a diversion from the ordinary blahg

Since so many of you, or at least a few of you, have told me that my writing isn't half bad I thought that I would give you a little fiction. It isn't very good, but it isn't too bad. So just read it anyway. Just don't know what to say about Japan right now. Nothing too new. I may go to Africa in March. Exciting. Plus I just got a boo-boo in the mail.

Now to the tale...take care. Love ya.

Egg Strokes
Moving in a little closer with every second he was now a perfect mold of the figure lying next to him. He had gently swayed here and inched there in order to receive the maximum amount of touch combined with the least amount of space allowed to two figures. Henry gently chooses his words as he leans over to the beauty now occupying his bed and mind
.
“I…I really don’t know how to tell you all that I am thinking.”

She remains silent not knowing what to expect.

“You see, I was so pleased to run into you again today…after first talking to you I, I thought that I would never see you again. You seemed so, so, so…”

He had always stumbled over his words whenever relaying emotion.

“You, see…I mean someone, so, well, so lovely,” the word stuck to his tongue like honey to a spoon slowly dripping off the subtle, round tip into the cup of tea that was his pent up desires and dreams.
“And there you were again today. I just knew that I had to take advantage of the situation. I can’t tell you how, well just, how…great it is to have you over here with me.”

Feeling a little more at ease and one with the environment Henry looks around the baron room and begins to remember the days when he and his mother would often sit in this same one-room apartment and watch their programs together. She was always a fan of the afternoon dramas whereas he hadn’t ever really preferred any specific program but more or less used the time to get away from the drudgeries of daily life. He had a typical upbringing: not enough coddling, “latch-key” kid, parent’s divorced, never allowed to have a dog, picked on at school, but later accepted by those more conducive to mediocrity, etc., etc. Henry was nothing special by any means.

With his eyes floating casually about the room his tongue became more and more relaxed and his thoughts drifted through time and he went to work picking memories and words out of the air like a mother chimp picking the ticks off the back of her young.

“You know, it was right-over in that chair that my mother died 15 years ago.”

His “matter-of-fact” tone may have shaken some, but the young lady didn’t move from her stead under his arm and he smiled to himself while thinking of the time when he and his mother first moved into this place; but then quickly refocusing on the demise of mama.

His smile now replaced with a grin and “matter-of” replaced with “down-trodden” tone.
“I just found her slumped over in the chair hands dangling at her sides and her hair fallen over her face. She looked peaceful. Must have waited till the end of ‘days’ before she passed. She did like that doctor on the program. Probably waited till the show was over to go. Wish she could have met someone like that before the end. Just too bad. But…we don’t make the rules, just have to adhere to them.”

Henry hadn’t missed his father. He hadn’t even been angry with the man; you can’t hate what you don’t know. He hadn’t really loved his mother, but he felt a genuine attachment to her, at least through time. When he was young she used to sit alone at times and look as though she was dying. He would see the look when all was quite and he would gaze over at her for all the reasons a fatherless child looks at his mother; maybe guidance; maybe a smile; any little bit of emotion. It was then that he would see the emptiness and loss in her will. He would see her eyes fall gently upon an object and become absorbed, it was as though she was looking through all of existence, just peering into it unobtrusively and lovingly; it was then that she looked content and sometimes even happy. Then she would catch herself and look over at her only son and companion and reality would settle into what was the perfect daydream of love and happiness. It was at that point that a certain realization and disappointment hit her and occupied her corneas until bedtime.

When Henry reached the age of 34, and found himself alone and disinterested in looking anymore, he began to stumble off into the same false-reality when watching television alone and a commercial came on. He would usually stare at the product being pitched but would slowly wander off. Eyes wandering around the room hither and thither, to and fro, usually ending up on the coffee table. With his mind flying through space and time he would gather up the visions that he had of love and relationships. The visions of coy kisses and loving embraces would race through his head. He would imagine lazy Sunday mornings and smiles exchanged over his eggs ala “Henrique” (2 eggs, scrambled, mixed with cubed Velvetta and Salsa). It was truly a grand ideal. But it would end with the squealing of tires on the television; or, if the vision was really good, his own neck snapping back into place from believing too much in his own sappy dreams. This sudden attack of reality served a dual purpose: it let him know that he was still sad, both mentally and physically, and it also reminded him that his program was most likely not over yet as well.

Just as the reality of being alone reminds him of his current state of being, reality sometimes also reminds him of how to act while in the company of women. Right about now reality reminded him that his new friend would most likely not want to hear how the Grim Reaper had called his mother a gander and not a mallard in the big game of life that is all too much like Duck-Duck-Goose. Or at least that was the conclusion that Henry had reached considering the fact that the woman hadn’t made a sound in a while.

Like the oaf that he is, his air escaped from his chest declaring his mark for life, “Oooooaffff, uh, uh…I’m sure that you didn’t want to hear anything about that at a time like this. I mean, we should just be enjoying the moment. I promise I won’t say another word…promise…cross my heart,” silent for the moment…but his lack of self-confidence wouldn’t let the desire pass, “hope to die.” Quickly he turns onto his stomach and buries his head into the pillow, deliberately digging in deeper and deeper. His will power has been both humiliated and defeated. In the back of his mind he declares himself the weakest man alive and imagines an award ceremony where he would eventually forget his speech and trip on the steeps while approaching the podium.

Then he thinks about that line, “hope to die.” Henry rarely “hopes” for death. But sometimes at night he lays about in bed tossing and turning feeling as though he has done the day a disservice for not getting exhausted under it’s light and energy. But most of all he thinks about love and what possible relationships he has on the horizon. Which, as of late, were far and few between; but he was an optimist. However his optimism has been subsiding to fears of premature death and a life of loneliness. Lately he has been spending a lot of time wondering who will find him in a coma after suffering his first stroke.
No one would probably stop by for days or maybe even weeks.
His work place was accustomed to his face, but didn’t really need him around, and could, for all practical purposes, function without his presence. Like so many other nights he was now drifting off to that place between sleep and the final thoughts of a wasted day.

Sweet release. No more worries about strokes and wasted hours…

As the refrigerator’s cooler slipped on in Henry’s dark and earthly colored apartment he was brought back from the sleep side of the final thought and forced into full realization that he didn’t want to die. He really, really didn’t want to die. As he thought about the inevitable and impending stroke, that he was convinced would come any day now, a single tear fell from his eye and he whispered his mantra back to limbo; hoping that this time sleep would win the battle.

“Soon enough you’ll have her here. Soon enough someone will be here for you in the morning. Someday you’ll find her. Someday you’ll know she loves you. Some day you’ll share the eggs and paper. Some day, soon, some day, before you know it, you’ll…find, it…soo…”

Off he goes to the land of no remorse, the greatest form of denial: sleep. Even if you find yourself naked in public or falling off of a building there the worst reality you have to deal with is a bead of sweat or a subtle laugh to greet your days. And tonight his self-comforting words were enough to rock his mind back to sleep and would most likely do the trick until the stroke took him.
A “she” would find him.
But “she” wouldn’t have known who he was, and “she” would never know that he waited for her every day and talked to her every night.
“She” was just wondering why he hadn’t turned on his lights or tried to look through her blinds for the past four days.
The hunch paid off.
Too bad, “she” never tried the eggs ala "Henrique."