Coarse, Knotted, Unlovely
By KK Fiorrucci
The woman was on the edge of the sofa, hunched forward, in no great distress. You just have to say something, he says to himself. Even ‘hello’ or ‘good morning’. And / or good evening depending on. Still to himself. it is talking, evidently. To herself. talking.
She went on talking so he made himself coffee, got the milk wrong, made another, messed up again, and settled down to listen. she would would she like coffee would she. It was unusual talking. she would would she well would she and / or would she? You just have to say something! To himself, inaudibly. talking, in a sense. Talking! sort of coarse and / or knotty.
It was talking, evidently, unusual talking, and no words he knew. He sat back, fetched the first, discarded coffee, dipped a finger in both and passed her the warm one, which she took and balanced on her thighs. crossed together. a male and a female. strange talking. He motioned that she could sit back. Relax! a finger in both. carries on.
talking, evidently. She ignored him and carried on, sometimes breaking off to tap her cup or raise it to the height of her chin, lowering it again, emitting the drone he now found quite familiar. talking. carries on. To hear so many words strung together, though he understood none of them. meaning. a meaning to her but you got the gist. for her. a foreign film. He liked the woman. And it was talking, evidently, in a sense. But untranslated. with her free hand and toes to stress the point. good evening good evening. good evening to you.
The woman. Absolutely unembarrassed that they were both naked, or had been, before he had excused himself to find a robe for himself and a sort of tartan avalanche to drop over her shoulders. He interrupted her, again, tried to, ruffled his hair. stress the point. Grunted in a way that would, he hoped, illustrate his advice, but the girl was unstoppable. While she talked, he fetched a towel and stood behind her, folded it over his arm. Please! carries on.
wet through! he’d been lucky with the pile of clothes—she hadn’t noticed and / or wasn’t annoyed. But drying her hair would mean catching her neck or scalp with his fingers, and when this happened, she might scream, or convulse, or cry, or collapse; still, he could not let her carry on like that. grunt grunt. He stood behind her, took up a thick band of hair. grunt grunt ruffle. It was coarse, knotted—unlovely. how do you come. To himself. to her. come to be come to be. how do you. trembling. To herself.
She didn’t flinch. sleeping. He scooped the towel with his other hand and began to shake the hair, lifting it well away from her body, flinching himself as some of the strands left his grip and slapped her neck, and, for a moment, he thought it would stay wet, like sodden rope, but when he took his hand it was better, so he took another length of hair, then another, and finally it was done. done. Done. Awake!
He sat down and dragged the chair closer, still watching in case she panicked, but she had sat back, still talking, softly, calmly, now, and now there were silences, occasional and unique. two silences. a man and a woman. discarded. the strange hill of words.
He imagined letting the hair fall back to her neck, felt the shiver down his own. She talked quite soberly now, still in her own tongue, rearranged the pile of blankets so that it was less embarrassing to them both.
He pictured leaning forward and asking her name, how she had come to be there, looking up, finally, smiling, explaining that she had no memory of any of it, regrettably, and was sorry to have washed up there, for any trouble she might have caused, would, of course, send money for the clothes and whatever it was he had provided, he should merely name the correct figure, round it up to the nearest zero and double it, and what he should not do was to fall asleep.
Refuse
and / or he would only ever picture leaning forward and would never know her name; it was the condition of her existence that he should remain awake. Even a or on the other hand a. Depending on the. Not merely picturing, that was her condition, and he should remember that she was there because he had sought her out. her solid self. It was her, and it was important that he should lean forward, and so he hunched forward on the edge of the sofa, in no discomfort, finishing a sentence that made no sense. sense in a sense in a sense. He vanished into the mound of blankets, mist rising from his glass, remembering that he should not go to sleep. refuse in fact. To sleep!
