eighty-one

18:51:00

I’m sleepless in my mind.

There are people that I used to know. There are people that I could’ve known, better. There are people that I can still know, because I didn’t cut them out.

As simple as these words are, the act of cutting someone out is not something I find difficult.

Social flux is in overdrive and has been since I first boarded an airplane. We move so fast and so far, it’s necessary to cut emotional ties, severe attachments, drop sandbags and spread wings. But over time, it becomes almost mechanical, as intuitive as flight or fight.

Fight.

Fight for what?

Fight for reunion. Fight for those that accept to harbor you when there is no place to land.

I had lunch with Freud and dinner with Leon. You know it’s been a long time since you’ve seen someone when each remembers something the other has forgotten: a song, broken glasses, the first encounter, an old salad recipe, the old apartment. Flashbackdance.

Freud! If only! All his wit and intelligence and spur-of-the-moment enthousiasm is condensed in one little imperfection that seems to lie somewhere between his incisor and dimple. I don’t even know if it’s something I perceive rather than see, but there’s a hook in that smile that pulls me back to the first glance I threw him in that dark low-ceiling club.

We had lunch in the waiting room, while flipping through our updates. After a ten minute interruption from a wayward appointment, he walked back in just as my soft tummy wanted to take on its instinctive role as mother pillow and he read my mind.

As the doorbell made itself clear that it was time for me to go, I thought that it wasn’t fair to have one meal per year when there is a necessity of three per day.

I rang the doorbell as I left for the sake of  that extra effort.

Hours later, I walked into the restaurant to see Leon sitting on the green couch, as tanned and crisp as ever. A taco on guacamole leather!

I would have rather stayed with my girl friend for the rest of the night, but it had been over three years since I had last seen him that a proper sit down after countless cancellations would hurt less than a hovering obligation.

But instead of being quick and awkward, the evening soon lost itself in a clock-free jungle. If there had ever been a slightly longer than necessary pause, the adjacent table of pubescent tantet-to-be provided enough entertainment. What nerve must an LV certified sixteen year old have to talk down to a guy who works ten hour shifts a day to afford commuting to work on a mobilette?! If you drive a HUMMER, the least you can be is HUMBLE.

Seriously now, where is the tantet training camp so I can kick some humility into it? In France, you’d be forced into hiding! But here…the red carpet matches the sole of your heels and licks them clean just in case they failed to recognize the price tag the first time you stood in line with one shoe on its tip so as to better bare the flaming baboon ass.

I have no problem with well-earned cheques, hell, I have a secret weakness for Maseratis, but please, if you’re barely legal, stop screaming like a seagull. We recognize, don’t worry. Your lack of humility is humiliating, nothing else.

Anyway.

I walked out filled with more love than I had felt in days and even though it had nowhere to go, it glued the cut-up paper strips that were impossible to stitch back but were worth holding together.

Do I have it in me to fight for Departed? I have a feeling I shut him out only to save energy and not to reset. But then again there is a part of me that hopes to be infected by a different virus, one that spreads uncontrollably, that never wavers, that consumes, that overwrites, that never stops because it always manages to reinvent itself, that never crashes because its capabilities are infinite, that grows into infinity, that…

ESC.

One command at a time woman, one bit won’t take as big a byte out of your greedy heart.