Vignettes, Part 1
Fuck is an amazing word. It has a sharp edge of the perverse. It's something that, in exasperation, communicates across language. It slips off the tongue in delightful little streams of banality. It's universally applicable.
"Fuck you, Gary. I hate your fucking face."
See? Instead of, "I am angry with you, my friend, for not showing me the same courtesy I've shown you. You have taken things out of my soul and mind that cannot be replaced." Substituting "fuck" is more streamlined. One could even call it honest.
Gary looked at me. He had this way of looking at things and reducing them to nothing. His eyes would darken even more than the deep earthy brown they maintained at times of calm, and he would look into you and through you. It worked best when they were clear, but he was crying now. I shook my head, thinking: away your evil eye, away your heart-wrenching form and function.
"It's not like..." He tried to swallow the realization of what he'd done. "It's not like I won't be back."
"You should fucking stay there. I don't want to see you. I don't want to even think about you."
"Why are you doing this?" He was gasping, hyperventilating at the thought of me taking myself from him. I was his breath, his very life and I knew it then. I could feel my resolve breaking with each murmur of fear. How many times had I soothed the darkness out of his every pore with my body and soul? It was almost mechanical the way I wanted to do so now.
"Please, don't shut me out. Please, goddammit, we don't have to do this. Please..."
I wanted his pleas to fall on deaf ears. I wanted to be blind and not look into his eyes. He was tearing me apart, teardrop by beautiful teardrop. I would have to attack with reason now, explaining my defenses to him, if I were to win this at all. A weak position for a battle.
"No, Gary. We were going to go to Nevada together. We were going to get baked, do drugs, live life. But you're going to college in some fucking state I don't know, for some bullshit your parents want. What the fuck happened to you?"
And I realized how I could maintain my position of moral superiority. I walked away.
"Oh, god, please Ash..."
"No." It took all my strength to turn and spit that in his face without breaking down. I had to call up hatred from some unknown place or thing. I looked into his eyes with an almost demonic force--I suppose I wouldn't call it that now--and broke that intangible thing that we once built in sweat and heat and fire.
I walked away once more, feeling with my heart, his heart being razed, demolishing itself in despair. If I closed my eyes, I would have seen what was happening in the material world; his shoulders slumped, his eyes glaze over with the world weariness reserved for the downtrodden. I lifted my head in a sort of false haughtiness, victory over the mundane.
What a fucking fool I was. But hey, I was seventeen.
"Fuck you, Gary. I hate your fucking face."
See? Instead of, "I am angry with you, my friend, for not showing me the same courtesy I've shown you. You have taken things out of my soul and mind that cannot be replaced." Substituting "fuck" is more streamlined. One could even call it honest.
Gary looked at me. He had this way of looking at things and reducing them to nothing. His eyes would darken even more than the deep earthy brown they maintained at times of calm, and he would look into you and through you. It worked best when they were clear, but he was crying now. I shook my head, thinking: away your evil eye, away your heart-wrenching form and function.
"It's not like..." He tried to swallow the realization of what he'd done. "It's not like I won't be back."
"You should fucking stay there. I don't want to see you. I don't want to even think about you."
"Why are you doing this?" He was gasping, hyperventilating at the thought of me taking myself from him. I was his breath, his very life and I knew it then. I could feel my resolve breaking with each murmur of fear. How many times had I soothed the darkness out of his every pore with my body and soul? It was almost mechanical the way I wanted to do so now.
"Please, don't shut me out. Please, goddammit, we don't have to do this. Please..."
I wanted his pleas to fall on deaf ears. I wanted to be blind and not look into his eyes. He was tearing me apart, teardrop by beautiful teardrop. I would have to attack with reason now, explaining my defenses to him, if I were to win this at all. A weak position for a battle.
"No, Gary. We were going to go to Nevada together. We were going to get baked, do drugs, live life. But you're going to college in some fucking state I don't know, for some bullshit your parents want. What the fuck happened to you?"
And I realized how I could maintain my position of moral superiority. I walked away.
"Oh, god, please Ash..."
"No." It took all my strength to turn and spit that in his face without breaking down. I had to call up hatred from some unknown place or thing. I looked into his eyes with an almost demonic force--I suppose I wouldn't call it that now--and broke that intangible thing that we once built in sweat and heat and fire.
I walked away once more, feeling with my heart, his heart being razed, demolishing itself in despair. If I closed my eyes, I would have seen what was happening in the material world; his shoulders slumped, his eyes glaze over with the world weariness reserved for the downtrodden. I lifted my head in a sort of false haughtiness, victory over the mundane.
What a fucking fool I was. But hey, I was seventeen.