Jason awoke to the sound of Sasha barking and whimpering as she skittered around on the apartment floors chasing some invisible figure. The movie had just finished, and the credits were playing. The herbs he bought from Roots were having the desired effect as he entered the fourth level of experience and found the clarity to see to how he should proceed. He finally understood that the past twelve years had been a waste. He had been wallowing in depression and his own self-pity. He remembered countless times where he promised himself he would live life happily and to its fullest but he always failed
Now it was different. Now he was ready to find someone who he could care for as much as he had for JLC. He reached into the inside pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out the slip of paper that she had placed there the night before and called the number. A smooth, sensual voice answered the phone, addressing him by his full name.
“It’s over. You have tried to pull me back in for the last time. I no longer feel the desperate desire for the physical pleasure which you used to keep me coming back. You had your chance, and you blew it. I’m moving on and this is the last time I plan to talk to you.” Then the line went dead, and as Jason’s heart beat steadily returned to normal, he began to think what his next move would be.
Was there anyone he liked or felt close to that lived in Thallow Flats? Anyone he felt he could trust and tell them anything and everything he was feeling? There was one person. She always seemed to walk around by herself and whenever she was in the Tavern, she never drank. She sat alone with her notebook at one of the old, grimy tables for hours, writing and watching. That’s one of the things he noticed about her, she was always watching people. A few times he thought he saw her looking at him. There was something different about her, a detachment from life, yet seeing the secret present in it. From what he knew, she was around 23 and was from the
The only problem was he had no confidence. He had never asked a girl out before, not even the one with whom he had spent two years of his life. That was one of the reasons he drank. He hoped that one day it would help him become looser and less nervous around women, but it never did. He was utterly pathetic, but hoped that it would be different just this once.
By this time Sasha was jumping up and down on the couch barking to be taken out. As they walked through the lobby, a man raced passed them, stopping just outside the door with a bewildered look in his eye, as he began to look frantically for some item of interest. He remembered this strange man as having introduced himself as Jimmy at the Tavern the night before. Jason thought it would be polite to say hi, but before he could say anything, Jimmy ran off down
5 comments:
i really like this one...i think its my favorite
reminds me of a friend of mine :-D
A short walk later Roots stood at the front entrance of ROOTS' EDIBLE HERB EMPORIUM and proudly turned the key and entered the shop. The sight that greeted him was a large unlit room; to his left were rows of tall wooden shelves extending into the darkness, most filled about halfway with an array of unidentifiable objects. To his right were one long display case and one long desk forming an L shape jutting from the right wall. Roots switched on the lights and walked over to the old cash register sitting on the front desk. He counted out 37 dollars, in ones, opened the cash register and reverently filled the five slots with bills one at a time. Once he had filled his register with bills, he organized a messy collection of postal scales sitting on the counter and reached inside a lower drawer to withdraw a plastic “OPEN” sign. Roots held the sign in his hands and proudly marched towards the front door of the shop. He hummed a kind of epic, triumphant tune as he marched, and was reaching up to tape the sign to the inside of the door when the door opened abruptly and smacked Roots in the face. Roots dropped the sign and fell with a thud straight on his bum. He quickly scrambled to get up and regain composure; he was immensely embarrassed to look like such a fool in front of his very first customer. He looked to see the expression on the customer's face as he stood up, and was surprised to see that the customer, a rather intense looking man in a nice leather jacket, hadn't yet noticed him! The man was looking off towards the front desk with a serious, somewhat dramatic expression on his face. Roots ignored the fact that the man had just floored him with an overly vigorous door opening, despite the fact that the entrance door was clear plastic, and instead stepped into the view of the man and made a little bow.
“Good day good day sir! Very nice of you to come, thank you for visit my shop. Today is first day of opening, you are first customer! I make you special price, whatever you like, yes? Perhaps some thing for relaxation? Maybe you like Bai Shao Xiong? Very nice, very very soothing. Make you feel like you on nice soft cloud. Or maybe root of Tangkuei? Extra potent, super fresh. Make you super warm, real nice with wine. Or perhaps-”
The man seemed to have been half listening, with a bored disinterested look on his face, but here he interrupted Roots and very seriously said, “I've come for Salvia Divinorum.” Roots had gotten quite excited as he talked to the new customer, unconsciously swaying and moving his arms in animated emotion, doing a little dance in front of the rigid man. But at hearing the man's request Roots froze in the middle of this dance, his arms in an awkward kind of Egyptian stance, one raised and one lowered. Salvia divinorum. Játiva. The Diviner's Sage. Roots knew much about the “Sage of the Seers,” briefly he had lived in Oaxaca among the Mazatec shamans who still practiced the old ways. He had seen men enter the ceremonial huts, had heard the sounds that pierced through the clay walls, sometimes chanting, sometimes screaming, sometimes shouts of joy. He had seen the transformations that took place in those who underwent the vision quest. Often they would emerge with a look of dazed awe, many who chewed the leaves of the Sage found profound peace, but some did not. Roots had seen men enter the sacred hut with fear in them, he had heard stories of those who had tried to fight the Sage. For those who took the journey and resisted, the herb destroyed them. It killed their ego, murdered their self, decimated the mind. Roots knew the hallucinogen in Salvia was the most powerful natural psychoactive known to mankind. But he reasoned to himself, the Mazatec shamans consumed much higher doses than this man would, and Játiva was known to bring about a powerful change in consciousness, the nature of the herb was highly spiritual. Roots looked the man in the eyes,
“Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“Yes.” The man responded.
