Ism

She had been reading about the man who'd fallen in love with a winged immortal. A caretaker for a library, he chose a life of poverty and mystery and delinquency in the hopes of finding a place somewhere over the river and through the woods that held a book in the deepest darkest plunge that would somehow teach him to become both winged and immortal himself. Maybe.

She ached for a sign, any sign that a love like that could ever exist and prevail in the world around her. Sighing, she shifted in her seat as she felt herself in that very moment, sobriety a red hot poker in her chest, anathema sucking the lifeblood out of the Good Ship Pseudoephedrine that throbbed above her head and bled out into the street. It was killing her faster than she could swallow.

His Lolita, Nikita and Chequita army swarmed venomous, their backs arched and ready to strike. They judged her and just as quickly dismissed her for wearing appropriate footwear. They pursed their lips in passive frustration, shuffling from foot to foot to ease the pain of walking through town all night in stilettos and undersized hotpants, the men oblivious as they swaggered in their sneakers with their boomboxes and blang and the promise of drunk and drugged moresomes.

The invisible hand dug deeper, the poker cruelly twisting downwards into her stomach, bile boiling. Folding the book onto her lap in the middle of a bridge duel with between hero and minotaur, she looked up at the B-Boy over her glasses. Ugh. He leant in so close that she could smell the dope on his breath, and she felt herself gag. He snickered as he threw “G A M E O V E R” up, his knuckles fleshy cliffs eroded with the white rage of an earth fighting back from an eon of elemental barrage, barely threaded to wrists that knew the truth. He shook them more for resolve.

There was a collective squelch, and the smell of stale sex stung her as the girls fawned over the battle he must’ve gone through, what more he had to do to win the war, and would a blowjob boost his morale?

“Aww yeah,” He nodded vigorously as he bounced, the blang clanging against his rib cage as if that was meant to rouse some recognition from all nearby, a gorilla thumping his chest with brass instead of hands. Squelch.

Gently closing her book with the care of a mother nursing a broken child, she placed her hand flat on his stomach so she could hop off her rickety seat without disturbing the written joust. Taking a step back in stunned compliance, he watched her reach for her bag with her other hand, flicking it over her head with the precision of a lit poi twirler as she walked out into the night, in search of the minotaur.