Sunday, August 31, 2008

i am holding you and you are holding me and we are holding one another and it feels nice

Jeffrey stood out the front of Sarah’s house with a Valium tablet and a bottle of gin. Jeffrey felt like he wanted to get ‘fucked up’ with Sarah, and he hoped that Sarah wanted to get as ‘fucked up’ as he did.
Sarah opened the door. “Go into my room.”
Jeffrey sat on Sarah’s bed and looked at Sarah’s photographs. There were boxes of photographs of the same few people. Sarah was ‘against digital’. In some of the photographs, there was a girl with a nostril piercing, big teeth, deep-set eyes, and a huge forehead. A ‘mystery girl.’ The mystery girl’s face was so perfectly out-of-proportion, it was wondrous. ‘Complex’.
Sarah poured the gin and Jeffrey took his Valium tablet and drank some gin also.
That morning, Jeffrey had thought about killing himself, in a lazy, abstract way. He felt as though his life had become a television show which had gone on for one season too many. He felt as though his life needed a dramatic ‘plot twist’.
After a while, a feeling of uncaringness washed over Jeffrey. Sarah said she felt “almost too drunk to fuck”, and laughed. Jeffrey thought about crawling over to Sarah and becoming amorous with Sarah in her bed. There was something ‘going on’ between Jeffrey and Sarah. Jeffrey thought of Sarah as his ‘unspoken lover’.
Sarah said, “I don’t want Corinna to go away.” Jeffrey hugged Sarah. Jeffrey thought, ‘a sentimental moment’.
“I don’t feel anxious at all right now,” said Jeffrey. “My head feels clear, my senses heightened.”
“I feel sad,” said Sarah.
Sarah left the room and Jeffrey began reading Lonely Planet: Europe on a Shoestring. Jeffrey thought about climbing the Eiffel Tower with the mystery girl, watching the mystery girl chew on a baguette with her big teeth, and kissing the mystery girl’s huge forehead in a Parisian-style café.
Jeffrey felt lusty and contented. Jeffrey fell unconscious.
When Jeffrey woke up it was 4 o’clock in the morning and Sarah was sitting in her bed. Sarah was wearing her best shoes.
“My sister cut herself again and we had to take her to the hospital,” Sarah said.
Jeffrey thought, ‘The plot thickens’ and felt neutral.
Jeffrey crawled up to the bed and spooned Sarah. Sarah cried a little bit. Jeffrey thought about becoming amorous with Sarah but decided against it on the grounds that it would end up ‘awkward’ later on.
Jeffrey thought about severe depression. Sarah’s sister’s severe depression. Sarah’s severe depression. His own severe depression. His mother’s severe depression. Everybody’s severe depression.
Jeffrey felt severely happy spooning Sarah, and slipped into sleep.

**

Jeffrey drove Sarah to Corinna’s going-away party.
“Everybody is leaving and soon you and I will be the only people left in this city and it will be shitty and I will kill myself.”
Jeffrey ate a water cracker. The room was dimly lit with candles, and people were sectioned off into enclaves. Corinna’s boyfriend Caleb was drinking vodka alone in the kitchen. People were getting stoned in Corinna’s empty room. Radiohead was playing on the stereo. Corinna’s suitcases were packed and sitting by the front door.
“Why will you and I be the last people still here?” said Jeffrey.
“Because you need a certain level of self-esteem to be able to leave the city in which you were born,” said Sarah.
Jeffrey often thought about how perfect life could be elsewhere, in a city with a high population density and easy access to recreational drugs.
Jeffrey and Sarah walked into the kitchen to talk to Caleb. Caleb hugged Sarah and Jeffrey and said, “My lifelines.”
Sarah went to the front porch and started smoking a cigarette. Jeffrey talked to Caleb some more, and then went out to the front porch to have a cigarette. Sarah hugged Jeffrey’s arm and they both looked at the rainy mist hanging off the street lights. It was ‘spectacularly mundane’.
“Everybody here is depressed,” said Jeffrey.
“Happiness is circular,” said Sarah. “As soon as you become too happy you end up feeling awful. Everybody is suffering from overabundant happiness.”
“If we go to New York City we could probably always be happy,” said Jeffrey.
“Do you think Caleb will be okay?” said Sarah.
“He will have an intense mental breakdown and will come out of it a ‘better stronger person’,” said Jeffrey.
“That’s what we all need,” said Sarah.

