Never too much. Never together.
He listened to the waning sounds of the saxophone peter out into the mike, the slight breathiness of it as it ended...a few claps from the patrons. The place was dead...of course it was, being a Sunday evening and a rainy one at that.
He had fled the pour while it was just starting, but heard the rhythm of the rain as it pounded outside...he glimpsed a few in the audience still dripping as they made their escape inside well past him. He lifted his drink, Angels Envy, and took a long draw.
Sundays sucked.
As much a start of the week as the end of the weekend, he secretly hated them. His Catholic portion chafed at such a reveal...but it was true.
The new song started and was a bit better...more drum, more bass. It was a little more melancholy and it fit his mood like the way the wet rain bonded his shirt tighter to his skin.
A few smokers turned the air a bluish hue...it was amazing it was still allowed in some parts...but every rule had its exception.
She had been his.
The one outlier. The one who had taken a slight step into his world and thrown bright paint against his white walls. She had turned her sweet eye upon him and intertwined his fingers against hers. But mostly she had stayed consistently inconsistent.
She had said goodbye in an afternoon that felt like it was mercurial. But, as he took another sip, it was increasingly permanent.
He hated that. He wanted a nuclear effervescence...he wanted a barn-fire. Instead it was a quick and surgical and sterile removal of him from her.
He was the band-aid that had gotten wet, and just became unstuck.
The band had introduced a trumpet, and it brought a noisy cascade to his thoughts....it was not unpleasant, but it was interruptive.
He finished his drink and signaled for another....a double pour with ice in a separate glass. He could add bits and pieces to mellow the drink.
He had to waken in a few hours...but he debated on staying here with her dust-cloud motes in his mind or staring at the ceiling in the quiet of a hotel room.
He stayed...knowing that each minute would penalize him in the morning...but it was why he figured he'd stay.
He thought randomly of her fingernails...she never painted them except for a pearl colored scheme, and he realized she rarely wore anything other than black or white....
Like the piano keys rumbling nearby.
He wondered in the fleeting moments now that he had opened the unlocked door in his mind and invited the contents to spill on the floor...what she may have been doing...at this moment. His watch reminded him that she was likely asleep.
He remembered that he had told her, quite often, that she was beautiful. That she was unique...talented...and struck a chord with him. That she was discovery...she was vastness. She was unexplored but when encountered it reminded him of evenings and subtleties...the way music hangs in the air after the last note is played.
She may have listened...it clearly didn't work...didn't matter.
But he knew he had communicated.
It was Sunday...and mostly over.
And he turned to listen to the jazz as it spilled over him, washing away the tiny bits of her that had been exploding into pieces of his brain and it sounded like the rain outside had ended after all and he could soon retreat to the streets outside that were still glistening from the storm.
No comments:
Post a Comment