Tired like a bug circling a light globe (Story of a brown room)
The walls are brown,
floorboards cold and covered in splatters of paint, spread over red wine stains. But it's been swept. Maybe on Tuesday. Only a thin sprinkling of dirt crumbs.
Chairs are hardly chairs, they're chairs made from stacks of material, mostly old pieces of clothing, neatly folded, tied with thick string. If you curled up on them at first they felt a bit too firm, until the guy who lives in the house realised it would be softer if the jumpers were folded closer to the top of the chair rather than the skinny jeans. This was much better.
The floor's high, the ceilings higher. An apartment.
Below, outside, kids and teens get bored and climb around the drains, on the bits of building that jut out, they kick each other in the shins, break stuff, drink fanta.
Above, inside, the brown room, next to the sink. The couple next-door can be heard moaning together quietly as the guy on the other side of the wall turns his tap on, spits toothpaste in the sink, scratches his chin, wipes his mouth with the palm of his hand.
The woman beside him smiles at his stubbled reflection, 11:42pm, the kind of reflection that isn't looking at itself, is too tired to grasp thoughts, let alone the dimly lit reflection of himself as he turns off the bathroom light, falling over his own feet, tired feet.
But still somehow his body feels tired in an electric kind of way, tired like a bug circling a light globe, tired like a dog bringing back a manky lime green tennis ball for the twenty third time that afternoon, like the arm of a man who's still out with his dog in the park at 5pm, when he left the house at twelve, and no, for some reason he still doesn't want to go home.
That kind of tired.
The man in the brown room steps out into the hallway, like a ghost, following the footsteps of the woman in front of him who's looking for her favourite mug, until it's found, still filled with a dried up tea bag inside. A spoon stained with remnants of the morning brew.
They're both kind of hungry, they know because their stomachs both rumble to one another, but there's nothing there they really want to eat, and what are they thinking, they just brushed their teeth.
And it's closed now, but in their fridge the most memorable objects were the bok-choy and asparagus, both tied with a fading red rubber band, each clump held together, but with a kind of organic looseness that comes apart pretty easily.
There's a black banana. They think it tastes better that way. There are other things.
They go to bed and they don't have sex.
The light from the window doesn't wake her in the morning. But it lights the very small hairs on her shoulders, trails onto the pillow, over the lump where his leg is slightly touching hers under the blanket, and the light's reaching over the blanket, onto the floor.
He's putting on his socks at 8:46am. He's out in the hallway ten minutes later, buying a fanta from the vending machine. He drinks it in the hall, on the ground, legs folded, toes near his thighs, knees below his chin. The carpet below is rich and red, with star patterns and zig zags. Really, it belongs in a movie theatre.
Really, he belongs in his room. But he felt a bit strange there for a second. He feels odd out here too, the woman from next door tries to greet him walking by, but she's too hungover to speak words properly.
He feels obliged to go back inside, and when the woman on his bed wakes, the sugar from the fanta has worn off. By 11:16 he's coming down from the small hump of something that was actually just a hill and not at all a mountain of a sugar high.
The physical voids of before and proceeding the time it takes to drink a fanta, include things like:
An empty fanta bottle,
An empty stomach and missing fingernail tip on the hungover lady from next-door, going out to get food hazy and taking too long deciding what to eat at the supermarket, chewing her nails and looking at the multi grain or the rye, or the sourdough, or fuck it a fucking blueberry bagel
Her lover says yes thank you LORD for bringing me this and for bringing yourself, and the man from upstairs moans in pleasure again as she picks a blueberry from the bagel that finds it's way onto his tongue. He presses down and the blueberry bursts in his mouth. It's a bit sour. He makes a face.
An empty pair of shoes she leaves outside the door when she goes back to the room.
An empty concrete lot below the window of the brown room, broken drainpipe, broken glass, forgotten soccer ball.
An empty cup, off white, another tea bag in the bin, brown atop the newspaper from the day before.
An empty hand of the woman looking out the window, turning around, the empty hand leaving space for her fingers to stroke the stubble on his chin, the small sensation of touch causing him to look up into her eyes. For her to smile and look away, vacantly, and to wonder what exactly is in his mind.