**

Jeffrey sat in his room and ate a banana and drank instant coffee. He checked his GMail account again for a message from Sarah. He checked his Facebook account for a message from Sarah. He checked his Myspace account for a message from Sarah. He checked his mobile phone for a message from Sarah. He checked his blog for a message for Sarah but remembered that Sarah did not read his blog. Sarah was ‘against digital’.
Jeffrey felt depressed and sat in his bed and watched internet videos for two hours. Then he read AIEOU, a graphic novel by Jeffrey Brown. Then he read a short story on bearcreekfeed written by Kendra Grant Malone. Then he went for a walk and smoked a cigarette, his ‘last ever cigarette’.
Jeffrey realised that he had only spoken seven words in the past twenty-four hours. Jeffrey wondered whether loneliness was ‘necessary for spiritual and artistic development’, or on the other hand, whether loneliness was ‘a leading factor in the onset of mental illness.’
Jeffrey looked up ‘loneliness’ on Wikipedia.
Jeffrey wondered why he was becoming so obsessed with Sarah that it was making him feel depressed. Jeffrey realised that he had not sent Sarah a message over the past two days because he did not want to appear ‘needy’, but was feeling depressed because Sarah had not sent him a message over the past two days. ‘Hey, hey, it goes both ways’.
Jeffrey wondered whether he and Sarah were both secretly lonely and in love with one another.

**

Jeffrey had coffee with Alex.
Alex said, “Do you like my new jacket? It’s Prada. It cost $700 but I can afford it.”
Alex was Jeffrey’s ‘awkward and desperate friend’.
Jeffrey often met up with Alex when he was feeling very lonely and depressed in order to feel much better about himself.
Alex said, “I think my phone is broken or something because nobody ever returns my calls.”
Jeffrey looked at Alex and felt better about himself.
Jeffrey was Alex’s ‘dismissive and disrespectful friend’.
Jeffrey and Alex were friends.

