Cori’s Toys

She looked like she had a secret. I sometimes liked that in a woman.

From across the bar on an overcast night, I saw a girl who looked like you. Ah, her voice, it changed with what she wanted, the way she said “please,” the way she said “now.”

I wanted to buy her, your doppelganger, a drink, but did not have money for so grand a gesture. Besides, before I could act I was already traveling backwards on trains of thought.

I am looking at her, but now it is more as a focal point, as I think. It is in this way I now see them both. Although I knew no one else would, I found it funny. How carnal desire always managed to erase memories of all those Saturday night battles fought and won. Whoever called it the tender trap was only living half a lie.

I knew it was all coming to an end, not from a fight, but one of those brief moments of peace. A moment spent alone. An overcast day. I did not have to be across town until tonight. I scrape the bottom of the can to make coffee. The one record she did not break during one of our fights, the music perfectly syncs up with the weather, a sort of laconic murmur.

What could we have had if she had been here for this? Subconsciously, I already knew these moments would always only be a mirage, ever just out of reach as our two pairs of hands snatched at empty air.

That night we met up at the little Chinese restaurant which since has burned down.

Our last fight combined with that, made for a sort of perfect symmetry. I do not know where I was for that, but I would have watched it. Ah, her voice, always her voice for me. It feels like it has been forever, I have been through so much, the taste of blood still in my mouth.

It has aspects of a dream at this point, but one which I manage to clearly remember, I am a liar, I am sorry baby, I am still only a man.

We sat in the corner booth, away from everyone else. This showed intent on her part.

The waiter came, she always ordered. She did not order a lot this time. Intent.

At first she tried silently sulking, glaring at the wall, but this was taking too long for her taste.

She brought up trivial things with which to annoy and I played right into it. She did not like trees with leaves, I think she just said that to spite nature, another argument which I still did not understand.

“You don’t like the Japanese Maples, each leaf a pointed red valentine?”

Of course from there it escalated. To tell anybody what our final fight was about would have sounded absurd. But it was the subtext, always with us it had been what was going on underneath. There were moments of silence while she waited for me to say something, I stubbornly tapping my glass. She showed fantastic self control in her silence. Her pacing on this last one was that of a virtuoso.

After a while, she began repeating herself, I knew I was not going to eat. I stand up, my napkin was still folded. Leaning forward, I kiss her. Cold lips, cut from the city’s concrete.

You bring me down, so I had stayed awhile with you.

Eventually every sound, everything will sync up with the tapping of my finger on an empty glass. The big bang.

Come and see.

All our fights, we are the city’s jesters.