We'll Live On The Second 37 After This Time

harmony, was, if only for a weekend, a much needed wake-up call. I thought of a hotel. "Hello?" "Hello, I have a wake-up call for room 217." "Oh. Thank you, but I didn't ask for one. What time is it?" "Yes you did sir, you just didn't know it.

The time doesn't matter. I'm simply to remind you that you are in fact still a living, breathing organism and not just a mental entity suspended in a tiny realm of thought and feeling. Will that be all, sir?"

"No, I'd like some coffee please." "Let me put you through to room service, sir."

Only here, unlike the hotel, making coffee was a task in and of itself.

All this and more came to me in what I can only rationalize as an influx of energy to make up for all the heat I was emanating. My physical element had gotten all the at-

tention this weekend, and I suppose by now the rest had gotten jealous. While my body cooled down, I indulged thought.

So I stood like an exposed and self-pow-

ered microprocessor chip in the middle of the street, and convection was my only friend. I thought about my day, your soft,

latte macchiato skin, your fine, smooth and flowing hair, your steady, knowing, hinting gaze, your full, comfortable lips. I thought

about how food - caramel, chocolate, coffee, milk - is always the metaphor for skin

and how until today that had seemed so unnecessary and trite. I thought about how I had never seen a laz-y-boy chair or a goose down comforter as a metaphor for a body, but I couldn't see why not. I thought about how ridiculous it was that in such a forest, on such a planet, in such a universe, the mind of a member of such a super-distractible species could be so well focused - or perhaps so single-mindedly distracted.

That night had been the first cool one I'd seen in a long time, and I should have realized that that right there was the beginning of the end. After perfuming myself with smoked salmon, smoked beans, smoked hotdogs, smoked marshmallows, smoked... smoke, all day, I had found myself standing by the dim red glow of the fire pit's last gasp. And by you. I don't think I was very

aware of what was happening, and I don't think I much care, but I can remember thinking that I shouldn't cross any lines without an invitation. I can also remember dancing, to no music other than the chirps, hums, and whistles of the forest around us. Dancing,

each step bringing us closer until we stopped and stood facing each other in what should have been the most uncomfortable of proximities. And then I can remember that you took a step forward.

The rest I don't so much remember as refeel. Your breath was warm on my skin and I was glad for a moment that the night had been so cool. Your features were glowing, your hair shining and your eyes glimmering. Your body was a sheepskin electric steam radiator, but all that vanished the instant your lips touched mine. I felt the glowing fire pit, the tents, the minivan, and even the trees slip away at speeds that cannot be measured in distance/time, and I was left standing next to you with pure heat and adrenaline pouring into my body. My

entire nervous system diverted power to my lips and my lips alone and it is for that

reason that yours were able to take full control of my body and to swing my arms to your back and neck and to force them to pull. What word means closer than next to, closer than touching?

Had I been in charge of the workings of my heart, it would have pounded like a caffeine junky and sputtered and died, but your kiss was controlling that too. My soul shivered inside of me, but my body could not, be-

cause it's immensely difficult to shiver when one is boiling.

Drugged, entranced, and stupefied, I could manage nothing other than breathing and fuming, and I felt the jealousy of the glowing embers at my back. The tables had

turned and now the heat that we had spent all day absorbing from the sun, the fire, the world at large, was our fuel and god knows the moon must have been spiteful, because it was then that you stopped.

You stopped. Pushed me away. Turned your eyes to the ground in that ashamed sort of motion that we all learn from the movies. And you spoke. "Maybe this was a mistake."

In retrospect, I realize that I probably should have frozen to death. The jealous fire, moon, and even the extinguished citronella candles should have stolen that heat from me the minute you stopped its flow, and my temperature should have plummeted to a zero beyond Kelvin's descriptive

abilities, leaving me frozen and stiff, waiting to be shattered by the breath you exhaled after speaking.

