"Conversation & Refreshmente," Digression #3 from Misadventures in Nowhere.
Behind an LJ cut, due to length.
Te got a job working as a cashier at a budget-price retail store. She hated it. The reason she hated it was because she felt that through hard work she had finally learned to love mankind, and the customers proved her wrong. Suddenly mankind, as represented through those customers, was grotesque, ignorant, and altogether odious. No sense of humor, either. The end of her shift never came soon enough.
One afternoon as she clocked out, Te tried to decide what she was going to do for the rest of the day. There weren’t any good movies out, and she didn’t really feel like going to the artsy-fartsy café where she usually hung out. Work ruined her sense of humor for that sort of thing. Then she remembered that after the Cookie Sheet Party, Cathy Noralle gave her a standing invitation to come by anytime for “Conversation & Refreshmente.” Te still had the invitation in her car. It was on sturdy white paper and written in elegant calligraphy, bordered in ornate filigree. It was not a copy, either, but an original work in ink. Cathy Noralle’s full name was also on it, which Te had not known before: Catherine St. Brigadier Noralle.
When Te weighed this invitation among her other options (sitting on the couch at home staring at inane television programs), she decided to take Cathy Noralle up on it.
Te arrived at Cathy Noralle’s apartment, which she shared with her boyfriend Damien Fireflowre, at around half-past-three. Cathy Noralle answered the door and smiled to find Te standing on the other side of it. Te had the invitation in hand and barely managed to say “Hi” before Cathy Noralle all but dragged her inside with effusive hospitality.
“Te! How wonderful to see you! Here, have a seat,” Cathy Noralle said, her teeth still beaming brightly beneath her smile, as she pulled up a cushion in front of the table, which consisted of four milkcrates arranged in a square on the floor with a piece of plywood across the top to cover the gaps.
“Thanks,” Te said, caught a bit off-guard. It had been a few weeks since the Cookie Sheet Party, and she had more than a few doubts as to whether Cathy Noralle would remember her or not. “I’m almost surprised you remember me.”
“Of course I remember you, you silly person,” Cathy Noralle replied from across the kitchen counter as she gathered a box of wine and some sandwich makings from the fridge. “You actually brought cookie sheets. And Morris always talks about you, summarizing the conversations between you two for mine and Damien’s benefit. What sort of sandwich would you like?”
“Um, chicken, please. What’s Morris been up to? I haven’t seen him around lately, haven’t had time to go to the cafe.”
“Probably been writing. He tends to be a bit reclusive and elusive while going through the composition process.”
“Morris writes? I didn’t know that.”
“Of course, he’s quite a poet when he gets around to it. Which sadly isn’t often enough, I’m afraid. But he’s also a photographer.”
“Wow. I had no idea. He’d never said anything about writing, or photography. All I’ve ever seen him do when we’re not busy talking is stare out of windows.”
“Yes, he’d be envying birds.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what he does, he looks out of windows and envies birds.”
“Funny. I don’t remember any birds in those windows.”
“Oh, he doesn’t have to actually be looking at birds. He just thinks about them. And envies them. Envy can be an excellent motivator, you know.”
“Hm, I guess it could. You know, I’ve never really thought of that.”
“Morris does all the time. It seems a strange approach to me, personally. In fact, I personally fear that it depresses him more than it motivates him.” Cathy Noralle came out of the kitchen, in her left hand a box of wine and in her right a carefully balanced platter of sandwiches, napkins, and two plastic cups. She set them onto the table and promptly poured a cup of wine for Te and herself.
“Will Damien not be joining us?” Te asked, noticing the number of the cups.
“Oh, Damien’s out. He’d be at the junkyard, looking for interesting junk.”
“For sculptures?” Te asked, helping herself to a sandwich.
“Mm-hm. Or just to have laying around in his studio. Damien likes odd things laying around in his studio. It’s like, um, to use a Tom Waits phrase, a ‘visual thesaurus.’”
“Hum. I never thought about that either.”
“It suits him and his work. All his wild extravagances of form and performance. I personally go for a plainer environment and method.”
“Oh, do you make sculptures too?”
“No, no. I like drawing, in ink. And doing lettering. Making words look interesting.”
“Like that invitation.”
“Yes, precisely! I love doing that sort of thing. You’ve seen the labels I like to put on things, like the Wine Cooler at parties.”
Te nodded. “I love that idea, by the way. The Wine Cooler. I don’t know why I’ve never thought of it.”
Cathy Noralle smiled sweetly and glanced downward briefly.
“Your smile reminds me of Emily Dickinson. Your hair and your clothes, too.”
“Oh, what a wonderful thing to say! And strangely pertinent, too. You see, Emily Dickinson is how me and Damien got together, in a manner of speaking.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes. See, we met at a party. Damien had seen me from across the room and decided to introduce himself. Only, he doesn’t introduce himself like a normal person. He came up to me and said, ‘Hello, who are you?’ Which would come off as rude from anyone else, but with his extravagance of character and poise, it was charming. And I replied, ‘Who am I? I’m Nobody. Are you - Nobody - too?”
“Which is an Emily Dickinson poem.”
