coughdropsandhoney

[coughdropsandhoney]

I had a dream last night about a businessman. He was tall and lanky, mostly throat, sunken chest, wet eyes. A glittering crust of stubble and a pair of veiny hands that shook as he straightened his tie.

He seemed to wander aimlessly from the subway to the shops, in and out of eateries, stinking of stale coffee, nearly deaf from the sound of his heartbeat throbbing in his ears. His one solace was in the poaching of a mint from the maitre d's station, the chalky flavor, the dissolution into sugary sludge, the prickling, puckering, the tongue, the roof of the mouth, the throat.

The more he walked, the more his gait decomposed, from a wander to a limp to a stagger. His mouth hung open; he gasped short, sloppy breaths. The sockets of his body were loosening, he was becoming a businessman of desperation. A thin film of black mold began growing on the wet patches of his sweaty collared shirt. The pinky of his left hand fell off and he hardly noticed.

He dragged himself up the pristine marble staircase of the art gallery, leaving a trail of maroon behind him. He found himself facing a painting, a modern piece. A hand holding a glass of water and a greasy, gooey yellow candle, pools of wax weeping down the sides of the sunken cone body, wick curled into a beckoning finger. The hand was purple and blue with veins, the glass of water glimmered feverishly, advertising itself, looking for a mouth.

The businessman looked at the painting for a while, panting, ragged, mouth parted, perhaps offering himself. Once or twice his mouth flickered into a smile, and then, for no particular reason, he collapsed, wet puddle on the floor of the gallery, wet enough to need a caution sign, wet enough to soak into the janitor's mop, to be wrung out in the slop bucket, to be flushed down the drain.

[coughdropsandhoney]

Julie has fingernails like plastic and knuckles like bunched up cloth. Her feet are big and her eyes are close together. When she was little she was flexible enough to touch her tongue to her ankle. She thinks that she can still do that but she can't. She envisions herself in a yellow sundress covered in strawberries and in her mind she feels like the most beautiful girl in the world. She will never wear a sundress like that in real life. Because what if, when she puts it on, she doesn't feel beautiful? What if she still feels the way she always feels, still pudgy and greasy and plain? Undesired?