We Go Together...

9:42 AM Edit This 0 Comments »

It’s too damn hot to be this angry, but he’d gotten himself good and outraged and even the blanket of wet smog over the city could not smother it.

Something has his Irish up. Even from the other side of the party she can see his index finger jabbing accusingly into the arm of young David standing to his left.

“How can anyone get that worked up at a toddler’s birthday party?” Lila asks her daughter gesturing towards her Henry and trying to determine if she likes her nephew enough to walk over and save him from the one-fingered assault.

“David told him if they’d wanted a professional clown for the party today they should have seen if the Prime Minister was free,” Anna responds by way of explanation.

“Oh well, the hell with him then,” Lila says dismissing the young man’s pleading gazes. “He’s brought this on himself.”

“Except that if dad keeps this up he’s going to have a heart attack, scarring your grandson and all his little friends for life,” Anna says pushing her mother gently towards the eye of the storm.

Lila tries to resist but can’t help noticing the florid colouring of her husbands face; A mixture of too much sun, too many vodka tonics and entirely too much investment in the defense our nation’s leader.

So she sighs, squares her shoulder’s and crosses the lawn.

“Watching you making this much of a public spectacle, I’d at least hope it would be in the defense of MY honour,” she says stepping between the two men and gently running a hand across her Henry’s forehead wiping away the beads of sweat.

“Oh these kids, Lila,” Her Henry practically spits at her. “They think they know everything. They’ve never had to work for anything in there lives. Never had to fight for anything. Everything always just handed to them and then they bite the hands that feed them!”

She grabs his hand just before he’s about to land a jab. “Don’t even think about it. And quit yelling at me, I’m not one of the kids. Actually quit yelling full stop. This is your grandson’s birthday party and you had better just simmer down and little and enjoy it.”

“I’m not yelling. I’m just trying to set this boy straight.” Her Henry says, attempting to temper his anger but succeeding only in making his words come out strangled and monotone.

“Honest to god Henry….,” she mumbles then turns towards David saying “it’s a miracle I haven’t murdered this one yet.”

But as she looks at her nephew, with his confident stance and indulgent smile, her irritation turns into another feeling entirely.

And as she hears him say, to her Henry, “You sure can get fired up about things there Unc. Best watch your blood pressure. Ha! Ha!” and the placating tone penetrates into her brain, the feeling hardens.

And as she sees that whatever affection this boy has for her Henry is laced with pity; pity for an old man with an old body and older notions. She realizes if there was one man she’d gladly kill at the moment, it was not her Henry.

And she proceeds to tell him so, ensuring the point is hammered home with the tip of a well manicured mail.

You Cannot Kill A Man Whilst Wearing Flip Flops

1:15 PM Edit This 0 Comments »

She had become so fixated the knot in the centre of the interrogation room’s scarred oak table that her whole body leaned into it like a tree in a wind storm.

So intent was her focus it seemed all consuming, causing the detectives to jump inside their sweat-soaked blazers as she snapped her head up to say, “You couldn’t kill anyone wearing flip flops.”

“Excuse me?” said the shorter of her two interrogators.

The good cop she assumed. An assumption based solely on the fact that he was the larger of the two men (his partner being a freakishly tall man who could not have weighed much more than she did). Blame Santa but she couldn’t help but equate fat with jolly.

Though to be honest neither of them had been overly friendly towards her, not at all like on T.V. The heat in the station was making everybody cranky and on edge.

She turned her eyes towards them, trying to ignore the magnetic pull of the table knot, then silently stood up and began a slow march around the table. The detectives watched her in a silence broken only by the hum of the overhead fan and the sound her leather sandals made as the slapped against the heels of her feet.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. To a sum total of 32 thwacks before she was back at her chair, looking up at them expectantly. She was rewarded with more silence and a raised eyebrow from Detective Tall.

She was a bit surprised. These men were supposed to be cracker-jack crime fighters, but it appeared further explanation was in order.

“He was shot from behind, you said. At close range, you said. Well you can’t just sneak up on someone if you are wearing flip flops. They are WAY too loud.”

A full minute went by as the detectives looked at her, then at each other, then at whoever was behind the one-way mirror filling the back wall of the room.

“I’m sorry Mrs. Marshall. But I think we’re having a misunderstanding here. We brought you up from the holding cell because you told us you had an alibi,” said Detective Tall.

“Yes,” she agreed.

“Ma'am, it’s late and I’m tired, and frankly, I’m sweating like a pig. So maybe we you can just go on ahead and give it to us,” said Santa Cop in a tone that made her think perhaps he wasn’t the good cop after all.

“I just did.”

“Ma’am?”

“My flip flops. I’ve been wearing them all day. Even at supper time when Ethan was shot. He was shot around supper time, you said.”

Santa sat down at the table and ran his hands through his hair, then down along his pant legs to dry them off. She tried desperately not to look as disgusted as she felt.