*
She hoped that there would be something for them to talk about, beyond chit-chat. She could tell him about her thought just then, while she had been thinking of something to say; that way, he might laugh as soon as he opened his eyes and there would be no interruption to his feelings from the night before. They would get on so well that he would forget to leave, all of that, and she knew how it sounded. It would be better to leave out anything about love. He was a stranger, at least for the moment, and either she would get to know him better or she would not. On the other hand, why should she leave it out? That was the way thoughts went, they didn’t roll along at the same speed, in the same direction; some did, but the better ones twisted and turned, made loops of themselves, doubled back and got in knots. He would have to accept it, the way her thoughts went. Just then, he stirred again, without waking, which she was glad about; she might have ended up repeating the strange thoughts that had filled her head just then; knowing him better and knowing nothing, about the strange direction of her thoughts, all thoughts, looping in on themselves sometimes, snarling up, except it wouldn’t come out quite like that, in the form it took in her hand, since thoughts were not just sentences that flowed from left to right in your head, they were seedlings, rooted to a particular spot, and tending towards the light of some particular sun. If you plucked them from their tray, away from the images that had caused them to shoot up, and dragged them out through the mouth, they got snarled up, damaged, and that was what you were intending to present to the other person, they were your thoughts in the most superficial sense, and the problem was that all the other person would hear would be those brittle outer shells—‘love’—all rather heavy for a first meeting, and so, on balance, she was glad he hadn’t woken up, but, then, she was glad that it was him, him in particular; if she had come out with some or all of that, this one wouldn’t have minded, not really, wouldn’t have laughed, as someone else might, but would have paid attention with a very sincere expression and said, ‘yes, I know exactly what you mean about thoughts, mine are like that; in fact, something like what you just described came into my head just then, while I was pretending to be asleep, trying to think of something to say.’ She looked at him, hoping that he might stir this time, but the man’s sleep was deeper than ever. He was not a peaceful sleeper; his mouth had dropped into a deep frown and every few minutes, he muttered something; she could never catch it. It was a difficult thing he was dreaming about and she wondered about waking him up, which you weren’t meant to do, with nightmares, or sleepwalking; the best thing would be to hop down there with him, into the dream, and throw him a knife, a gun, word, whatever he needed, and they’d speed off in a long black car, the usual thing, and there wouldn’t be time for questions, to ask who she was, what business she had there, with him, whose dream it was; it would be understood that she was there to get him out of trouble, and he should be grateful, and just as she was thinking about this, as she remembered that what she should do, as soon as possible, was to fall asleep, since, being asleep, they would be together; just as she was thinking this—that the best thing to do would be to lie down next to him, which she had, some time back now, that she should lie down, fall asleep, and start engaging in the urbane dream-talk she felt he might appreciate; just as she was thinking this, about to fall asleep, as soon as possible, which was the best thing she could do at this point she turned, slightly, felt his breath on her cheek, and opened her eyes to see that, after all, he was awake.
*
You just have to say something, she said, willing herself, or him. to him. Realising immediately it would have been most effective to say it out loud. Even ‘hello’ would have worked well. A good morning. good night and indeed good night. Both on the bed. both awake. Sleeping. together. listening. Listening! listening, in a sense.
All she could remember about the place before the dream—one of them had missed their cue. She’d been annoyed, because it had been an easy one, like ‘hello’ or ‘good morning’, although sometimes the easy ones were harder to place. ‘Hello’, ‘good morning’, ‘good evening’ might appear anywhere. If you let your concentration slip, you might find you had been completely torn from your own setting. one male and one woman. talking. Evidently. a man and a woman sleeping together. You were listening, evidently.
lost, evidently
—you were somewhere, but you were lost, trying to remember what you had to say to the other person, who had rehearsed, who would answer you with great confidence. sincerity. And, since she did not wish to find herself lost, she took herself back as far as she could remember to the cue one of them had missed, ‘good morning’ or ‘good evening’, and she resolved to say it forcefully, because if you showed hesitation over the simple cues, you would get the gritted-teeth prompt, and if you couldn’t remember the simple cues, they would write you off; you would be cursed, then pitied – cued for everything.
dream now finely drawn she doubted it was a dream and had now forgotten what she thought. maybe not.
Then there was a single place where everything was hard-edged, regular, real!
And / or
Lots of places; some were hard, sticky, realish, and others were soft, fluid, dreamish, and you existed, correspondingly hard or soft, in all of them; some of the places you came up with, and others belonged to others. That was what it meant to feel ‘not quite yourself’; you were a clarification, in that case. made by others
a little frail in the chilly evening air. Prelude to a headache and nothing to help with it. Lays on the bed, begins to dream, or wake, then, later, to wonder where. who. She might end up next. With whom. whose invention.
Now. early morning and / or late afternoon.
Silences, occasional and unique. a man and a woman. two silences. words discarded. talking, in a sense. hunched forward, in no great distress, on the edge of the other. leaning forward, a strange hill. himself, herself. Together. a sodden rope. coarse, knotted—unlovely. Leaning forward. listening, in a sense.
KK Fiorrucci writes fiction and essays. His work has recently appeared in Litro (US), L’Esprit Literary Review, Strix and Pigeon Review.