The Leanover.

For my Modern British Literature seminar, our wonderful professor, Rebecca Cameron, gave us the opportunity to complete 1 of 2 of our essays for the quarter using a "creative" option. This included short films, sound pieces, painting, etc. The first essay was a real essay. I knew that when push came to shove, this time of year would be problematic and so I should probably reserve the creative option until that horrendous time around finals. The plan was to write a short story. Unfortunately, things were a little difficult. I kept on writing an rewriting opening paragraphs, unsure of where to progress. Our creative pieces had to relate or be inspired by a piece of literature (Waiting for Godot, Voyage in the Dark, Mrs. Dalloway, or The Waste Land) we read in the period since our last essay.

Recently, it seems, my best ideas come from visual stimulation. I keep a stack of thick poster board I purchased for $5.00 from Pearl next to one of the couches in my living room. I grabbed one and began cutting and pasting pictures and text from magazines that I saved in a large plastic bag. The first text to be pasted on to the board (the first anything to be posted to the board) was "The Beautiful Ones," a snippet from a past issue of TOKION magazine. From there I assembled redhead ballerinas in silk organza tutus, go-go dancers in leotards, and stacks and stacks of legs in stilettos.

I didn't finish.

I worked for less then ten minutes and story began formulating in my head immediately. Forewarning: I wholeheartedly believe that every author incorporates facets of their own life, or their own feelings, into their characters and stories. I am not ashamed that I wrote this piece VERY quickly and that Mena is many ways myself and that many of the things she thought were things I once wrote in my personal diary (I tend to do this with any short story I write, regardless of whether or not the character is male or female.). I mean, I even named her Mena.The story:

--

"The Beautiful Ones" 

Brace yourselves!

The teetering little dolls are walking down the streets, and with some sense of purpose. Their slender little legs and slender little feet are encased in buckles and straps. The masticated maroon color of the cobblestones are no match for their slender little legs and slender little feet, encased in buckles and straps, and perfectly painted with wisps of ruby red along the nail beds of their scrubbed and softened curly-cues.

Mena is a broken doll.

She came from a long line of darkened porcelain dolls, each one more rough and tumble than the next, and each one vying for the pale, picturesque porcelain of the majority in their wasteland.

As a young girl, she bumped and bruised her outer shell as her father watched in joy, and her mother fueled with rage and despair.

“Here, take this band-aid. Don’t take it off!” her mother cried after another fall, after another tiny river of blood trickled off her elbow and onto her thighs.

In the shower the next day, Mena peeled the bandage off and began playing with the still-forming scab. Two weeks later, she fell down again, this time riding a bike, and as her mother tried to bandage her bleeding skin, the pale and pink scab from before glistened underneath the autumnal sun.

“What is this?” her mother asked.

Mena shrugged.

The next day, Mena’s right cheek was still sore.

Inside of the diner, the one with the broken booths and the dusty windows, Mena cradled a pot of coffee.

“Well?” an older man asked.

“Well…,” Mena replied.

She didn’t want to admit that once again, she forgot what the man asked of her. Every morning she came into the diner and clocked in. She pulled her hair into a loose ponytail, with a few chemically straightened strands poking through the elastic black band of the holder. Her face was bare, clean and clear. Ever morning she woke up and considered a dash of mascara or some blush for the cheeks, but she couldn’t recall where she left her products, or even if she had any in the first place.

It wouldn’t matter as much.

Mena usually ran late, hurrying out the door, catching a strange torrential rain storm that only took place, it seemed, between the time she opened the door, and the time she entered her work. The streets were empty, the early morning left it so, and Mena walked down boulevards and stumbled on cobblestone streets to reach the diner.

Inside she looked out the window, awaiting someone or something. She wasn’t quite sure, but she had an internal inclination to make the trip to the diner everyday as she was sure that someone or something would take her away from the broken chairs (the ones that were scattered across the bar) and the dusty windows - the ones that she looked out in hope. They were the ones that gave her a glimpse of the little dolls, teetering down the boulevards and cobblestone streets.

And like clockwork, the older man, his name inconsequential, arrived and ordered some food and Mena didn’t pay attention to what he asked for. She begrudgingly walked to his table and poured him a cup of coffee, even though, if she cared to pay attention to what he told her, she would realize that the man hated coffee and would simply prefer a glass of water. Mena poured the cup of coffee and faced the window and watched the little dolls, their fingers grasping slips of papers and their nail beds painted in wisps of ruby red. She poured and watched as their faces smiled and creased and frowned with layers of black kohl rimmed around the eyes and cherry lipstick slathered across their lips. She poured and watched as their pink, blue, and green dresses, their daily gowns, varied in size and shape and fluidity but were still dresses; all gowns. In her tattered jeans, and white t-shirt and plain black gym shoes, Mena felt insecure yet fascinated by their appearance. As she spent her time at work, pouring and staring, she knew that when that special thing she couldn’t place would just arrive, she too could teeter outside with the little dolls who only arrived when she stepped foot indoors.