Instead, I stood. Silent and confused. And then you left. And that's when I de-

cided to go for a walk, lest in my selfish confusion I might burn down the campsite. Upon reaching this spot, I realized that I was losing heat at such an incredible rate that I was literally singeing the bark of

the pines on the side of the road, and so I stopped. I have been here for an hour, and before I leave, I will think only once more about my day.

I will stand here in the middle of the street like a glowing, red human being

and think about my day; asking myself the question of whether it was your lips that started this blaze, or simply the stirring of

forgotten embers.

THE FIRE CRACKER'S

sarah e||iott HoM~.E

How a whistling fire cracker can make you spring like a leopard into the burnt blue sky,

As speckles of orange and red flutter upon a tangled maze of your freckled skin,

and tattoos of scrapes and bruises pencil the story of a feverish July that quilts yellow dandelions on to your calloused hands.

"Five, four, three, two, one!" a voice illumes, waiting to hear the bomb of light trickle down to disappearance,

Then striding through a thirsty desert where lucent rainbows blast into combustion shooting through the pale limits of where color eclipses darkness on to captured faces.

Oh, how a whistling fire cracker dances and cries into a blanket of clouds swooping and galloping through the misty air, making you spring to the oranges and reds in hopes that you may too, fly away with them.

Mean World

shilan latrace douglas

Some guy walked up to me and told me that when ever he saw me, I was staring out the window. I told him that I was just staring out at the world. The guy replied, " you staring at the world pretty mean." And I said that it was because the worlds been pretty mean to me. I was surprised that he even noticed me sitting there. I began to think out loud and I said, " I look mean to the world, but I do not try and hurt the world, even though the world hurt me. I pray about it, then let it be." I continued, " a lot of people get hurt by the world, then they want to get back at it by shooting people up, bombing places, doing whatever they can to get even. But as you can see, I'm not doing any of those things; all I do is look mean at the world, and that's all I've ever done." The guy replied, "that's deep, if only people could do what you doing, this would be a better world." "Don't hurt the world, mean mug the world," the guy said to himself and smiled. I turned my head and began to face the world.

We'll Live On The Second Floor

(in case teres a fire)

alice wildes

I. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about the two of us- where we are and on Sundays, we'll haul our lawn chairs through the subway cars to Central Park and read short stories beneath a Beech Tree.

and where we should be- that kind of stuff. the first few times we go, you'll interrupt me with a "hey those cow people

and I think, if from the thing we watched nothing else, we really should must be at church right now." pack a suitcase and I'll laugh, thinking the last time and set fire to our house I went to one was for so we can finally move to Manhattan. afuneral. "maybe they'll stop killing their pets this week," I'll always

we're too big for this town. say.

and plus I've been keeping a close watch and the two of us,

of the city on TV.

together and independent in the city, it seems like it will go to record stores could teach us a thing or two. just like Holden Caulfield. and we'll sit in our

II.

congested apartment that I persuaded

the two of us could live

you above an independent to paint lavender, listening to film store in a studio apartment, your favorite Gershwin, and we'll watch mini-documentaries the needle unsteady, just every night after they close. managing to sing its music, while you regale me with your childhood

one night, I'll pick a 20 minute one nightmare about the fireman

about the cattle industry. who wouldn't save you.

and we'll sit in front of the blue light of our 24 inch screen in our underwear, we'll stay up late, sharing tofu from the plate in the stale July nights, that's resting in my lap. sweating in bed and sticking we'll make fun of those clowns to the sheets until the sirens in Wisconsin, making a living below us die while they live a quarter of a mile with the rising of the sun from a steaming mountain of cow shit. - just as our eyelids grow heavier than the stench that rises from the streets.

III.

and if we ever get married, we'll stay up late less often. but every time we do, you'll tell me, although you wouldn't think it possible, that I am more beautiful than I was when you met me in college.

and you'll pull me close and bury my head in your sparse chest hairs, "even more when you're naked and shameless."

and I'll smile into your chest, inhaling the thick scent of exhaust from the street, competing with the flowers in our window box that you gave me for Mother's Day, even though

I am barren, "cause every girl deserves her own special day, even if she doesn't have a uterus anymore." I'll laugh hard that day and hit you with the newspaper. And instead of letting my eyes grow pink and wet, I'll nod my head in agreement; because I never wanted to bring a kid into this city anyway.

