Did You Know Honey Never Spoils?

He ran into her when the evening was oblivion, a cascade of pinks and yellows and blues melting and the parking lot was dirt-brown yellow and his car was dirty so he was embarrassed when he neared his and saw her exiting hers.

An odd fact light-bulbed in his mind, something he had read and something he remembered...honey never spoils...to this day, we could eat 3000-year old honey.  In that moment, when she fell into his gaze like a rough-tumbling star clawing its way across a Texas sky, he realized that she would never diminish, could never diminish either.  She was the honey, the sweet drip in his mind, the sweet slide of color against glass...and he noticed her hair...he noticed her mascara...he noticed the orange shirt beneath the black sweater...as he was thinking of honey and its everlasting gobstopper goodness and he noticed....

The next piece fell like a tile in his mind, like a building that had been caught in about a 6.7 earthquake, chalky white tiles spilling from a ceiling onto an industrial floor...a snippet of a song from a singer they both had loved...a young guy, who finally made big with his "Come on Get Higher" hit...but in an earlier stage he was a struggling musician who had poignant lyrics and a driving chord-riff...in his song "Detroit Waves" he had a sentence that suddenly scrolled through his mind...like those news scrolls across the bottom of the TV screen while watching Fox news...

"I'll, still, say your name to fall asleep"

Some cars came into the parking lot, their headlights spiraling briefly across him and her and he noticed that the distance between them was actually a lot closer than he thought.  Another thought:  Objects in the Mirror are Much Closer than They Appear.  He remembered riding in cars with her under such blankets of evenings...he remembered when her thigh was alongside his, when he felt just brief warmth at those connected points...like small heating pads...like the way you feel when you put your hand in a coat.  The textures coat your fingers and embrace it, hooding it, collapsing around it, comforting.  Protecting.  He didn't necessarily feel a sexual tension but rather a proper one...a fit.  A comfort in the way you held hands on a beach.

And damn if a Linkin Park lyric didn't cross his mind.  She moved easy, but knowing she was caught.  Like she couldn't alter an approach, like the way a tumbling star gave way to gravity and heat and succumbed to the simple natural fact that this was going down in flames...and it might hurt upon landing.

And as he watched her proximity he knew he was in radar contact.  She knew.  She saw.  She was in motion and he happened upon her.  An interesting take, since she had likely never expected him here.  Never wanted him, never hoped, but things like Karma and Tai Chi and a whole host of cosmic forces put them in this big ass planet into a place no bigger than a parking lot.

He was never a fan of Transformers and even lesser of a fan of Shia Labeouf...but he made his money and he did his thing.  But a song from the soundtrack was a great song to work out to and it was his latest favorite...especially a part that was in the New Divide track:

"so give me reason, to prove me wrong, to wash this memory clean.  Let the thoughts cross the distance in your eyes, give me reason to fill this hole..."  She ambled near him, her eyes up but her head down.  There was an inevitability.

And he turned.

And it may have been one of the hardest things he had ever chosen.  Not like diving into a bullet or thrusting himself into a train...but rather, something much more benign but in his chest-plate it was one of the more challenging and piercing moments of his evening...at least thus far.

He altered his angle and he walked into a direction where she would not collide with him, and thus he could continue his walk and she could continue hers...uninterrupted and undisturbed.  No protocols to observe, no head gestures, no nods or winks or even a raised eyebrow.

He walked into an evening that was collapsing upon itself, the clouds wrecking his view, and there were no thighs touching or hands clasping and there were no knowing nudges of "hey, I know you" and as he looked at the horizon it seemed even further than he had hoped and she was even further than beyond that.

Reprise to What I could do...

After some sleuth work, I found the song that would have been playing when you walked in the door.


Ironically it's called "Romance y Pasion"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijnTS7qJoyk

What I could do....

Simple things...

Perhaps get home early, while the snow was still falling and build a quick fire in the grill, wondering at the weirdness of the flakes hissing on the hot bars above the fire, wondering who in the hell would be outside grilling at this point of an afternoon...but knowing that if I could re-create a summer's day for you, with your favorite food, that is what I would do...

I would make you salsa, using the smaller plum tomatoes, the variety of bell peppers (in sun-yellows and bright-oranges), maybe a habanero for even extra heat but of course the smattering of jalapenos...rough chopped, not blended...onion and garlic, fresh-squeezed lime...expensive salty chips and a drink to soothe, maybe something ice cold. 

