Liaisons Archives - The Pure Life of Dreams

May 31, 2024July 8, 2024

Everybody Is Back In London But Somebody Is Naked

Everybody is back in London. I mean everybody, and we are crammed in Mum and Dad’s house in the cul-de-sac… Isabelle, Imogen, Elaine, myself of course, even some of Elaine’s friends that I don’t know.

And I am sitting on the orange overstuffed leather armchair in the TV room, my legs hung over one of the arms, when I get a call from Ted Bucco.

March 21, 2024June 7, 2024

King Minos and the Showgirls

A tall thin man with dark hair and a blue apron stood on the steps of the lecture hall.

“I’m Minos,” he said, “Do you have a token?”

“No, I don’t, King Minos,” I replied.

“Well you need one to go there,” and he pointed further down the steps towards a blue hospitality tent.

So that was where the Tibetan woman had gone to, I thought. She had joined me at the back of the lecture hall just as the math professor was wrapping up. (And despite the many spaces available, she’d picked the seat next to mine, on the back wall of the hall.)

The Tibetan woman felt very close. Her white feather boa had brushed my face as she sat down. She was heavily made up, and even though we both faced forwards I could see that she wore fake black eyelashes; she also wore a red and black patterned tunic that I assumed was Tibetan.

I had just gotten back from the bathroom a second time, and had seeked out a space at the top of the stairs, squeezing further along the row, past two lanky young black men who’d spread themselves across the closer seats. I saw that the seats beyond the men were different, they had burnished gold seat cushions, they were wider and they looked comfortable enough so I chose the furthest along the row.

I’d had to go back to the bathroom after realizing that I was without my trousers and my jacket. Yes, I had been walking around with just my socks, shirt and boxers! And I realized that, though I had made a point of being early for the lecture, instead I was late; and now it would be worse for having to return to the bathroom to fetch the jacket and trousers.

Missing so much of the lecture I realized, wouldn’t impress the girl with the pulled back blonde ponytail, neither would the ‘walking around without my trousers on’ part.

Later, when I saw the ponytail woman on the steps, leaving the lecture hall, she looked quite blanched, her face almost as white as her hair. I realized then, that she was quite plain, with her books tucked like babies in her arms.

Before the class had begun I’d gone to the bathroom to take a poo, and although the water level was up to the rim of the bowl, and although I was guaranteed to get my bum wet, there was lots of paper and the bathroom itself was quite clean.

The poo, as well, came out cleanly, one small black pearl-drop, and I was able to wipe myself quickly. Even so, I’d missed the start of the lecture, and with it being the first lecture of the semester, the best chance to make an impression was gone.

When I returned to the toilet to get my trousers, I wondered whether to return to the hall again, but I figured I would not be noticed if I took the side steps to the back.

Indeed no one noticed me except for the ponytail woman who glanced over, and, of course, the black men I’d passed when trying find a new seat.

The students dispersed quite quickly once the lecture had finished, so did the Tibetan woman. And that was when I encountered Minos.

Minos pulled out a token for me and said. “Or you could visit the showgirls instead.” He gave me a sly wink, or at least, that was what I thought he did.

He held up a simple drawing on a large piece of paper. It had a pencil line across the bottom representing the floor, and on the right side of the page, on two pencil line steps, stood two shadowy figures, their smudged shading knee-length skirts hugging their hips, their faces obscured.

The figures stood poised outside the outline of a door.

An exercise in reverse chronological order.
Photo of the ladies at the court of King Minos’ Palace of Knossos by Tony Hammond via Flickr.

March 30, 2023April 20, 2023

Bus Stops are Dangerous

I am walking by a couple at the gym who are arguing.

The wife yells at the man, “We come all the way to this country and you have to go fuck that Algerian at the bus station!”

February 1, 2023April 20, 2023

Bookstore Encounter

We are browsing a bookstore in Cleveland Park. Liam and I, and Lizzie and Siobhan, wandering the crowded store. And we are on the second floor on a balcony surround that overlooks the level below, when one of the assistants comes up to Liam and I. The two of us are sitting at a barstool table and she takes the third stool and sits with us.

She has straight black greying hair fashioned into a bob and a pale chinless face, and she is young, maybe twenty-five. She wears an oversized jumper, green with white flecks, and she looks like a big bear in the jumper. And she is explaining to us how the shop gets us to buy more books.

Then suddenly, “You have the same pullover as me!”

