Grifters
She was like a tuning fork for strange people. My life was a rock thrown through the stained-glass window of a church.
I was shards and hard edges. She was a humming presence that made me quiet.
The creatures and people that loved her brought her strange gifts. They’d walk past me as I lay on the couch. She’d put it out on the rumour-wires that here, this place, my place, was where she lived now.
She changed addresses as often as she changed lovers. She travelled light. “Time to stir the rent pot” the one before me used to say. He’s dead now and she’s quiet on the subject. She’s a purse of secrets masquerading as a human but I respect her lack of questions. I return the favour.
Candles and peach pits. A choker made from the gilded vertebrae of a snake. A snarling jackalope head. A licorice heart. A wind-up tin robot that spat sparks.
They lay scattered around the computer terminal, making it look like some sort of voodoo altar. Talismans infested with the passion of obsessive love. Little tokens of infatuation given to her as favours by boys and girls that thought they needed her.
They were like familiars bringing dead birds to their witch mother.
Looking into her is hard. After all, what’s under the back patina of a mirror? I call her Coreless. Her attempts to uglify herself have only heightened her beauty.
“Born with magic.” My mother would have said, before crossing herself.
She’s the day shift. Not that she sleeps much.
It’s the cat-stretch dinnertime stroll over to where I’m lying that signals that it’s time to punch the clock and switch up. We tag like wrestlers and I enter the ring.
There’s time for some fun on the couch to send her off and wake me up.
I’m at the computer now, piloting. I’m fooling the powers that be that my account balances are up to date. I’m fooling my clients into thinking that I’m worth it. I’m making money and shuffling it around to cover debts. That takes an hour.
After that, it’s another few hour-long swipes and my independent work. It’s growing like an artistic tumour out there in the waves and gulleys of the internet. I’m caught in the weave. It’s now that I can actually forget the life that brought me here. It’s now that I can actually forgive the life that brought me here.
And the sun comes up.
I save the work that’s saving me and spin the chair around to face the couch.
She’s there, wrapped in taffeta curtains and goosefeathers. I walk over for the shift change and the high five.
There’s time for some fun on the couch to send me off and wake her up.
I can hear a knock at the door of the first of her admirers. I hope he, she, or it brought something resembling breakfast.
The light sneaks through the blinds, I hear boots, and I close my eyes.
tags
I was shards and hard edges. She was a humming presence that made me quiet.
The creatures and people that loved her brought her strange gifts. They’d walk past me as I lay on the couch. She’d put it out on the rumour-wires that here, this place, my place, was where she lived now.
She changed addresses as often as she changed lovers. She travelled light. “Time to stir the rent pot” the one before me used to say. He’s dead now and she’s quiet on the subject. She’s a purse of secrets masquerading as a human but I respect her lack of questions. I return the favour.
Candles and peach pits. A choker made from the gilded vertebrae of a snake. A snarling jackalope head. A licorice heart. A wind-up tin robot that spat sparks.
They lay scattered around the computer terminal, making it look like some sort of voodoo altar. Talismans infested with the passion of obsessive love. Little tokens of infatuation given to her as favours by boys and girls that thought they needed her.
They were like familiars bringing dead birds to their witch mother.
Looking into her is hard. After all, what’s under the back patina of a mirror? I call her Coreless. Her attempts to uglify herself have only heightened her beauty.
“Born with magic.” My mother would have said, before crossing herself.
She’s the day shift. Not that she sleeps much.
It’s the cat-stretch dinnertime stroll over to where I’m lying that signals that it’s time to punch the clock and switch up. We tag like wrestlers and I enter the ring.
There’s time for some fun on the couch to send her off and wake me up.
I’m at the computer now, piloting. I’m fooling the powers that be that my account balances are up to date. I’m fooling my clients into thinking that I’m worth it. I’m making money and shuffling it around to cover debts. That takes an hour.
After that, it’s another few hour-long swipes and my independent work. It’s growing like an artistic tumour out there in the waves and gulleys of the internet. I’m caught in the weave. It’s now that I can actually forget the life that brought me here. It’s now that I can actually forgive the life that brought me here.
And the sun comes up.
I save the work that’s saving me and spin the chair around to face the couch.
She’s there, wrapped in taffeta curtains and goosefeathers. I walk over for the shift change and the high five.
There’s time for some fun on the couch to send me off and wake her up.
I can hear a knock at the door of the first of her admirers. I hope he, she, or it brought something resembling breakfast.
The light sneaks through the blinds, I hear boots, and I close my eyes.
tags