I'd remove the meat from the grill, smoked with a hint of mesquite, covered in a dry rub that inked black in parallel lines...I'd add this to a low heat in a pan, already in a sauce of mole and garlic; I'd sear a dried Anaheim pepper til it also blackened then crush it in a molcajete, spreading the powder and flakes into the sauce.  Working with my hands to control the heat and the temperature...an easy task, one that I have done many times before...glancing at the clock to determine when you'd arrive.

The snow was still spitting, a very wet and rain-like white, so I grabbed a towel that was white and fluffy, stolen from a spa and put it near the door to wait your entrance.  That would be easy. I'd put an old carwash towel on the floor to wipe your feet...

The scent of cooking would fill the air, the spice and scent of food in preparation for you would contain a sense of heat, a delicate heat that would infuse your mouth...and since you likely skipped lunch you'd be ravenous...thus the salsa to take off the edge.  Give your mouth that first warmth as your hair dripped slightly with bits of melting snow.  I could do that...

I might even have some guitar music on, perhaps even with a slightly mexican beat...but slow...not fast...you've been driving in hellacious traffic, dealing with idiots, ignoring the prettiness of the snow by dealing with the pettiness of driving...you might be tired, restless...surprised that I am home first...and being greeted by the warm kitchen...so the first sounds would need to be soothing, to bring your mind down from its claws on the wall and fall gently back into place.

Putting a CD in the system could be easy.  I could do that....

I'd draw you a bath but I don't know when you'll be home...I don't know when you'll finish dinner.  But what I will do is put the soaps near the ledge, get another stolen spa towel from the closet, grab your iPod from the drawer and get a cup to put it in (it reflects the sound) and move them near the tub.  I don't know if I'd put out any pajama bottoms or anything...haven't thought that far ahead.

Maybe, just maybe I'd burrow into the drawers and find the jasmine incense...maybe I could start burning some now...moving from the scent of the cooking to the scent of the soothing...maybe I could do that...

Candles...yeah, I could find the tealight ones and light a bunch of them...I'd worry a tad about looking like a sanctuary...so maybe a tasteful one or two or four...random.  (I'd think about the randomness of when I see you, and the tiny tealight candles you light when that happens...and it's not a roaring row of thousands but rather one or two or four...just enough to illuminate what you do to me...)

I could do that, with the tealight candles. 

And then I'd sit...cocktail in hand.   I'd wait for you to come back into my view, to let my eyes fall upon you and I wondered if I'd see a scowl or a smile or a tight-knit grin...and I likely wouldn't say anything at all...I'd hope you'd notice the towel, notice the scents, notice the sounds, and maybe you'd sense the collision of all these combinations and as your mind absorbed them I'd hope that you'd notice that they were done by me.

And you'd know what I could do.

Additions & Subtractions

The sun slid through the vertical blinds in flat yellows, illuminating the suspension of dust motes and particles coming into the door of the bar.

It was early morning, too early for any broad assortment of drinks but perfect timing for a Bloody Mary.  Or two.  He was the only one at the bar, the only one aside from the older bartender, about 70 and stooped busily wiping off the far end of the counter.

A light sound of music on some Pandora station played above...no vocals, just instrumentals.  It was soothing, he guessed.  Well, either that or the vodka he remembered.  Maybe both he happily concluded.

His legs dangled beneath the chair, he was in jeans and a sweater and he twirled his phone along the smooth glass of the counter.  His phone full of data, full of computing power...full of news and sports, controversies and celebrities...full of his network, professional and personal.

His departure wasn't for awhile, and he was happy to sit as the first patron in the bar...the small town airport didn't have a lot of early travelers and he loved watching the sun make prisms of the liquors against the glass, browns, yellows, even some greens that were mini-kaleidoscopes that changed by the minute as the sun angles changed.

He tried to anticipate the shadows, tried to determine where the light would go next, where the shade might fall after.   He wasn't very good at it...he didn't like mysteries, in books or in theater.  He wasn't a sleuth...didn't pretend to go all Columbo when he encountered something he didn't understand.

Mostly he just let it be...

