when nothing happens, nothing happens and tonight nothing happened. He rolled over and turned his back to her There was a long silence She took her phone and accessed the surveillance camera installed in her parents' bedroom Nothing happened there either. They were just sleeping It was 01:32 AM Finally, he said, “Hey, have I told you that one story from back in the day when I used to live on the streets? About me stealing a sex doll from a shop?” “No,” she said. “I mean, you probably did, but I was too drunk to remember.” “Alright. So, wanna hear it again?” She put her phone away and turned to him and hugged him from the back and told him to go on She fell asleep before he got to the good part but that was alright it left something to talk about for the morrow or the next…
they were kissing and playfully biting each other like teenagers in love as they walked up the stairs to the bedroom Once inside she made him sit on the bed and turned around to a desk in the corner. Opened the drawer “This,” she said, “was my father's study. He was a writer. And after his death I insisted that this become my room.” From the drawer she pulled out a silver revolver. Showed it to him. “This, he put against the roof of his mouth and fired. I was in my room, which is next door, when it happened. And, as I've told you before, I was playing with myself. Hard. And... it all ended with a bang. A big one. Ever since then, I've been unable to forget the man. How could I when it was him I was thinking about even before? Now, I always sleep in…
All he’s got on him besides his clothes and the bike is a thermos filled with coffee he got from the vending machine at the mall,
coffee bought with money earned from a day’s work of standing by the traffic lights at the intersection, waiting for them to turn red and offering to wash someone’s windshield.
Once on top of the hill he leaves the bike at the base of the water tower and climbs the cold iron ladder.
There’s no one to stop him at this time.
He sits down cross-legged
opens the thermos and pours the coffee into the cup part
“You can’t put a leash on art!” she cried. “The moment you do so it turns from a majestic lion into a grumpy house cat. Tell me, would you rather see grumpy house cats or majestic lions when you go out exploring?”
“Do I really have to answer that?” He said. “Look, I’ve had just enough of your shitty analogies. I’m really starting to think the people at the gallery were right.”
Those words delivered quite the hot stab into her artistic heart.
As an artist she was already quite famous for being rejected at the free gallery for presenting a poem about climate change written on a large, thick cardboard.
Nothing wrong so far, but the letters in the poem were formed with living earthworms and maggots and centipedes and small insects glued to the cardboard.
This morning as she appeared at the foot of his bed, in the light of the covered window, she sucked at her lips and said, “Ah, to spend one's life ever thinking about the girl one thinks one's not good enough for. Pathetic. I so pity the loser who lives life so. You know why?” In response he sighed and turned around and dragged the blanket over his head he was used to breathing the carbon dioxide from underneath the covers rather than fresh air from above But she would not go away this time. Small hands on sharp hips, she said, “What would you do if you found out that the girl you're so obsessed with... is secretly twice as obsessed with you as you are with her? What would you do, eh? If I told you that she's praying night and day to known and unknown gods, begging…
Daydreaming as a profession 