Quixotic

quixotic \kwik-SOT-ik\ , adjective; Caught up in the romance of noble deeds and the pursuit of unreachable goals; foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals.

A Brooklyn apartment with laundry room, dishwasher, and a clean tub that never needs Drano, all included. Office snow days and coffee for a dollar with free refills; a bar where every other drink is on the house. Mangoes that don't over-ripen; an oven that works; knives that cut without sawing. Spending time with the ones that will soon leave, before they do. Realizing when a moment is important before it passes and making that moment last, making it count in its singular beauty. Having good things coincide like new romance when the roads are closed and the cupboards are full and snow is falling outside. Like driving cross country, stopping at every diner along the way and taking a coffee mug from each - just to remember it all by. Sailing the Mediterranean. Sleeping outside under blankets and the stars. Opening a cafe. Looking around and thinking you couldn't have done it any better.

Panjandrum

Panjandrum\pan-JAN-druhm\ , noun:

An important personage or pretentious official.

I can hear the drums already. He is coming.
It is thunderous as a storm. The ground rumbles. Or is it that I am shaking?
I look out the window towards the horizon, where I cannot yet see his approach. I feel a bit like Rapunzel, waiting for her prince, only I do not want to let down my hair. I do not want to be found. Or saved. I do not need to be rescued.
The space around me vibrates and I watch as picture frames fall over. I look around my room, wanting to take in everything. The simple lines of shelves and bookcases, the soft expanse of the bed, the solid stature of the desk with pen and paper and ink. The simplicity and order of everything.
The pages of a notebook flutter and shift. The mirror tilts. I look at my reflection, askew.
The day has come.

Beseech

beseech \bi-SEECH\, verb; to ask earnestly; implore

We had never been out here this late before.

Okay, that was a lie. We had been meeting up in the same location at least once a week for the last month or so, but I tried not to think about it.

Well I think about it all the time actually. I can't stop myself. The nights we meet are the most exciting things that have ever happened to me. Although I wouldn't exactly call it exciting stuff, I guess. It's not like we really do anything. We just sit there and look out at the ocean, the blackness of it. We more like listen to it, I guess. It's not like you can really see anything. Except for maybe the lights of far off boats...tankers...ships. There's also the sound of the water, lapping onto the beach and then being pulled back into the deep, like the sound of sequins falling to the ground. If the moon is out, the water kind of shimmers like sequins too, or how I imagine sequins would shimmer. Or like I imagine the sound of it falling would be.

I don't really spend my time imagining things like that. I don't know where that came from. I just get so excited to think about those nights, I guess. These are all things that I want to say out loud to her while we are just sitting there, staring out at the water, but I don't say anything. And she doesn't say anything. The night our meet-ups started, the first night I found her there, we didn't say anything either. When she saw me approaching, all she did was stick her finger to her lips and give me the signal to be silent. I was just so surprised to find someone else out on the beach so late at night that all I did was stare at her and then sit down right next to her.

Well it wasn't all I did. At first I was going to just walk on by her and try to mind my own business but I got about 5 steps away before turning back around. I had gone out to the beach to be alone and do my own wandering, but when I stumbled upon her, it just felt right to be her companion and to make her mine. Two lost souls staring out at the open water, dreaming of far away places...

Actually that isn't quite what I was dreaming of, and I don't really know what she was thinking at all. I still don't know. We still don't talk. But the same night every week, I walk over to that same spot and there she is. Of course she could be there every night of the week for all I know, but I figure she must be there for some sort of privacy and so I ought to give it to her.

Honestly I'd be there every night too if mom wouldn't fuss about it so much, but I know she would.

The beach really is so peaceful. It's like the world is quiet there. The world is so big and it curves, but on the beach its largeness almost seems small. Or rather you just feel like such a part of it that it can't be much bigger than you are. Or you imagine that's how big your insides are, how big your heart is, how large your possibilities. And it's where you can meet someone and not talk and still feel like you know that person through and through. Like you can see the light in them, way off in the distance.

Lampoon

lampoon \lam-POON\, noun, verb:
1. a light, good-humored satire
2. ridicule with satire

Why do we want cigarettes if they are bad for us? Do we want them because they are bad for us? Is that the only reason to like any bad thing? Why alcohol is craved after work? Why a one night stand seems so compelling? Is it really compelling at all or has it become cliche like burning for a cigarette when out drinking?

Well whatever it is I like to smoke when I drink and when I drink a scandalous night romping in the bedroom sounds like a pretty good damn idea, and then give me another cigarette and a cup of coffee in the morning. Sure, I'll take it in bed. Why rush off?

