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[brylcool]

Getting (it) out

I’m 3 years and 5 months into my time in Russia and am looking all around for a way out.

Out of Russia? Not exactly. Not necessarily.

One thing I’ve never wanted or genuinely envisioned for myself is a life defined by work. The notion of leaving home, where one’s imagination and appetites can be satisfied, to serve someone (or, if you’re lucky, something) else so that you can survive has never held any truck with me. In childhood I admired that my father wore suits and carried a briefcase because it looked cool not because what he did was at all intrinsically valuable. With the exception of my short stint in the theatre, I’ve never felt that the work I was doing was valuable.

For pay, anyway.

I spent several months as a stand-out intern for a presidential campaign in 2003-04. When that ended, the last flickers of my idealism really went out. But even before that, it was, at least in part, about finding something inherently valuable to dedicate myself and my talents to. The list of such ventures grows shorter and shorter. Nowadays I often think that my own amusement is the only thing worth considering while I’m alive and awake.

“All that matters is if you’re amused. I heard you. I got it.”

I don’t think she was ever more disgusted with me.

I came here because I was sick of Texas, of America and all that it meant. Sick of the stupidity, the prejudice, the capitalism, the slowness. The food, though, wasn’t bad.

Russia in my mind was a way out.

My life in Russia is all but begging for another one.

[brylcool]

Princess Kozlovskaya

In the Town of S the Princess Kozlovskaya's horse casually stepped aside, for the third time that week, Sergei Timofeyovich, dancing wildly in the middle of the street, deserted by the crowd that would gather around to encourage and laugh at him, continuing its steady pace without any action from the coachman, Samuel Solomonovich. So the Princess Kozlova's afternoon ride would continue undisturbed as she read the latest collection of Italian poetry that her mother had sent her from her latest trip to the latest salons in what had just lately been called Italy.

In the letter that accompanied the package, the Old Princess Kozlovskaya worried in words that her daughter, as curious as she ever was as a little girl had grown far  curioser still for being as of yet unmarried at her not so young age. She'd elected to spend her 24th summer in the Town of S, rather than joining her abroad. Before even opening the parcel, the Princess Kozlovskaya sat at her desk and quickly wrote a reply, knowing that it had to be done. She explained that she had demurred yet again because rather than apply the lessons of geography and language that demanded yet another test on the actual streets of some civilization's birth, the Princess Kozlovskaya insisted that she was making herself at home among the Russians of the Town of S, a pursuit as worthy, if not more so, than the European experiences that her mother insisted on.

This refusal to entertain her mother's wisdom was sandwiched between thanks for the last set of works that the Princess Kozlovskaya had received, some German and English volumes, though she cared not as much for the political works as she did for the philological ones. Still, she maintained her conversations with the great minds of the continent silently, at her study, in her carriage. The summer, the Princess explained, was a warm one, bringing many people out into the streets daily. She enjoyed a ride or walk just as frequently, often accompanied by the coachman, with or without a horse.  Samuel Solomonovich was a good and reliable driver, she wrote, but sometimes too gentle with the horses, trying to coax rather than order them forward. Usually, she wrote, that she didn't mind this, and even found it endearing, but at other times she had places to go.

The Old Princess Kozlovskaya insisted that the air and sun of Italy would be better for her daughter, but even to this the Young Princess replied that it was an unseasonably warm summer, and that she was in good health and spirits among the people of the Town of S, and that while many were provincial, there were many from the nearby cities choosing to spend their holidays just as she had, making the same choice as the young princess whose 24th summer was spent, more or less, alone among them.

Her mother's worries, though, were hardly at the forefront of her mind as the Princess Kozlovskaya's carriage rolled through the center of the Town of S.

She had gotten so used to the rhythm of the wheels crushing over on the fine, sandy dirt of this path that as she read, she felt just as calm and as focused as if she were in her study that she hardly noticed the detour brought about by the dancing man.

But notice it she did.

"Stop!" the Princess Kozlovskaya shouted out to Samuel Solomonovich. She folded the top corner of her book and set it down next to her.

"Sergei Timofovich!" She shouted from her carriage. "Why are you out in the street -- again? Why are you dancing midday? Shouldn't you be working or otherwise improving yourself?"

"Princess!" he replied, stopping his dance to hurriedly bow. The crowd around him dispersed at  that moment. While there was no music to accompany his flailing, he had assumed a certain rhythm that followed the rolling of the carriage over the street. Without that, there was little sense to his movements, save for whatever logic the mad dancer publicly kept to himself.

"What is improvement? I do not know what this is! Work, though, I know. I know that the workday ends when I have slaved enough to feed myself to slave away the next day --"

"And maybe to have a drink in the meantime, yes?" teased the Princess Kozlovskaya. She was leaning out of her carriage now, smiling at the queer man in the street. Her vehicle was far more of an obstruction than the dancing man had been, and yet again, a small crowd was drawing around them, some puzzled, others amused, others still sickened, at the sight of the Princess deigning to speak to this man.

"Yes, in much of the meantime," Sergei replied, waving his hand dismissively as his dancing slowed and then ceasing altogether. He stood, arms dangling at his sides, arching his neck so as to look into the eyes of his interlocutor. "But why not? Have I not earned my bread, even if I choose to drink it? The daily bread that goes back into toil, into the soil, just like we all do," he said, shaking his head violently as he spoke, as if he were trying to disabuse himself of the words he was sharing with all the Town of S, for Sergei was not a quiet man.

Spectators grumbled.

"So philosophical you are," smiled the Princess Kozlovskaya. "And they say the men in the fields are not wise. I think you're as wise as any man, though, Sergei Timofeyovich. I only wish you'd be so wise as to not dance midday in the streets. You've interrupted my ride."

"Good Princess," he began. "I must apologize, for you are very, very kind, but I would argue that you perhaps are too intelligent yourself to not dance in the streets, or at the balls or at the endless occasions for while men wear tails and call it dignified. Imagine! Men who never lift a finger for themselves because they are too high above the brutes like myself and those who are barely better than any beast of burden, wearing tails! It's a type of envy, I swear. Still. I think the novels that keep you company are silly, it's true, but were I someone with your position and grace maybe I would try to live life a little outside of the carriage, outside of yourself."

The grumbling about them grew louder. Who was this man, dirt baked onto him un the summer sun, smelling of grass and cheap tobacco and, even at some distance, drink, to  so address the Young Princess Kozlovskaya? Perhaps he desired to be whipped!

"Intelligent, funny, slightly mad Sergei," said the Princess Kozlovskaya, leaning back into her carriage, "I fear you may be right about all of this, and that maybe I am at little risk of being truly run over and crushed as you are when I sit safely in my carriage here in the Town of S." She leaned back inside, putting her hand on the Italian volume, a collection of verse about love as it aged -- from innocence to passion to  its demise. "Perhaps I'm not one to be so swept away at all," she said a little more quietly, almost as if to herself.

"But I think, too, Sergei Timofeyovich, that if I left these novels and these poems, the dreams and the visions of my unseen, continental companions, I'd seek that fate too foolishly and go mad. Maybe I would end up in the streets with you."

"Princess!" exclaimed Sergei. "If only my days were as mad as they were now but with you. If it's but a stack of books that keeps you so kept, better to sweep them aside, no? Better to bust up your carriage and your courses and the expectations around who you must become. Princess," Sergei continued, "could not I have complained that it was you who has interrupted me? My mad dance on this summer's day was but all I wanted, so I made the dance my day, these people who so curse my impudence are my witnesses! Witnesses!" He smiled. "But I cannot write a lick about what the dance makes me feel. That won't ever be in your hands, will it? That's how I know you will be up there and I down here."