“Exactly! And then he responded with the next line, and we ended up reciting the whole thing in one voice. We were inseparable after that.”
“Wow. What a perfect and intense way to meet someone. I’m afraid I would’ve succumbed to awkwardness. It’s funny, ‘cause Emily Dickinson was so shy, but you’re not shy at all. Although I thought you were at first, ‘cause you hardly said a word at the Cookie Sheet Party. But you still evoke Emily so much. It’s kindof… um.. what’s the word… nostalgic.”
Cathy Noralle giggled. “Again, strangely pertinent! I’m working on a book called Nostalgia. It’s a graphical work.”
“A graphical work? You mean like a comic book?”
Cathy Noralle made a pensive humming noise. “No… More like an Edward Gorey thing. Fewer pictures, more intricate pictures. It’s a very sad book, with lots of sad people with big sad eyes saying things like, ‘We bleed like ink on paper.’ You know, etymologically, nostalgia means our pain or our ache. The book is based on that. It’s about the network humans make out of their pain and sadness, the way they believe they are sharing it and thus sharing their humanity - but really everyone is alone, and lives and dies alone, and that’s the really sad part.”
Te nearly dropped her sandwich into her wine. “Wow. That sounds fantastic. Can I see some of it?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Oh.”
“See, none of it’s on paper yet. It’s still all up here.”
“Oh.” It occurred to Te that she had probably best put the invitation somewhere where it would remain in good condition in case Cathy Noralle became famous.
“But enough about me and Damien; what do you do? What have you been up to?”
“Well, mostly I’ve been being tired.”
“Tired? What for?”
“Well, I got a job, as a cashier, and… Well, have you ever read Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Well, there’s this one part where there’s this large, grotesque woman, with babies crawling and drooling uncontrolled all over her, and she’s wearing this shirt that says, ‘Damn I’m Nasty!’”
“Mm-hm?”
“And, well, the thing is, I found out that that person is real. Every grotesque, horrifying, inhuman caricature you can possibly conceive of the human form, they’re all real. And they all shop at my store. I see people who look like wild animals or the orcs from those Lord of the Rings films. And they all act accordingly. I’ve discovered that my adolescent illusions were true: that people are sad little monsters.”
“Wow. I can definitely see where that could make a person tired.” Cathy Noralle refilled her wine. “More wine?”
“Yes, please.”
“You know, that reminds me. There’s a friend of Damien’s named Garron who’s always going on about how all his friends can’t possibly be real people, because they somehow aren’t sad little monsters. He insists that we’re all fictional and were somehow misplaced into the real world, most likely much to the chagrin of our respective authors.”
Te chuckled. “What a fun concept.”
Te got a job working as a cashier at a budget-price retail store. She hated it. The reason she hated it was because she felt that through hard work she had finally learned to love mankind, and the customers proved her wrong. Suddenly mankind, as represented through those customers, was grotesque, ignorant, and altogether odious. No sense of humor, either. The end of her shift never came soon enough.
One afternoon as she clocked out, Te tried to decide what she was going to do for the rest of the day. There weren’t any good movies out, and she didn’t really feel like going to the artsy-fartsy café where she usually hung out. Work ruined her sense of humor for that sort of thing. Then she remembered that after the Cookie Sheet Party, Cathy Noralle gave her a standing invitation to come by anytime for “Conversation & Refreshmente.” Te still had the invitation in her car. It was on sturdy white paper and written in elegant calligraphy, bordered in ornate filigree. It was not a copy, either, but an original work in ink. Cathy Noralle’s full name was also on it, which Te had not known before: Catherine St. Brigadier Noralle.
When Te weighed this invitation among her other options (sitting on the couch at home staring at inane television programs), she decided to take Cathy Noralle up on it.
Te arrived at Cathy Noralle’s apartment, which she shared with her boyfriend Damien Fireflowre, at around half-past-three. Cathy Noralle answered the door and smiled to find Te standing on the other side of it. Te had the invitation in hand and barely managed to say “Hi” before Cathy Noralle all but dragged her inside with effusive hospitality.
“Te! How wonderful to see you! Here, have a seat,” Cathy Noralle said, her teeth still beaming brightly beneath her smile, as she pulled up a cushion in front of the table, which consisted of four milkcrates arranged in a square on the floor with a piece of plywood across the top to cover the gaps.
“Thanks,” Te said, caught a bit off-guard. It had been a few weeks since the Cookie Sheet Party, and she had more than a few doubts as to whether Cathy Noralle would remember her or not. “I’m almost surprised you remember me.”
“Of course I remember you, you silly person,” Cathy Noralle replied from across the kitchen counter as she gathered a box of wine and some sandwich makings from the fridge. “You actually brought cookie sheets. And Morris always talks about you, summarizing the conversations between you two for mine and Damien’s benefit. What sort of sandwich would you like?”
“Um, chicken, please. What’s Morris been up to? I haven’t seen him around lately, haven’t had time to go to the cafe.”
“Probably been writing. He tends to be a bit reclusive and elusive while going through the composition process.”
“Morris writes? I didn’t know that.”
