The pick-up artists forage and roam the dark corners, hovering and clashing like fluorescent dragonflies. They gang-rush the well traveled paths, pulsing and bunching, crabbing sideways and bouncing off walls with phones and cigarettes extended forward, trapping suburban sluts in their grapplers and fighting over the scraps until every shred of flesh is tagged and mapped.
In the back behind the ropes, drunk, beautiful models whisper seductively in hairy grey ears, methodically rubbing dormant crotches for answers. Cocktail waitresses glide by on memorized paths, dressed in translucent black and slinging leaden trays of drinks tinkling with glow-in-the-dark ice cubes. They stumble and curse prettily, their thin arms traversed with colored lines of drainage from the swooping trays, snakes of pricey liquor tinkling down their armpits and disappearing into unwashed bras packed with soggy filler.
I hover in the bathroom, watching unzippered elephants shuffle listlessly into unisex stalls and blast out minutes later on electrified rails. The attendant hands out Dentyne for oral fixations and Q-Tips for bloody noses.
The soundtrack is mucous and despair. The last act, a dismal merger of exhaustion and desperation and hope. Ugly, used up people turning like dirty snow, terrified of facing the sunlight alone, of the hour long commuter train back to wherever, everyone looking for a few hours of dreamless sleep-sex.
Somewhere in the mass of sweat Miranda wiggles and glimmers like bait, licking her lips and dancing with half-naked gays, both of us remembering better days.
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Finalist in Opium's 250 Word Bookmark Competition. Appears in, Opium 9, along with other fabulous work.
Looking to expand it into something longer.
I had to read this a couple times and it came up different each time. The end is so incongruous yet so realistic that I wanted to cry.
what heft at the end
well done
Thanks for reading! I wasn't sure about the end myself, so I just left it. Glad it came through.
Man your diction is perfect. I'm impressed. I'd love to see this extended though. I think you could weave a larger narrative around the central idea and I'm sure you can keep the beautiful language coming along with it.
Thanks Ryan. I started this as a longer piece, then edited it down to 250 words for the contest (which was a lot of brutal fun), and am planning to write a longer story with the same theme and style. I'm glad you liked it. I really didn't think much of it, but I'm getting good responses. It feels like I can build an interesting character around the narrative. Thanks for reading.
Great. Got to go back in time, slam dance for a while, sweat, toilet paper stuck on the ceilings. Why did I ever look up?
This was a piece of perfect.
Yvette...are we that dated? I was going for a little more upscale. Anyway thanks for reading. I'm glad you liked it.
Hi Brett. Love that last paragraph--it's what made the piece work for me. If I were going for a long piece, I'd start with that paragraph and go from there.
--until every shred of flesh is tagged and mapped.--
the hairy ears, the memorized paths of waitresses, who wear unwashed bras with soggy filler--
it's in the details, that this sorry sad night comes alive, to miranda, about whom, may we know more?
what gorgeous language, brett. well travelled, methodically, memorized paths, used up -- such a perfect description of that universal need to connect and its ugliness, rather than the ugliness of desperate people. what people do over and over to not be alone.
i hope we learn about miranda when you expand it...
John: Thanks. I hadn't considered that...interesting beginning I suppose.
Gary: I'm still not sure where to go with it, but it seems like it will focus on Miranda more. Glad you liked it.
Lauren: Thanks again for reading...glad you liked it. I'm looking forward to more of your work as well.
This work is frighteningly good.
Thanks Meg! I just made this into a short and am shopping it around now. I'll let you know where it lands.