Steak Puns are a rare medium, well done
I leant on the rubber part of the escalator coming out of the station this morning and now on my way home I lean on the handrail in the elevator. On a good day I’m having 10-15 great ideas and on a bad one it’s maybe closer to 4 or 5. Today, I was almost entirely filled with other people’s ideas…
The call came in from Minsk earlier and it seems like they’re going to go ahead with the new contract. I’ll be fine on the other side of it all, but the grand reshuffling is going to leave a lot of good people in the lurch, good faces I won’t be seeing much of anymore. We’ll have a big going away party at least. I’ll drink about six different types of alcohol and save all of the sadness for the day after. It’s become my speciality recently, those preemptive feelings of sadness. On my walks home the trees have stopped being trees and started being reminders of all the unimportant crucial things I have to do. I burden myself with a rucksack bursting at the seams with mountains of scrawled to-do lists written by a man who doesn’t even know what he needs to do. What can I do about the laundry thats been stewing in the corner of my room for the better part of a month while I’m in the middle of this so-so suburban green space? All I can do right now is put one foot in front of the other, the rest is the next guy’s problem. In my fridge I’ve got 3 different types of leftovers to chose from and none of them feel very appealing. After a day of recycled thought and stale plans I need something new. I step outside for the remainder of the evening light as the last greys of the day transition to the dull milky browns of evening. My phone vibrates in my pocket and I’m drawn back from whatever half real dream-state I’ve made for myself. The voice on the other end asks me how I am, I’m doing alright. I straighten my back as I ask where they’re calling from and their answer fills my lungs with the most air they’ve felt in days. My blood flows from my heart to my finger tips, and as I’ve been training it to do, bypasses my brain almost entirely.
The light from the kitchen reflects in the rain soaked tiles of my patio and before I know it a full meal sits before me on my makeshift dinner table nestled between permanently nearly dry clothes and an ever growing bookcase I don’t believe I’ve ever taken a book off of. I eat in near silence and that deficit of great ideas starts to trickle in. The weather of my mind eases and now the sun is out. In an open green meadow the sun is out, my belly is full and I’m halfway to falling in love.
Somewhere out there a beautiful woman is crashing her car. When you’ve nowhere else to look, the dirt on the pavement could almost be mistaken for a map to the stars. She lies in the median, wrapped around a signpost that indicates ‘no waiting’ The smell of her perfume makes the first responder feel dizzy, but even an earthquake couldn’t knock him down, not tonight. He sees in her something of himself, he imagines her looking down at him lying there in that post-modern tableau. He studies her bare shoulders, angular and hunched, then crouching at her side he rests a tentative hand on her bone tight skin.
You look at me softly during coffee at my place, I’m shaking so quietly and you don’t even notice. I look to you as you look at your hands and just for a second the retroreflective lights on the motorway seem to glint in the gem of the ring you inherited from your mother. I can taste your jewellery under my tongue and the rain on the widow reminds me of how much time I’ve spent looking at this exact view. I imagine you looking down at me shining a torch in my eyes and asking me what my name is. I know my name, I just don’t feel like talking. You’re telling me something about someone and as you take a sip of your tea I realise that I don’t care at all.
Charlie told me that you don’t think I’m funny anymore, and thats okay, but please don’t stay if its what you think I want. Really, I’ll be fine. In two weeks time I’ll remove your picture from the array of faces that line the entrance to my home. It’ll leave a stain from the picture frame and the sunlight in the hall, it seems I won’t be able to erase you that easily. As usual I’m freaking myself out and I still don’t know how to stop. I’ll blame the freezing cold weather but I know that It’s me breaking my own heart.
I leant on the rubber part of the escalator coming out of the station this morning and now on my way home I lean on the handrail in the elevator. On a good day I’m having 10-15 great ideas and on a bad one it’s maybe closer to 4 or 5. Today, I was almost entirely filled with other people’s ideas…
The call came in from Minsk earlier and it seems like they’re going to go ahead with the new contract. I’ll be fine on the other side of it all, but the grand reshuffling is going to leave a lot of good people in the lurch, good faces I won’t be seeing much of anymore. We’ll have a big going away party at least. I’ll drink about six different types of alcohol and save all of the sadness for the day after. It’s become my speciality recently, those preemptive feelings of sadness. On my walks home the trees have stopped being trees and started being reminders of all the unimportant crucial things I have to do. I burden myself with a rucksack bursting at the seams with mountains of scrawled to-do lists written by a man who doesn’t even know what he needs to do. What can I do about the laundry thats been stewing in the corner of my room for the better part of a month while I’m in the middle of this so-so suburban green space? All I can do right now is put one foot in front of the other, the rest is the next guy’s problem. In my fridge I’ve got 3 different types of leftovers to chose from and none of them feel very appealing. After a day of recycled thought and stale plans I need something new. I step outside for the remainder of the evening light as the last greys of the day transition to the dull milky browns of evening. My phone vibrates in my pocket and I’m drawn back from whatever half real dream-state I’ve made for myself. The voice on the other end asks me how I am, I’m doing alright. I straighten my back as I ask where they’re calling from and their answer fills my lungs with the most air they’ve felt in days. My blood flows from my heart to my finger tips, and as I’ve been training it to do, bypasses my brain almost entirely.
The light from the kitchen reflects in the rain soaked tiles of my patio and before I know it a full meal sits before me on my makeshift dinner table nestled between permanently nearly dry clothes and an ever growing bookcase I don’t believe I’ve ever taken a book off of. I eat in near silence and that deficit of great ideas starts to trickle in. The weather of my mind eases and now the sun is out. In an open green meadow the sun is out, my belly is full and I’m halfway to falling in love.
Somewhere out there a beautiful woman is crashing her car. When you’ve nowhere else to look, the dirt on the pavement could almost be mistaken for a map to the stars. She lies in the median, wrapped around a signpost that indicates ‘no waiting’ The smell of her perfume makes the first responder feel dizzy, but even an earthquake couldn’t knock him down, not tonight. He sees in her something of himself, he imagines her looking down at him lying there in that post-modern tableau. He studies her bare shoulders, angular and hunched, then crouching at her side he rests a tentative hand on her bone tight skin.
You look at me softly during coffee at my place, I’m shaking so quietly and you don’t even notice. I look to you as you look at your hands and just for a second the retroreflective lights on the motorway seem to glint in the gem of the ring you inherited from your mother. I can taste your jewellery under my tongue and the rain on the widow reminds me of how much time I’ve spent looking at this exact view. I imagine you looking down at me shining a torch in my eyes and asking me what my name is. I know my name, I just don’t feel like talking. You’re telling me something about someone and as you take a sip of your tea I realise that I don’t care at all.
Charlie told me that you don’t think I’m funny anymore, and thats okay, but please don’t stay if its what you think I want. Really, I’ll be fine. In two weeks time I’ll remove your picture from the array of faces that line the entrance to my home. It’ll leave a stain from the picture frame and the sunlight in the hall, it seems I won’t be able to erase you that easily. As usual I’m freaking myself out and I still don’t know how to stop. I’ll blame the freezing cold weather but I know that It’s me breaking my own heart.