Small Apartment

The brilliant heat of a Duraflame log is burning in a corner fireplace, sending most of its smoke up the chimney, though the small apartment still has the distinct smell of burnt wood. A young woman is laying on her back, stretched out on the thick white carpet of the one-bedroom apartment, her head supported by a large blue plastic bag full of thin folded blankets. Her entire body is facing the fire, the soles of her feet are the closest, standing upright though tilted outwards slightly, taking in the warmth of bright yellow flames leaping towards oxygen.
Two feet from her head, to the left of her body, is a large flat-screen TV. Men in tight primary-colored spandex uniforms run back and forth across a field chasing the illusory ball of dreams. The familiar sound of sportscasters and the low, slightly dull noise from a crowd of thousands fills the small apartment. No conversation can be had over the sound of the TV and no one tries.
Beside the young woman is a large tan dog with wide, floppy ears. The dog is laying next to the girl, pressing into her slightly with warm weight. The dog’s head constantly turns upwards, looking for a hand and affection. As the fingers of the girl’s right hand twirl the dog’s pliable ear round and round, the dog closes her eyes and sinks into the sounds of the room.
Behind the young woman is a plush gray couch. A sheet is stretched across the lower half to prevent the constant attack of dog hair. A short man with thin limbs and a slightly bulging stomach is sitting on the couch, his left hand full of sugar-covered macadamia nuts. Every few seconds he raises his hand and drops a few more into his mouth. He is watching the game before him with mild interest, though he looks around the room every once in a while to see if anything has changed.
A younger man is sitting in the leather armchair beside the couch. His eyes are focused only on the TV. Every few minutes he yells out, cursing some move made by someone thousands of miles away.
Ten feet away from the couch and the fireplace is the kitchen, a small nook without walls that is drenched in overhead florescent lighting. A mother and daughter are in the kitchen. They share the same coloring, pale skin verging on pink, light hair tending towards red, though the mother has taken pains to highlight her short hair in blond streaks.
The mother is moving around the small kitchen rapidly, opening drawers, shutting drawers, turning on the faucet, pulling on the roll of paper towels, opening the oven, closing its creaking door with a muffled bang as the aroma of cooking oranges and cranberries escapes into the scent of burning wood. The mother moves rapidly, repeating the same gestures and movements in quick succession.

Oak Tree

The hum of bees fills the otherwise quiet cool air. They buzz softly around the trunk of an old oak tree where their hive is nestled in a crack that was made in a long forgotten lightning storm. Roots, long and gray, reach out through the carpet of prickly golden oak leaves creating small to mid sized nooks, spaces between the roots where the leaves are thicker.
The canopy of the tree spreads wide like an umbrella and drips to nearly touch the ground so that just a thin band of horizon is viewable between the dark green leaves that hang with resolve on the living branches and the yellow and brown leaves decomposing between the rising roots. Horizon is divided between strips of pale violet sky and the shimmering rolls of grassy hillside, glossy blond after a long dry summer.
A coyote moves smoothly over the hills, ears raised high, picking its way delicately through the rippling grasses with the grace of a ballet dancer. The sweet raspy cry of a hawk pierces the muted hum of the bees and soft rustle of grass, only now and then revealing its presence above the canopy with these cries.
Lying on the bed of leaves a man and woman clutch each other, their cheeks touching. The woman rests on top of the man and he rubs her back and thighs through her jeans and yellow T-shirt, kneading the flesh underneath like dough, his broad hands and strong pale fingers moving slowly and deliberately, almost tremblingly, as if the strength being exerted is only a fraction of what is available and great restraint is required to prevent his fingers from pressing through the flesh to grip her bones.
Her face is hidden against his cheek and neck and under hair the color of old straw that spills out over the ground beside them. She is very still and both bodies rise and fall gently with their synchronized breath.
His clear blue eyes look up from under bushy black brows, gazing at the canopy stretched over them like a ceiling of shivering leaves. Small brittle leaves from the ground cling to the sleeves of his blue and white flannel. His face is smooth and pale, his lips full and bright. His head, covered in a fine layer of dark stubble, rests on a pillow of rolled jackets.
The smell of oak and earth envelopes the place like a perfume and is stirred to freshness by the cooling breeze. Warmth from the heat of the day still lingers in the ground and in the bodies of the man and woman, and on their nearby backpacks, but the breeze carries the coolness of the violet sky and the promise of dusk.
The tiny bodies of the bees can be seen now and then looping their way towards the heart of the tree or venturing away beyond its shelter.
The woman sighs so quietly that it is barely perceptible, except to the man into whose ear her warm breath is expelled at his fingers' urgent request.

