Absinthe Minded – When the night comes

Photograph by Mark Ulyseas

by pic and text by Mark Ulyseas

From The Seductive Avatars of Maya – Anthology of Dystopian Lives – book available HERE

Cold hands and distant dreams collide at the table of two: a solitary traveller and the other marooned in moonbeams.

The light drizzle follows her to Joe’s. It is deserted, no customers, just the odd moth buzzing a tungsten light, and the clickety-clack of figure skating cockroaches on the kitchen floor.

Mavis sits down at a table near the window. Joe brings her a reservoir glass of absinthe and rushes back to the kitchen. She smiles to herself, lifts the glass, takes a sip and as the room turns green and then milky translucent she feels the writer’s tongue tracing the curve of her lips…she crosses her legs…he has arrived…

“Been here long?” he asks

“Nah, just in” she replies

Joe returns with another glass and a bottle of the green fairy for the writer.

Mavis is thin, tall with a one dimensional mind and body. A soul gallivanting the world searching for the ideal partner and a place to nest. She remains in a vestibule, an apartment sanitized by vinegar and water. The aroma of essential oils permeates the air around her wherever she goes. Mavis is obessessed with smelling good for she needs to stir the pheromones of the man of her dreams, to ensnare him in the vestibule.

Joe’s begins filling up and chatter soon drowns out the voice of Ferry moaning for Avalon.

“I am in constant contact with the Universe…my energy is synchronized…my mother is my confidant and guide…” she announces as if she is experiencing an epiphany, “But I am always wet and cold. Warmth eludes me like the womb. I can’t return. And I don’t want to have a baby…”

He looks away. The world of the green fairy appears far more interesting for Mavis is too caught up in herself, in her world, hoping to catch moonbeams in her black shiny curly hair or something like that.

“This is for you, our special today”, says Joe’s putting down a plate of slices of roast pork on a bed of veggies topped with a red rose.

“Want pork?” he asks

“I’m a vegetarian”, she replies coldly then looks away in disgust.

He pokes at the meat, rolls it on a fork and stuffs his mouth. Juices collide with spittle spiced by aniseed and mastication begins the beguine…

“Let’s dance”, she says.

“No, you go ahead…”

Mavis gets up and begins gyrating to a tune in her head. No one bothers to look. Everyone is too busy in their own inebriated worlds.

Suddenly she stops and sits down and looks towards him in anticipation.

He strokes her moist slim neck. Mavis looks down at her hands and speaks to herself, “My hands, my hands are cold, always”. A tear races down her cheek.

“Perhaps you should free fall and let life take you wherever. Your cold hands is probably your heart telling you you are  getting old, old and tired in spirit and that it is time to let go, completely. Come with me, stay with me, let me in you, this is what I wanted to tell you for so long,” he says and then embraces the green fairy.

 She fidgets with her hair. She wants to run away. But her body remains rigid.

“I thought so,” he says softly, gets up and walks out.

She rushes to the door, peers into the wet street. But he has gone…dissolving into the shadows of the night to commune with the spirits…she is afraid of following him into his world…

Mavis returns home and begins to clean the floor with vinegar and water to remove the dust of the day.

Next year Valentine’s Day will come again…then, maybe…

© Mark Ulyseas, February 14, 2015

Seductive Avatars of Maya

 

 

 

One Reply to “Absinthe Minded – When the night comes”

  1. Pingback: Absinthe Minded – When the night comes – markulyseas - My Telegraph

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