Ramblings.

[henrypearl]

wilting flowers.

  The flowers that rested in the vase were drooping. They had been picked a week prior, plucked by the tan fingers of a tough/pretty girl and sold to a serious man who ran a café. The man like flowers, both the sight and smell, and prided himself in knowing many by name. The flowers arrived to the café on Wednesday, crisp and bright, and would usually stay vertical until Saturday. On Sunday, they were thrown out or given to someone who didn’t mind a bit of a wilt. For a year, that someone was me. I would take them home, struggling to hold all of them in one hand as I bicycled across town, over the bridge, and up the hill to my house.

Once home, I would trim the mushy ends and discard any that were too dead. The ones that passed my test would end up in various jars and bottles scattered around the house, adding a sprig of color to the cracked walls.

I liked the flowers. I liked their beauty, even though it was temporary, especially because it was temporary.

When the blossoms faded to mute, I cast them out the window where the sudden movement would frighten the chickens, causing them to squawk and hop about. The chickens pecked at the flowers with mild interest and their scaly toes pressed on the stalks, breaking down the structures until they returned to the dirt.

[henrypearl]

On hot days, he would take her out for ice cream and they would sit alone together. Since they lived in the Philippines, there were many hot days.

[henrypearl]

He sat in the lobby, freshly showered and shaved, watching the elevator doors, waiting for her to arrive. He held a bouquet of daffodils (her favorite) which he had bought on his walk over. Families bustled and lobby boys hustled, everyone moving as he sat: waiting.

[henrypearl]

A homeless woman carrying a woven basket walked in front of the window, her thick tendrils of grey jumping in the gusts.

[henrypearl]

a batch of pancakes.

My grandfather had come to this country a few decades’ before my birth to cook for the migrant workers who picked the strawberries in the fields along to coast. When I was born, my grandfather was working as a cook in a hospital. I was born in the same hospital. I came into this world on a spring morning, just as my grandfather was cooking a batch of pancakes. As I was being swaddled, my grandfather was told that he had a new grandson. He smiled, removed his apron, and walked upstairs to meet me.

[henrypearl]

 He’d like someone to go with him to a photo-booth and make funny faces.

[henrypearl]

fifteen minutes on the bus.

The bus was silent except for a man who spoke to his son on the telephone, thanking him for watering the grass and telling him about the hockey game that they would watch together when he returned.

And then a crazy man started taking about Florida and his unemployment from being in jail because of a bus driver. And his uncle: David Bowie.

 A small, impeccably dressed, old, old Chinese man shuffled onto the bus. He had lost his bus pass, but the driver recognized him by name and let him ride for free. I wonder how common this happens to the old man.

[henrypearl]

For her, a good day was when she had truly laughed and cried.

[henrypearl]

joe.

Joe was a somewhat quiet man who possessed a strong handshake. He didn’t speak much of his past, but after a time I learned that he was a Texan (or perhaps more accurately an ex-Texan). Joe worked behind a café that I spent too many hours at and so we came to know each other well. As we shared a similar taste in music, Joe would play records of the Old West - Williams, Cash, Robbins- and we would discuss books and thoughts. He spoke easily with people; his low murmur seemed to calm most and his laugh was quick. He would introduce me to the other regulars. I met woman with full-smiles whom I would talk to for hours. I met men who liked to keep to themselves, but enjoyed conversation on occasion. Record flipped, cups re-filled, and time past: sometimes fast, sometimes slow. We spoke about politics, hypothetical questions, and of course, the emotion that drives all artists to depression and elation: love. Joe had been in love twice (maybe three times), yet we never spoke of names. We fished on the pier and though no fish were caught, the time was spent well.

[henrypearl]

The power he had given her vanished and he was once again free to do as he pleased, free (for the moment) of the persistent thought of her eyes.

[henrypearl]

a blueberry muffin.

It was packed in the café: students typing, friends conversing, and the odd businessman doing odd business things. A young girl, perhaps 4, sat upon a worn chair and stared out at a pair of Newfoundland’s that sat patiently. The dogs and child held eye contact for three minutes, at which time her grandfather arrived at the table and they shared a blueberry muffin.

He was the opposite of the girl. She had a tangle of brown locks; he had a thinning silver fringe. She wore pink; he wore dark-grey. Her cheeks: smooth and glowing. His cheeks: wrinkled and bristled. She was small and he was tall. She was young and he was old.

They had the same eyes though, deep green and brimming with life. As they ate (him with precision and her with a voracious nature), they talked nonsense and laughed, as similar in spirit as they were dissimilar in appearance.

[henrypearl]

carl j. darigold.

The most interesting thing that you could say about Carl J. Darigold was that he was a dog person. The second most interesting thing was that Carl was an accountant.

 Carl’s life was planned: a precise balance of eating, sleeping, working and pooping.

The only thing that he didn’t have control over happened once a month and he had learned to deal with it.

 Carl wore the same thing everyday: a grey suit with a grey hounds-tooth tie and wire-rimmed spectacles.

 In the mornings, he would eat a breakfast of ham and in the evening he would dine on discount steak, cooked rare.