"Oh, that's where you're wrong, my friend. You said it correctly but a moment ago: the soil is for us all. Spirit moves through us all. But you're right, too  Sergei Timofeyovich: for now, for me, I can't help but enjoy my time above that soil as far above it as I can manage."

"Ah, but can you stand it? Truly?"

The Princess smiled at Sergei, her eyes showing both amusement and a touch of sadness.

"The day is yours," she said. "Samuel Solomonovich!"

With that, Samuel Solomonovich lightly tugged the reins and the Princess Kozlovskaya's carriage slowly rolled away.

[brylcool]

The Last Love (finale)

“Like the birds that follow the sun I followed the star. There’s nothing else I could do or would want to do. How could I choose to be away from you? Why would I want that? You were the fleeting light, the glimmer, the scintillating spark that never burned out. How on earth or sky could that be something to leave? There is a question of will, perhaps,” he said quietly, staring ahead, “but it is the will to endure and to go on. There is nothing noble or valiant or beautiful, not now, in the basic…public, and aged fact that I love you.”

Larissa stirred, a sleepy smile on her face.

“She thinks you’re talking to her,” M said. 

The three sat in silence. 

“You know,” M began, “if you were unhappy, if you are unhappy, of course you should–” “There’s nothing to be done,” Paris said quickly. “This is my lot. This is my joy. This is…good eno-“ Larissa sat up. “Mama!” She climbed off of Paris and flopped onto her mother. “When did you get here, Mama?” “Just a few minutes ago,” M said, quickly kissing her on the top of her head.“Did you have a good day? Did you have a fun walk?” “Ye-es! Paris showed me all the ways to walk around the woods and I saw a trash panda!” “You saw a what?” “She means a raccoon,” Paris added, a bit embarrassed. “Oh! I hope you didn’t get too close!” “No, it was in a tree. But mama, did you know there’s a stream that runs all through the woods? Paris showed me. You can follow it for HOURS. There were deer tracks and we tried to find the deers–” “Deer,” chimed in Paris and M in unison. “Yeah deers–” “Deer!” They corrected again. “Hmph. DEER. But we couldn’t find any deer, but that’s okay because there were lots of birds and bugs and stuff around. And frogs!” “Did you talk to any of them?” “Ma-maaaa! You know animals can’t talk. Not to us, anyway.” “Really? I’ve talked to them my whole life,” M said with surprise. “Mama can be we-ird sometimes, can’t she?” laughed Larissa. “Your mama can be a lot of things,” Paris answered. “Hey, your boots are a little muddy! We’re gonna have to get you cleaned up before we go home,” M said, inspecting her child. “That’s from the river! I walked in it and it was muddy sometimes but it was so pretty and–” “I thought it was a stream?” “Sometimes it’s a river and sometimes it’s a stream and sometimes it’s nothing at all and that’s when you know you have to go back or catch it somewhere else.” “And where does it go? To a lake?” “It just goooooo-es Mama!” “Huh. I’ve been walking here for years. I’ve never seen such a thing. You should show me, Larissa!” “Okay okay but with Paris too!” “Of course, of course,” M said, smiling at the two of them. “with Paris too.” Larissa looked back at Paris and smiled as widely as she could before grabbing her mother’s head and leaning into her ear. “Mama. Paris said he loves you. I asked. Isn’t that good? And me! And dad! And the woods and the trash panda! We are all friends. We are all best friends! Mama it’s not a secret but I wanted to be sure you heard. We’re all best friends!” M gave Larissa a squeeze. “I know. Thanks for telling me, though.” “Guys,” Paris said, pointing his head upward. “Snow!” screamed Larissa. “What in the world–? How is this even possible? It’s too warm! And early! And–” “Maaaa-maaa! Snow! Paris! Paris! It’s snowing.” “I know! I showed you!” “Snoooooooooow!” shouted Larissa, running around the tree, her footprints creating an ellipse around where they stood, first in the leaves, but soon in the freshly fallen snow. “Yes, snow!” M said. “We should go, though. We’re not dressed for this.” 

“It’s SNO-wing, Mama! We can’t go! We can’t!” insisted Larissa. “Let’s get you a better coat and then –” “We’ll come back,” finished Paris. “We’ll have the woods to ourselves. All the animals will have rushed home.“ “Which is what we should–” started M. “Okay, o-KAY,” added Larissa. “Home then woods home then woods but you PROM-ise that we’ll come BACK!” “Pioneer’s honor,” Paris said. “What’s a–” “Don’t worry about it,” said M, playfully rolling her eyes at Paris. “Okay okay okay, let’s go!” Larissa held out her left hand to her mother, and her right hand to Paris. She led the three of them quickly out of the field, their footprints an undulating chevron through the white.

[brylcool]

Could have been and is

Larissa was asleep. Paris adjusted his arms so hers were bound up closer to her body, not hanging to the ground, which was somewhere between wet and dry. He gently took the crown of leaves she had made minutes earlier off of her head and held them in his own hands, thinking she’d want to wear it home. He leaned back on the birch tree and smiled at the top of the child’s head, the auburn strands matching the fall around them, the blonde ones reflecting the golden leaves that doubled as her crown.

He dared not move, for he feared the sound of one’s crunch might wake the girl, and she deserved a rest after a day’s walking. With his eyes, Paris traced the darker strands and lighter ones from root to tip.

For a few moments he imagined how different they would be were he there from the start. Her hair might not be entirely black, but it would be much darker, perhaps thicker.

And her character?

No, it would be an entirely different person.

There would be no Larissa to compare or even imagine. But that there was one was, Paris thought, a wonderful fact, a truth to be treasured. At the sound of leaves crunching, Paris turned quickly.

The girl’s mother was walking over at her regular brisk pace. Paris’ eyebrows ran from his face in a gesture for her to slow down. As he angled his head to indicate the sleeping child, the mother stopped, and returned the expression. Gingerly, but with exaggerated adroitness, she navigated the redgoldbrown puddles, both wet and dry, and sat next to Paris under the tree.

“She’s tired out, huh?” She asked quietly “She was walking the whole day. She has so much energy.” “Did you take this break for her or for you?” M asked with a smile. Paris silently laughed. “For her. She insisted she wasn’t tired, but I convinced her to sit and listen for birdsong and to see if she could identify any of the artists. She dozed off just about right as she sat down.” “Just like that?” M asked nodding toward her daughter, who fit naturally into Paris’s arms, as if he himself were a tree, with a nook just for her child to rest within.

“Yeah.” Paris smiled again at the spring in his arms, the autumn-crowned child at the start of her conscious life.

“And the crown? Did you make that?” “No! She actually did it herself. She told me you taught her how. I think it looks good.” “It does! It’s very good. We’ll have to keep it.” Paris smiled once more. He gently tilted his head and kissed the top of Larissa’s. The three of them sat in silence for some minutes.

Crunch.

M had scooted over just a few inches but was now right next to Paris. His spine stiffened as he stretched against the tree, balancing the child all the while. M laid her head on his right shoulder. And like this they sat for several minutes in renewed silence.

The day was clear. The only clouds were the fluffywhite friendly kind, the ones that looked almost unnatural in their softness and pleasantness in the sky, what a child, not an Angry God, would paint the heavens with. There was not even the suggestion of rain that day, just gentle wind and the accompanying sound of the leaflake stirring here and there.

In a different time, having her so close, would have prompted him to turn to her lightningquick, pupils dilated, pulse racing. But now, after so many such turns, internal tempests and the like, his heart hardly skipped a beat, but skip one it did.