**

The party was a ‘stereotypical house party’. Jeffrey wasn’t sure whose house it was or how he had been invited. Jeffrey only knew five people at the stereotypical house party. Jeffrey immediately judged that a lot of the people at the stereotypical house party were ‘douchebags’. Jeffrey sat next to Sarah and drank vodka. Even after five drinks, most of the people still looked like ‘douchebags’.
One of the people at the house party was the mystery girl with the nostril piercing from the photographs. The girl with the ‘complex’ face. Jeffrey felt excited to see the girl. Jeffrey was excited that the mystery girl was real and not imaginary.
Nearly all of the ‘guys’ at the stereotypical house party were trying to stand as close as possible to the mystery girl. Jeffrey felt disappointed because he realised that she was most definitely ‘out of his league’.
Sarah saw Jeffrey looking at the mystery girl and said, “She has very low self-esteem.”
Jeffrey wasn’t sure whether Sarah was negatively judging the mystery girl, or making a neutral observation, or trying to imply to Jeffrey that the mystery girl was ‘easy’.
Jeffrey said, “I like girls with low self-esteem. Not only girls. People. I like people with low self-esteem.”
Jeffrey had another ‘shot’ of vodka and walked over to the mystery girl.
Jeffrey made small-talk with the mystery girl. ‘Jemima’. Every time the mystery girl looked at him, he felt invincible, as though he could go out into the wilderness and defeat a huge bear in straight-out hand-to-hand combat. The mystery girl’s mouth was big but it did not look ‘weird’. Jeffrey wanted to feel the mystery girl’s big but not ‘weird’ mouth on his mouth. The mystery girl moved her head closer to Jeffrey’s neck and Jeffrey could feel the warmth of her huge forehead against his normal-sized neck. The mystery girl whispered things into Jeffrey’s ear that Jeffrey did not really listen to because he was too busy feeling validated by the mystery girl’s affection. Jeffrey felt like a parking ticket about to be stamped. Jeffrey said, “Would you like a drink?” and the mystery girl said, “Yes” in a quiet voice. A ‘low-self esteem voice’.
When Jeffrey was in the kitchen, somebody said, “She has a boyfriend you know,” and Jeffrey said, “Okay.” Somebody said, “Doesn’t that matter to you, guy?” and Jeffrey said, “Maybe.” Somebody said, “Her boyfriend is here,” and pointed to the window. Jeffrey looked out of the window and could see the mystery girl’s boyfriend walking over to the mystery girl. Jeffrey couldn’t properly see whether the mystery girl’s boyfriend was a ‘douchebag’ or not.
Jeffrey sat back down next to Sarah.
Sarah said, “If you love me we should get married.”
Sarah said, “This guy out back let me snort something with an American dollar bill.”
Jeffrey thought about fighting the mystery girl’s boyfriend for ‘possession’ of the mystery girl but he decided against it on the grounds that he would probably lose the fight and also that women should not be ‘objectified’.
Jeffrey saw Alex sitting alone by himself in a corner. Jeffrey felt better about himself, but then felt guilty about using Alex to feel better about himself. The ‘needy friend’ being used by the ‘dismissive friend’. Jeffrey felt as though he and Alex were really in the ‘very same boat’ as one another. Jeffrey felt as though every single human being in existence was really in the ‘very same boat’ as one another. Jeffrey thought, ‘The entire universe has a personality disorder.’
Jeffrey felt an amplified feeling of neutrality. Amplified happiness cancelling out amplified sadness cancelling out amplified anger cancelling out amplified lust, leaving a strong feeling of bursting.
Jeffrey walked over to Alex and said, “I love you” and was not sure whether he was being ‘serious’ or ‘sarcastic’.
Alex said, “Thank you.”
Jeffrey said, “Would you like to come back to my house now?”
Alex said, “Okay.”
Jeffrey said, “I will be five minutes.”
Jeffrey wanted to leave the stereotypical house party with Sarah and Alex and have sex with Sarah and Alex. A threesome. He was sure that Sarah was ‘up for it’. He wanted to have sex with Alex to make Alex feel better about life. He felt like having a threesome with Alex would be like performing a charity act for Alex, but not really.
Jeffrey sat back down next to where he had left his glass of vodka.
Sarah kissed Jeffrey on the mouth.
Sarah sat on Jeffrey’s lap and kissed Jeffrey on the mouth. Sarah’s mouth was small and nice. Jeffrey felt things happening to him. Jeffrey thought about the mystery girl and Sarah. Jeffrey could not work out whether or not the mystery girl was ‘better’ than Sarah. Jeffrey could not work out whether Sarah was the most beautiful girl in the world, or whether the mystery girl was the most beautiful girl in the world. Jeffrey could not work out whether Sarah and the mystery girl were really the same person in two different bodies.
Sarah said, “I think we should get married.”
Jeffrey was not sure whether Sarah was being ‘serious’ or ‘sarcastic’.
Jeffrey saw Caleb over the other side of the room talking to a couple of people. Jeffrey thought Caleb looked like he was about to have a mental breakdown, or maybe not. Jeffrey thought Caleb looked like he was pining for Corinna.
‘Life is very sad and very beautiful.’
Jeffrey thought about going to Paris with the mystery girl (‘Jemima’) and watching the mystery girl eat a baguette with her big teeth. Jeffrey thought about going to Paris with Sarah and watching Sarah eat a baguette with her small teeth. Jeffrey thought about going to Paris with Alex and using Alex to feel better about himself in a Parisian-style café.
Jeffrey thought about going to sleep and then waking up and going to sleep again and again forever, and never getting out of his bed, how that would be the best possible ‘solution’ to life.
‘Even though all things in existence are equal in value, it is impossible not to have values, to put one thing arbitrarily above another thing. It is impossible to exist neutrally. Even though reality is undifferentiated, no human being can see that reality is undifferentiated without feeling extreme depression, alienation, and loneliness. The only way to live happily is to hold an arbitrary system of values.’
Jeffrey kissed Sarah.
Jeffrey thought, “Everybody is leaving and soon we will be the only people left.”
Jeffrey looked at the mystery girl with her ‘douchebag’ boyfriend.
The mystery girl looked at Jeffrey instead of looking at her ‘douchebag’ boyfriend.
Jeffrey looked at Alex.
Caleb could not look at Corinna.
Caleb loved Corinna.
Corinna loved the city of Melbourne.
Jeffrey loved Caleb.
Jeffrey pitied Alex.
Jeffrey loved Alex.
Alex loved Caleb.
The mystery girl loved her ‘douchebag’ boyfriend.
The mystery girl hated her ‘douchebag’ boyfriend.
The mystery girl loved Jeffrey.
Sarah loved Jeffrey.
Sarah thought the mystery girl had ‘low self-esteem’.
Jeffrey felt severe depression.
Jeffrey felt severe happiness.

4 comments:

wagner israel cilio iii said...

i am black vacuous hole in the membrane of an old war veteran's forehead who has just fallen down the stairs and finished bleeding all of the blood in him from this hole in head which is me i am the hole. thank you for this.

gena said...

yes

this one

Connor Tomas O'Brien said...

you two are both sexy bitches

ryan manning said...

the color scheme of this blog makes it very difficult to read