“Ma’am, were you or were you not in your house around 5 O'clock?”

“No. I wasn’t”

“You weren’t?”

“No… I was in the garden.”

“So when your husband was being shot in the den, you were not in the house but directly behind the house. Is there anyone besides you and your dead husband to attest to the fact that you were not the one doing the shooting?”

“But it couldn’t have been me! You heard the noise these shoes made. How could you kill anyone in shoes like these? Especially someone like Ethan, who everyone knows could hear a tap dripping from four rooms away?”

“So ma’am what you are telling me is that in fact you do not have an alibi. You have a dead husband, a murder weapon in your car, and million dollar life insurance claim to send off. But you do not have an alibi,” said Santa, becoming Grinch-ier by the minute.

“Well it’s an excuse then, whatever,” she said allowing some annoyance to creep into her finishing-school perfected voice.

“And this “excuse” is the audible volume of a pair of sandals you may or may not have been wearing at 5 o’clock today? I have that right,” he said leaning across the table.

For a wild minute she thought he might be sucked into the vortex at the centre of the table knot. But looking at him stuffed into his large rayon suit she knew it would taking quite a lot of sucking on the part of the vortex to accomplish that feat. So she was forced to rebut.

“Of course I was wearing them then! I’ve still got them on haven’t I?” she said, now using the frosty tone usually reserved for her housekeeper and nanny.

From the corner of the room Detective Tall made a gesture into the mirror and walked over to the table.

“O.K. Well I think we are about done here Mrs. Marshall. We’re sending someone in to take you back to holding.”

“Holding? You mean you’re keeping me here?” she said looking confused. What part of this were they missing? She tried one more time to explain.

“You just wouldn’t kill your husband wearing flip flops. Barefoot surely, in trainers or even stilettos if you were a little kinky, but you just cannot kill a man wearing flip flops!”

“Be that as it may Ms. Marshall, if I were you I’d seriously start thinking about a meeting with my lawyer,” he said opening the door for a uniformed guard who took her arm in his clammy hand and helped her to her feet.

“Oh this is just ridiculous!” she snapped as she was turned towards the door.

“Well ridiculous or not, I’m thinking you might be getting a little scared just about now,” he said, a small smile playing on his lips as she was led out of the room.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

“The innocent have no fear detective.”

Thwack.

“Nor do the pathological Mrs. Marshall.”

So I've been Thinking

9:04 AM Edit This 1 Comment »

There are times when I think I’ve done all the interesting, spontaneous, life-enriching things I am going to do in this lifetime.

There are times when I think it’s pathetic to go out and drink and dance and get sloppy, and times when I still think it’s cool to smoke cigarettes and romantic to drink alone and feel indulgently sad.

Sometimes I think I could still learn to play the guitar. Don't think I'll ever record an album, but from time to time I still think I’ll write a novel.

I rarely think it’s a novel anyone would publish… or one I’d ever let anyone read.

I refuse to think I’ll die alone… for more than a minute or two. I think I may own a dog one day. I’m not so sure about a child but I think I want one though.

I don’t think I’ll own a home but I think I’ll find a place to call home (possibly a few).

I think it’d be cool to have a car, but then I think it would be expensive and frustrating more often than not.

Sometimes I think I’m hopelessly flawed, and then I think I’m being melodramatic. Then there I times I think I’m really pretty (but I don’t think I’d go around asking for confirmation on it in case I get a response I don’t really want to hear.)

There are times when I can't think about anything at all.

That’s when I stop writing....

Something That Turned Into Something Else

1:02 PM Edit This 0 Comments »

It is the unfortunate truth that he is never so handsome as when he’s angry.

He isn’t terrible to look at or anything. He has a pleasant face and a hairstyle kept tidy with regular trimmings. He is slightly taller than average, with a hint of muscle on his medium frame. All and all he’s easy on the eyes, if a little bit vanilla.

But when he gets angry, how to explain it? Things… shift.

The colour comes into his face to highligh jutting cheekbones and strong jaw line you always swear weren’t there before. His roundness becomes angles and his softness hardens and you think you might like him better that way.

And this always makes you smile which makes him step closer, eyes snapping and burning. As he glares at you, you remark, as always, that you had forgotten how deep the blue of his eyes is, like the ocean. This never fails to enrage him further, but you just can’t help it.

You’ve fallen into them, swimming.

And he yells in your ear but you never hear what he says because it always sounds like thunder (or is that just your heart beating?) And you think you should turn from him but you never do because the heat between you is stifling and you’re drowning in him and he is terrifying and beautiful and you are tired and sad.

And you always think that if he’d just put his arms around you, you could sleep forever.

And his hand always does reach out for you. But only to make you sleep a little while.

FYI

12:51 PM Edit This 1 Comment »
On a day like this...


At a lake like this...


If you do a little of this...


You can make a little something like this...


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