Sex and Insomnia

[Vatman]

An old woman took a seat beside me as I was reading a book on a bench. It was almost midnight, I have no idea why she should be wandering the streets at such an hour except I had a wistful impression of insomnia and a searching after some meaning that hung upon the moon, and loneliness perhaps. In that moment we were kin.

She sat beside me, and arranged her hands in her lap, somehow a wonderfully comforting gesture, and for a moment we just sat there, almost in companionable silence, as if we were friends of many years’ standing, me thumbing the pages of this rather dog-eared Decadent book, and her gazing ahead as if focused on another world entirely. There is something about the faces of the elderly that constantly fascinates me. She had the most serene expression on her face, and such a face! I glanced up and I found myself staring.

Her eyes were beautiful, a glistening silver-blue full of dreaming wisdom, above a little mouth touched with a glossy paint. Her hair was quite white and so soft and neatly styled, not a strand out of place, and she was wearing an immaculate shirt of lilac, buttoned to her throat and fastened with a little black pin. I think I was simply gazing at this pin, a horrid cheap thing really, but obviously chosen with such care that it might have been the most precious jewel, and I was thinking of how precious it must have been to her, gaudy paste though it was, and how it had taken on an inestimable value as she had clipped and unclipped it day after day and laid it upon a heavy old-fashioned dresser. And then she suddenly turned those pretty pale eyes on me and spoke.

”Young man,” she said, in the carelessly imperious tone of the very old, “What are you reading there, young man?” I offered her my book that she might better see, this battered copy of an english paperback novel, but she waved it away impatiently with a chinking of plastic beads on her thin wrist. “Don’t be ridiculous, I can’t read it without my specs. You’ll have to tell me the title.”

”Small World,” I replied, utterly taken with her. “It’s a wonderfully eccentric book of ideas and morality and sensation.” But I didn’t manage to finish my sentence as she cut me short.

”Is it about sex?” she asked sharply, but I could feel the smiling indulgence in her. “It’s always about sex with boys your age. Well, is it??

I smiled back at her. “Oh yes, there is sex in it. It’s utterly depraved...” It isn’t, not really, and I think she knew that too, but there was a kind of unspoken agreement between us then, that she would play the role of knowing adult to the child she saw in me.

”When you get to my age, you have to read about sex,” she told me. “I’m eighty-two,” she added with fierce pride and a measure of defensiveness. “When you get to my age you’ll be glad of reading about sex, as there’s not much else you can do about it.”

When I left the bench I made sure I left the book behind me, and she took it up and placed it in her purse.

[random_name]

nice =]

[The Apathy]

Vatman Wrote:Her eyes were beautiful, a glistening silver-blue full of dreaming wisdom,

Quote:I offered her my book ”Is it about sex?” she asked sharply

...lol

Quote:She sat beside me, and arranged her hands in her lap, somehow a wonderfully comforting gesture,

This tells me she knows something.... So I'm familiar with the vibe you're describing.

Good Stuff.


Why'd you leave the book? So she could read it or so she would have a reason to continue the conversation?

[youvebeenthunderstruck]

You know, it is my fondest wish that you never find a girlfriend and that you die alone. Acting like "master of the pickup" is going to make people want to murder you, not out of jealousy, but because you're a prick. So shut up.

[The Apathy]

youvebeenthunderstruck Wrote:You know, it is my fondest wish that you never find a girlfriend and that you die alone. Acting like "master of the pickup" is going to make people want to murder you, not out of jealousy, but because you're a prick. So shut up.

Didn't you say you left?? Guess not
"What is a man who ain't got his word?"

[Vatman]

@Spacey

I had my character leave the book as to illustrate a disdain for material objects as well as an indicator to his good nature'd sense of morality.

I am glad you noticed my description of body language. I feel that when you have a deep meaningful discussion online or read a deep meaningful anything, you find yourself losing out on part of the experience that comes with real life interaction. I am working on a way of writing to break that barrier. Obviously I can't do such a thing in terms of the actual.....but I am trying my damnedest to make you imagine the scene.

[Vatman]

youvebeenthunderstruck Wrote:You know, it is my fondest wish that you never find a girlfriend and that you die alone. Acting like "master of the pickup" is going to make people want to murder you, not out of jealousy, but because you're a prick. So shut up.

*chuckles* I don't remember why he said that...At this point in 2008 I should have been already dating my still current girlfriend for half a year....

Also I miss my insomnia series...I think I'll write more...Anyone ever do anything interesting at the very latest moments of the night that I can steal into a short story?

[Rebelnerd]

Vatman Wrote:Also I miss my insomnia series...I think I'll write more...Anyone ever do anything interesting at the very latest moments of the night that I can steal into a short story?

Does chugging a Monster, eating half a brick of Monterrey Jack cheese, listening to Soviet marching songs for twenty minutes and then trying to sneak into the ferry loading yard down by the docks before getting kicked out by an annoying security guard count?