Paris moved his hand atop hers and slowly wove his fingers through hers. He remained astounded, even as his beard turned from black to grey, that not only would she allow this, but that these hands remained so soft and warm, season-to-season. This was allowed, they had silently agreed. This was not a problem.

All that was cold to his touch was the stark gold metal around one of her fingers. To this he never grew accustomed, and still shivered when he touched it.

Once, before the band, they had been so close. 

It was New Year’s Day many years ago, only it was dark then and there were many other bodies all around. Still, her eyes, greygreen dark and deep, somehow shone through the blackness surrounding them. They said then what her mouth hadn't dared before. And Paris leapt, his hands upon her face, under her back, his mouth pressed onto hers, her lips full and soft, for the first time pressed against his.

He let his eyes close, and all was sensation. The few words he permitted himself were simple. He muttered her name again and again, kissing her eyes and stroking her cheek. He'd never felt such flesh before, strong and delicate, warm and whole. This was the memory he at once knew was forever, one whose twin he had ever since wished to forget, to erase.

Another night. 

She believed in love, yes, but she did not love him. She worried that her lack of eloquence in English would impede her message, but Paris received it intact. Before he had thought that they were beyond words but she told him that in fact they were far from feeling. And at this his body betrayed him, at once ecstatic to be near her, so he smiled, and at the same time, crumbling crumbling within. She was surprised. That she was surprised surprised Paris.

He had the discipline to spare a word he knew would further complicate things, but over the years he wondered if he ought to have done otherwise. Not to plant a seed of hope to have started a burial.

Paris inhaled deeply, trying not to let the shivering inside disturb the child whose peace he valued above all just then.

Paris exhaled and simply looked ahead.

M let her eyes close a bit.

She had known they’d end their walk in this field, under this tree, from which you could see the rest of the park, the treeline, the deer when there were deer, the dogs when there were dogs, the sun when they was sun. She expected to see them in motion, though. She expected Larissa chasing Paris or them running together, perhaps trying to catch up to a squirrel or after the flight of a pigeon. Maybe Larissa would be crawling on the ground, trying to sneak up on an unsuspecting chipmunk. And Paris would be standing, keeping watch.

But she didn’t expect him to be sitting under the tree, her daughter easily asleep on his chest, him looking just as at ease supported by the white birch trunk.

She hadn’t expected to feel like every step she took through the sea of leaves would take her a year or two back to when she first met this man, when he was younger, when his beard had just a touch or two of grey, when he was the most solicitous, the gentlest, if clumsiest, man she’d ever met. The man who nearly crushed her with every greeting, who made no secret of his feelings, save for in his actions. The man whose ability to tame and restrain himself earned him her trust but never her love. Warmth without fire. The man whose words were eloquent on every subject except the one.

The one that was defined mostly by her own words, in a language that he understood far better than she had expected. In a way she hadn't expected.

And yet under the birch, not a thing seemed out of place. She felt compelled to come closer, to be closer. This man and her child. It looked — it felt — almost like a moment that could have — that ought to — have been.

This sky, this day. She felt compelled.

“Paris,” she began. 

“Shhhhhh,” he said quietly, nodding again to indicate Larissa. “Let’s not disturb her.” “Paris,” she started again, “thank you for walking with her.” Paris nodded. “And thank you for staying with me.” Paris closed his eyes. He inhaled. “Really,” M continued, “all this time. I know that…it hasn’t always been easy for you, but I really…really appreciate everything. I am so glad that we are friends. I am so glad that we’ve made the…choices that we have.” Paris was silent. “Paris,” M said, a bit more insistently, “When I saw you two, it was so nice, so pleasant. I just wanted to be close to you both, I couldn’t help it. And…well, I am glad that the…three of us are together. Won’t you say something?” Paris was silent. “Paris. Please. Say something.”  

Part V 

[brylcool]

Fireworks

Paris looked ahead, the tree line was mostly still, but some leaves that had hung out through the season surrendered to time and to gravity and fell fell fell until they and the ground were one. Paris followed their descent. He began to let his eyes do the same until he wasn't in the field with the girl and the birch and the leaves but was borne into the past by the air and the colors and the the feeling of a heartbeat beating against his own.

He recalled the first time his beat for two.

His body remembered lying back just like this, his head resting uncomfortably against the headboard, half of it above, the rest uneasily cushioned by two pillows, his body slumped, extending to the end of the mattress. It had been a long week, predictably. He would rise in the morning, summoned by the most pleasant alarm he could choose on his phone, immediately unhappy that he couldn't appreciate the beauty of Chimes but rather had to quickly shower and eat and rush out the door, hoping that the eggs and sausage would peacefully digest while he rode the Metro, the bus, the tram, the streets, the stairs.

He was expected to be enamored of this life, the one where he was around words and rules. The one where grammar animated the stones and bones all around. This wasn't even his method. His school insisted that it was words, not grammar, that made up language and meaning, and this was the gospel he spread to countless adults and teenagers throughout the week. Even here, though, he was a bit of a skeptic: he insisted on carrying a small portfolio of pictures illustrating just what the words conveyed; that to snatch and to grab were the same, save for when they weren't, to show that people's faces communicated as much if not more than their words and voices. But if he had to pick, he would pick focusing on the sound.Treating language as music treated sensation as truth. This was his sermon. This was his religion.

And yet most days the spirit was absent. His body rushed from place to place, his throat made the sounds that it must, and his eyes saw everything that was in front of him in the same indistinct gray.

That Friday, though, had been different. The invitation wasn't expected. It wasn't from a stranger, not quite. But his acceptance was a surprise. He went to the assigned spot, just off of the main street of the city, just past the buskers and the more organized music, right in front of a fashion gallery, under a terrace that kept the predictable city wetness off of him. And here he waited and waited as she periodically let him know she was on her way. On her way on her way.

He didn't know what to feel, exactly.

He'd come to this spot with no expectations and only a vague sense of what she even looked like.

As Paris contemplated how long his phone's battery would hold out, something bright and white rushed up to him.

"Hey!"

He looked up.

He didn't know what to feel, exactly. The smile was broad, the eyes were large. Her skin was lighter than the elusive flesh-colored crayon that caused so much controversy in his youth, but that all serious elementary school artists simply needed without question. Perhaps the face was heart-shaped, but perhaps it was actually more ovular. He could hardly tell. There was hair all around. Big, blonde, voluminous, somewhere between the color of a pure cloud and hay, an observation he knew better than to make aloud as a compliment. She was overall quite handsome, but he couldn't capture an image of her, even though she was right in front of him. She seemed to always be in motion.  

There were more greetings, an apology, absolution, suggestions, confusion, pivots on heels, laughter, decisions, stairs, stairs, stairs, seats, drinks. Gin and tea. His and hers.

Somehow the usual didn't seem so unremarkable.

Paris had recently had some professional success, and to this they drank. This excused the first gin but the second was his idea. He realized how little he thought about his words, stumbling not once in search of eloquence as he asked about her work and home and week. As he learned about her, his ears strained not at all. She was the clearest thing in this noisy bar, unobscured in sight by the dim lights, unobstructed in sound by the bawk bawk bawking of the apes around them.

Feeling free, speaking freely, Paris narrated how he'd come to St. Petersburg, wanting to live a life of adventure, of action.

And here she interrupted him.

"A man of action? Hmm."

"What?"

"That's just surprising to me. I took you for someone who preferred to talk."

"Why?"

"Well, we talked for so long. And you never wanted to meet me."

