Cue in your favorite teen-love leitmotif, buddy!
I.
So this girl calls me up, it´s Wednesday close to 11pm and she´s just gotten into town and wonders if I´m up for something. “Up for anything,” I tell her but politely keeping the handcuffs and duct tape bits to myself.
We go to that same place I meet the guys every other Sunday evening, it´s open till one and the food´s certified safe. We eat and she talks her ass off while I sit in quiet zen-like contemplation at the other side of the table, naturally having her mentally undressed but this time each piece of clothing takes a couple of centuries to dissipate. I take my time.
Dinner ends and what do you know, no sex ensues, not even one single, simple kiss and it sort of bums me out. I´m already kind of pissed that she´s chosen some hotel room or wherever instead of staying at my place but this is only the second time we´ve even seen each other, the first one all by ourselves. She´s taking some classes the next morning and has gotta wake up early see, she tells me.
We´re human not mayflies and life doesn´t necessarily happen in one hour, I´m telling myself—almost convinced but you know the alternative: Would really rather have my head sliding into her perspiring thighs, but apparently that´s just me tonight.
It wasn´t even a date, for chrissakes: Going out for dinner with a girl and talk.
Will these twenty-first century wonders never, ever cease?, I think to myself as I realize this just feels like two of the oldest buddies in the world having a catch-up talk over pasta but somehow it´s not even close to enough. Frustration piles up as witty remark upon witty remark bounce off her armor and regardless of all my ego and self-confidence I can´t for the life of me spot any modicum of interest from her part. Romantically, I mean. What do you know.
She drops me by my place afterwards, then head straight for her hotel: I stay put in the middle of the darkened empty avenue watching her red lights disappear in the distance uphill. I´m flash-frozen, mouth agape, arms akimbo, utterly reactionless.
Then I sigh under a half-smile, kick a pebble or two, walk up the short stairway into the building with barely zero effort as if carried over by invisible hands.
--Now what the hell´s just happened?!
II.
I get to go over to my parents´ the next weekend: I´m sitting on my bedroom in quiet introspection, leafing over some old The Flash comic books from before I was even born, looking for the Green Lantern backup tales in which mad scientist Dr. Jason Woodrue, the old Atom arch-foe from back in the sixties, turns himself into this plantman hybrid and becomes the Floronic Man.
I´m quite sure it happened in 1976 because I remember this panel from a totally-unrelated Alan Moore Swamp Thing story in which Superman is checking the Justice League files on the Floronic Man, and it says, “Re-creates himself chemically, 1976”. Or something like that.
So I start at 1973 and go up I think until the 1977 or 1978 issues, up until I´m pretty sure there are no more GL tales anymore in the back of those Flash comics. I don´t get to find the damn Floronic Man stories, somehow, even though I´m pretty sure I´ve read them a thousand times over.
I stand up, go for Wikipedia on my father´s notebook for some reference and start typing F-L-O-R-O... but then let go altogether as if with bigger issues in my mind:
I stay put in the middle of an ocean of comic books scattered at my feet, watching a blur of covers of a man in red tights running straight into peril but my eyes veer off elsewhere. I´m flash-frozen (no pun intended), mouth agape, arms akimbo, utterly reactionless.
Then I sigh under a half-smile, move over a comic book or two with my foot and walk the short corridor into the living room with barely zero effort as if carried over by invisible hands--
And in rummaging my pockets for my cell phone, I wonder if she´s text-messaged me already...
Cue in your favorite teen-love leitmotif, buddy...
So this girl calls me up, it´s Wednesday close to 11pm and she´s just gotten into town and wonders if I´m up for something. “Up for anything,” I tell her but politely keeping the handcuffs and duct tape bits to myself.
We go to that same place I meet the guys every other Sunday evening, it´s open till one and the food´s certified safe. We eat and she talks her ass off while I sit in quiet zen-like contemplation at the other side of the table, naturally having her mentally undressed but this time each piece of clothing takes a couple of centuries to dissipate. I take my time.
Dinner ends and what do you know, no sex ensues, not even one single, simple kiss and it sort of bums me out. I´m already kind of pissed that she´s chosen some hotel room or wherever instead of staying at my place but this is only the second time we´ve even seen each other, the first one all by ourselves. She´s taking some classes the next morning and has gotta wake up early see, she tells me.
We´re human not mayflies and life doesn´t necessarily happen in one hour, I´m telling myself—almost convinced but you know the alternative: Would really rather have my head sliding into her perspiring thighs, but apparently that´s just me tonight.
It wasn´t even a date, for chrissakes: Going out for dinner with a girl and talk.
Will these twenty-first century wonders never, ever cease?, I think to myself as I realize this just feels like two of the oldest buddies in the world having a catch-up talk over pasta but somehow it´s not even close to enough. Frustration piles up as witty remark upon witty remark bounce off her armor and regardless of all my ego and self-confidence I can´t for the life of me spot any modicum of interest from her part. Romantically, I mean. What do you know.
She drops me by my place afterwards, then head straight for her hotel: I stay put in the middle of the darkened empty avenue watching her red lights disappear in the distance uphill. I´m flash-frozen, mouth agape, arms akimbo, utterly reactionless.
Then I sigh under a half-smile, kick a pebble or two, walk up the short stairway into the building with barely zero effort as if carried over by invisible hands.
--Now what the hell´s just happened?!
II.
I get to go over to my parents´ the next weekend: I´m sitting on my bedroom in quiet introspection, leafing over some old The Flash comic books from before I was even born, looking for the Green Lantern backup tales in which mad scientist Dr. Jason Woodrue, the old Atom arch-foe from back in the sixties, turns himself into this plantman hybrid and becomes the Floronic Man.
I´m quite sure it happened in 1976 because I remember this panel from a totally-unrelated Alan Moore Swamp Thing story in which Superman is checking the Justice League files on the Floronic Man, and it says, “Re-creates himself chemically, 1976”. Or something like that.
So I start at 1973 and go up I think until the 1977 or 1978 issues, up until I´m pretty sure there are no more GL tales anymore in the back of those Flash comics. I don´t get to find the damn Floronic Man stories, somehow, even though I´m pretty sure I´ve read them a thousand times over.
I stand up, go for Wikipedia on my father´s notebook for some reference and start typing F-L-O-R-O... but then let go altogether as if with bigger issues in my mind:
I stay put in the middle of an ocean of comic books scattered at my feet, watching a blur of covers of a man in red tights running straight into peril but my eyes veer off elsewhere. I´m flash-frozen (no pun intended), mouth agape, arms akimbo, utterly reactionless.
Then I sigh under a half-smile, move over a comic book or two with my foot and walk the short corridor into the living room with barely zero effort as if carried over by invisible hands--
And in rummaging my pockets for my cell phone, I wonder if she´s text-messaged me already...
Cue in your favorite teen-love leitmotif, buddy...
posted by 186282mps at 8:34 PM
<< Home