Roots shivered uncontrollably as a strange cold wind cut through his body. He hoped so.
The woman turned, a coy expression on her face, and began walking toward Mamet. Her hair glistened in the light and cascaded down over her olive shoulders. Mamet was mesmerized. Her movements were so fluid as she glided toward him. The light, flowing fabric of her dress floated around her perfect legs. Mamet thought she looked as though she was drifting on a cloud. She raised a delicate hand and gestured for him to come nearer. Her fingers were slender and graceful and they seemed to pull Mamet towards her like a puppeteer. His feet felt like lead as he began moving in her direction. As they came closer together, the straps of her dress began to slide off of their perches on her shoulders. Mamet's heart quickened with anticipation.
VROOM VROOM VROOM! The sound of the Yamaha motorcycle's engine woke Mamet with a start. His eyes shot open and he jumped out of bed, and ran to the open window. Looking down, he saw Jason turning of his bike and removing his helmet. "Dammit Jason", Mamet shouted. "What the hell are you doing with that piece of junk this early in the morning"? "Just trying to clear my head", Jason yelled back. "How the hell is the racket supposed to clear your head", Mamets retorted. The man thought for a second. "Well, somethin about the adrenaline rush that I get, sorta helps calm my nerves", he said. Mamet couldnt understand some people. "Well th e next time you come through here this early in the morning, Im going to fill your head with something that adrenaline sure as hell wont cure"! Mamet slammed the window and sat down on his bed. A few seconds later, he dashed back to the window, opened and shouted down at Jason, "You should try shrink. Or maybe a woman. That bike isnt gonna work for you. Believe me, I know." He closed the window and went to take a shower. Damn motorcycles.
Mamet sat at his table, eating cereal, and thinking about the dream. Dreams normally didnt affect him. Dreams were just the subconscience dumping out the extra garbage from the day. However, something about the girl got to him somehow. It was as though she reminded him of a person that he had known, not in physical apprearance, but more in idea form. This made no sense, and Mamet hated pondering over things that he couldnt understand. Grunting, he threw the rest of the cereal down the garbage disposal, grabbed his hat, and headed out the door. Electing to take the elevator, Mamet pressed the button and waited. The bell dinged, and the door opened. Mamet begab walking through the door with his eyes angled down. As he stepped across the small gap, into the elevator car, he looked up at the person standing in the elevator. It was her.
All she could see was one of his pastel eyes, the striaght line of his nose, and his small thinly crafted lips as they approached the foaming glass. She watched as he considered drinking and then as he set it down looking disgusted with the idea of beer. Night after night she had wandered into the dingy wretched bar with no other intent than to watch this curious man, who seemed to do nothing but suffer. Alana could not understand why, she had seen the younger woman glide up to his shoulder whisper something and then saunter away, a deep twinge of jealousy washed over her and then disappeared. In a moment of desperate desire she stalked out of the decrepit bar and meandered towards her own apartment building with her head down and her arms crossed.
Alana swept past a man older than herself yet not considered old, maybe middle-aged. As she moved past him she slowed dwn to what seemed like a crawl, she didn't generally see people when she returned at three or four in the morning. Their eyes connected and the five seconds they spent passing eachother lagged on for an enternity. One of his rough mechanic oil stained hands glanced her arm and she jumped away from him.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you." He reached out to her and then swiftly drew his hand back.
"No.. I..I don't know.. know why I jumped. Please, forgive me." She stammered, eyes cast down twisting her foot on the cheap tile.
"Name my.. I mean my name..," he blushed a deep crimson, "My name is Raymond."
Alana lifted her head and stared this scared man in the eyes, the frankness of her gesture made him glance away.
"My name is Alana." her thick middle-eastern accent coated her words, "It's nice to meet you."
"It's nice to meet you too," his words tumbled out of his mouth and he seemed to want to drag them back. Alana smiled and turned away, leaving Raymond slightly dumb-founded at his momentary extrovertedness.
Next Day:
The early morning sun poured into her small room as she lifed her sleep leaden eyes. She stretched her lithe body and arched her back like a cat. Alana rolled out of bed and let her brown bare feet rest on the frigid floor before she walked to her batheroom. Cold water splashed into the bottom of the shower. She stuck her hand in and then jerked it out, realizing she had not turned on the hot water. The handle squeaked as she turned it and the water tank began to whine.
She stepped out of the shower into the freezing bathroom and wrapped herself in a towel. She made a quick egg and then walked out of her apartment. The hall was deserted as it usually was at eight in the morning, but the foryer was bustling with people, if one would call four people bustling. The runners were up as always leaving or returning but never noticing anyone else, they were caught in their own world just as Alana was caught in hers. She breezed through part of the town without noticing anyone or anything. Everyone was a blur that suddenly slowed to a crawl when they passed her, all of them seemed to lock eyes with her, but it never made her uncomfortable or scared. She slipped into the community garden and closed the gate. Alana removed her shoes and her jacket and dropped them on the dark earth near the entrance. She skipped over to the swing and plopped herself down on it. This was the only truely enjoyable part of her day, swinging on the garden swing like she saw the children doing later in the afternoon. The wind whipped through her thick hair and wrapped itself around her skin. She swung high enough to see over the ivy covered fence, and for a brief second she saw the familiar frame of a man she felt she knew but had never talked to. Her heart faltered and a squeak leaped from her throat as her foot caught the ground and she was launched onto the ground. As she gathered herself, the door swung open and blue alarmed eyes stared at her.
who is jessica??
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