maybe sprout wings

Before leaving he takes another slow drag from the joint and begins walking downstairs outside like he has new feet. The smell of wet leaves rolls down the hill in the morning and he knows that it’s coming, or that it will come, and it’s only a matter of patience and he has to go out walking to find it. He leaves his wallet, his watch, and his pen at home, and he throws his cell phone over his shoulder and refuses to look back. The sound of the thing crashing into broken plastic sends relief spinally to his heavy head, and he feels perfectly alone with the birds. The population is Richard and his streets and the ocean he will see soon enough. Breathing feels good and he looks forward to the cool waft of some new hours. Some time in his hands and his pockets. He watches the clouds make silver with the moon.

He begins to urinate in the rose garden outside his apartment, which makes him feel hairy at the neck.

On the street, a young hip couple crosses the street drunkenly, to the sounds of the pied piper, mechanical bird chirping. The girl leans her head in at the boy’s shoulder and they stumble like the ground is crooked or being aggressive. The boy leans too and bites down on the girl’s ear and Richard can hear them laughing and getting louder with glee and horseplay.

Most days Richard wishes for a camera for a shot like this, to capture it beautifully and take it home. Tonight he wants rocks and a good arm. He thinks survival takes a long time and starts to laugh for no reason. He stares at a real sparrow sleeping in the tree and says chirp.

Upstairs Belle finishes the bottle of wine he’s left behind and her anger and disappointment vibrates where her ears make bone, and she doesn’t know what to do now. Maybe sprout wings. Their last conversation replays in her head and knocks on her solitude like cruel strangers at the door. When she yells at Richard, it is the first time she raises her voice in front of him, and it’s like she wants to kill him. Or blow his house down.

She says I don’t need protection and that was incredibly selfish of you and you shouldn’t have done that. I can protect myself. I can survive anything, Richard! When she yells at him, she unhinges. Feels like she is talking to her mother on the day she leaves home and never bothers to be contact again. Everything in the body rises and even her teeth cramps. She sighs terribly and asks herself, who needs a drink?

On the street, another young couple crosses the street and Richard wants a dry scotch or perhaps cheap beer. He wonders if Thom can accommodate and imagines his very deep liquor cabinet and decides for a detour. An ambulances passes by like a banshee and Richard pretends he is making the siren sounds with his heavy staring. Eyes like sharp diamonds.

The sirens sound and his chest hurts underneath gradually. He dips in hands in his pockets and stares at the air and says it’s cold outside but I don’t need a jacket. He walks and hopes for sun rise. Belle dances in his head and he even sees her in the ocean, a few moments later, knowing it’s not really her. It’s a different girl out there swimming.

In the morning many hours later, Belle makes coffee but makes too much of it. She realizes Richard has not come home quite yet and his phone is off. Why is his phone off? She moves her body outside the balcony and hugs her knees, takes her coffee black and even drinks his normal share of two cups. The caffeine makes a grand assembly in her blood steam and every cell feels much larger, and she can hardly sit still. There is a nice cool fog and the smell of wet leaves coming from uphill and she breathes the freezing cold in, and her lung caresses back, trying to be calm. She watches a walking stick bug rise from the pile of sticks and stones beyond her feet in the balcony and wonders how long it has been there, and what makes it finally come out of hiding? Inside her, there are wet organs irrigating what she thinks her soul is, and she gives up the dream of wanting to be dry, of wanting to be so self-sufficient. She wants to go see the ocean too.