Before the last breath had left her mouth, Paris felt the blunt force against his forehead, as if he were shot just there with a diamond.

And now he knew just what he felt.

It was another time. Another year. Another app. He was a proper stranger in the city. This he remembered: her personality shone through her words. She was the best to write to, to laugh with, although their conversations were mediated by the labors of so many unnamed Chinese wage slaves, and distance cut short by satellite technology, but distance nonetheless. She seemed vibrant, whimsical but not gratingly so. Until she disappeared. And that was that, he thought. But she re-appeared. Another app. Another time. Another country, really.

"Oh my god. You're--this whole ti--you--oh my god--I can't believe this."

She just smiled at him.

"You didn't know?"

"No! I--"

He had no words. The force now came not from without but from within. He felt propelled toward her now, off of the stool, crashing into her, her pale golden hair, her white dress, her expressive, lovely face, her eyes, darkened in the room but nonetheless scintillating across from him. His arms would know just where to go, but more confidently would his lips find hers, first pressing against hers, but then moving just so as to create space for his tongue to meet hers, to trace the contours of her mouth, before stepping back, just a bit to gaze into those eyes, mysterious yet close, and to keep putting his lips on hers until until until

From his stool he said "Wow. I am glad we finally met."

Down the stairs and more stairs and stairs and stairs and now street.

He proposed an embrace and she accepted, perhaps puzzled, perhaps not.

“Which way are you going? Maybe I could give you a lift?”

“North. Way north.”



“Hmm. That’s not really on the way.”

Off he went. More stairs and descended, descended, descended, metal gears and rubber coils and stone all around, the smell of sickness surrounded him, bodies old and crippled shuffled about, bodies young and lively bounded in the opposite way through the tunnels and down the stairs, and he was somewhere else entirely.

Out of the tunnels and up the stairs past more bodies through the slightly cold evening through the slightly sprinkling showers across the street with steps lighter than usual he walked. The cars would stop by law but tonight he was unafraid that they'd be defiant. To the door through the door step step step landing step step until he was at this door. Through the wood and locked metal he passed and undressed and washed and stretched before settling into bed, feeling as light as ever, while his body slowly contorted itself into something close to comfort as gravity beckoned. But for a light he'd have been asleep.

Paris reached over to his phone, freshly glowing with an alert. Swipe tap tap tap tap.

A message.

He watched it once. And then again. And again.

Now the night was all around him. Now the night was silent. But for the exploding of fireworks in the Petersburg sky, each burst of color an eruption in synch with his beating heart.

Had he ever truly slept since then?

Part IV

[brylcool]

No Expectations

I've sat in a lot of cars with a lot of blondes.

When I was 16 the car was blue. I think my mother saw it as would a prudish Victorian would see a woman with a bicycle. We never did much good talking in there, though. We did some other things, which were largely clumsy and meaningless, despite contrary urgings of many insistent organs.

At 24 I brought a woman sunglasses in the parking garage. The car was silver this time. I bought a similar one many years later, though it was a hatchback, not a coupe, still manual, though. She told me obliquely about stresses in her life, at home, at work -- at the job I helped get her. She refused my $2 change for the glasses. I sat quietly and listened, feeling powerless.

Another time in that car we had just returned from viewing a dead body. She had cried publicly and insisted afterward that we must do something besides simply end the day. I suggested Waffle House. She had milk with her plate, no caffeine after 5:00 pm. Sitting across from her I made the director's frame with my fingers, capturing her face. She smiled, she laughed. She looked at me the way you look at someone who hasn't just seen a dead body.

Later that night I didn't want to leave the car, the silver. We sat and listened to music. Feeling bold, feeling foolish, simply feeling, I reached over and began to scratch the back of her neck, where it met her head.

"Is that where you said you liked to be touched?"

She hesitated for a moment but yes, I'd found the spot.

You'd think I'd remember the song that was playing. I don't.

In my state of confused bliss, I had hardly noticed that she'd come much closer to me, eyes closed, head angled slightly out towards me. I may have even said "Oh" out loud.

I moved to the other side of the country to save my sanity.

There was another blonde, this time in an SUV, maybe a CRV, maybe silver too. We'd sung karaoke earlier. It was the first time we'd seen each other after she'd decided to stop dating me several months earlier. I'd taken the bus from West Hollywood to Santa Monica to meet her. She was quite late.

I ordered a bucket of shitty beers, of which she drank none and I drank all six. Still, we picked up as if there were nothing awkward between us. It was fun.

She was impressed by my singing, or at least the potential in my singing. My last song of the night was "Aenima," a song that literally welcomes Los Angeles falling into the ocean. When the music began a drunk young man said "OH MAN HE'S DOING TOOL" and was completely into it as I went through the song. It was fun.

I don't quite remember if she offered to drive me to a bus stop or if we just ended up in the car to chat. I was about to go when she said "Hey, I got your email about the opera." I used to visit the Los Angeles opera using heavily discounted tickets and invited her to a show, but she never responded. She told me that she felt terrible about her non-response but that she had been very busy lately and we had a history of some sort, but tonight she realized that it was not a problem and that she had a lot of fun with me.

She came to two events during my farewell week before I moved 1/2way across the country. We walked back to the car, parked alone on a big street not far from the university and bar where we'd been earlier. But this time I didn't go inside.

The last blonde, the last car.

The car was red. I'd been in it before. Several times, actually. At first we talked about my feelings. I didn't hide them save for one word. And then she declared that she must be honest. And it hurt, of course, but not terribly. Because she was there. And her hand was in mine. Eventually both were. And she didn't mind. She was kind and generous and funny. I said these things. She didn't know about us, though. I was not terribly serious or organized. I could be, I insisted, which is true. The practice of life is not hard. Living, however, is a bit more challenging.

Do you know "A Hard Day's Night?" I asked.

Still.

She wants to meet many men, explore the social world. Of course, of course. I didn't hide the fact that I was prepared to make the kind of commitment one doesn't spontaneously discuss in a parked car.

She broached the idea that perhaps, for me, this might be a good place to cut things off entirely. That she didn't want to raise expectations. I declared flatly that I had no expectations. She appreciated this. She appreciated me playing the role of a proper man inviting her on a date. Cultural differences, she said, seemed to prevent us from connecting on such a level sooner. Sure, I said.

She's a scientist. I, on the other hand, she said, am artistic. Passionate. Emotional. My depth of feeling is written on my face, which is either smiling wildly or frighteningly miserable, often even at rest.

The discussion moved on to the carnal. It only mattered if there were feelings behind it. Can I live without it? she asked. I said I took care of things the old fashioned way without a partner.

I was very tired. You're a man, you're attractive, she said. Explaining away the closest we got.

"What did Freud say? A dream is the fulfillment of a wish. It wasn't like a dream come true, for me, because it wasn't even a wish I'd considered. It was something else. It changed things for me."

Of course she was a bit frightened, but she wanted me to speak honestly, as she had.

We're somewhere in-between. But we need to take a break.

She'd said earlier how in life you have a more or less fixed cast of characters. I thought this was pretty insightful. "I'm not sure I want to find out what that means for me," I said. "So I won't ask."

I insisted to her that I didn't feel that way about her. That she was something -- someone -- special to me. She is. She is. But, in many ways, I've been here before, haven't I?

[brylcool]

Paths not taken

He traced the auburn lines with his eyes, thinking of what his life would look like were they black. Had he authored more of this story rather than having simply followed it. He imagined the weight on his shoulder if M were there asleep next to her – their – child, while Paris sat awake, calm yet vigilant, not looking out for danger, but for whatever other beauty he could discover. The scene as he imagined it, though, needed little more sound or light, or even color. It would all be there among the bodies: the brown, the black, the gold, the delicate yet dogged breaths from them all, signs of life alone, affirmations of it together.