Mirror in the Garage

The interior of an old garage smells faintly of old wood and earth. The air is cool and damp although soft light still filters in from the row of windows on the very top of the garage door. The cement floor is cold. It is a pale gray color which is free of any oil spots or spider carcasses or balls of dust and hair. It is a large square space that is filled only with half a dozen white washing machines and an old couch which is a few feet away from being in the center of the space. The couch is facing one of the walls. There are no shelves of built-in wood cabinets. No boxes, no resting cars. The walls are covered in white drywall. The couch is long enough for three people to sit comfortably. But it is a stern couch that lacks comfort and padding. The sides have a thin layer of stuffing, but it is not fluffy or good for resting a head. It is somber and very straight. It does not invite a nap. The upholstery is tan. It is made of many woven little strings in varying hues of brown, beige and tan fibers that combine to form a tweed fabric. There are two people on the couch. They sit close, revealing their intimate knowledge of each other’s bodies. There is a young woman, she is slender and has shoulder length brown hair that is mostly straight but has a few waves. The man, who has his arm draped around her comfortably, has a black beard and long black hair that is pulled behind him in a pony tail. He has a black hat on with a short wide bill, the kind of hat made popular by leftist-guerillas in the tropics of Central America. He has a t-shirt that is almost hidden by a black jeans jacket, but left-leaning political messages sprout from the semi-visible garment. Both their eyes are fixed on the doorway five feet away from them. The door connects to the neighbor’s house. The door has a mirror attached to it and they see their reflection. Him, with his hat. Her, with her big brown eyes. They look into the mirror, but not only does their reflection greet them, but they see a portly woman. She is in the mirror, she is behind the door which is actually not covered in reflective glass, but tinted glass. She is motionless and staring at them. She has short blond hair and large breasts. Her wide stomach is covered in the fabric of her patterned apron. The couple looks into the glass and see her, they see the living room which stands behind her. She stares at them, at the couple sitting on a couch in a white garage.

Darkness All Around

Dark, dark night of dewy grass and forgotten lots. A car is parked alongside a misty road, a white four door Sedan with rounded edges. Three doors are open and the overhead light is on, illuminating the interior of tan upholstery and carpet. Moored in a little bay of black asphalt, it glows warmly like a candle in a dark room. Around it the mist roll and curl and obscure dark stretches of road beyond the small empty parking lot and vaster blankets of green grass. It eclipses the yellowed bodies of naked trees whose leaves have blown far away, leaving only a few little golden tokens spread about the bed of grass.
The sky is void of the twinkle of stars huddled behind the invisible cover of clouds. Without street lamps or the light of civilization, the sky above is unfathomable and inky. The headlights of the parked white car shine out a few feet from its nose, casting their beam over the grassy floor and sea of sparse trees being swallowed by the voracious fog.
A tall young man stands in the parking lot embracing a young woman. He is clad in a bright red cape donned over crisp blue jeans and a new polo shirt of a dark navy hue accented by a band of lightly colored stripes that encircle his chest. The red satin horns of a devil are pinned on his head. His face is clean shaven, his short cropped hair is dark, his eyes are gentle and deer-like. He is engaged in pressing the girl enthusiastically to his breast, his cape rippling in the breeze that moves the white fog around them in sheets of mobile moisture.
The woman holds a video camera in one hand and presses her blonde head receptively into his heart. Her clothes are shabby and oversized, faded wide-leg denim coupled with a baggy long sleeved T-shirt.
A milk chocolate skinned black girl with silky rings of curled hair falling around her Egyptian looking face stands apart from the couple, hovering near the car. Her arms are crossed in front of her body and she stands with her weight resting more heavily on one leg than the other, like a crane poised in the banks of the Nile. Her brows are expertly shaped, her lips are glossy. She wears big slim hoop earrings and a white shearling jacket with slim jeans that accent her diminutive physique.