Empty space for him to open his mouth and take a deep, wavering kind of breath, and to say
floorboards cold and covered in splatters of paint, spread over red wine stains. But it's been swept. Maybe on Tuesday. Only a thin sprinkling of dirt crumbs.
Chairs are hardly chairs, they're chairs made from stacks of material, mostly old pieces of clothing, neatly folded, tied with thick string. If you curled up on them at first they felt a bit too firm, until the guy who lives in the house realised it would be softer if the jumpers were folded closer to the top of the chair rather than the skinny jeans. This was much better.
The floor's high, the ceilings higher. An apartment.
Below, outside, kids and teens get bored and climb around the drains, on the bits of building that jut out, they kick each other in the shins, break stuff, drink fanta.
Above, inside, the brown room, next to the sink. The couple next-door can be heard moaning together quietly as the guy on the other side of the wall turns his tap on, spits toothpaste in the sink, scratches his chin, wipes his mouth with the palm of his hand.
The woman beside him smiles at his stubbled reflection, 11:42pm, the kind of reflection that isn't looking at itself, is too tired to grasp thoughts, let alone the dimly lit reflection of himself as he turns off the bathroom light, falling over his own feet, tired feet.
But still somehow his body feels tired in an electric kind of way, tired like a bug circling a light globe, tired like a dog bringing back a manky lime green tennis ball for the twenty third time that afternoon, like the arm of a man who's still out with his dog in the park at 5pm, when he left the house at twelve, and no, for some reason he still doesn't want to go home.
That kind of tired.
The man in the brown room steps out into the hallway, like a ghost, following the footsteps of the woman in front of him who's looking for her favourite mug, until it's found, still filled with a dried up tea bag inside. A spoon stained with remnants of the morning brew.
They're both kind of hungry, they know because their stomachs both rumble to one another, but there's nothing there they really want to eat, and what are they thinking, they just brushed their teeth.
And it's closed now, but in their fridge the most memorable objects were the bok-choy and asparagus, both tied with a fading red rubber band, each clump held together, but with a kind of organic looseness that comes apart pretty easily.
There's a black banana. They think it tastes better that way. There are other things.
They go to bed and they don't have sex.
The light from the window doesn't wake her in the morning. But it lights the very small hairs on her shoulders, trails onto the pillow, over the lump where his leg is slightly touching hers under the blanket, and the light's reaching over the blanket, onto the floor.
He's putting on his socks at 8:46am. He's out in the hallway ten minutes later, buying a fanta from the vending machine. He drinks it in the hall, on the ground, legs folded, toes near his thighs, knees below his chin. The carpet below is rich and red, with star patterns and zig zags. Really, it belongs in a movie theatre.
Really, he belongs in his room. But he felt a bit strange there for a second. He feels odd out here too, the woman from next door tries to greet him walking by, but she's too hungover to speak words properly.
He feels obliged to go back inside, and when the woman on his bed wakes, the sugar from the fanta has worn off. By 11:16 he's coming down from the small hump of something that was actually just a hill and not at all a mountain of a sugar high.
The physical voids of before and proceeding the time it takes to drink a fanta, include things like:
An empty fanta bottle,
An empty stomach and missing fingernail tip on the hungover lady from next-door, going out to get food hazy and taking too long deciding what to eat at the supermarket, chewing her nails and looking at the multi grain or the rye, or the sourdough, or fuck it a fucking blueberry bagel
Her lover says yes thank you LORD for bringing me this and for bringing yourself, and the man from upstairs moans in pleasure again as she picks a blueberry from the bagel that finds it's way onto his tongue. He presses down and the blueberry bursts in his mouth. It's a bit sour. He makes a face.
An empty pair of shoes she leaves outside the door when she goes back to the room.
An empty concrete lot below the window of the brown room, broken drainpipe, broken glass, forgotten soccer ball.
An empty cup, off white, another tea bag in the bin, brown atop the newspaper from the day before.
An empty hand of the woman looking out the window, turning around, the empty hand leaving space for her fingers to stroke the stubble on his chin, the small sensation of touch causing him to look up into her eyes. For her to smile and look away, vacantly, and to wonder what exactly is in his mind.
Empty space for him to open his mouth and take a deep, wavering kind of breath, and to say
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