Blues of Summer -- A Parody Mustapha Mond
Note: Sorry this one is so short, but hey, at least I'm writing, neh? I have no great news to report, although I would like to, once again, thank everyone for your continued encouragement. This story is becoming a rather bright point in my life, which otherwise threatens to overcome me with its mundane repetitiveness. Not that such a thing is horrible, mind you: I'm truly a fatalist, and give as much importance to the simple machinations of one, average day as to the great swells of those rare, magical times we anticipate in dreams. Life is life in the details.
V)
I wake up at once, to nothing more than my pulse and a chattering bird outside the window. My sleep was completely dreamless and I feel tremendously refreshed, despite the late night I put in and -- judging by my clock -- the early hour now. Who would have believed I would get up prior to PM during the summer?
And yet I am awake and, what's more, feel as though I slept off ten pounds of worry overnight. I touch a hand to my brow: the lines of stress that normally crease the skin into a small mountain range have smoothed over. There's the bird, nothing more than a house sparrow, but his song touches me as a rare melody can -- not on the primitive level of rhythm and body, nor on the cold level of intellect -- but somewhere within, along those fine lines of being, nerves of light, which I once heard called a soul. And it's not just my ears, but every sensory organ that seems to have been shined overnight. In an instant, sitting up in bed, the beauty of the world rampages through my frail conscious. The sunlight slanting through the blinds like a brilliant rose, laying gentle fingertips of color on every angle of every object, every mundane piece of life; my detritus glows soft pink, newborn in the early summer luminance; smells roll through the gentle air, along currents that brush past motes floating in the beams of sun; I smell the warmth of domesticity, the impression of pancakes and hairspray, old cedar and musty blankets; I feel the air-conditioned air as it traces my spine like the veins of a delicate old map. I am, in this moment, ready for the world.
I pull myself out of bed and glide to my shower. The water hits like a thousand voices united in rapture.
I dress, watching myself in the mirror. There must be something in my smooth face, I decide, some hint of change or no change. I look for it in my eyes, not ravenously or with great fury, but calmly, like a craftsman surveying some object crafted over many months, lovingly seeking imperfections that deny his vision. Am I the same person I was? My eyes yield no truth, but I -- hedonist I am not -- even cede a certain beauty and clarity, in this morning light.
Dad and Mom are in the kitchen, drinking coffee in unhurried sips. Mom sees me come downstairs, and at the early hour and the spring of my step, raises an eyebrow quizzically. Dad is still chuckling lightly at the end of a joke. They are gray haired, plumping, but rosy and possessed of character in its truest sense. Seeing them together, leaning into the table to share close words, still happy after so many years; this fills me with something great and powerful, which bubbles to the surface in a broad, unembarrassed smile.
"Good morning," Mom says. "How was the party last night? The dead rose and feasted on humanity for a while, but I think that was over by the time you got in."
"Sorry bout the hour," I say, giving my most devilish grin. "You have no idea how hard it is to find a store that'll sell makeup to cover track marks at 3 in the morning...otherwise, we would have been back in earlier."
Dad has found the crossword. "For future reference, you could just wear a long sleeve shirt the day after," he says, not looking up. "Cheaper that way and, God knows, it's cold enough in here to send a polar bear hibernating."
"Pancakes?" Mom asks.
I take a seat at the table and eat. For once in my life, I'm up early enough that pancakes are warm. This is a new, wonderful taste, and I savor it in huge, sloppy mouthfuls.
"Did you have a good time, at least?" Mom asks.
"Sure," I say. "Not exactly my crowd, but I like parties, in general. The hustle, the bustle, that whole drill. Actually, what was bizarre, is Tad was there.
How's that for random?"
"Tad? And this was one of Megan's parties? I'm hardly about to get an invitation myself, and -- and sorry to say this dear -- but Tad probably has less cool-party- people-points than me. Nice boy, though -- definitely one of my favorites of your friends. Oh, speaking of, Cliff called yesterday from whatever godawful, tropical paradise cruel fate has landed him in."
"How did you end up getting home last night?" Dad asks.
"Todd and Irene gave me a lift."
"Be sure to thank them from me," he says with a bemused expression. "I'm just glad you managed to find your way home at all, from a den of sin like that, unlike a certain other, no-longer-in-our-will brother of yours."
Mom starts to remind dad that Mark is an adult, and can diddle around to his hearts content for all she cares (she says with a laugh), but I am for a moment in the car ride home last night. Memory has never been a strong suit of mine, and it comes less in a string of narrative, but in images flashing across my eyes, each evocative of some emotion I can't quite grasp, each -- though not eight hours past -- tinted the deep blue of nostalgia.
There is the car, driving down a lonely country highway, somewhere away from where we live. Our windows are down and the wind, cold under the moon, tears through our lungs and we breathe it in great gaping need, sucking it into our blood like gods giving themselves birth in a sea of ambrosia.
There are Irene and her nameless friend in the front, there are Tad and I, in the back. A blue light seems to burst outward from the point between us all, but where it clings to the seats and our bodies, it leaves rich shadows, promising the warmth of secrets, the beauty of the Romantic night. Bessie Smith's voice rumbles beneath our feet, all harsh passion.
There is Tad, hunching up as he laughs to a joke I tell, his mouth petite and controlled, his shoulders rolling with each chuckle, seeming to retreat into himself at happiness, yet emptying his laughter out into our world, and spreading himself out with it.
There are Tad's eyes, floating alone in shadows. There is the crescent moon, once in each pupil, so radiant swimming in dark brown that, for one moment I think I see the slits through which his soul looks upon the universe.
The phone rings. "It's Tad!" Mom yells, even though I'm a few feet away.
In the seconds before I touch the receiver, before I hear his voice burning through the earpiece, I realize that he is the sole reason I'm seeing the world differently today. Perhaps I am a different person: if so, I owe him all the thanks my heart can stand.
Ok, this is important. I have a favor to ask all of you. In my vast and infinite wisdom (note the beginnings of sarcastic tone here), I naturally have anticipated every nuance of plot, every atom of setting, every infinitesimal fluctuation of character that will take place in my perfectly structured, immortally written masterpiece. BUT, I must say, a bit of advice might be of help. Ok, in all honesty now, I do actually have a few ideas for how I want BOS to go, but they're all pretty drastically different, and unlike some of my ventures into fiction, this story is not (even remotely) writing itself. That isn't a bad thing in itself -- in fact, I interpret it as meaning I've managed to stray away from conventions enough up to this point that I have flexibility to maneuver -- but I do have some decisions to make. So, I'd like to hear what you all want to see in the future: what turn of events would make this the most satisfying story? Two words of warning, first: I'm definitely going to add at least one more character, which may or may not complicate the plot. Second: any conceivable sex scene is so far in the future that there's no need to try and imagine it now. With that in mind, please, suggest me up the walls. There's always a candle burning at XfragmentofanangelX@hotmail.com. Stop by sometime, huh?
Mustapha