“Well?” the man asked again.

“What?” Mena asked.

“Will you bring me some water? I told you a million times that I don’t want no coffee,” the man grumbled.

The sun began to shift as the clouds moved and Mena caught sight again of her scar from youth. When she looked up again, the man, now visibly upset, looked down at her arm and pushed it aside. The pot of coffee tumbled out of Mena’s hands as streams of the hot, black liquid burned through her arm.

Mena walked away.

It seemed as though everything she knew and everything she hated was there, on her arms, in her skin, on the surface, and haunting. A scratch is just a scratch until you feel as though there is something underneath the surface.

This was not a scratch.

Perhaps there was no better skin, but certainly a better life. And that, by peeling, by scratching and pulling and tearing and scrubbing that finally everything could be in grasp.

That was it. It was all right there for the taking, but like in a dream, she was one step behind. Her fingertips pulsed like blood through veins because it was all right there and she could not grab what she believed to be hers.

How frustrating!

To see life and to know it to be true, to partially taste its sweet beauty and to know that it can not, or at least has not, been hers. Everyone else seemed to sip and suckle and she was left to her devices.

Mena found herself inside of the women’s bathroom, surprisingly cleaner than the restaurant.

Her languid body slipped to the tile floor as she panted, watching as her arm burned with the coffee still dripping – on her shirt, on her thighs, and on the ground. As the pain began to subside, Mena became drowsy. A loud knock on the door awoke her senses temporarily, but Mena was immobile. She turned her broken, uncluttered face towards the door as the knocking grew louder and a strong tapping, most likely the same little heels the little dolls outside liked to teeter on, paced faster. Her eyelids grew heavy as the room dimmed.

Mena awoke the next day, underneath the covers of her static bed. A burning sensation enveloped her right arm but she looked down to find the skin, much like the morning before, with only a scar on her elbow from childhood gleaming in the natural light.

Inside of her bathroom, Mena stood in front of the mirror and contemplated putting on a touch of mascara or a dash of blush to her cheeks. She held a ruby red lipstick in her hand and as it crept closer to her lips, Mena sighed. Looking back, Mena drew two gargantuan lips on the mirror and painted them that same shade of red that she often found the teetering little dolls wearing.

As she stepped outside, the sky was grey and a hammering rain shower began to fall. The streets were empty.

It was still early. It was still morning.

It started to rain.

“All I want to do is drink and laugh and smoke and watch you do that thing where you can only think with your eyes closed, with the world at a distance, with the sky set in gray and the strangers as just background noise, some sort of cinematic addition to what you’ve always dreamt of what your life should be,” the young man said as he sat in the wooden seat opposite of her own. Drops of water formed pools along the cracks of the table.

Her finger swooped around a cup, from drop to drop, connecting each pool, forming one long, never ending chain. And then she got to the edge of the table. And she stopped.

Inside the local coffee shop, the one down the corner from that place, on that street, she sat with a cup of milky chai. Coffee seemed too cliché, and through her first year of moving to Chicago, she could not so easily conform to the collegiate norm that so many of her fellow students had done. The taste of coffee was bitter, but something that most could get used to. But she refused to do so, and so she clamored close to her chai; the way it slowly dripped down her throat was enough to tie her over from day to day.

The days had gotten longer, pathetically so. But the chai, like the waxy taste and texture of her fingers became placate, something she could rely on. The skies were gray. The wind was strong and angry. The tree limbs were bare. But that drink was always good, always there, always the same.

I write a lot about books, but focus more exclusively on their aesthetic purposes than the contents of my favorite novels or novellas. With that said, I'm in a strange state of confusion and euphoria after reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics. It's one of those books that you understood could rise to "backlash-levels" in that it was so hyped, so pronounced by critics and The New York Times, that you could become afraid to embark on the journey, afraid of what would happen when and if it didn't live up to the hype.

Except it did.

Wonderfully, tragically, exquisitely so. I wasted a good four hours finishing the novels, after picking up a few pages here or there on the train, too consumed with the six (make that five, since I finished one yester before being attacked on the train) papers due in the next week for my classes. I gave it the attention it deserved. Finally.

It's sunny outside, an early glimpse of spring before the temperature cools once again (at least according to weather.com) and yet I am inside, in my bedroom, on my bed, still in my pajamas, still reeling from the book, still trying to figure out all of the plot intricacies and wondering if I will infact finish any of my papers. Will I get anything done? Or will I be tempted to finish grab the next book amongst the other books I have purchased and have started, anxiously waiting to retrieve the copy I left at my home in Oak Park for two weeks.

