Sometimes late at night I like to scream really loudly and pretend it wasn’t me. I used to swear into the universe to see what would happen. Nothing happened, nobody even told me no. I broke my voice once doing this. After that I had a whiskey mellowed, middle aged jazz singer screening my words for me for a while. I fell in love with the sound of it. I whispered for the joy in it and talked myself to sleep. When I started to sound like me again I realised that you can’t always keep what you love.
I glance off her curves and come over kind of car sick. I have to take my eyes away but she follows them around to my side of the desk and perches on its mahogany lip. I pour myself a whiskey and watch her drain it. She lights a cigarette and asks me if I mind, her words blown through smoke rings like a Lewis Carroll chrysalis. Sure, I say, what she’s doing has to be illegal somewhere. Neither of us laugh, so I pour another shot and hand it to the fist of nerves clenched inside my stomach.
Even though I hate them I let Colt drag me to one of those estate parties. He tells me the point is to get found. So I hide myself away. It’s so dark that I start thinking I made myself up. I hold the whiskey bottle against my chest like an anchor and moor my shoulders into the corners of the closet. The door slides open and I can see the moon staring in over the shoulders of a shadow. I’m ready to give up but the silhouette slips in before I can speak, so I take another drink.
A Few Short Words 