0 0

E . 3

Am

They sat in the car. And focusing on the product... stephen l. hunyadi

he

had (on no account) understood women. And in this way he always sought (to make everything harder than it possibly could be) to (achieve transcendence and)

understood them, and in so doing learn to love them through respecting them as eQUALS. So he sat in the car and was frightened (, mollified,) in his inability

to Flirt.

['Ihe (GorgeousBlonde seated at his right, beaming,) the IntelligentWoman, who went as HIS to his best friend's wedding - and clung to him during the first dance, Her head resting upon his shoulders.]

He couldn't yet flirt with Her, even after knowing Her for years - having carried Her in the (unacquainted) dark of the night to his car, and, like a

Gentleman, laid Her softly to Her feet and opened the door.

He thought it (would be) better to trust his knowledge of glorious French feminism, and implement glaringly cliche 'n bland closed-ended flirting clearly

marked to go nowhere. Something like "My mother, father and I kept raving over how beautifully stunning You were. Dad said You were gorgeous," (and I smiled. I told them how moving it was to come pick You up at her house, and later to walk with You at the wedding - to have You wear the groomsman's jacket and have the women eyeball You, suspiciously.) "Uh,.. .yeah, wE need to improve the situation, improve upon the situation of women in the workplace." (Yeah, I'm secure with my sexuality. It's okay, everyone thinks I'm gay, but You helped me, well, look awesome in of that You're Gorgeous, Intelligent, Witty. But you're a Bisexual, so, uh, uhmmm.)" Damn. "Trisha, she was hot! I'd love to dO her, wouldn't you?" Even something as awkward as that didn't stifle the car ride,

so

they discussed philosophy, and how ironic and ultimately hard it is to find single-people who were apt and - germane to communicate on multiple nivaus.

The previous night he stopped at CVS along the way to the reception and asked Her if She still wanted the soda She had requested during the wedding-party pictures. "Yes, thank you, here-/" "- No, I'll get it. My treat." And he

bought

Her a cherry coke on the assumption that She had

complimented him (on having used fresh cinnamon on the creme brulke he made for Her two weeks prior,)

She would, more than likely like a cherry-flavoured drink. To be sure She would have enough sugar to parry Her hypoglycemia, he added a Lindt bar. The reception (of Her Favourite soft drink ever) was only augmented by his explanation of why he thought She'd like it. She was impressed. The wedding had been fabulous, and She in her Unremittingless kept complimenting him on how much his dancing had improved since they occasionally met in Swing Club two years earlier. He couldn't recall ever having seen Her at club. And together they were the only other couple left on the dance floor at the reception - all others had stopped to cheer them on.

And driving the car he once again asked for dating and flirting tips, which She Regrettingly began to name, still, with a wave of Her hair and a BeamingSmile and Kitty-dollEyes, She recapitulated last night's car ride with the little old lady how she had, giddily, apologized for "buttoning Your man" - for keeping him occupied in practicing German when he should

have been speaking to You. "That was soo cute, buttoning Your man!"

Consequently She

Battement was driven home to Her kitten and her

mum.

Dilution

michael schott

anyone fortunate enough to know the originals will need no encouragement. God only knows how they survived the flood. draw a boat sailing on a beam reach

man was starting to build up a few debts emotions sped up to the surface in his company his face becomes whiter and in his temple, a small vein beats heavily as it happened his suspicions were justified his nostrils flare with impatience, she's afraid of his boredom. his love pressed down from Heaven and fit her whole body like bathwater in the tub. she'd never been constipated, never had a toothache, she never thought about death and only a little about life.

some people learn that they are not likely to live to a very old age. they tumble head over heels through a twisting tunnel to end up huddled together in dark caverns, while the earth-shaking machines rumble and roar high above it's not what we see, but if we see.