And yet, he thought to himself, how much of that vision had passed? Here was a child, who contained her essence, and, in many ways, his too. Had not their years together fostered something as good as his sensememory recorded and his consciouswish desired? Wasn’t this even better because it was real?

Larissa’s head tilted to the left.

Paris followed it, laying his eyes first and then his hand on the second crown. The one for Mama. Each leaf looked as crisp and brittle as those that disintegrated upon the slightest touch, but they were all actually still relatively supple, still resilient, though they were all equally on their way back into the ground.

Part III

[brylcool]

Aged Orpheus

They followed the birds’ flight through the wood. If not by sight, then by song. Some chirped and others tweeted, but for Larissa it was music all the same. She followed them along the seemingly endless stream, branching off into this direction and that, curving one way then the other, sometimes clogged with the branches and leaves of trees and grasses that were no longer for the earth, teeming, if she looked closely, with fish and frog alike. She ran ahead of Paris, who kept pace just fine, aided by a stick he’d found at the start of their walk.

“Come OOOOOOoon!” Larissa would yell before running ahead.

When she ran out of sight, Paris didn’t worry. He could hear the crunch of her steps on branches and the shaking of the trees she’d disturb with her bounding through the wood. While not quite fearless, she was bold. At the start of the forest, she rocketed forward before stopping suddenly and turning to Paris with one question: Are there snakes? Paris assured her that there were none, and even if there were, her boots were thick enough to keep her safe from one’s bite. Reassured, she ran on. Splashed puddles, either by sound or sight of ripples, showed him her path so well that scanning the leaf-strewn ground, yellow and brown, was unnecessary. She was a child that demanded one’s sensory attention in a way that Paris liked. She made him feel alive.

When the songs stopped, though, she stopped. Paris caught up to her in a small clearing.

“There’s no more birds?” Larissa said aloud.

“Sure there are birds. But maybe they’re in the trees and don’t feel like singing right now. Maybe they’re having a rest.”

In the center of the clearing was a single birch tree. It was tall and white, but surrounded on the ground by the brightest leaves they’d seen all day.

Before Paris could propose taking a break underneath, Larissa had already run to the tree. The leaves surrounding it were pristine: they hadn’t been trod on by people passing by, squirrels on the hunt for nuts or by foxes on the hunt for squirrels. In seconds Larissa had her hands full of golden leaves and a few red ones.

“Par-IS, come OVER here!” She said as she sat down with a thud under the tree. Sometimes her energy didn’t allow for gracefulness. She had set to work tying the stems together, making the kind of autumnal crown that Russian children expertly made in the fall.

“Who taught you how to do that?” Paris asked.

“MA-ma!”

“You should make her one too. There are enough leaves here. I think she’d like a crown.”

“You should HELP” Larissa added, not looking up from her own labors.

Paris walked over and set his stick down next to her. He gathered some leaves. They were so plentiful that even if he picked up two or three, there were more underneath.

He sat down next to Larissa and set to making a crown. This was done by bending the stem of one leaf, making a little loop, and hooking another loop through it, 2-3 rows back until the sun rose around every little girl’s face.

Larissa saw that he was bending his stems far too sharply.

“No, не так!” She exclaimed, taking a leaf out of his hand before he could damage it.

Larissa carefully guided his fingers around the stem, until it curled properly around another one.

“Вот так!”

Paris thanked her and followed this way until he too had come close to a finished crown.

“Whose crown am I making anyway?” Paris asked.

“You’re making Mama’s crown.”

Paris smiled to himself. They kept working, side by side.

“PA-RIS!” Larissa said, springing to her feet, holding her creation out with both hands. “Crown me queen!”

“Isn’t Mama queen? Shouldn’t you be princess?”

“Can’t we BOTH be Queen?”

“I think there’s a rule against that.”

“PA-RIS!”

“Okay, okay, just don’t tell Mama,”

Larissa nodded excitedly and eagerly shook the crown, which was really more a wreath, in front of Paris. He accepted it and held it above her head.

“I proclaim thee Queen of all these woods and surrounding lands, villages, townships, municipalities, fiefdoms–”

“I think that’s enough!” Larissa exclaimed, pulling the crown down herself and holding it with both hands on her head. “Now to see my kingdom!”

She ran around Paris and the birch, her footsteps swishing up the leaves, making a large ring around the birch, against which Paris once again sat.

She made several revolutions before sitting back down next to him.

“Paris, why’s there no more sound?”

“The birds must be resting,” he replied. “Maybe they flew to another forest.”

“Humph. I want music,” Larissa pouted. “Paris, can you sing?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Why don’t you sing?”

“Noooo I already KNOW the songs I know. Pigeons go vrrroooooot and sparrows go CHEEP CHEEP and the singing birds all sound different but I already know what I know. Sing me something!”

Paris looked at insistent Larissa, her reddish brown hair and her crown of golden leaves. He had an idea.

Paris stretched out his arms and Larissa eagerly walked over. He lifted her up and gently brought her down on his lap. She leaned back on his chest, legs resting on his, muddy boots and all.

“I’ll recite a poem for you.”

“A PO-em isn’t a SONG!”

“It’s like a song.”

“O-KAY, o-kay. I’ll listen to your po-em. Po-em.”

“Well, don’t JUST listen. I want you to look out at the trees and the grass and the sky. It will be better that way.”

Larissa nodded, knocking the back of her head against Paris’ chest.

“Maybe you can help me? Pick up my stick. Tap on it like this, to keep the timing right. Yep, like that.”

Okay. A poem:

Poet! cried the Muse, Clouds threaten our day;

Rescue it with verse; keep the rain away.

A second first light ‘fore a too soon dark—

Create it, poet: be the midday lark.

My song could fly, but it’s one I won’t sing;

To unhearing sky, it’s on leaden wing.

Poet, you insult me with modesty.

Can I not command your art with my plea?

That gray heavens were once azure at all,

That Abakan widens, rises, and falls

That Taiga lives not for man or for muse

Means that among its moods, we cannot choose.

Even had white nights once lit all my days,

They’d be but Cytherean shadow plays.

So mourn not Apollo’s waning gold tide:

All the world fades before your blue eyes.

When birches’ leaves, green to crimson, give way

Song would only flatter Nature’s decay.

Evergreen goldthread too is diminished

As seasons change: once in bloom, now finished.

Your blues and your auburn do not wither.

In both gale force song and quiet whisper,

To singular beauty, a unique truth,

Can I write at all: I compose for you.

My Poet, sang the Muse, these words will do.

As he recited, he could feel Larissa growing calmer, quieter, more listless. She managed to keep tapping until the last stanza, where Paris noticed the stick slide out of her hands.

In the distance, birdsong was once again audible. As if he had an audience of more than one, and it approved.

“Paris, Paris” Larissa sleepily mumbled “whazgolgreen whazabakan, Paris”

“Goldthread is a flower. Abakan is a river.”

“WhereAbakanParis”

“It’s in Russia.”

She was quiet now but not quite asleep.

“ParisParis,” she said. “My eyzzur blue Paris. My eyzzur blue.”

“I know,” Paris said, gently taking the crown off of her head as she fell asleep.

