Eames Writes

bridging gaps;

-God and Creation

(from the “learn Chinese” word and fortunes from 7 fortune cookies)

To come: You are talented in many ways.

You are a bundle of energy, always on the go - 

     hear: stop searching forever. Happiness is just next to you.

Elder Brother, Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or nation.

     here, platform, breakfast, please: hear -

No dreams dreamt that I can remember upon waking.

  3:45AM

From my window on the south wall of the room, a dull redish glow rises from the alley between Broadview and the apartment building adjacent to us.  It rises from the west end of the alley and seems to die on the windowsill, failing to make it into the room.  It casts some interesting, though weak, shadows from the line of coffee mugs I keep on the ledge.  Almost no light enters from my roommate’s window as she keeps the shad down on hers when she sleeps and much of the ambient light of the night is blocked by the eastern arm of the Broadview U.  Most of the light in our room at this hour comes from the WiFi router located on the west wall.  This bright, steady blue provides enough light for me to move about the room with ease, yet not so much that it is disturbing to those who sleep here.  Although studies have shown that blue light in particular is disturbing to sleep as it is similar to the daytime sky, so perhaps my sleep has been disturbed more than I know.  As I move about the room I also notice the ¾ outline of our door starkly made by the light of the hallway.  Like the light from the alley, it does not really enter the room instead lingering around the frame giving it ¾ of a golden halo.

  I return to sleep.  It is restless and dissatisfying.  No dreams can be remembered.

  7:35AM

I used to have a friend that always took surface streets at night, so that he could look in on people.  Even at 2 AM when he’d been on the road for three hours already, he took surface streets.  Every once in a while we’d pass a silhouette of someone hunched over a mug of something in their window or someone reading next to a sleeping partner.  Once he said he saw a teenager about my age sneaking regretfully back in through a window.  I don’t believe him.  It’s a principle. 

  He likes to invent stories for these nighttime snapshots.  Writers, lonely wives, lovers, arguments.  I don’t know how he has time to invent all this, although it might have something to do with his penchant for driving five miles per hour below the speed limit in his father’s Porsche just to piss people off.  His favorites are kitchens.  He loves it when people put their kitchen at the front of their house.  He drives by this one place on his way home, he says, that always has the kitchen light on at midnight.  There’s always this woman, he says, who just stands there looking out at the night – totally unable to see anything of course – utterly without purpose.  He thinks it’s the only time alone she gets.  I drove by that house once, and I think he’s probably right judging by the array of toys scattered in her yard for a range of ages.  Checking on her was one of the first things I did when I could drive.  I’d like to say she had curlers in her hair and a ratty, terry bathrobe, but she didn’t.  As far as I could tell, they were just regular pajamas. 

  This friend of mine, he’d also chat up a storm while he drove.  Maybe it’s because he didn’t feel comfortable with me.  Not enough to let it be quiet in the car anyway.  That’s where I learned about night driving and how to do it right.  He’d talk my ear off about all these different houses that he’d hit on his way home.  I don’t know if I ever agreed with him.  I like looking out at an empty black road on an empty black night and simply driving.  It’s peace that way.  It embodies the concept. My friend couldn’t be peaceful.  He couldn’t just sit.  But, again, I don’t know if he was comfortable with me.  Or if he was comfortable with anyone for that matter.  I’ve never seen anyone more nervous in traffic.  It wasn’t ever because he was going to be late – lateness never bothered him – or because he didn’t like going slow, but because there were too many people around.  He always felt obligated to them somehow.  At night, there are fewer people on the roads.  We both liked it that way.

  I don’t like houses so much.  I like train stations.  Stamford lights up at night, you can see it from the highway all rainbow.  And the office blocks are always on.  Those lights never go out, they never sleep.  I like the idea of the people who come in to Harrison around 12:45 because I know they’ve caught the last train out of Grand Central for the night.  It leaves at 11:49 and if you miss the one before it you have to wait an hour to get that last one, so you get all sorts of people getting off the train.  Especially on a weekday.  But Harrison doesn’t light up the same way.  It’s dark, lit by work lights that were supposed to be replaced ages ago but never were.  My friend always laughed at our train station, but he laughed at most train stations.  He much preferred cars – even busses – to trains.  You learn a lot about someone if they won’t shut up.

My chest actually tightened.  I breathe heavier.  I flush.  I am confused.  I feel lost.  

I feel I should inform you that this is not some cliched expression of love at first sight.  There is no one with me.  I can contact no one.  I am painfully aware of how alone I am.

I forgot my phone.

Don't laugh; you've felt it too.  Your Ice Cream Sandwich iPhone is just as much a part of you as it is a part of me.  Bloggers speak equally of the democratization of news via Big Brother 8 megapixel smartphone cameras and of the fall of civilized society at the hands of teens too lazy to write out even their abbreviations.  But the fact of the matter is that there is a documented phobia now of being disconnected from these tiny devices and loosing that connection is painful.  One becomes painfully aware of this connection - or lack thereof - and it strikes fear into the hearts of men.

in bed,

And if you were to run your finger up my spine,

like I were a book and you were flipping my pages

- though being touched still startles me -

You would ask again:

"Who were they?  What did they do?"

I might answer.

I would want to say:

Read me. I am a map. It's all there. If you look.

I broke against these rocks, these here.  See?

They led me here.

To bed.

But perhaps you are one of them.

Perhaps you will not bother to read.

No matter how many times I look over,

You aren't there.

This bed is empty.

When all I want is your arm around my shoulders,

the bed is empty.

…As shifting forms become clarified through studious and critical practice, the viewer is left with a summary of the inaccuracies of existence.

Bullshit.

The high white walls of a defunct factory make the small, black-and-white description shrink into an idiotic footnote to a piece of art that, in reality, constitutes a mess of swirling colors that does not in fact become clarified through studious and critical practice.  She skims some more text on the ephemeral nature of the human condition being represented in the conflict between red and blue. Dominant and passive forever in conflict.  Jealousy being the sublimation of sexual desire (Although that one seemed legit, she had heard about it in Psych 101.  Or maybe an English class.  Somewhere reputable anyway).

“What do you think?”

She turned around.  A thoroughly nondescript man stood.  Was there something in the curl of his lip?  She couldn’t remember now.  For now, let’s say he stood. Simply that.  She doesn’t look at him.

“I don’t know.”

“Come on. You think something.  Everybody does.”

He moved a few steps to her side.  He looks up at her.  She’s not that tall. 

“I think the description’s interesting.”

“Don’t look at the description.  Everybody does.”

“Where do I look?”

“At the art.”

She looks.  It’s red and blue.  And probably bullshit. 

“It combines emerging sexuality and UFO sightings.”

He laughs in response.

“That’s where you’re going?”

“Sure.  Why not?”

“It’s about Jesus.”

She looks again for the cruciform.  All she sees is a beam of light and a confusion of squiggles.

“It’s not about Jesus.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

“You don’t know.  No body does.”

Who is this guy? “Who are you?”

“Come to lunch with me.  The café has good sandwiches.  We’ll get coffee.”

“I don’t know you.”

“Get to know me.”

“Does this ever work for you?”

“Rarely.”

“Why try it then?”

“Because I got you to look at the art. And you seem nice. And life is short.”

She says nothing.

“And I’m an idiot.” He finishes.