Keep up the excellent work. We ARE the flash fiction community.
—Lyle Rosdahl
Biridiana. Di. by Michael Gallaway
I
I was on the couch. Lying on my side with ten minutes of a second-bowl re-high, I started watching the movie she had told me three months ago was her favorite. I thought about her so much today. I thought about her skin and how good she would feel right up against me. I thought about her youth. I thought about what it would be like to be able to have her go with me when I had nondescript bullshit to do. The day is forever enmeshed with her. I dreamt about her, you know. Last night. We laughed so much. The wildflowers today (I laugh at myself at this moment for writing this down and just changed the sentence three times; fucking perceptions).As I started the film, I thought about the distinct possibility that this movie will end up being a downgrade in my further opinion of her. There was trepidation, friends. Then the music on the soundtrack started. I was amazed by the amount of influence I heard. Classical, Arabic, Jazz, Improvisation. It sounded like some of the most unique and beautiful creations that this planet has seen and that made me think about something that stares me directly in my face. I am not good enough for her. How can I begin to tell her the extent to which I have defiled myself. Maybe it’s not fair to her to characterize her as some madonna but, whatever.
II
Of course, it’s a simulacrum. It’s the greatest illusion of community. The boob-tube for the 21st century. Carefully selected images and thoughts. All sculpted to create this bastardized robot form. Impervious to any real criticism, especially when a little flesh is involved. An information-superhighway-ego. It was all pretty drastic. One weekend the posts were concerned with how hard work was and what was going to be bought that weekend at whatever retail store happened to be the fad. The next was filled with pictures of greasy hippies twirling fire, hugging. The language of the post was of the impressionistic insanity that only hallucinogens can produce. What are they doing these days? They’ve probably moved on from the ecstasy, acid, and Special K of a few years past and have some sort of mutant abomination that makes one sprout a million ejaculating penises all over your skin and creates a hard candy shell that everyone can take turns cracking with little neon hammers and eat with toast points made of pure opium. All of the music she posts now is that of the droning thump of the drug addict lost in this little insulated world. She probably blasts it in her car while driving 150 miles per hour to the next gathering, jonesing for the fix of acceptance. I remember seeing girls like her back when I was one of the medicated few. They wore bikini tops with florescent strings holding their ponytails together and had immaculate bodies from dancing all night and subsisting on X and sweet tarts. The whole scene is such a reversion. A mob of swollen kindergarteners fellating pacifiers and rubbing each other’s backs all on the misguided premise of peace and love. I had no illusions, I was there for the drugs. The copious amounts of drugs. The women were a side note. I was too fucked up for any real interaction and I could lie all over my female friends and grab the occasional tit if I wanted to. That’s probably what the appeal is for all these girls. The flaccid mass of men, too highly concerned with politeness or their high to be concerned with trying to bang chicks. Or these boys live under the delusion that their intelligence and sensitivity is what will land these girls in their bed. That their views on Marx or Ibsen are the Spanish Fly that will turn the prostrate drug dolls into nymphomaniacs begging for their oft self-pulled cocks. What they don’t understand is that everyone wants to be fucked. The lesbians understand that. That’s why they’re the only ones making out like bandits. Her texts are less frequent now. The gists of them are the same: busy, finding myself, fun. I get the impression of shame. I think she has the wrong idea about me. --- Lyle Rosdahl, a writer living in San Antonio, edits the flash fiction blog & best of in print for the Current. He created, facilitates and participates in Postcard Fiction Collaborative, a monthly flash fiction response to a photo. You can see more of his work, including photos, paintings and writing, at lylerosdahl.com. Send your flash to [email protected].
