Now I have a computer. Now I can write on the internet.
There is a theory stating that the universe, viewed as an average frequency of all the light and radiation therewithin, is a deep forest green. If the physicists who boldly purport themselves to be in possession of such knowledge of the outermost secrets of the universe are to be trusted, then the mean colour of mankind’s night-time cities would have to be roughly equivalent to the puke-orange sludge wafting past my window.
Seat 16E. “Sorry sir, normally I’m not picky, but I really wanted a window-seat, and uhh....” Keep your flight back locked and tabled in an upright turbulence, and please pay prepared to carry on refreshments when the in-flight movie hits an altitude of forty thousand gallons of jet fuel.
The electric amber- and purple-tinted clouds ripple away to reveal the circuit-board-esque city below. Its avenues and alleyways transmit an unimaginable amount of automobiles, humans, information, food, trash, toxic waste, luxury items, electricity, greed, love, suffering, tragedy and pleasure day to day, end to end, top to bottom. Its lustrous edifices and ramshackle markets spell profit and infinite opulence to some and doom for others.
Our descent upon the streetlit metropolis reminds me to get my leather jacket on so that I can hop into the aisle and charge to the front of the plane just before the seatbelt lights go off and the sluggish, coffee- and sweat-smelling denizens around me take their cue to stand up and clog the only escape from this overheated, beige person-mover. Nothing annoys me more than that eight-minute purgatory between when the doors of the plane open and when all the fat people and business-crabs get their shit together. I could be out there. Like right now. It’s like the worst kind of poorly-written suspense novel. It feels like waiting for your dentist appointment rather than waiting for your first ultrasound.
By the time I get through the umbilical corridor to the terminal, the madness is already in full swing. Guards are securing and passengers are careening around me; lost things are being recovered and I need a goddamn drink. I’m what you might call an A-type personality. I generally tend toward social observation and integration. Obviously everyone has their ostrich-in-the-sand moments, but such is not the case as I stomp through the dervish toward the phoney-brick-walled “pub” next to those stainless steel security desks and internet portals. I’m feeling rather chatty after sitting on my compartmentalized ass for the better part of the day.
Like many stories, this one begins when I meet a girl. I promise it won’t be a love story, though. I wouldn’t do that to you. There’s a lotta love in here, but that’s not why you’re reading this. When I hit the scene, she’s sitting at the faux-oak, faux-folk bar of this watering-hole called Joe’s Pub©. The strangely reassuring smell of deep-fried-whatever juxtaposes her refined demeanour and sharp features. I’ll be honest here (and take that as a general rule, by the way). It was admittedly her streamlined figure, bangin’ wardrobe and arrogant, brown eyes that alerted me to her presence. That’s how dudes work, I’m afraid. Don’t lose your faith in the Male over a bit of pheromonal hubris, though. In the twenty-first century, us guys are remarkably quick at mustering substance once we’ve gotten over the initial bit of panting and dilated pupils. Especially us rough-around-the-edges, sophisticated rebel types.
“Is anyone sitting here?” I pipe as I sidle up. Sometimes clichéd lines are clutch. She doesn’t say a goddamn thing, seeing as she gets that bologna eighty-six times a day. I sit down and, noting that she’s drinking some sort of colourful martini, order a double rye whiskey on the rocks, in a tumbler with a splash of apple juice. (I just assume that they don’t have any Angostura. I’d say that no one knows how to make a good whiskey sour anymore, but I’m way too young to know shit like that.) This move is multi-purposed, in that I really like that drink, in that sours can either be sipped or slammed depending on necessity, and in that ladies sometimes mistake this kind of obvious contrast as supplementation. Chicks love to feel supplemented.
Then, gazing at the black-clad barwoman’s generous hips, her retort: “She has a beautiful way of moving, this girl,” in an almost-perfect, anglophone* lilt just barely belied by the unusual wording of the sentence. “She doesn’t see what happens around her and she does many things at once. It’s like she’s dancing.”
I tear my eyes off the fuzzy strip of skin under her earlobe to momentarily feign interest in this particularly graceful server and say, “I guess you have to excel at your job in some way in order to like it. T’es Montréalaise, toi?”
“Non, Je viens du Lac Saint-Jean. Where are you coming from?” Her cheekbones are sharp and her voice is high pitched. She’s like a hawk or a birch in the wind.