But who am I kidding? I've never had a one night stand in my life, and cigarettes make my throat itch and cough up little green balls of goo when I brush my teeth. Hell, I can't even stand the smell of the smoke on my fingertips or in my hair or on my clothes. It pisses me off actually. Why does something that feels so good have to have so many lingering and malignant repercussions? And why does something as refreshing as a morning run so impossible to set in motion? Forget how good it feels afterward - the idea is just plain unappealing when you're lying in bed, snug under the sheets, warm toes, warm fingertips, maybe even a warm body pressed up against you with all of their warm toes and fingertips. That's good too, isn't it? Who needs a run then? No matter how good it might feel when it's done. You could trip and fall too. Get your hands all scraped up. At the very least your nose gets cold and it starts running with you only in an unpleasant way that won't leave you alone until you've wiped what's running onto your glove or sleeve and it seeps in there, glistening in the morning sun, reminding you of just how damned cold it is. Oh and your nose is still pushing out more. No, I say it's best to stay in bed.

Anyway, doing the healthy thing has yet to put a warm body between the sheets lying next to me.

Embonpoint

embonpoint \ahn-bohn-PWAN\ , noun;

1.

Plumpness of person; stoutness.

A teapot sits on a stove, blue

flames licking at its bottom,

incessant, contained, flickering.

Bubbling can be heard, a low

whine that will soon turn to screaming -

a low, round mug waits,

set on the countertop,

A man waits with it, watches

from a stool, his butt careening

off the sides, spilling even,

He waits, head on hand, wrist to elbow,

bone angling into the flesh above his wide knee, he watches

the pot get hotter.

There is an ache in his throat that grows,

crawls with fits of coughing and cackling

hacking sounds that he has come to keeping down

With jaws shut and honey in a cup that waits

with the man, staring as the steam jumps and shoots

toward the low ceiling -

The legs of the stool snap.

Fecund

fecund\FEE-kuhnd; FEK-uhnd\, adjective:

1. Capable of producing offspring or vegetation; fruitful; prolific.

2. Intellectually productive or inventive.

It's nighttime now. They are both asleep. Another thing that they are that I am not. I don't think I have slept since my body became mine again, since the hospital. I slept the day they let me out, the day we got back. He said that he would take the baby and that I should rest. So I went to the bed and I rested. I looked at him and I thanked him and I kissed them both on the cheek. I had enough love for them to do that, didn't I? And then I walked up the stairs, ran my hand along the banister, and crawled into bed. I fell asleep almost immediately.

The pillowcase was cool, a blessing on my feverish skin, my throbbing brain. The sheets were a mess and I could almost find the same spot my body had been in before. Before when I could almost pretend that I was still only me. Still just a woman. Still just a wife. The time before that strange sensation came. Before I got myself up for what I assumed would be my nightly communion with the toilet bowl. Before I took a few steps and the fluid started to seep out and scurry down my legs. The time before the beginning of what I knew would be the end. Of me.

Now it is nighttime again. And I know I am no longer just me. I hear the sound of two other sets of lungs breathing. And when I hear that sound and feel their presence, another feeling comes to me. The feeling of my own breath escaping me as if the air were rushing to the sides of the room, as if there were only enough for the other two. That I have to sacrifice. Always sacrifice. And for a moment, I stop breathing at all. For a moment, I wonder if I will ever breathe again. And I wonder if I want to.

Depredation

depredation \dep-ruh-DAY-shun\, noun:
an act of plundering or despoiling; a raid.

"Argh!" "Arrrrrgh!!" "Aaaaaarrrrrggh!!!"

He stood in front of his mother's full length mirror in his pirate costume, practicing his "Aye matey"s and his "swash-buckle"ing. He swung his sword around and held it high in the air. His mother wasn't quite sure if pirates genuinely had swords, but it didn't really matter. She knew he just liked swinging it around. He liked drawing it out of its holster and thrusting it at walls and through doorways. Thankfully, no one yet had walked into harm's way and gotten the wind knocked out of them.

He hadn't approved of the carved pumpkin shaped candy holder. It didn't go with his pirate clothes. So she had fashioned something out of random fabric in her craft drawer. It almost looked like a hobo traveling pack to her, but it had been boy-approved. She would attach it to the sash tied around his waist. He didn't want it to look like a candy bag. Pirates didn't carry around candy purses. They captured gold! Booty! Argh!

In keeping with the theme, she would wear a raggedy old dress and personify the damsel in distress. She would let him threaten her with walking the plank and she would shriek in fear when he raised his weapon. She would refrain from hugging him too much, from telling him not to eat so many Sugar Daddies. In their own candy jar for the kids who would knock at their door, there were mounds upon mounds of chocolate gold coins.

The boy wondered what kind of a pirate would give away his treasure, but he would say nothing to his mother. It was obvious she just didn't get it.