“Of course, he’s quite a poet when he gets around to it. Which sadly isn’t often enough, I’m afraid. But he’s also a photographer.”
“Wow. I had no idea. He’d never said anything about writing, or photography. All I’ve ever seen him do when we’re not busy talking is stare out of windows.”
“Yes, he’d be envying birds.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what he does, he looks out of windows and envies birds.”
“Funny. I don’t remember any birds in those windows.”
“Oh, he doesn’t have to actually be looking at birds. He just thinks about them. And envies them. Envy can be an excellent motivator, you know.”
“Hm, I guess it could. You know, I’ve never really thought of that.”
“Morris does all the time. It seems a strange approach to me, personally. In fact, I personally fear that it depresses him more than it motivates him.” Cathy Noralle came out of the kitchen, in her left hand a box of wine and in her right a carefully balanced platter of sandwiches, napkins, and two plastic cups. She set them onto the table and promptly poured a cup of wine for Te and herself.
“Will Damien not be joining us?” Te asked, noticing the number of the cups.
“Oh, Damien’s out. He’d be at the junkyard, looking for interesting junk.”
“For sculptures?” Te asked, helping herself to a sandwich.
“Mm-hm. Or just to have laying around in his studio. Damien likes odd things laying around in his studio. It’s like, um, to use a Tom Waits phrase, a ‘visual thesaurus.’”
“Hum. I never thought about that either.”
“It suits him and his work. All his wild extravagances of form and performance. I personally go for a plainer environment and method.”
“Oh, do you make sculptures too?”
“No, no. I like drawing, in ink. And doing lettering. Making words look interesting.”
“Like that invitation.”
“Yes, precisely! I love doing that sort of thing. You’ve seen the labels I like to put on things, like the Wine Cooler at parties.”
Te nodded. “I love that idea, by the way. The Wine Cooler. I don’t know why I’ve never thought of it.”
Cathy Noralle smiled sweetly and glanced downward briefly.
“Your smile reminds me of Emily Dickinson. Your hair and your clothes, too.”
“Oh, what a wonderful thing to say! And strangely pertinent, too. You see, Emily Dickinson is how me and Damien got together, in a manner of speaking.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes. See, we met at a party. Damien had seen me from across the room and decided to introduce himself. Only, he doesn’t introduce himself like a normal person. He came up to me and said, ‘Hello, who are you?’ Which would come off as rude from anyone else, but with his extravagance of character and poise, it was charming. And I replied, ‘Who am I? I’m Nobody. Are you - Nobody - too?”
“Which is an Emily Dickinson poem.”
“Exactly! And then he responded with the next line, and we ended up reciting the whole thing in one voice. We were inseparable after that.”
“Wow. What a perfect and intense way to meet someone. I’m afraid I would’ve succumbed to awkwardness. It’s funny, ‘cause Emily Dickinson was so shy, but you’re not shy at all. Although I thought you were at first, ‘cause you hardly said a word at the Cookie Sheet Party. But you still evoke Emily so much. It’s kindof… um.. what’s the word… nostalgic.”
Cathy Noralle giggled. “Again, strangely pertinent! I’m working on a book called Nostalgia. It’s a graphical work.”
“A graphical work? You mean like a comic book?”
Cathy Noralle made a pensive humming noise. “No… More like an Edward Gorey thing. Fewer pictures, more intricate pictures. It’s a very sad book, with lots of sad people with big sad eyes saying things like, ‘We bleed like ink on paper.’ You know, etymologically, nostalgia means our pain or our ache. The book is based on that. It’s about the network humans make out of their pain and sadness, the way they believe they are sharing it and thus sharing their humanity - but really everyone is alone, and lives and dies alone, and that’s the really sad part.”
Te nearly dropped her sandwich into her wine. “Wow. That sounds fantastic. Can I see some of it?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Oh.”
“See, none of it’s on paper yet. It’s still all up here.”
“Oh.” It occurred to Te that she had probably best put the invitation somewhere where it would remain in good condition in case Cathy Noralle became famous.
“But enough about me and Damien; what do you do? What have you been up to?”
“Well, mostly I’ve been being tired.”
“Tired? What for?”
“Well, I got a job, as a cashier, and… Well, have you ever read Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Well, there’s this one part where there’s this large, grotesque woman, with babies crawling and drooling uncontrolled all over her, and she’s wearing this shirt that says, ‘Damn I’m Nasty!’”
“Mm-hm?”
“And, well, the thing is, I found out that that person is real. Every grotesque, horrifying, inhuman caricature you can possibly conceive of the human form, they’re all real. And they all shop at my store. I see people who look like wild animals or the orcs from those Lord of the Rings films. And they all act accordingly. I’ve discovered that my adolescent illusions were true: that people are sad little monsters.”
“Wow. I can definitely see where that could make a person tired.” Cathy Noralle refilled her wine. “More wine?”
“Yes, please.”
“You know, that reminds me. There’s a friend of Damien’s named Garron who’s always going on about how all his friends can’t possibly be real people, because they somehow aren’t sad little monsters. He insists that we’re all fictional and were somehow misplaced into the real world, most likely much to the chagrin of our respective authors.”
Te chuckled. “What a fun concept.”