broken watches
friday night, laying summer-hot-muggy in the dark, thinking, listening to the plodding of his heart, soft and deep in himself, weighted like a thousand weathered hands clasping and unclasping, painting a landscape of gray and charcoal before his eyes. he is soothed. the sound cushions in a thick woolly pillow and dissolves all preoccupations. it makes him feel grounded, in a way, as if the world has shuddered to a halt just for an instant and everyone around him stands frozen in place, drinking scotch or mowing the lawn or waltzing across a wood floor to the crackle of an old phonograph. the opening strains of holst's "saturn" echo somewhere, slogging through the floodgate of forgotten memories. "the bringer of old age." sixteen and already feeling the effort it takes for that singular muscle in his chest to expand and contract, twisting, squeezing, panting, spurting crimson life-liquid all the way into his feet, his hands.
hands.
he lifts them up, straining to see in the half-light of august dusk. a quick count: ten fingers, ten fingernails, one scar from a cigarette burn inflicted the time he and george tried smoking (george had liked it, he had not... too much ash and fumbling and guilt). his fingers are long, delicate. he wiggles them and they catch a glimmer of sunset. "pianist's hands," his mother had said once, an unknowing prophecy. he longs to play right this moment, when the dark settling pressure still shrouds his thoughts, but something holds him back, an invisible chain tying him to the bed, where he stares up at the ceiling in a state of delicious nothingness.
"saturn" becomes louder, and now, he listens. eyes slip closed, fingers dance with an imaginary baton. the music washes over him. he gladly drifts into its current, succumbs to its slow magnetism.
his chest rises and falls.
outside, a dog bays into another drowsy suburban night.
hands.
he lifts them up, straining to see in the half-light of august dusk. a quick count: ten fingers, ten fingernails, one scar from a cigarette burn inflicted the time he and george tried smoking (george had liked it, he had not... too much ash and fumbling and guilt). his fingers are long, delicate. he wiggles them and they catch a glimmer of sunset. "pianist's hands," his mother had said once, an unknowing prophecy. he longs to play right this moment, when the dark settling pressure still shrouds his thoughts, but something holds him back, an invisible chain tying him to the bed, where he stares up at the ceiling in a state of delicious nothingness.
"saturn" becomes louder, and now, he listens. eyes slip closed, fingers dance with an imaginary baton. the music washes over him. he gladly drifts into its current, succumbs to its slow magnetism.
his chest rises and falls.
outside, a dog bays into another drowsy suburban night.
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