Part II

[brylcool]

Hell

His hands, six-and-a-half inches from the tip of his thumb to that of his middle finger, a fact of which he was quite proud, seemed made for violence. He would regularly make fists and challenge friends to strike him or them, retaliating ruthlessly, standing proudly once his opponent scrunched his eyes and shook the pain out of a crushed hand after a duel of Bloody Knuckles, or gripped his arm in agony after being delivered a blow that felt as if it were courtesy of a a mace and not a 12-year-old-boy.

The rumors were that girls would put on make-up and gossip during sleepovers, but of course, no boy could verify this for himself. With Dima, though, guests were often instructed to imagine an enemy of their choosing, often in the form of a wall or pillow, and to deliver a thrashing as savage as they could manage. He would then do the same, with far greater ferocity and power.

This is how Paris spent many of his nights as a child, though tonight the other boy and his hands were in Paris’ house, and they were folded over their owner’s face.

He was crying.

“Hey,” Sam started. “Are you okay?”

“I was just…thinking about Hell.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your mother was saying how that’s where we go if we don’t stop sinning and shit. If we don’t love Jesus.”

“Yeah. She says that stuff a lot,” said the son, avoiding looking directly at his friend, trying to find something worthy to fixate on on the fridge, perhaps his drawings of trees or wildlife would do. The cast of Saved by the Bell didn’t make it to the Kenmore, though, as per his mother’s objections.

“It’s true, though. And it scared me. I’m scared. Like. I just thought about it being dark. Like black. Pitch dark. Pitch black?”

“I don’t really know what pitch is.”

“It’s black, I guess. But just darkness, all right? Just dark all around. And you can’t see anything. And you just hear…screaming. Like people screaming.”

“Sounds boring. Like Pantera. Heh.“

“No, not constant screaming. Just like…a scream…and then nothing. Like the screams were there just to scare you. And they do. Every time. Forever. I can’t do that, man.”

Sam noticed that his friend was breathing heavily, like he would really cry. Like a little boy. Weren’t they practically men at 12? What was this? He wasn’t prepared to see that, or stop it. He knew nothing about such things.

“What do you think Hell is like? Aren’t you scared?”

“Fire, I guess? I wouldn’t want to burn forever. But I’m not really scared. I don’t think about it, I guess.”

“You say your prayers, though. I need to say my prayers. Let’s pray tonight.”

“All right,” Sam said. “We can do that.”

Hours later, the boys got ready for bed.

“We gotta pray,” Dima said. “We need to pray.”

He was on the floor almost immediately, kneeling next to the bed. Sam had already laid down, forgetting about the holiness he had agreed to. He rolled out, hoping to make this quick.

The rambling talks they had next to each other as they drifted away from consciousness was his favorite part of these sleepovers, where they worried not about who could punch the hardest or who could come up with the most vulgar intentions directed toward the popular girls in class.

Here they would wonder aloud about the future – Dima a hockey star, Sam an author of some kind – wives and kids, photographs and adventures. They would still be friends, Sam thought. An improbable pair, bonded through their dreams. A prayer could only further forge their bond.

Sam assumed the position next to his friend and put his elbows on the bed and threaded his fingers between each other. It was quiet. The mother had gone to bed if not sleep. The television was off. There were no cars or cats outside.

“You lead. You know this shit,” Dima said.

“Okay,” Sam cleared his throat. “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And if I live another day, I pray the Lord will guide my way.”

Dima turned, opening his eyes. “Did you make that up?”

“No, it’s a traditional prayer. You’ve never heard it?”

“Nah, man. That was deep. Especially the last part.”

“I saw that on TV the other day.”

“Okay, keep going.”

“Dear Lord,” Sam began. “Thank you for this day and, uh, everything we enjoyed in it. Please bless us with a good night’s sleep and a good morning. Bless, uh, the Red Wings tomorrow against the Rangers. Not that I mind the Rangers, but, You know, Dima.”

“Dude.”

“Bless our parents. Bless our friends. Bless Fernando and Venus and Brian,” here Sam hesitated. He only included Brian because Dima would notice if he didn’t. He lived just down the street and was a constant companion, for good or for ill, in Sam’s life. God would understand elementary school politics, right?

“And bless Renee,” he quickly added.

“Bless Danny and Simen,” Dima added. “And Duke.”

“Definitely bless Duke,” Sam chimed in, with a laugh. “The best dog.”

“Amen?” Dima said.

“Amen.”

The next morning they were back in the kitchen. Dima imperiously opened the fridge looking for something to eat. The mother was asleep still, and Sam didn’t trust her in the kitchen.

“I’ll make eggs,” Dima said, seizing a cardboard tray from the sparsely furnished fridge. “You got cheese?”

“Check in the drawer. Next to the leftovers.”

“Leftover what?”

“No idea. I don’t eat any of this stuff.”

Dima opened a drawer and pulled out a small plastic box. “Can I smell it?”

“Sure. I wouldn’t advise eating it.”

“Mm,” he said, looking confused. “What is that?”

“I don’t really know. Curry?”

“What’s curry? Is it stew?”

“I guess? I don’t know. There’s curry and there’s curry powder.”

“So it’s like soup?”

“Not exactly. Or maybe that is exactly. I don’t know.”

“Think it would go on eggs?”

“I said I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“No cheese in here, dude – oh, here. In the other drawer. Hell yeah, Muenster. Germans aren’t shit but this cheese is the best.”

It took him only a few minutes to crack, beat, and sauté the eggs before wrapping them around a large stick of cheese that he cut from the block. Sam didn’t have anything to contribute to this endeavor save for microwaving some water for tea. Main course and drink finished together. Sam placed the two mugs on the table in the dining room, an extra-long banquet affair that only saw use during Thanksgiving and Christmas when relatives would come.

“Do you want to be Batman or Two-Face?” Sam asked.

“Two-Face!” Dima shouted from the kitchen. “Tommy Lee Jones fucking gangsta.”

“All right,” Sam said. He placed the Two-Face mug by the chair facing the window and sat with his back to the view of the deck and meager forest behind the townhouse.

Dima brought out the eggs, garnished with parsley flakes.

“Приятного” said Dima, sitting across from Sam.

“What?”

“Like bon appetit,” he answered, half of his omelet hanging out of his mouth.

“Oh, cool. Yeah. You too,” said Sam.

The boys ate in silence for a couple of minutes, Dima somehow drinking the just-below boiling hot tea without waiting for it to cool. Sam was about to ask how this was possible but decided not to. Maybe this was part of being a man: drinking tea that burned your tongue without caring. The eggs were good. Better than anything he could expect for breakfast alone.

“So,” Dima said, polishing off the eggs by drawing a long string of cheese with his fingers from his mouth before sucking it back, “you asked God to bless Renee.”

“Sure,” said Sam, looking straight at his friend.

“Why?”

“You know why, dude,” Sam replied, hoping that would be the end of it.

“Have you talked any more to Marie? I think she likes you. You should talk to Marie.”

“Marie is my friend. I don’t need to talk to her about anything special.”

“What do you talk to Renee about?”

“Why are you asking?”

“Just curious, just curious,” he said, putting up his mitts in a gesture of peace.

“I don’t know. I mean. If I can’t bless her, God should. I guess that’s how I feel about it.”

“Don’t you think you’re taking this a bit too…seriously? We’re only kids. It’s not like you’re in l–”

“You don’t know that!” Sam rarely raised his voice with Dima. Not only did he want to avoid confronting him physically, he was afraid that his slight frame and overly sensitive manner would eventually turn him off of their friendship entirely.

“You’re right, you’re right, okay. I don’t know. I’ll give you that. But we’re still 12."

"You're 12. I'm 11 for a few more months.

"Okay, whatever. There’s still Marie. Or Terri, really. You should fish a little.”

