Interlude


In life,
one pair of hands kneads the dough
in a well lit kitchen
It wants to become pizza, having rested
so lazily in the darkness.
not twenty feet away, a young woman
sits not really contemplating her
paperback, but holding it up
anyway as a shield
against the world.
Her slice is cooling on the paper plate
in front of her.
She watches the reflection
in the glass of a window,
He tossess the dough a whirling
galaxy expanding.
Deftly he catches it and sends it away
and her mind catches on delightedly
Alone, watching, but unwatched,
she has a box seat
to a private show.

pissville

The next week, they began going to work together. He suddenly became aware of his old blue Skoda and how shabby it must look to her. She, however, found it charming especially the fenders. She asked him what model it was and when he said it was called the "popular", she stifled a laugh and said my, it certainly is.
Time passed at home as though they were at sea. There was TV and shopping and losing at bowling. There were strange noises coming from upstairs, only this time he had someone to joke around with. They came up with outlandish band names for the new project Johnny and the boys were working on. Maggie came up with names like BabyWrangler and LL Kool Ranch. Mike added names like the Whiskey Pirates and the royal paint huffers.
Work was as it always had been, but more chafing because he began to have other things that he would rather be doing.
Maggie was working on a different floor. She had been assigned out after a week. Florian said they needed her recent experience with mass media and technology to improve the IT department. This did not bother him as much as he thought it would. He still had someone to talk to at work. Jenny Anyone.
Jenny had been wearing the same style for a month or so before Mike asked her about it. The last style she came to work in was as a 1920's lady golfer in an aggressively plaid outfit and a glossy blue-black page bob.
They had been working on a family file for some time. She was sitting in the chair in front of his desk. Her hair was long and dark brown with waves. Her skin was light bronze which was unusual for her because she typically favored extremes in skin color. Her dress was more of a gown. It was intricately pleated, true, but there were no patterns or hues to it. It was white as snow. It draped off of one shoulder clasped with a simple, pretty brooch of copper with a little
blue stone in the middle. She wore a belt at her waist which brought the dress in and showed some curves that weren't there in her other modes...
Jenny looked up.
"What?"
" I didn't say anything."
" Dude, you're staring at me. What is it?"
"No, no, I just was.."
" Are you checking me out?"
"No, you just look really different. that's all. This is the longest you've kept a look since I've known you. I like it. It's clean and...I guess classical...an' shit."
She smiled. Mike noticed a gap between her front teeth and a birthmark on her neck.
"Is that YOU?"
"Yeah. It is"
When she was alive, her Father used to say that the Gods were so proud of their work when they made his little girl, that they put a little mark on her to show it. She would blush so, even after she'd been wed and had children of her own. Her Husband would kiss her on the neck and walk back from the well with her, carrying her water all the way not caring what the other men in the village might think of him.
She began to blush ever so slightly.
"I like it." Says Mike.
"Oh, Mike..like I give a rat's ass."

They returned to their work.

Maggie had begun working on her sculptures again.