[Sorry for delay. I was trying to pull myself together for end of term. I've decided to reassign this as a collection of vignettes, rather than one continuous story, though it does follow a story. Thank you to all who left comments. Also, in chapter 5, Grace no longer has tears in her eyes : I somehow lost the email before replying, but you were right, I was wrong.]
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Chapter 6
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Forget caffeine alone, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. It was coffee gestalt and when he concentrated he could feel it run down his throat, splash into his stomach, churning and sinking and finally osmosizing through hardened lining into his bloodstream, pushed forward and around by the relentless beat until shooting through his heart and finally, at least, directly nourishing his brain…
There was a down side, involving ever increasing frequency of bathroom visitations. But that was a small price to pay for the fuel which then sped from brain down shoulders through arms into fingers and down into motion and connection and his meaning appearing in front of his eyes.
Small price. Why pay any price? No, take that back, it is what it is and works because of it. Perception of the self and the environment and the aura of breath have more influence on inner being and power than uh, well, not more than other drugs but this is a drug itself.
Yes, the most consistently powerful drugs are made by the human body.
Proved millions of times, trillions, in billions upon billions of situations. Admitted in art, films and books and paintings and sculptures, in the eyes of the creator and the dreamer, the survivor and the lover.
And this sweet liquid, immortalized, almost canonized itself… Blasphemy? Never! But while we're on the subject, it is not going too far out of the way to note that August was almost out of the dark bean.
The Cause.
The bit of night creeping through his open window had been beckoning him for an hour. His legs were begging for something longer than a bathroom break anyway. The next lines were coming out jumbled and wrong. A good time to run to the coffee shop.
The Effect.
A good story is driven by the tension of drama. Give and take, cause and effect, desire and repulsion all thrown together and then you shake and you bake and the listener can't help but feel it.
The tension was there in his head, and his chest. He was living it all again only worse, since he was looking for it, distilling it, idealizing it. He was living it all again and it hurt and part of him wanted to stop, yes, but more of him loved every word.
Sweet torture. An apt phrase. Was he justifying or reveling or dreaming? Who cares, really?
So long as he had his memories and his thoughts and his ability to feel and a will to express it. Paper to mark up and pens to mark with and having a computer was bonus. And a place to write in and somewhere to get away, briefly, and coffee.
Right, coffee.
He pulled into the lot and pulled into a space and got out of his care and went into the café. And he got in line and he began to wait and he looked around and he saw a girl. She was sitting by herself, curled possessively around the notebook she was writing in. Hair hid her face, loose fabric her form, but above her arm he could see neatly penned letters, and from the careful handwriting, the beauty of her page, he knew she too was beautiful.
She never looked up but he smiled down. Suits and irritation no longer existed as it was only the two of them, alone and alive with their words, linked together in spirit.
A pound of the house blend, rich and dark. Wait, better make that two, and a large black to go. The machine churned and liquid splashed. Money changed hands and he was backtracking, past the girl who never looked up and out the door, into his car, out of the lot, into the traffic.
Out of the car and into his house, refill the coffee machine and sit in front of the computer once more. Tap, tap, what next? His thoughts strayed back to the girl in the coffee shop. She appeared in his mind's eye, and he smiled at the complex manipulations of her fingers, the way her long hair never fell straight. He smiled, to her and to himself, and began to type.
He had written an outline, but the scenes had come to him out of order. These last few, the ones he had struggled with since even before he knew he would write this story, fell in the middle. A hole had lain in the middle of his tale, and now it was filling, not from one side or the other but from the very heart.
So much lay in this pages, but so little it was. A few conversations, silences, movements. He was finished in a few hours, a first rough hack was saved by nightfall.
The back of the chair caught his weight as the hourglass slowly rotated. He had planned to do a bit more work, but found no motivation. He felt lifeless, empty, passionless. Everything he had become was safely out of his frail self and locked away here. The vacuum left behind felt odd and he worried, vaguely, if this was it, the end of his life. But he had written before, knew this feeling, knew passion and life would return, in time. Knew enough to enjoy this feeling while it lasted, take pleasure in this change of being.
Wandered outside to watch the sky and stayed there until noticed the cold. Watched the final darkening, the lightening, the moon, the few stars bright enough to cut through the light pollution o f the modern day.
For a time he thought of nothing. Then he began to probe backwards, to remember with an analytical eye. He thought of that day, his 'old weird music' playing as Grace sat on the edge of the stage, and they both listened, together, to the same words, the same notes. And heard the same thing. Old ear and new, two old souls enjoying the same sounds.
Much as he loved those records, grading papers to them, relaxing to them, he loved this more. Drained, feeling the grass beneath him and the empty air above him, the vast space relating to the tiny human body he occupied. The music of the night that slipped in his ears and refilled him with something that wasn't what had been there before but was light and sharp and clear…
It was here he realized his body was shivering, the ground more than a match for the heat his body could produce.
Numb fingers let him into the house and stripped off his clothes. Under the covers he huddled, focused on the feeling of the sheets against his skin, the slight weight of the comforter, the happy tingles in his skin as he gradually thawed.
Thawed out, and behind closed eyes, drifted off. Dreamed dreams he would not remember when he awoke with the sun.
He still felt somewhat insubstantial. But his body craved exercise so he dug up some sweats and found his mp3 player. Hard as it was to admit the defeat of the walkman, it was much easier to run with this smaller, lighter piece of electronics.
For about an hour he traveled under his own steam, on purpose starting out in the opposite direction from the high school. Periodically alternating his pace, he settled into a rhythm he had missed since the last time he had gone out for this activity that was about more than the exercise.
The next his home saw of him he was high on endorphins, full of energy, and not immune to the lure of orange juice, stuffed omelet and frozen waffles.
He wasn't sure what to do with the rest of the day when a phone call solved his problem.
"So how is your play going?"
"Finished last night actually. Just the first draft, of course but-"
"Hey! That's really great. How are you feeling?"
"A bit wiped out. You know how it is. I feel pretty good though, went for a run this morning. I can't believe how gorgeous it is out there."
Chris laughed, the familiar sound welcome. "Well, if I know you, you've haven't moved, much less looked out the window since I saw you last."
He laughed with her.
"Is it still okay if I come over later to read it? Or we can just hang out, if you're up for it of course."
He was, he realized, in need of human contact, and time with Chris was always time well and enjoyably spent.
They agreed on a time and he went to the shower then went to the store, after a glance in his refrigerator proved less than satisfactory.
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"It does need fleshing out-"
"I just needed to get it down. I know it needs work but-"
"- and I don't know much about scripts, August, but this is really good."
"Do you mean that or is it just because we're friends?" The goofy expression told her he didn't mean it. But there was another- in his eyes, there was something. Something that wasn't asking her that, but was asking her-
"Of course." White smile. She put a hand on his arm and sought his eyes and became serious. "I don't want to say this because I may be wrong, but I think this story has a lot to do with your last year teaching." Waiting now, for a response, but he gives none. "And I think it's good for you to release what you've felt about that. And this-" She indicated his script. "This reflects that, and that's what makes this so wonderful."
Chris didn't sound finished. But she stopped talking and started putting away the packages of luncheon meat and cheeses that had provided their buffet-style meal. Hands and eyes gave attention only to the perishables, mind, for all he knew, was bent the same way.
He did know, however, since he knew her. And he knew that she wasn't letting herself believe that this was as based on fact as it was. He wanted to ask her more, press until she would tell him what she really thought.
But he wouldn't, couldn't, didn't want to know that she was disgusted at him, disappointed in the way he had acted and how he glorified what it had been…
Wanted to ask, as she went into more technical comments, what she thought of the ending.