Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 01:35:26 -0500
From: Mustapha Mond <XfragmentofanangelX@hotmail.com>
Subject: Blues of Summer - Part 5

Blues of Summer -- A Parody
Mustapha Mond

Note: Sorry this one is so short, but hey, at least I'm writing, neh?  I
have no great news to report, although I would like to, once again, thank
everyone for your continued encouragement.  This story is becoming a rather
bright point in my life, which otherwise threatens to overcome me with its
mundane repetitiveness.  Not that such a thing is horrible, mind you: I'm
truly a fatalist, and give as much importance to the simple machinations of
one, average day as to the great swells of those rare, magical times we
anticipate in dreams.  Life is life in the details.

V)

	I wake up at once, to nothing more than my pulse and a chattering
bird outside the window.  My sleep was completely dreamless and I feel
tremendously refreshed, despite the late night I put in and -- judging by
my clock -- the early hour now.  Who would have believed I would get up
prior to PM during the summer?
	And yet I am awake and, what's more, feel as though I slept off ten
pounds of worry overnight.  I touch a hand to my brow: the lines of stress
that normally crease the skin into a small mountain range have smoothed
over.  There's the bird, nothing more than a house sparrow, but his song
touches me as a rare melody can -- not on the primitive level of rhythm and
body, nor on the cold level of intellect -- but somewhere within, along
those fine lines of being, nerves of light, which I once heard called a
soul.  And it's not just my ears, but every sensory organ that seems to
have been shined overnight.  In an instant, sitting up in bed, the beauty
of the world rampages through my frail conscious.  The sunlight slanting
through the blinds like a brilliant rose, laying gentle fingertips of color
on every angle of every object, every mundane piece of life; my detritus
glows soft pink, newborn in the early summer luminance; smells roll through
the gentle air, along currents that brush past motes floating in the beams
of sun; I smell the warmth of domesticity, the impression of pancakes and
hairspray, old cedar and musty blankets; I feel the air-conditioned air as
it traces my spine like the veins of a delicate old map.  I am, in this
moment, ready for the world.
	I pull myself out of bed and glide to my shower.  The water hits
like a thousand voices united in rapture.
	I dress, watching myself in the mirror.  There must be something in
my smooth face, I decide, some hint of change or no change.  I look for it
in my eyes, not ravenously or with great fury, but calmly, like a craftsman
surveying some object crafted over many months, lovingly seeking
imperfections that deny his vision.  Am I the same person I was?  My eyes
yield no truth, but I -- hedonist I am not -- even cede a certain beauty
and clarity, in this morning light.
	Dad and Mom are in the kitchen, drinking coffee in unhurried sips.
Mom sees me come downstairs, and at the early hour and the spring of my
step, raises an eyebrow quizzically.  Dad is still chuckling lightly at the
end of a joke.  They are gray haired, plumping, but rosy and possessed of
character in its truest sense.  Seeing them together, leaning into the
table to share close words, still happy after so many years; this fills me
with something great and powerful, which bubbles to the surface in a broad,
unembarrassed smile.
	"Good morning," Mom says.  "How was the party last night?  The dead
rose and feasted on humanity for a while, but I think that was over by the
time you got in."
	"Sorry bout the hour," I say, giving my most devilish grin.  "You
have no idea how hard it is to find a store that'll sell makeup to cover
track marks at 3 in the morning...otherwise, we would have been back in
earlier."
	Dad has found the crossword.  "For future reference, you could just
wear a long sleeve shirt the day after," he says, not looking up.  "Cheaper
that way and, God knows, it's cold enough in here to send a polar bear
hibernating."
	"Pancakes?"  Mom asks.
	I take a seat at the table and eat.  For once in my life, I'm up
early enough that pancakes are warm.  This is a new, wonderful taste, and I
savor it in huge, sloppy mouthfuls.
	"Did you have a good time, at least?"  Mom asks.
	"Sure," I say.  "Not exactly my crowd, but I like parties, in
general.  The hustle, the bustle, that whole drill.  Actually, what was
bizarre, is Tad was there.
  How's that for random?"
	"Tad?  And this was one of Megan's parties?  I'm hardly about to
get an invitation myself, and -- and sorry to say this dear -- but Tad
probably has less cool-party- people-points than me.  Nice boy, though --
definitely one of my favorites of your friends.  Oh, speaking of, Cliff
called yesterday from whatever godawful, tropical paradise cruel fate has
landed him in."
	"How did you end up getting home last night?" Dad asks.
	"Todd and Irene gave me a lift."
	"Be sure to thank them from me," he says with a bemused expression.
"I'm just glad you managed to find your way home at all, from a den of sin
like that, unlike a certain other, no-longer-in-our-will brother of yours."
	Mom starts to remind dad that Mark is an adult, and can diddle
around to his hearts content for all she cares (she says with a laugh), but
I am for a moment in the car ride home last night.  Memory has never been a
strong suit of mine, and it comes less in a string of narrative, but in
images flashing across my eyes, each evocative of some emotion I can't
quite grasp, each -- though not eight hours past -- tinted the deep blue of
nostalgia.
	There is the car, driving down a lonely country highway, somewhere
away from where we live.  Our windows are down and the wind, cold under the
moon, tears through our lungs and we breathe it in great gaping need,
sucking it into our blood like gods giving themselves birth in a sea of
ambrosia.
	There are Irene and her nameless friend in the front, there are Tad
and I, in the back.  A blue light seems to burst outward from the point
between us all, but where it clings to the seats and our bodies, it leaves
rich shadows, promising the warmth of secrets, the beauty of the Romantic
night.  Bessie Smith's voice rumbles beneath our feet, all harsh passion.
	There is Tad, hunching up as he laughs to a joke I tell, his mouth
petite and controlled, his shoulders rolling with each chuckle, seeming to
retreat into himself at happiness, yet emptying his laughter out into our
world, and spreading himself out with it.
	There are Tad's eyes, floating alone in shadows.  There is the
crescent moon, once in each pupil, so radiant swimming in dark brown that,
for one moment I think I see the slits through which his soul looks upon
the universe.
	The phone rings.  "It's Tad!" Mom yells, even though I'm a few feet
away.
	In the seconds before I touch the receiver, before I hear his voice
burning through the earpiece, I realize that he is the sole reason I'm
seeing the world differently today.  Perhaps I am a different person: if
so, I owe him all the thanks my heart can stand.



Ok, this is important.  I have a favor to ask all of you.  In my vast and
infinite wisdom (note the beginnings of sarcastic tone here), I naturally
have anticipated every nuance of plot, every atom of setting, every
infinitesimal fluctuation of character that will take place in my perfectly
structured, immortally written masterpiece.  BUT, I must say, a bit of
advice might be of help.  Ok, in all honesty now, I do actually have a few
ideas for how I want BOS to go, but they're all pretty drastically
different, and unlike some of my ventures into fiction, this story is not
(even remotely) writing itself.  That isn't a bad thing in itself -- in
fact, I interpret it as meaning I've managed to stray away from conventions
enough up to this point that I have flexibility to maneuver -- but I do
have some decisions to make.  So, I'd like to hear what you all want to see
in the future: what turn of events would make this the most satisfying
story?  Two words of warning, first: I'm definitely going to add at least
one more character, which may or may not complicate the plot.  Second: any
conceivable sex scene is so far in the future that there's no need to try
and imagine it now.  With that in mind, please, suggest me up the walls.
There's always a candle burning at XfragmentofanangelX@hotmail.com.  Stop
by sometime, huh?

Mustapha