits her too. Us boys look like robots in boxes when we wear our ester-something stuff, but mommy always looks like, like, well, like water moving, like she floats.

Mommy always looks pretty.

I want to too. I want to look pretty. Daddy sez that boys can’t be pretty. Boys are just hanb-sum, he sez. I don’t wanna be hanb-sum, I wanna be pretty. I wanna wear the ester that doesn’t hurt. I wanna have people ooh and ahhh me too.

Daddy gets too pushy like that, so I sometimes sneak into mommy’s room when no one knows, so I can look pretty too. No one knows, so it think it’s OK, and I fold everything up real good and put it back when I’m done. But folding lady underwear is really hard, and I think I broke her stocking once, cuz my toenail made a big line in it. I even close the door so that no one can see.

I don’t think Jesus can look through doors.

At least I hope not, cuz daddy and mommy sez that that sort of thing is a sin. That boys are supposed to be boys, and girls are supposed to be girls, and we’re all supposed to make babies, but only after we get married forever and ever, and God don’t like anyone who gets that screwed up. People go to h-e-double-l for screwing things up, that’s what mommy and daddy’s church sez. That’s what school sez too. And school is run by nuns. Nuns are married to Jesus. They got rings to prove it and everything, so they must know what they’re talking about.

I don’t think Jesus marries very nice women.

Maybe that’s why He’s so upset and sending screw ups to h-e-double-l all the time. I don’t know. But I hope He can’t peek through the door, because I don’t want to be a screw up and go to h-e-double-l. I don’t want to go there, and I don’t want Him to hate me.  I didn’t do anything wrong, I swear Jesus. But I do wanna wear the good feeling something-ester. I wanna feel like water moving, and I don’t wanna look just hanb-sum, and I wanna feel special, and whoop-ooh’d and ahh’d, and look pretty…

Just like mommy always does.

Windows…

He sits there, drink in one hand, small unseen food product in the other.

I know it’s food, because he holds it gingerly, like it means something more than the size of it would normally let on. He sits in his chair, chewing. Possibly peanuts. Not to be confused with a food-chewing analytical expert, but to me his mouth definitely did seem to swish in the sort of fashion that you’d think it would, had he been chewing on nuts.

Anyway. He sits, eyes casually glued to what turns out to be a television screen. And he does so while she leaves, seemingly unnoticed, from the room. Walking briskly away in her white blouse and black slacks. A look very similar to what you’d expect Bebe Neuwirth to wear on the set of “Frasier,” though this specimen is NO Bebe Neuwirth. No bother, neither am I. Neither are any of us, really.

Mmmm, Bebe.

But alas, I digress.

So he sits and chews, as she sashay’s from the room. And though the poetician in me wants to say that the two were in perfect sync and beat with each other, for whatever reason they were not. And that, my friends, is all the story that there is to tell. Are they happy? Are they sad? Are they in love with each other? In love with someone(s) else? I’ve no idea. I only spy them through their front bay window and make a mental note as I pass along.

Another bay looms into view as I stroll along. It’s a very Polish town, Buffalo, and many of the post-war “cookie cutters” reside here, all storeys single, all front windows bay. Maybe for ambiance, maybe for budget. Maybe just for passersby to have a tale to tell. But this second window provides none. The lights are all lit, but oddly. That weird sort of odd, where the owner was trying to leave just enough on to connect one room to the other, in an effort to traverse them when sauced. But not so many on as to blow their National Grid bill while they were out, getting sufficiently loaded for the experience.

The third looks similar, but buried deep within the kitchen – oh yes, in these houses, every room is viewable from the bay – is a woman hurriedly speaking on the phone. I don’t know if it’s a sign of the times, but I do notice that something is wrong with the phone. Wrong, but right. And then I see it – she’s wrapping her finger round the phone’s cord.

A cord!

Have I stumbled upon the Smithsonian? No, just a person who knows better than to believe every advertiser who says that your way is dead and the next way is king. She’s wringing the cord like she’s nervous as she speaks anxious-eyed into the phone. Is she? I’ll never know, as I’ve already passed her by.