“I’ve never fished in my life.”

“You know what I mean, man! I’m just saying. I worry about you sometimes, a little bit.”

“Did I sound sad while praying?” replied Sam with a laugh. “I want her to be happy! It’s not really about whether I’m the one to make that happen.”

“You wanna touch her bre–”

“Dude could you not?”

“What? You do, don’t you!”

“That’s not–” Sam got quiet. He didn’t want to argue about this, especially if the mother was in earshot. If she heard any of this he would have to relive the conversation again, perhaps with the father, too, and unkind descriptions about Renee, Dima, and other things. Sam felt that his feelings were too deep to dispute, especially with such crass language.

“The eggs,” he continued, “were good. Where did you learn to do that?”

“My mother. Yours never cooks with you?”

“No.”

“Well,” Dima continued. “She taught you to pray. That’s something better than eggs.” He gulped down the last of the tea.

[brylcool]

A friend

Designated a Friend in ever more ambiguous ways ever since his childhood, Paris navigated the streets, alternatively narrow and wide, until he came across the building whose number he was in search of, scarcely dialing the proper numbers before the front door opened, and before him stood another man's wife.

It was the cold this time, not the whisky, not the vodka, and certainly not the rum of her choice, that, like an osmotic Michelangelo, painted her face red where it would otherwise be white, from the inside out.

She waved to him and quickly stepped down from the uneven threshold, letting the heavy metal door clang shut behind her, echoing for the empty street to hear. They walked quickly toward the city center, a good 20 minutes away, navigating the Petersburg streets and their myriad icy obstacles, occasionally but gently crashing into one another in their mutual quest to stay upright. 

They spoke entirely in Russian. 

First the pleasantries, delivered quickly, punctuated irregularly with laughter as their eyes squinted away tears forced out by the wind.

Hi! How are you? How was your week? What’s new? 

As Paris ran out of words, she matched his silence with her own. Eventually he would just state the obvious: busy street, cold wind, bright day, and she would agree, smiling widely nonetheless. 

It was so nice to have someone to talk to.

They had purposefully gone to the same cafe each time they met. I’m Thankful For This Day, a curiously named institution on the corner of the Griboedov Canal and Gorokhovaya Street, always had two seats, if not for them, then for people like them. 

Paris would order a large pot of tea for the two of them, insisting on paying for the whole thing. She gave up on protesting but insisting on taking care of the gratuity, a gesture that Paris didn’t mind. 

Good? 

Hot. 

Good?

Too hot!

Here they would sit, as close to the window as they could, watching the streets. There were fewer cars on the weekends and more people. 

I love the winter, he would say. I love the snow. I wish it were always.

Paris wondered about those who walked as quickly now as they did during the week, seemingly rushing about, not savoring the winter’s day. 

She noted to herself that Paris did this himself, forcing her to maintain a stride a bit closer to a jog than leisurely walk when they were together. 

She watched his eyes, big and brown, closer in color to black coffee than to anything that came from leaves, as they focused on this and on that. 

Sometimes he would look at her. 

[brylcool]

Art, Life, Imitation

I want everything I read to inform my life and writing. Not that I have Writing, per se, but I want to write everything, though I am not sure why. Putting life onto paper seems like something I should do. So when I read “The Dead” I wanted to transform the walk I took with M in to a “dance” with Miss Ivors. 

As it turned out, though, my Gabriel Conroy had much more in store than just this metaphor. On New Year’s I went to a party with M but took the initiative to read something, not an address for the year but about my friendship with M. I was encouraged all around, and it was even recorded. As I got to the conclusion, I realized that no affect could suggest that this wasn’t a declaration of love. So be. 

Some other events passed that evening and then I spent a week in Siberia. While talking to a mother and her son, I showed them the video of me reading another poem, one I wrote for someone I never even met. The boy said to the mother “huge voice” (in Russian) as he watched. Indeed, huge voice, but weak body, slight frame, unaccomplished hands. Much like Dimitri Rudin. 

But unlike Rudin, entirely, I would do just about anything for a beloved. Interestingly, my intellect and interpersonal charms, much like his, haven’t been directed toward much of anything in a long while. 

By the end of the story Gabriel realizes, when disappointed by Greta and his existential insignificance, that he must become political, and so does Rudin. I have emphatically decided against just that several times. I cannot even pretend to care about the political situation in the US. Only the exercise of power matters and I haven’t the stomach or will to participate in gaining it with the people who are engaged in the process. 

My love, the love of principle, isn’t nearly as strong as my love, that for the self and those closest, is. This is a problem when such objects seem hardly extant. 

[brylcool]

White Russian[s]

It was a contest of curls.

Before him, in a manner of speaking, they were dark, as brown as brown can be before it’s black. Tight, springy. Each strand a tense coil uneasily falling before eyes a might lighter brown than themselves. But before these, a decade or so more, were curls too: lighter, softer, far more relaxed, and almost never bound, a slightly wild thicket that would not and likely could not be much tamed were it even desired. They seemed darker in the distance, he thought, until he could get closer. They were lighter in the sun, with assistance from either the sun, a salon, or both.

“White Russian?”

He’d had them once, on her bed. Dozens of cards laid out between them. She sat cross-legged – he couldn’t ever imagine calling it “Indian style,” especially the way that Americans would snidely emphasize the first syllable – across from him, sniffling every few minutes, her slightly swollen eyes and reddened cheeks making her awkwardly more attractive, like a rheumy anime vixen. This is how you play Go Fish

He was thrilled. White Russian? she asked. I liked these already, but I think I've gotten pretty good at making them now. Have you tried them before? I figure you must since you went to St. Petersburg. No, never, he said, lifting the wide glass to his mouth. This is my, uh, first time. He drew out his words so to sound a bit suggestive but with enough plausible deniability that he simply liked to enunciate. Oh. I hope it’s okay. Mine’s a bit strong, she said. Cheers! They clinked glasses. Nothing spilled. It was strong, but he was in full possession of himself, his faculties, his desires. He wouldn’t laugh too loud or joke too much. He wouldn’t lean over more than was warranted to drop or pick up a card, but he would be doe-eyed all the while, and fight every oncoming yawn until she declared it was time for bed. Another round? She asked. Of cards or drinks?

Both!

Deal.

She went out. He could hear her pouring and stirring in the kitchen, an open, modern one, just as would be on display in neighboring Sweden’s Ikea. Whoops, strong again, she said from behind him. He could almost hear her playfully stick her tongue out as she said this. She walked in and handed him his glass.

I think that’s yours anyway.

A flea forbid otherwise.

What? She said, laughing.

Nothing. Cheers.

The glasses clinked. Cards fell where they did.

He grew merrier, a little louder. So did she. She even leaned over to inspect that he wasn’t hiding a card somewhere.

Nothing up your sleeve? She asked, turning his palm over in her hand.

I don’t even have sleeves! He protested

Hmmm okay, she said, leaning back on her pillow, smiling, redder, louder, a bit gigglier.

These drinks were strong, Paris thought to himself.

Eyes weary despite enough sleep on a cold couch, he blearily rode back to St. Petersburg the next day.

“Извините, я не расслышал”

Mornings before work he would study Russian. He never felt at ease in casual situations because he lacked the idioms and natural speech that would let him, as far as possible, blend in with others. This was the language for him over his yogurt and tea breakfast, language that he actually used several nights before.

“Do you like White Russians? Do you want one?”