There's a film premiere tonight and one of my friend got tickets. Joseph Gordon Levitt is supposed to make an appearance, and if anyone knows me, or has read this journal for an extensive amount of time, they can recall both the incident in which I raved about Brick as well as my ode to "Maps" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, seemingly envisioning a film clip in my head, or rather, on the screen, than involved that song, Joseph and an impromptu existential strip tease of some sort.

The purpose of this entry was supposed to be distractions, the good ones, the ones that you don't feel guilty about, like a really good (really amazing) book or perhaps, a brush with one of your favorite celebrities.

Oh the stresses of college life! 

It is because of these things, the ridges of her smile, the texture of her hair, that he loved her, quite possibly more than he ever thought possible. The more she pulled away, the more the possibilities of the world opened themselves up to her, the more he became infatuated; slightly obsessed. Every new opportunity meant she was finally achieving it, finally reaching that dream the two of them had promised themselves and which, unfortunately, he was not close to grasping. He was so far gone, so far away from those goals, that life of fantasy and travel and hope, that the emotional pulls devastated his psyche. Because he loved her so, he wanted her to achieve it all, to become everything they had promised for themselves, especially since he knew he could not do it for himself. However, the notion was then disputed by his heart, by his hatred that she was not what she once was. She was, instead, a shell of her former self. What made her happy, and what made them click so effortlessly, was slowly morphing into something unrecognizable. Yes, it was something that was both abstract and horrifying. He did not want to see her this way, even if, to most, she appeared to be happy, jovial and bright. He did not want that, because then, he knew that he would never have her, in whatever form, like he did before. In that sense, he did not know what to do. He did not know what to say or how to act or what to feel, and so he became apathetic. He watched as the others went about their lives, making progress and becoming actualized beings. He watched as they expressed their views, gave insight into their purpose on Earth, and helped each other find what was vast and important in them. He watched, and they became. So much of this, this apathy, redirected itself. An emotional loop that made him dive deeper into depression, deeper into anger, deeper into resentment. He was either gone, not there and in his apathy or he was completely of the moment, impassioned and a derivative of more personable souls.

He said love me, but not too much, and not in that manner. I don’t think I can love in that manner, at least not with you. He said come play, but only that day, not any other days. The world revolved around his schedule, and still, you fell at his feet. The pressure from friends was so exhausting, so manipulative, that you could not remember who you were, only what your purpose needed to be. Why does life end up like that? We set about as individuals and eventually succumb to others wishes. Sometimes, it is for the better. And other times, we lose all sense of ourselves. We have become thistles in the wind, blown about, ready for the taking. He said come see, but only what I want you to see, and under my terms, my regulations. Anything otherwise would be contrived and not to his liking. So you saw, because honestly, what else is out there for you to see than what you’ve already seen?

On later days while her students entered the classroom, sharing plans for the upcoming weekend, sweating anxiously over that day’s test, laughing about a television program the night before, Nella slumped in her chair, with jeans buttoned and stared at the broken desk in the back of the room once filled. This became her new routine. She no longer felt connected to her body, and instead focused on the emptiness that surrounded that one spot. She could not feel the rolls of skin, the fragility of bones, the thinning hair and instead concentrated on the shape of his mouth, the color of his eyes, and the slope of his nose; all of it inherent.

On later days while her students entered the classroom, sharing plans for the upcoming weekend, sweating anxiously over that day’s test, laughing about a television program the night before, Kay slumped in her chair, with jeans buttoned and stared at the broken desk in the back of the room once filled. This became her new routine. She no longer felt connected to her body, and instead focused on the emptiness that surrounded that one spot. She could not feel the rolls of skin, the fragility of bones, the thinning hair and instead concentrated on the shape of his mouth, the color of his eyes, and the slope of his nose; all of it inherent.

Nella Jones wears the really tight jeans, the ones that always cut of her circulation and create rigid imprints of the inseam along the outer curves of her legs. Because they are so tight, so characteristically tight, she tries to wear them everyday, and then some more, to materialize a more worn-in texture and level of comfort. But this happened, not when these tight, tight jeans were first bought in 1990, to celebrate the loss of baby weight, nor now, in 2006, when she arrives early every Friday morning in casual attire. It's become a rather embarrassing situation since 1995, when her high school students stopped wearing such jeans and instead purchased more loose-fitting varieties. she's taken to sitting behind her desk, unfastening the first button hole and slouching eagerly in the evergreen leather chair the school board purchased years earlier.