 Carl lived alone in a one-bedroom, one-bath, one-person flat on N. Fourth Street.

 Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm, Carl went to work. He enjoyed the monotony of his job, of fetching files and digging into spreadsheets to find whatever it is that accountants find.

 On Saturdays, he would go to Manfred’s Barbershop to get his weekly trim. Manfred, an old widower with a son that never visited, had taken a liking to Carl. Carl didn’t say much during their time together; he let the old man ramble and reminisce. When he left, his head freshly barbered, the old man would pat him on the shoulder and call him a good boy.

 When the moon became a perfect white circle, all of Carl’s hair grew until his skin was hidden beneath a layer of glossy brown. His nostrils split slightly and his nose darkened to a moist black. Lips loosened around a mouth of thickening canines, nails sharpened, and a pair of ears converted to triangles of thin leather. Carl’s ordinary accountant-body morphed itself into a hairy creature and his brain retreated to its primal nature.

 The most interesting thing that you could say about Carl J. Darigold was that he was a dog person.

[henrypearl]

the grey-house.

The grey house that Henry lived in was located on a side street in a coastal town that was foggy. It was old, but not old enough to be considered stylish. The landlady was a raisin of a woman that Henry had only met twice. As long as she got her money, she left them alone. The house had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a hall, a garage, a side-yard, a front yard, a tattered couch on the porch, a dog, four chickens, five tenants and a Swiss girl who appeared one day and stayed.

 The neighborhood was middle-class, but the grey house was middle-aged and it had not matured gracefully. All of the locks were stripped, hinges rusted and the paint curled at the edges of the leaking roof. Sometimes the electricity would stop and they would stumble around with candles, spilling wax and cursing, until it miraculously came back on.

In the winter, it was cold in the house, but they didn’t use the heater because they were too cheap. Instead of electric warmth, they bundled up. Layer, layer, and another layer. Their breath hung in the air and everyone drank too much tea.

In the summer, flies came in the house because the doors were always open. Sometimes they would have a barbeque in the front yard and play music into the night. Fly swatters were passed around and everyone drank too much beer.

[henrypearl]

125th of a second.

He lay awake in the uncomfortable bed, listening to the buzz of the AC, unable to sleep. He had always thought that he wanted to an adventurer, never settling down and always moving; now he was unsure.

Henry wanted to capture life. He wasn’t greedy by conventional standards; he only wanted a grain, not the whole world. He didn’t want to keep it to himself; he wanted to share it with the world. He wanted a sliver, a slice of life, a moment. It wouldn’t have to last long, maybe 1/125th of a second, maybe a bit longer.

He wanted emotion. Not the prefabricated input-output of feelings that was so common. Henry wanted the true face of love or genuine sorrow. He was tired of prearranged poses and waxy, plastic smiles.

Henry had wanted to record life through images and sounds, but he had a preoccupation with Death. During the day, he could appreciate most everything in the world, even if he didn’t much like a lot of it. During the night, he would think about how it would all disappear soon, how meaningless a steady job was if man was fated to die. During the night, he would think about how people were so focused on mass media and celebrities that they let life pass them by. He understood that by thinking this he was pushing his beliefs on thousands of people whom he had never met, talked to, or knew nothing about, but he believe that he was free from the grasp of Big Culture and was therefore more enlightened (not smarter or better). 

The philosopher and the photographer would hash it out in his mind, leaving him unable to sleep. What was the point in documenting life if no one would see it?

[henrypearl]

polly.

Polly was a quiet and patient dog. She would look you in the eye and wait. And wait some more. Her coloring was a dark black, with sprigs of grey on her nose and the tip of her drooping tail. When I met Polly, she had been in the house for only a few days. To me, her past was a mystery and would remain so if I had my way. I didn’t much care for pasts at the time; I was more concerned with the now.

Perhaps Polly had been the pooch of an old aristocrat, a refined lady whose family had lived in the city for eight generations. Maybe Polly had been with a traveling circus and had been forgotten when the troupe had left town.

Polly’s history was a mystery to me, but that was fine. She could rest beside me on the couch and I would scratch her neck until we both fell asleep.

[henrypearl]

claw-foot tub.

It was midnight when we reached the flat. The rain had caught us off-guard, soaking us thoroughly. We changed into dry clothes that we scavenged from closets and drawers: Scott wore cotton pants, Claire had on a tattered kimono and I had found striped pajamas that were a size smaller than I preferred. It was quiet in the flat; the only sound being the rain and the soft pat of our bare feet on the wooden floor. Claire drew up a bath with water that steamed, but was only a few inches deep. I found a dusty bottle in the pantry and Scott located a corkscrew. We sat on the edge of the claw-foot tub, our feet submerged in the warmth, passing the dusty bottle around and listening to the rain.

[henrypearl]

muse.

I sit in a dark café and drink a dark coffee as the rain comes down outside. I try not to think of you, but you keep appearing in my mind. Is it strange that you have such a hold on me? Perhaps it is (we only met twice), but it is true nonetheless. You were able to coax me into revealing much of myself, while I learned little of you. Maybe you will always be a mystery, a memory, a muse.