The final window I look into shows no communication, no companionship whatsoever. I suppose you could say, the sort of window I fear of one day owning myself. In it, is just one elderly woman, sitting alone in a televisonless, phoneless, and decidedly Bebe Neuwirthless room. Spilling over her comfy chair almost as if she and it are slowly morphing into one. I would normally compare her to a sloth, but honestly, I can’t think of a single sloth that has ever looked so forlorn. So alone. She sits, looking into her lap at something. Looking into her lap at nothing. If not rejoicing over avoiding It so long, hoping that Death would hurry up and come already. And in either case, dreading what she’ll offer It to drink when It finally arrives. The bleak scene deadens me as well.

So I continue on.

I continue on, but decide that my window-gazing is done for the night. Their stories will be forever unknown to me anyway, and I’m a mere shadow to them. A whitened-shave legged aging ghost walking in an effort to stay attractive to no one in particular at the moment. A wanderer who knows the path all to well from taking it almost every single night, though finding something new on each and every pass. A nobody who is only noticed – if at all – by the cloud-covered moon hovering brightly above. A moon that most likely sees – should he be paying attention – only a spindly armed pot-bellied dreamer peeking into worlds that he really shouldn’t be visiting in the first.

I continue on and am able to avoid what – had I still been window-gazing, would have surely stepped upon – a colony of ants. I spy them as they all toil furiously, together and in earnest. In one big and shameless heap of achievement. And I wonder, are they like that because they are not as smart as us, or are they like that because a long time ago, they in their wisdom decided to refuse to build windows?

Windows that would have kept the outside world outside, windows that would have kept them trapped?

Windows that would have allowed each to look into – ever-so slightly – each other’s souls?

•••

Living Our Dream

Second week in a row for my 100 Word Song and Light And Shade mash-up. They both had a very similar spirit, and I hope I was able to capture it correctly…

       

Shrugging the tuxedo jacket on gingerly, Val noticed the smallest of sections was threadbare. None would notice, but this coming-out party was important for Pat, and Val felt everything should be perfect.

Pat didn’t care though, and remained delighted that they’d been able to even find Val a vintage suit correctly sized. Smiling while pulling stockings over freshly-painted nails, Pat decided that optimism was the magnet to pull them through this night, this life, together.

Opening the car door for her – as gentlemen do – Pat waited until Val buckled, before anxiously closing it. Tonight was to be special, and he couldn’t wait to start.

•••

Light & Shade Challenge:

Optimism is like a spiritual magnet 

– Anna Massey

100 Word Song Prompt:

A Similar Morning Routine

As always, it started with a smile.

The sort of broad and surprised smile that created ever-so slight crease lines around her mouth and under her eyes. The sort of lines that alerted you gently to the fact that this was a woman who knew joy. Or at least knew what it was supposed to be.

And she smiled it demurely, for me. Sure, the world out there might have thought that her contentment came from, and/or was intended for them. I mean, the world out there always does. But I knew different. I knew that that smile, those lines, and the peace that I saw glowing within her eyes – in that moment – was intended solely for me alone.

I knew, because I was lucky enough to share a life with her. I knew, because this morning, as always, she followed a similar routine. A routine I liked to call “Bliss.”

As with most mornings, she started by first filling me with her desire, holding me both lovingly and gingerly, in her hands. She then brought my face close to hers, touching the center of my labret delicately with just the very tip of her tongue, before pressing her lip firmly against mine in a lovers embrace. Draining me of my love dry, she filled herself with my heat as I willingly emptied myself at the same time.

She stroked my lip greedily with her tongue again. Leaving me shivering, cold, and somehow still full though empty, as she turned my world upside down, pulling into her very soul, my last drop and trace of sweetness.

Caressing me warmly just once more, she uttered something to the effect of “boy, now that was exactly what I needed,” before placing me delicately into the sink, my handle just touching the side of the glass tumbler that had held her Captain Morgan & Coke captive the night previous.

Both tumbler and I stared belligerently at each other for a moment. Knowing in our hearts that as we’d each fulfilled our purpose, we’d then been summarily dismissed. Knowing that neither of us would ever do so well as him. He who was able to drink her as she drank him. He, who was able to inebriate her, at the same time that she was energizing him. And knowing this, both tumbler and I wished that for even just one moment we could swap places with him. Wishing that just for once, that broad and surprised smile would truly be ours alone – mine alone – for all moments, and for always.

•••