coming apart

Terribly beautiful people are terrible. It’s a curse, one would say, to fit a look so closely that it’s not a trick or a photo or a sunlit glare. Blink, rub your eyes, and still in front of you is this image that cannot be denied.

I don’t trust people like that. I think of shiny straight hair and skin so taut and clean, and I get the shivers, cold wind in a dark room shivers, you know the ones. “You look like someone just walked over your grave.” Inside I strum like an old guitar.

All around, there is gloss. Things shine unwittingly, slick like wet paint, like saliva on the rim of a coffee mug. Rain darkens the pavement in beat beat beat or wispy mist; listening to corduroy rhythms, I can walk in puddles, not around them.

Traveling through the awakening city, we all move a little. We bump into each other. Sometimes knees touch, and the terribly beautiful people recoil from the rest of us, perfect tendons in hands flexing and releasing. Pushing air, a space between them and us, pushing off. Tiny handbags provide a buffer zone, or something to clench. Something to hold onto in that endless seasick movement.

The aesthetic is to appear as if the world is not falling down around our heads, as if shoes matching with purses matching with belts will save humanity, as if expertly-applied lash-lifting magic will make us all stop pulling each other apart.

Things do not need to be scuffed or scratched when they can be replaced. Mending is not as good as replacing. If you have problems relating with the people you know, meet different people. That’s what money is for.

Threads peel off the seat in front of me. With ink-stained fingers I collect them and set them on the windowsill as the ferry bounces gaily on rubber waves. It’s all coming apart, whispers my reflection, so I close my eyes and hum myself to sleep.

About Halsted M. Bernard

Halsted, a/k/a cygnoir, does stuff with words. Her favourite things to do with words are keeping this diary, writing stories, and organising information. She lives in Edinburgh with her husband, two cats, a few gadgets, several fountain pens, and many books.

Posted on 21 May 2004 in Diary