Dirt Parking Lot

There is a narrow street that comes from a bustling downtown far in the distance. As the road curves, two large white grocery stores are all that is left of motion and commerce. The buildings have no distinguishing features other than being extremely large and brick-like and off-white in color. From the curve in the road, just past the stores, the road descends at a very slight angle and opens up into a large rectangular parking lot. It stretches for a quarter of a mile, then turns once again into a narrow road that leads to suburban neighborhoods far in the distance.
The boundary of the parking lot is defined by tall green-topped pine trees that stand parallel to each other for the length of the lot. There are aging brown needles on the ground right below the trees. The surface of the parking lot is a light brown compact dust. There are a few small gray rocks strewn about the lot and a few large boulders beneath the surface of earth that create slightly raised bumps, but otherwise, the parking lot is a level surface. Just a couple of feet from the base of the pine trunks are parked cars lined up side by side. Just a single row on each side of the parking lot…. red, blue, tan, black and white cars sit silently beneath the trees. The center of the parking lot is a large open space that is free from any metal or rock or bump.
The sun is shining and the needles of the trees shuffle slightly as drops of light-coated raindrops fall from the sky. A young white man with short disheveled hair and white pants is in the center of the lot. His hands are raised and his palms face the sky. He is twirling and spinning, turning around and around. A couple of steps from him is a young, plump woman with a long, flowing skirt and a white spaghetti-strapped tank top. She is balancing one young baby on each of her hips. She is spinning and twirling, gripping the children tightly as she moves. A couple of steps from them is another young, slender woman with brown hair and olive skin, she is spinning and twirling and turning, her hands are raised up, her palms open to the raindrops as they cover her in glistening drops of blue and white light. The three of them form a loose triangle. Beneath the rain and surrounded by empty cars and imposing pine trees, they spin. The rain moves down upon them, soaking them in drops of glistening liquid. The sun is somewhere close, unhidden behind a cloud.

A House and Three Couples

The house is tall and white with yawning arches and Spanish trim. With its triangular roof composed of orange tile it resembles an elegant giant milk carton. The driveway is long and steep, leading deep beyond the front porch. This porch is accessible where a concrete walk splits away from the main current of the drive forming little pools of its own with three stairs of the same followed by another open expanse of concrete that flows under the two grand archways and meets, at last, with the main stair. There are fifteen of these that lead up to the front door, each one carpeted in sparkling green artificial grass. It glitters magically, winking back at the sparkle emitted by mounds of petite glistening ice plant in the front yard. The tiny blossoms of violet beam their radiance back up to the sun as if they were smaller solar entities themselves, regal lords subject only to that greater more effervescent King. The door itself is of a solid wood adorned with beautiful carved panels that display the shapes of large four petaled flowers and broad jagged edged leaves.
The windows of the house are closed tight, the blinds looking blindly outward like eyes without pupils, sealed from behind by insulated curtains. Within the house all is dark. The floor is composed of many polished honey blond wood panels. In the darkness the color is lost, but the sheen is apparent so that it seems almost like the face of a mirror but less lustrous. To the left of the front entry way, a carpeted hallway leads to the three bedrooms and a bathroom that waits at the very end of its track. The thermostat, a little square box with a metallic surface, juts from the wall of the hallway, opposite of a closet meant to accept the hats, coats and shoes of those entering the abode. To the right rests the living room hidden behind those tightly closed front windows. Beyond it, separated only by further yawning arches, waits a dinning room with sliding glass doors that open onto a patio as well as a tiny kitchen that occupies the least space of all these three grand rooms, nestled in the corner as an afterthought. Its floor is covered with yellow laminate designed to look like sunny Spanish tiles. There are more windows in the wall behind the dining table but they too are hermetically sealed, complete with blinds and long drapes whose color is that of rusty anchors. The living room and the dining room share the same wood flooring, but in the living room, an enormous Persian rug featuring predominately the colors of deep red and gold, covers most of the surface. There is a clock hung on the little bit of wall between the arches that separate the two rooms. It reads 6 o’clock. There is also a television set on an imposing entertainment center that stands beside the stone fireplace at the end of the rectangular space. It casts the only illumination in ghostly electric blue hues that spill so far out as to dance upon the dark surface of the wood floor before the front entrance.
Tucked into a makeshift bed of sleeping bags and pillows, a young couple lies sleeping oblivious to the images flashing before them. The woman’s hair is long and blond. The man’s hair is similarly toned and while it is shorter than hers, his is also long. On his neck there is a tattoo of a blue rose. Slightly behind them, closer to the front entrance, there are two rust colored arm chairs in which two elderly people sit in their pajamas and robes: an old woman with hair like the younger woman upon the floor but streaked with gray and an old man with short but unruly hair the color of brushed steel. These two watch the images flashing upon the screen with mute fascination. The scene is unfolding in a bedroom amid strewn bed clothes and candlelight, where a woman in a satin negligee is making love to a partner whose face is veiled by the shadows.

Couple Watching

There is a dusty road next to a desolate field.

In the middle of the field, a middle aged couple sits on a large sofa and watches TV.

They are very happy. They wave at passersby. They wave at me
and ask me to come over. I look at them from the distance.

They have created a gentle, simple world around themselves, around
the sofa, around the TV. From their post, higher than anything
else around them, they can see everything.

But mostly, they watch the TV.