Here I am waiting. Trying to keep busy in the meantime. I work, sleep, gym, dinner with friends; these are things I do to keep busy while I wait. Its such a long fucking wait.
One evening I am having a particularly hard time waiting. I am trying to keep busy with something, not even sure what, maybe it was making dinner or responding to work emails. Either way, I keep looking over at it. Waiting see a change in its state. Alas, nothing but dark glossy blackness. It gets to the point of near anxiety. I think I burned my hand on the phone, I mean stove, due to my inattention to the dinner I was making. Why do I have to wait this long; I start to wonder what I have done. Who did I offend? Is this some kind of karmic punishment. Just when I feel an overwhelming panic of rejection about wash over my entire being... There it is! A flash! Oh thank god! A notification! The small black monolith goes dim before I can make out what the notification says. I grab it and pull it up, like scratching a lottery card it reveals it price. VICE NEWS: US President at..... I don’t even read the rest. A news notification. ugh. kill me. Dreading the long wait ahead I lower the monolith back into rest, but just as my hand is set to release it; it see it in the bottom left. A red dot. Wait? How did I miss that before? Hovering right there over the yellow mask. I anxiously tap the red dot.
I am standing in a long hallway; maybe its a movie theater. Lining the walls are movie posters... well kinda. They are life size cutouts of headless torsos. Standing in front of each life-size cutout is a real person; they are all facing the cutoffs; I see nothing but their backs. I look back at my own cutout. Cheap red lightbulb cut through the corner of the cardboard is flashing. Out of shear repetitive instinct I push the flashing red light bulb. A folded piece of paper falls out from where the torsos dick would have been if his bottom half hadn’t been lopped off like his head. I bend over; pick up the note, unfold and read. It reads... “Hey stud, whats up?” i stare it for a second, stare back at the cut-out. Feeling a little disappointed. I shove the note into my pocket. Wait, as I reach in I find my pocket is full of folded notes. I pull them out and start reading them one by one. “Hey” says one. Another “You look good”, “Sup” “Hey bro” “looking” “looking” “looking” I toss them on ground as I read each one. As I open one of them and read it, i also hear it whispered in my ear “Are you waiting?” I jerk around... nobody is in my ear. Everyone is still just standing at their assigned cut-outs.
I feel like everyone should be watching me, but nobody is. Suddenly self-conscious and aware. I start to think about my posture, I can catch the faint odor of my pits. I feel kinda gross, but also alive. I gaze back around at the lines of men not facing me; mesmerized by the cut out torsos. My body filled with an unexplained energy; I start to do push-ups. A lot of push ups. I am sweating and grunting. All the others continue to look away. “Look at me, damnit! I am real, you stupid fuckers.”
Hours turn to days, to weeks, to months. With everyone’s attention to the cardboard cut-offs; I began to spend my time working out, learning to eat right, creating interesting things and places. I would wander around the hallway of torsos mostly naked. My body harder and more rigid than flimsy cardboard. I would walk behind the real men standing there. Get very close, my hard torso so close to them, I would see a nostril involuntarily flare as they caught a whiff of my musk. Goosebumps as my breath touched each neck. Pressure in the bulge of their crotches as let my solid pecs brush against each turned back.
As I move and grind against their bodies. I am drawn to the one that follows my lead. Who lets his aching for release be known. My mouth against the base of his neck, my groin pushed against his buttocks. He lifts both his arms for a biceps flex. Allowing me to run my arms up his ribs to the armpits; sweaty and ripe, his smell mixing with my own. This feels so good; my being so complete and connected. My mouth still close to his ear, I whisper “Are you waiting?”
