he was sitting dangerously close to the edge of his chair, willing his seasoned jeans to slide just so off the seat so he could fall forward naturally and land on his feet gracefully. it’s the details that count, he thought. he always thought that even though the details had never really counted for him, at least not as far as he could tell.
his miserable foolish grin gave him away moments before he approached her. she flipped her hair and then blew it off her nose with a practiced whuff.
she steeled herself, ready to reject this shell of a man. he withered as he walked, minced as he pansied, and scuttled sideways like a crab. his legs were as long as dandelions and his pants were far too short. he galloped, he skipped, he tumbled over to her, celebrated his birthday on the way, drank a gallon of water and then smiled. He asked her if he could buy her a drink. despite her best efforts to the contrary, she said yes and bowed her head.
their relationship was full of wriggling slapping and cavorting. tantrums, beatings, limericks. doldrums, killing time, subtraction soup. zombies dire wolves and echoes. once he even wrinkled her petunias.
she left.
he couldn’t.
so the next time he approached a girl, he made sure to parachute instead of waddle. she didn’t even know what was happening. by the time her senses were fully restored, she was practically married. He cut the red wire and parried and saved her from certain doom.
the next time, he goosed her lemonade. she was pillowing alone when they met and he packed her bags for her. they sailed abroad but abruptly abdicated from each others’ company.
after that he couldn’t pay the fare anymore. he put his ball and his mitt under his bed and buckled his seatbelt. he gave it the old college try. he littered the sidewalk with his fingernails and palsied his roses and slurped up the rainwater. he gabled the fronds with beeswax and tartan. he cherished her midriff and worshipped her pancakes, but he couldn’t forget about her tidalwave. her reflection denied everything but her shadow couldn’t lie.
timberline lodge, 1949. it was a dream.
this time she approached him, tentative and frail, bitter and sweet and sedate. a mere mimeo of her former glory. was she sick was she broken was she lost was she beaten by the gods like job and his travails? was she herself without anyone else, her power sapped by melancholy, her edge dulled by loneliness, her sparkle dampened by the shell that surrounded her, the dark shell that allowed her to disappear when she wanted to escape?
“tell me” he said.
“that’s all there is” she said.
“flies in the ointment” he said.
“mens agitat molem” she said.