I remember that day, or that is, I try to. I close my eyes and try to summon the details, those small details. You know the kind; the patterns on the side walk—the exact color of the bricks—the way the shadows shifted in the wind. Those details, those vivid details. But memory is a funny thing, for me at least. Things get smeared, like a surrealist painting, Dali on a bad day. Melted bright, too bright, yellows and somber ochre’s…clouded together. Colors that don’t make any sense. People move in slow motion in the memory, they are extras. Actors earning scale to move like animatrons, to move in slow motion in this surrealistic film with colors that make no sense.
I digress. It’s a habit, or maybe a proclivity, or maybe I just get off into tangents…my mind moving in too many fragments.
That day—the day I saw the angel. The day I beheld that amazing beauty, that stunning vibrancy, that…that…that indescribably need. Yes, need. He exuded need like some people say I exude sex. To me they are both the same things. But I digress again…
I know the way I remember it, can’t possibly be the way it really was. How is it possible that the world slowed down? That the colors melted into shades of yellow ochre? That all the people became extras? In some macabre neo-nihilistic film?
The colors ran though—like when you pour vodka on a watercolor painting. Yes, just like that.
Except him. He is sharp and clear, so sharp he cuts my mind even now, in memory he slices through my cerebral cortex…like so much hot jelly. The image of him…that amazing beauty, that vibrancy, that intense need. The need he exuded like…well.
I don’t remember anything else about that day, or all the days that came before really. I stood there on the sidewalk and watched as the car came careening around the corner—in slow motion—the child on the bicycle. I was aware of both at the same moment and knew with certain prescience that fate was unfolding…in slow motion, smeared colors and this intense need.
I try so hard to reverse it, to run the film backwards, to somehow un-pour the vodka. The people still move in slow motion though no matter how hard my mind tries to force them to move in normal time…normal space…normalcy.
That is where I saw him.
Yes - The angel. Standing on the curb across the street, also watching fate unfold—in slow motion. Our eyes met. And I was struck by that beauty, struck like lightening unfolding like a bolt through my head - my soul - my God. That need he exuded…such a need. Tangible in its enormity.
He smiled. God he smiled and held his hand out—as though motioning towards this unfolding scene. This car careening around the corner—this child on the bicycle.
As those two worlds smashed like ions into each other...the orgasm hit me…at the same instant something similar hit him…some angelic form of orgasm.
The abatement of need.
Of this indescribable need.
As the careening car and the child on the bicycle met in cataclysmic horror. As fate unfolded—in fucking slow motion—as souls collided and screams began to ring like bells in a cathedral…bats in my belfry.
I stood there, engulfed in my orgasmic shock. Trapped in this vibrant horrible abatement of need…need…exuded like sex. His eyes closed slowly and he sighed, I swear I felt his slow intake of breath—he sighed…sighed…the need abated.
I don’t remember the chaos that followed, but they talk about it. They try to make me talk about it too, but I don’t remember it. They tell me, they tell each other, in whispers…how I stood frozen on the sidewalk peering down at this bloody broken thing that had once been a child on a bicycle. I do remember the smell of the blood, sharp and pungent…as it washed over my shoes.
They say some day the shock will wear off and I will be okay again. I laugh—inside—I was okay before?
And so I focus so hard…so hard…so…hard…on that memory. Trying desperately to capture those details, you know the details? The patterns in the sidewalk and the exact color of the bricks…
But all I see are the bleeding colors that make no sense and his eyes as he sighed. And that need washes over me, that need he exuded…yes…like sex.
And nothing will congeal into a solid picture, except him…and his sigh…as his need was abated.
The abatement of need.
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