But he had to admit the deleted tweet bothered him.  Just a little.

Certainly not because he had found it surprising...in fact he was more surprised at the single sentence than in the fact that it had disappeared.

It in fact had disappeared a long time ago if facts mattered.

In the yellowing air he decided facts really didn't matter...the dust motes rising and falling, tiny specks in flight...like he was soon going to be as he hurtled through the air in a tiny plane...a tiny speck in flight.

Tiny specks.

Deleted bits, like little parts of eraser pieces left on a page. 

But like they say, the Internet is written in ink.  A tattoo.  And even if deleted there is a remainder somewhere.

And there were no other mentions, no other allusions...no other indications, no other mysteries.  And he remembered shrugging and wondering why but not worrying on it.

He never really worried on it, but rather wondered briefly at it.

And pulled it up out of his memory at certain times, like when the sun was perfectly even and shone in waves of yellow across his clear glass of red liquor.

She had mentioned something about missing putting her legs against him...which was weird, since she really had never done that.  Well technically.

They had once shared a couch, briefly, but she had laid upon it, her feet and legs tucked under her and they were very close to his.  But fabric lay between them, clothes protected their skin and shoes and socks were all intact and so...they shared a couch.

But her legs were at an angle and they might have briefly touched his.  He couldn't remember.

So when he saw the brief sentence on the internet, he simply wondered.

He didn't assume, he didn't respond. He didn't investigate.

He took a drink of his vodka and turned around to watch the traffic out the windows.  The sentence may never have even been written for him.

And now it was gone.

But then again, so was she...so really, nothing else mattered.

Broken Spark Wheels

The patenting of ferrocerium (often misidentified as flint) by Carl Auer von Welsbach in 1903 has made modern lighters possible. When scratched, it produces a large spark which is responsible for lighting the fuel of many lighters, and is suitably inexpensive for use in disposable items--Facts on Lighters, Modern Version

It is not the fuel...it is the spark.

From the very first instance of her entering into his dim-lit world it was never about a source of the flame.  That could have been anything...the dark continent of her eyes, the fast whip of a smile, the stiletto heel of a wit.  You could almost say that any interaction was equivalent to the build up of an anxiety, the pent-up urge of something that you let pool, something you let slip through tiny cracks and soon you find yourself knee-deep in a substance that is volatile.  

Caution, reads the sign.  Flammable liquid.

In a way, she was ordinary.

Like the way the sun starts, or the moon begins.  Like the way a flower emerges from a snow.  Like the way you hit all the green lights on a long stretch of road.  Ordinary like that.

Which means to say that she was not...not in the same county. Not in the same jurisdiction of anything ordinary.  Yet she was built with the same piece parts, the same skeletal frame as everybody else.  

Except for hers.

It is not the fuel...it is the spark.

Perhaps the fact that she didn't believe made it that much more believable...perhaps the fact that she didn't want to hear, didn't want to absorb, didn't want to accept made her all the more truthful...more credible.  She possessed the slight small pieces that made her stand out, made her unique.  Made her enter a room of party favors and become the black-hole gravity center.  Eyes suddenly drawn to her.  An easy grace.  An easy on the eye presence...but in a subtle, almost nonchalant manner.

The spark wheel alights upon the friction, producing a spark that ignites the gas that spurs a flame.  The activities of a lighter are almost basic, almost industrial.  

The flame holds until the metal top of the lighter clamps it down.  Shuts it off.

She walked into a room like a lighter well-lit, already burning hot blue and yellow...with a top twisted off so that she would never be extinguished.  A constant.  Yes, sometimes winds would push her sideways and almost out but she, as far as he could tell, remained a pilot light.  A tiny flame.  

It is not the fuel...it is the spark.

In a minute when she would share with him, share a moment,  a discussion, a dialogue it was like piercing a fuel bladder and letting it spill around him...her conversation tiny sparks that he feared might explode around him, consuming him, twisting him into tiny branches and soon nothing but ashes to float in the rainbow hues of her oily residue.  

But fortunately...or unfortunately, that risk lessened.  In the process, in the interludes he had accidentally broken the spark wheel, he had broken whatever had caused that spark to ignite...he had smoothed over....or maybe she had.  Didn't matter, the friction was gone.  He had become the disposable item.  The fuel remained.

The spark didn't.