So speaks the voice of experience

Turn left. She is all polite­ness, but laced with the venom of palp­able men­ace. Turn left. Don’t want to. You can’t make me. Turn left. But I prefer the river. You can’t. You can’t go in the river. Why not? I could be quite the most expert of drown­ers. I could suck up city efflu­ent like a pro. A dumped pro, pulled fresh from the inside pages, the ink-stained columns, made rot­ten to the core by the swirl­ing under. Turn left. But there are lights. And a brick wall after the lights. And after the brick wall, no light. No more light. Turn left. I’ll grab the wheel if you make me. Turn left. Turn left. Turn left and drive. For­ward into noth­ing. Turn left. Bear left. Keep left. You and your chilling, meas­ured tones. Filling me full of battery-powered loath­ing. How do you do it? You always drag me out of the sure­fire destruc­tion, the path of myself. Dead­set. With your left, turn left, what’s left. What’s left? Just go left and stop arguing with the air-conditioned empti­ness. Just go left. Go left, like I said. Like I always say. Left, yes. Left and leave me. Leave me behind. Set me down by the side of the road, so I can see where I came from and retrace my steps. Turn around when pos­sible. Then you have reached your des­tin­a­tion. Turn around to reach my des­tin­a­tion. Yes, those are the first sens­ible words you’ve said; the last sens­ible words I’ll hear.

Comments: 8

    nice

    xtx | 03.16.09, 21:58

    I have had some thoughts after read­ing this and they are all reas­sur­ingly banal:

    ‘Just stop and ask for dir­ec­tions already.’

    ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up in the river.’

    ‘Pre­dict­ably, I want one that sounds like Stephen Hawking.’

    ‘Lefty loosey, righty tighty.’

    Um. Yes. I think we can all agree I should leave the writ­ing to you.

    Ani | 03.16.09, 22:09

    Three lefts make a right :)

    I enjoyed read­ing it till the end. Love your writing.

    Silent Reader | 03.17.09, 02:21

    me likey

    espe­cially this: “I could be quite the most expert of drowners.”

    Robb Todd | 03.17.09, 12:50

    xtx — thanks.

    Ani — No, you shouldn’t leave the writ­ing to me. The quips, how­ever … well, you might have a point. :P

    Silent Reader — Hello and wel­come. You’re right about the three lefts. And I guess after four you just end up going round in circles.

    Robb — Thanks, too. I like the word drown­ers. It’s one of those that sounds per­fectly legit­im­ate and yet … wrong. One shouldn’t be labelling people who drown, surely?

    An Unreliable Witness | 03.17.09, 14:21

    Words are bas­tards. but some­times they are all you have,
    Always remem­ber: If you do not run your life some­body else will.

    mariana | 03.17.09, 17:47

    ‘I like the word drown­ers. It’s one of those that sounds per­fectly legit­im­ate and yet … wrong. One shouldn’t be labelling people who drown, surely?’

    people who throw them­selves under the tube? (all trains? just the under­ground?) are ‘leap­ers.’ like … that’s the tech­nical term.

    which is strange. because ‘leaper’ sounds rather a joy­ful word.

    Roberta | 03.18.09, 00:28

    Mari­ana — Hello and wel­come. You’re right on two counts. Words are bas­tards. Com­plete and utter bas­tards. And far worse descrip­tions besides. But they are all I have, at least.

    Roberta — Yes, leaper and dan­cer, both joy­ful sound­ing, but only one actu­ally joy­ful. (And dan­cer isn’t even joy­ful when I hap­pen to do it — just pain­fully embar­rass­ing.) Drowner, I think, sounds kind of lan­guid, though, des­pite the way in which I used it in this piece.

    An Unreliable Witness | 03.19.09, 10:17

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