Showing posts with label boy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boy. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 3

How Inappropriate

It is someone's birthday party, and we wander in from the streets to a darkened room. Before a get much of a chance to look around, Kathryn exclaims, "I know, let's go swimming!" I think, "Great!" and when I turn around, everyone has started to climb into the bathtubs of varying shapes and sizes that line one wall, on tiers. Kathryn has taken off her pants already (and is wearing some modest black briefs underneath), and climbed into the highest tub already. I look around and everyone else has started climbing into the remaining tubs, still clothed. Groggily, I stand there wondering what to do, and it finally hits me that everyone is going to have to take off all of their clothes eventually. I go, "No... no, this is really inappropriate..." trying to remember what underwear I am wearing.
A boy about fifteen years old catches my eye as he passes by. I start up a conversation, trying to avoid seeing all of my friends taking off their clothes. Then I find myself kissing the boy. (AGH! How disturbing is that.) When I look over to the bathtubs everyone has fallen conveniently asleep. Then we fall asleep on the floor.
When the boy and I wake up, everyone else is still alseep, so he whispers to me that we should go get coffee at a cafe he knows of in the Faubourg something-or-other, just around the cover. This doesn't make sense to me because we are on the Ile-St.-Louis, and I thought all the Faubourgs were on the west edge of Paris. He gives me directions and I start to follow them. For some reason he does not come with.
I am surprised when the directions he gave me lead to real places, because all of the street names were Italian. Eventually I come out on top of Montmartre (this does not make sense, given the direction I was travelling), into a cirlular place (une place, not a place) with a large sculpture in the center that I have never seen before. It is covered with black grime, but I can tell that it was carved from bright white stone. As I get closer, I get the chilling sense that it represents something terrible.

Wednesday, August 15

Park

I am sitting in a park just off Ambaum, it has been raining and I can see the ocean through the firs. Water drips off of the branches into a birdbath, catching the sun and my eye.
Nearby three boys, around twelve years old each, gather around a computer behind me, reseaching other parks to go to. They ask me what my favorite park was when I was their age, and I think. I tell them about Lincold park, Seahurst, and Discovery park, but obviously they already know about those. I think harder and can almost remember my very favorite park, but I cannot remember what made it so amazing, or where it was.

Sunday, May 20

Endangered Species

In my living room, I am in the middle of a group of people dressed in academic clothing who file slowly forward, talking excitedly amongst themselves as they approach the front. The thing we are waiting to see, I find out, is some newly discovered, extremely rare creature. As I get to the front my neighbor tells me it is actually the last in existence, and we will be the only generation to have seen and documented it. It will probably die without its natural habitat.

I am confused at first when I do not see an animal in front of me. I then realize the focus of the academics' attention is the boy with a shaggy haircut and stooped posture. I walk forward and take his hand, looking him in the eye and saying, "It's nice to meet you." He replies quitely, "It's nice to meet you too." He looks completely normal, and I am not at all convinced that this person is not human. I examine his features closely, looking to see how he is different from us. His extremely alert expression and the sense of fear I get from his sudden eye movements give it away. He has been trained to interact in civilized company, but his mind is clearly designed for a more wild setting. I feel sad that he will die here.