(no subject)
The neon lights swam like sea anenomes in the dark, and for one moment again, Jan Park was glad. The rain washed the world down, and the dozens of passer-by, any one of whom could very well be Jan's suspect, were blurred like memories. A sigh escaped Jan's lips. The rain was so fine, so gelatinously thick, that the breath was visible in it as it would have been on a winter's day. It was warm, of course, being Florida, although with the dark and the wet you could be forgiven thinking it was New York, or London, or Hong Kong. Park's mood was particularly unsuited to Florida; Florida was intended for blithe, silent existential suffering, for suicidal tendencies buried so far beneath squeaky-white grins and shopping cart smiles that the typical Floridian should be as surprised as anyone when a knife turns up through her wrists or a gun appears suddenly down his mouth. In contrast, like the weather, Jan wore the pain outwardly, melancholically, stubbornly, impenetrably, and almost blissfully. Jan wondered whether it was the whole world that had changed - whether the world climate of depressive moods had shifted south without Jan noticing - or whether this was a temporary shift, that Jan, on arrival, had brought upon Florida.
The tacky tourist's tiki bar, supposedly the drinking-night home of Jan's target, appeared uncharacteristically solemn, even nostalgic, in the rainstorm. The neon sign wobbled through the wet. Jan didn't want to cross the street and forsake this little moment, this bit of emotional-geographic cross-pollination, this little irony of the kind that always made Jan happy ever so briefly - but the weight of six months' search piled up behind and pushed Jan forward. The water in the curb splashed and soon the distant, hazy quality of the tiki bar's facade clarified itself back into cheap, flat, familiar tackiness. The beaded doorway jangled, the little plastic volcano belched, and Jan Park stepped inside.
The tacky tourist's tiki bar, supposedly the drinking-night home of Jan's target, appeared uncharacteristically solemn, even nostalgic, in the rainstorm. The neon sign wobbled through the wet. Jan didn't want to cross the street and forsake this little moment, this bit of emotional-geographic cross-pollination, this little irony of the kind that always made Jan happy ever so briefly - but the weight of six months' search piled up behind and pushed Jan forward. The water in the curb splashed and soon the distant, hazy quality of the tiki bar's facade clarified itself back into cheap, flat, familiar tackiness. The beaded doorway jangled, the little plastic volcano belched, and Jan Park stepped inside.