And it is true because I have a similar jumper, dark green with little white bits. She pulls one of the white flecks on her jumper to illustrate the point.

“You want to take me out?” she asks, directing her question at me.

I am taken aback. I’ve never had an affair and I don’t know what to say or where to start. And I can’t think of where we would go. Somewhere where Siobhan wouldn’t bump into us, but something nice, like a walk. Like in Dupont Circle, for the restaurants? Or Cleveland Park itself? A place where there are more interesting shops.

I am trying to think of something to say when she walks away to help a customer.

Then Siobhan walks by. She takes the ladder down to the first floor.. And I peer over the edge to look where she went but the ladder she took drops straight down. I would follow her but it looks dangerous. The rungs are painted an orangey brown and it does not look like something for the shop visitors to use.

“You’re not supposed to go down there,” I hear someone complain.

I peer again over the edge of the balcony, and sure enough, the lower floor looks like a backroom warehouse. A tall thin man who could be the manager is down there, and is handing someone a book. Then he adjusts the ladder at an angle, and bounds up the rungs, his spider legs wheeling, taking the rungs two or three at a time, before he jumps over the gate at the top, onto our level.

I have to find the shop assistant. There is an argument upstairs, and perhaps she is there to deal with it, but when I get there, I see that she is the source of the commotion. She is surrounded by visitors to the shop. It looks like they are trying to calm her down, but she bursts through them and takes the stairs up to the next floor. And I follow her, pushing past the crowd and up the stairs, and once I arrive there I find myself outside, on the roof. The assistant is even higher, sitting on her knees on a dark grey awning that partially covers the rooftop area.

She is wailing. “What about Daniel, what about him?” she cries, as she flops back against the awning.

I think Daniel must be an ex, or a fired store assistant and I think it best to leave her alone and return downstairs to meet up with the others. Besides, I cannot think of places we would go or things we would do. Even though I really want to do something with her.

Back on the ground floor, the four of us exit the bookstore together. We walk up the road a few steps until I pause.

“Hang on,” I say to Lizzie, Liam, and Siobhan, “I will just be a minute.”

I pop back into the store to find the assistant. I am holding a flyer advertising books, but it has too much writing on it for a space to write my number, and tear off for her. And if I give her my number, maybe she won’t even call.

Instead, she can tell me her number and I will remember it, or will write it down on the back of my hand.

Photo provided by Pixnio

July 21, 2022February 1, 2023

Reunion with an Ex is High Risk

I am on a wooden boat at night. Siobhan and I have a cabin. And I am on the lower deck trying to clean up with the leaf blower. At first it will not work, but I remember that once I add the attachment it won’t overheat; only then will it start to do the job.

Once I’ve cleared the deck of pine needles, I go to the toilet. It is on the same level and the deck, an open plan space, has the toilet starboard side. At first I was going to sit down like I normally do, but Zach was there watching, so I stood and peed into the bowl instead.

He sits up high, looks down at me from his step ladder, not three yards away.

“Strange that they put all these vegetables around the toilet,” I say to him, as I survey the baskets of onions and potatoes that surround the bowl. ”It must be to hide the toilet.”

When done I go outside to look at the night sky. Karin is on the boat, I know, and I wonder how I will bump into her.

I could just knock on her door, directly. Or I could hang around until she comes out and we pass each other in the walkway. I will turn around as she passes by and will exclaim, “Karin!” Then we will look at each other, our older faces beginning to recognize each other. Despite my balding spot.

Karin is in room 23, I am sure of it and I could just knock.

I look out onto a black sea and there are fabulous waves, blue and white tipped against the moon. With strange creature patterns big enough to engulf the boat, they are meters high, with tentacles and tendrils.

“The boat sails smoothly, but how is it gliding so smooth?”

And the captain tells me, ”We’re on the canal alongside the sea so that we avoid the waves. That’s how come we are able to go so smoothly along. Otherwise the boat would get tossed around and we could drown.”

I see the brick barrier that separates us, it runs parallel to the shore but I want to be out there in the waves instead.

“Where are we?” I say. I think it is Africa, that we are coming down the south east coastline. And he tells me yes, but the country begins with an R, it’s a country I won’t recognize.

“Later, when we’re all sleeping we will join up with the sea and the waves, when they’ve died down a bit,” he says.

Ship of Fools, cropped, accredited to Hieronymus Bosch via Picryl