without disturbing the universe
without disturbing the universe
jessica/tiffany
~1,290w
g
disclaimer: hundred percent work of fiction
One nondescript spring afternoon, a woman emerged from a subway station and hurried east along some unimportant street. Every few steps, she glanced ahead to keep her course, but otherwise kept her head bowed. Her face was half-hidden behind the upturned collar of her coat. Around her, an unseasonal rain was falling, like some distant garden sprinkler’s spray.
At the intersection-the one that separated the woman from the place she half-heartedly called “home”-the green had just walked and was gone. Red glowered as coldly as ever from the other side, and so the woman waited by the kerbside-quietly, without disturbing the universe.
The woman’s eyes drifted and found purchase on some vague point in space, several feet east and off the ground from her own. Red lingered in her field of vision, but, mostly, she saw raindrops striking asphalt. Each second, a thousand expired, leaving behind dark, evanescent stains.
She watched them blossom and fade and idly attempted to find her own reflection in mottled grey. Dullness was unyielding like the still, silent air, and, as if in protest, the rain began to fall more heavily. Thud, thud, thud, they beat a snare drum’s beat against the woman’s skull and then-
Stopped.
The woman turned her eyes skywards and saw the heavens filtered through a canopy of polyvinyl chloride-clear, but tinted pink. There were answers to be had, and she found them on her left. A stranger.
She looked familiar, this girl who was surely no younger the woman herself. Someone from school? Or maybe one of the insufferable fools who lived next door? The woman could not remember-she never quite paid enough attention to the crowds that faded in and out of her life like so much white noise
But in that moment, her interest was piqued, for the colour of her universe had shifted. Enwrapped by a bubble of rosé in a sea of mundane grey, the woman let her gaze wander in less-than-discreet scrutiny.
Battered Converses, ill-fitting jeans. The hem of a fuzzy sweater, the slope of narrow shoulders. A slender neck, a chin held aloft… and oh!
Eyes, twinkling, and curved into an indescribable smile.
Forgotten manners came rushing back, and the woman had never been so grateful for the pink umbrella’s cover, because, dear lord, her ears were on fire. Thank you, she wanted to say, but only managed to gape uselessly. Finally, she settled on a curt nod of acknowledgement and quickly discovered profound interest in a crack in the pavement.
Mucky rainwater splashed against the her feet. Perhaps a car had roared by. Perhaps she had let loose a surprised squeak. Perhaps, even, there had been a low chuckle in response, but all the woman could hear was the thud, thud, thud of raindrops beating a snare drum’s beat against taut fabric.
The green man began its steady walk, and they did, too. Inexplicably listless, the woman trailed behind and noticed, for the first time, the black and bulky case strapped to the stranger’s back.
Four feet in height and more than a foot across, it was a little large, but the moulded contours suggested some instrument or other. Does it weigh nothing at all? the woman wondered, for the stranger’s feet tapped light and vivacious beat against the road’s surface.
Thud, thud, thud, with each step, a hanging tag bounced against the case’s fibreglass surface. Up and down it went and flipped over just so. The woman just managed to make out a single word of the loopy script across its surface before it bounced out of sight once more.
Tiffany.
The stranger had a name, and, with this quiet revelation, a strange impulse swelled in the woman’s chest. It rose through both lungs, and coalesced into a lump somewhere at the back of her throat. She swallowed, but it did not go away.
And so they continued walking in silence, in step, and it felt almost natural-this quiet thud, thud, thud of footsteps beating a snare drum’s beat against slick asphalt that came to halt when they reached the other side of the road.
“Where do you live?” Tiffany’s voice was loud and bright and rose clearly above the sound of rain.
Caught by surprise, the woman jabbed a finger reflexively at the apartment block looming straight ahead. She opened her mouth and was about to give her unit number but found herself interrupted by a
“Cool, I can walk you there.”
Heat crept up the woman’s neck once more. What would she have wanted my unit number for anyway? Stupid, stupid, stupid-
Amidst silent self-recrimination, the woman arrived in front of her building. Under the awning of the lobby entrance, Tiffany wiggled her fingers in a quick goodbye, turned on her heel, and left. All before the woman could react.
After a long still moment, the motion-sensor entrance lights flickered off. The woman blinked once, twice, and then, as if a switch had also been flipped in her brain, the woman darted back out into the streets.
Heedless of the falling rain, she searched frantically for a bubble of rosé in a sea of mundane grey and found it, finally, at the intersection from which it had come. Tiffany stood there, facing south. She was waiting, as the woman had been-quietly, without disturbing the univer-
Red yielded to green, and, all of sudden, the lump in the woman’s throat came unstuck.
“Tiffany!” she yelled, willing her voice to carry over the sound of falling rain. “My name is Jessica, and I play the guitar, too!”
Tiffany turned, and, there-there was that smile again, breaking into a grin. She raised a hand, and pointed at the instrument case hanging behind her like a shadow given form.
“Cello!” came the answering cry.
Momentarily stunned, the brash query of Where do you live? died in Jessica’s throat.
A beat.
“I gotta go!” Tiffany shouted, jabbing a finger at an apartment block right across the street-a perfect mirror image of the one where she had dropped Jessica off. The green had started to blink.
“Okay! Bye! Wait-no! See you!” Jessica recovered her wits. She gave a final wave, and followed Tiffany with her eyes until she disappeared into the doors of the opposite building.
And it was only when Jessica had floated up to the eighth floor on a giddy fuchsia cloud that she became cognisant of something extremely important: Thank you she had wanted to say to the no-longer-stranger with the pink umbrella, but, once again, had not.
But, no matter, Jessica decided as she closed her front door behind her-she would thank her when they met again.
(One bright summer afternoon, emerging from a subway station and hurrying east along N street in central Seoul. Jessica and Tiffany-under the cover of a light pink parasol.
At the intersection, they wait, laughter ringing through a still, silent universe
Then, when they reach the other side, Jessica would extend a quiet invitation, and, maybe-just maybe-Tiffany would accept, and they would spend an evening together.
There, in unit 801, weaving a poignant duet.)
That time would come, Jessica was sure, but it was not then. For her eyelids were drooping after a long, tiring day. She shrugged off her wet coat, and flung herself face-first onto the sofa.
*
Thud, thud, thud. Raindrops beat a snare drum’s beat against city sidewalks.
Thud, thud, thud. Raindrops beat a snare drum’s beat against grimy window panes.
Thud, thud, thud. A heart beats a snare drum’s beat against bone and flesh.
But not too loudly now-do not disturb the universe.
(Jessica slept and dreamt in pink.)
Not yet.