[Didn't have a proper title, but it was better than "Untitled" - so yes. Time of post (according to my clock) to the rescue for lack of imagination!]
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
“I think you know,” he answered.
She hung her legs over the side of the chair and regarded him through the cigarette smoke she blew deliberately slow from out between her lips. “I think you give me too much credit,” she told him bluntly, swinging her foot. “I’m not that smart.”
He stood in crumpled awkwardness in her doorframe, not really outside her apartment, not really inside. His fingers traced the outline of his bowler hat, rubbing the felt down to bare the brittle plastic.
“I give you just enough credit…” He cleared his throat. “I give you just enough, and I make it so you can understand.”
She inhaled a long and cherry red drag, tapping out the cigarette’s ashy end in her tray. “I think you like watching me struggle,” she said. “I think you like watching me struggle, and I think you get off on your little mind games.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Oh no?” She got up from her chair, pulling her legs around in perfect ballet grace, facing him. “Look at you. Standing like some innocent love-struck loser, fiddling with your hat. As if you were a fucking nineteenth century gentleman. You like to screw with my mind and make it so I can’t even look at you without thinking you’re someone else completely.”
He looked down at his hat, blushed, folded his arms. His hat hid behind his body, but she could tell he was still patting the felt in nervous compulsion. He always was.
In a sudden flare of uncharacteristic rage, her fingers itched with a desire to destroy his faux-gentleman demeanor, bring him down to her level for a change. She jumped out of her seat and sprang across the room at him. He yelped and covered his face, but she didn’t hit him – only grabbed the hat. He cowered beside her and she rolled her eyes, pushed him away from her against the doorframe. He fell in an overdramatic fetal ball onto the floor.
“For God’s sake, I have bigger balls than you,” she growled as she flipped out two lighters from her pocket and lit them both at the same time with one thumb.
The over-synthesized glue holding the felt caught fire instantly, lighting up the hat like a fireball. She dropped it on the floor and watched in semi-satisfaction as he shouted gutturally, dancing around the burning bowler hat as if he were a troglodyte discovering fire for the first time.
When smoke filled the room and the apartment’s water sprinklers went off, she smiled. Turning away from him, she sat back down in her chair and stuck her soggy cigarette back between her lips.
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6 comments:
I'm a little confused about this piece. I like the way you wrote it. Your descriptions are great.
However, I see some flaw to her assumptions. She thinks that he is a faux-gentleman and then he freaks out about the burning hat.
I feel like if her assumptions were true he would have manned up completely, thrown the hat at her and told her to burn it. Call her out on her own call out.
Bearing that in mind, I don't understand her satisfaction completley. I mean, I get being happy about burning a hat, I've always wanted to, but I don't get why she would be that happy.
But then again, humans are fucked up as...fuck. So to that respect, well done. She is fantastically fucked in the brainstem.
Well he ISN'T really a gentleman at all. So in that respect, yes, he would freak out because he's just...pretending. And pretentious. I wrote a line about her calling him pretentious but it sounded pretentious to keep it in so I edited it out... And she is only semi-satisfied. So not that happy, really. Basically yeah, I just wanted to write about fucked up people. Not exactly my best piece....I've been rather blocked, creatively speaking, for a while.
I am depressed now.
That poor, poor bowler hat!
There's a guy in my program who wears a bowler hat. Now I wish I could burn it.
Hmm. I must agree I'm a little confused about the bowler hat guy. At first he seemed false like the girl said he was, but then he crumbled so quickly I didn't really see him as threatening or mean. It feels like a movie clip but I missed the first minute.
I love the descriptions though, and the soggy cigarette. The hat burning was maniacal and awesome. More neuroticism please!
I was sad when the hat was burnt, because the guy seemed to really care about that hat. It was probably his favorite thing to wear, I bet he'd walk around his house in boxer shorts and the hat, tipping it to his cat and the mirror whenever he passed them.
I agree with what Andrea said about bowler hat guy, and the movie clip. like if we knew a little more about these two we'd have a better understanding of their actions.
I really liked the descriptions in this and that we could sympathize with both characters.
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