On the table stood four tall glasses, each with a slightly different amount of beer. Two were close to empty, and two were completely full, head descending slowly. Paris leaned past one body to say, in Russian, that Russian beer was quite good. Everybody talks about the vodka, but the beer was great. How did you learn Russian? she replied. She said his was good, even though it was barely beyond, or even at, passably useful. He explained about the tea and the yogurt and she listened, asking him more than he could reply to. And here the third person at the table, to whom none of the beer glasses belonged, translated everything that was beyond Paris, both for his ear and the other girls’.

He could pick up, or at least guess, most of what she said. She laughed at his jokes, limited as they were by a basic lexicon, but aided by his expressiveness.

“Oh. Sure. No. Do you have whisky?”

“Ah, you do speak English! I knew this! Yes. Single malt, blended? American maybe?”

“Do you have anything Scottish?”

“Irish only, my friend.”

“What’s your oldest?”

“10 years.”

“Give me that, please. Пожалуйста.”

<

p>“Конечно, товарищ, а ты говоришь по-английски!”

[brylcool]

The lights in the yurt were like falling stars. Appropriate. Somehow they added to the ambiance of the light over Baikal fading, though it did not go quietly. L

[brylcool]

Maoist cat from Brisbane (Australia) getting ready for urban guerrilla warfare

[brylcool]

Simulacra

The stripper doesn’t really like you. The bartender is flirting for a tip.

And yet they produce in you that which you desire from others. It doesn’t much matter then, does it? If methadone is as good as heroin, why bother with heroin? Makes u think.

Or does it?

People who are against drugs resent that drugs make them feel out of control, can lead them astray. From what, though? What does modern life do to us slowly what drugs don’t simply accomplish mor efficiently? Makes u think.

Or maybe it doesn’t.

This is quite close to the cliched nonsense I felt too proud to write. But the hell with it. When you empathize, whoever receives your empathy becomes, at least a little, the good guy.

Alvy Singer is simply an asshole if you’re a liberated woman. There’s perhaps a gender aspect to this. Or maybe not. Maybe those trying to butterfly themselves are truly the most pathetic there are. Maybe aspiring to greatness but falling short is not so bad. But then again, maybe falling shirt is the destiny of the great, and maybe the great aspire to lower heights because they see things as they are and evaluate their risks and opportunities accordingly.

What I mean is that reason is overrated and can mean anything at any time. Feeling matters so much more. And when feeling, not thought, dismisses you as nothing, that’s a far deeper cut than any well-thought out betrayal or murder.

[brylcool]

Inspired

I could use some psychiatric attention but this is a good period, so meh. While working on Saturday, inspiration struck. I had to write it down in longhand but didn't dedicate any extra time to actually typing up the expanded version of a story I first wrote ~10 years ago. Maybe the protagonist will no longer be Amanda-like, basic but sweet, and palpably white. But we'll see.

[brylcool]

Two Fridays

The contrast in mood from one week ago to today is striking. Last Friday I was under the cloud of a very heavy depressive feeling, the result of spending a superficially pleasant night with three people, two of which left together, one of which was my current love object. I out on a good face, though, aided by the pleasant students I saw throughout the day and the pleasantness of my lady coworkers. By the evening I was almost feeling normal as I headed to Moscow, but not qute. I couldn't sleep after the taxi ride home. I vowed to karaoke before the train. "It's my life," by Bon Jovi, one I had never done before. Interestingly, thiugh, when I looked up the lyrics, I realized that I had been mishearing them all along: This ain't a song for the broken-hearted No silent prayer for the faith departed Well, shit. Let the music do the work, right? It's one of the most gleeful meditations on mortality there is, defiant but not dreamy. I had to say this to this crowd of strangers, to St. Petersburg itself before taking short leave of it. The bar was crowded, filled with young people, for whom I, day-by-day, look less and less like. I ordered a beer and out in the song. I needed to be out by 12:15 am. I listened to the others, mostly mediocre efforts of mediocre songs. I ordered another beer. Four songs until my turn, I discover by going up to the KJ, a blonde young woman but not the one I usually see. I order another beer. I'm called up, or rather, the song is. Maybe this is a legacy of communism where the mission matters but the individual doesn't. Maybe that was a cheap and stupid cliche that we are all better than. As soon as it's time, I belt it out, full-throated, open-mouthed, defiant but plasant. Everyone knows this song. Everyone watches and sings along. No one minds when I sip my beer during the musical breaks. A man with a beard comes to the front of the crowd to make sure I see him give me a thumbs up. I finish the song. I smile and give the crowd a nod. I get a high-five. I gather my things and leave. My colleague, a new hire who is irrelevant to this story, and I get to the train station and board. We sleep. We're in Moscow in several hours. Others have written about the mystery and magic of the Russian banya, and here isn't where I want to share the details of the consensual, aromatic assault I sought and received there. My proper purpose in Moscow was to visit a work party with free food and booze. This party would be filled with well-dressed, attractive women and well-stocked, free-of-charge bottles of wine. These things are important to me. The sight of all of the long legs, clown-faces, overdone hair and impossible figures made me forget the misery that I'd carried on the overnight train. Its dimensions became negligible, perhaps no more so than that of pocket lint. I talked, I drank, I ate, I drank, I talked. Perhaps I even flirted, albeit harmlessly. That I could do such a thing was of interest not because of the aforementioned detail but because of an unmentioned one: Craft Beer Babe. We met months ago, prior to my hospitalization. We had been chatting via Tinder. She was one of the few who made a real impression as exceptionally attractive. That she spoke English and was only in town temporarily added to her appeal. I had actually spent the day with ghosts of Leningrad and Ms. O, declining further socializing with her (possibly in mature circumstances, oops) to meet CBB for a pint. I had actually about had it with booze that day but figure Oh what the hell. We had an okay time chatting. She had a babely ginger friend join us. I don't know if it was my posture or what, but I recall feeling like CBB was enormous. When we wrapped up talking, the two walked me to the Metro. I think I high-fived the Russian-only friend, which prompted CBB to smile at me in a way that suggested she was interested in more -- so I managed a high-five and hug. We failed at meeting up when she was back in town some months later because of my temporarily bad health. She earned her name, by the way, because she REALLY likes craft beer, going so far as to track local breweries around different cities via apps. She recommended some to me, but I never took the initiative to pursue this hobby in any serious way. So this is who I was meeting. The party was so-so, and we scheduled to meet at 10:00 pm in a nearby cafe. My phone (map's) battery died in the Moscow frost, a Napoleonic fail for the ages. I had memorized enough of the mao, though, to find the place. I actually got there early and ordered a beer. She came, greeted me with a kiss on the cheek, and we caught up. Unfortunately we were soon evicted: closing time. Another bar, another beer. I sat right next to her this time. While I had found an outlet with which to charge my phone, it was not an especially important matter: the train station from which I was leaving was within walking distance, and she suggesting going together. Snow. Night. Moscow. CBB. The walk was nice, short, but nice. I felt like our goodbye would be something different from Just Friend-ly from when I proposed the meeting. Of course standing in the middle of the station I asked her, in a manner reminiscent of how I had been asked by a woman very different, if it wouldn't be too much trouble if I kissed her. Despite a minor grammatical confusion, the answer was, spectacularly, yes. I remain full of anxious energy and surprise during such moments. She had 10 minutes to walk a short distance to the Metro, but it felt as if this practical pull was contending with another force that insisted that we continue, not stop kissing. But the inflexible timetable prevailed, of course. The other thing would have to adapt. And that's how I left Moscow: with the taste of a fun, attractive, intelligent woman on my lips instead of bilious self-loathing that I had expected, and subconsciously perhaps thought I deserved.