Fishbowl - A Story for Lovers

"you stick with me although

you know I'm gonna ruin your life"

- God & Satan

1. Ramona

I wish I could pinpoint the very second I got into this wretched state of affairs.  The Ramona of ten years ago would kick the ass of this sorry girl.  Licking her wounds, with a few crumpled notes in her pocket amounting to some £35 and a cold latte, at 6:30 am, having just cleared customs at Gatwick. 

I hadn’t eaten for days and had recently taken up smoking.  Knowing I wouldn’t be able to light up for hours was killing me. I should have been perturbed by my chain smoking; incessant, compulsive.  Who does that?  Who has the world crash around them like the raindrops so big they splatter into puddles and stubs out the pain with poison?

The stench was stuck cold inside the calloused skin of my fingertips.  Nothing had tasted so putrid and sweet since my days as an amateur photographer spent in a darkroom.  Developer.  I sniffed harder than I could manage a thought. 

I’m out.

 2.  J

I’m glad she’s off.  I’m glad she’s gone and I don’t have to see her pleading, weepy eyes for days to come.  I don’t have to dig into this nothing and pull out some raw emotion I can’t give her.  Some grand apology I don’t feel but need to say anyway.  Who does she think I am?

I feel nothing.  I’m not sorry I hurt her.  I’m sorry I got caught.  I’m sorry she is smarter than me.  I’m sorry she was right all along and I wasn’t able to cover my tracks better.  What do they want me say?

J sat on the back porch waiting for the night to finally befall him.  The days had never seemed long.  He'd only noticed it could be different when she'd said "all my summer days were over by 8."  It was almost 10 pm and the light still shone.  He stared at his wobbly knees and watched the dog seek a dirty toy.  No rain for days, warm, a fag in hand and a can in the other.

J had been giving it a lot of thought lately - being a good person, that is.  He always heard people go on about it.  People excuse all sorts of behaviour - inclunding her.  Especially her.  "Ramoona may be my friend one day when she's sees I'm a good person."  The words kept doing the rounds, especially as Ramona had thrown the back at him too many times to count.  The girl had put them down on an email to him Ramona had found.  "Good people, J, don't fuck other people's husbands." 

That was before she'd scratched beneath the pixelated words on screen she'd stumbled upon.  Her gut gave the whole truth away.  J sighed, and wished he'd known how to cover it all better.

 

3.  Ramona in LAX

It's late at night back home in England and I can't take the Los Angeles August day.  I accidently stumbled out of the airport and had a smoke, a gift from a lovely passerby.  I thought long and hard about making my way to the beach, to see what I gave away to a memory of being there as a young woman.  But I couldn't muster the strength once I came face to face with the highway that leads to the airport.  I turned around and waited six hours for my connecting flight to my old home of El Paso, Texas.

El Paso is not an old western.  I feel it needs to be said for the many who believe the John Wayne flicks and other spaghetti westerns.