Acids and Bases Mixed For Battle

If only it would stay foggy like this forever. Fuzzy light atoms pushed outward in an awkward fight against the gray droplets of water diffusing the color indistinguishable from comfort or terror.
But then she spoke in annoyed hushed tones.

-I get too tired after midday. And then I take it out on my friends.
-Yeah?
-Do you want to get some food?
-Not really, I'm not very hungry.
-Yes you are, you are just so broke that you don't want me to pay for anything anymore.
-umm, can't we just spend one day inside...one day not going this way or that way. I want to love how you rub your
feet against mine and pretend that we love Sundays together...that we both look forward to this day all week long. That
your interests somehow enrich mine and they tumble together and fuck...I mean make love...and slowly wind down
all your bullshit, your incessant flirting, your stupid insecurities about your beauty.
-You're so boring and self-obsessed.
-But all I ever do is talk about you. I can't remember the last time someone, you, asked me a question about anything
other than the mundane shit everybody talks about. I mean, I like talking about weather and all but I hate my fucking
job and you know it.
-So, you don't want to eat today?
-Remember when you said something about being 'tired after midday' and then you 'take it out on my friends'.
-Yeah, what of it.
-That's from that song...from Stars...umm, you know...Elevator something...I think.
-I hate when you do that.
-What?
-Pretend like you don't know everything about everything.
-What the fuck are you talking about?
-Oh, like in that pathetic brain of yours you aren't thinking...what a stupid bitch, she's trying to pass off lyrics
so she will sound cool. But you know and you think you are so fucking smart. Like it's really a sign of intelligence
to read stupid fucking Pitchfork everyday.
-I don't read it everyday.
-You want me to believe you don't, you want everyone to believe that. Like somehow this information that you deem
important, which isn't at all by the way, somehow just fell from the sky to your gifted stupid little brain. When has anyone
ever been impressed by anything you say?

On cue the rain started hammering the tin roofing. The last of the orange-brown leaves fled the bony fingers of the
Japanese Maple out front, the dying gasp of this miserable Autumn. This house has all the wrong lighting. After she made me get long-lasting energy bulbs the whole of the house now buzzed softly with all the ambiance of a flourescent garage. The growling Alberta Clipper sweeping in from the vast wastelands of Canada has a warmer feel to it than this crumbling mess of a forced homefront. Of course, she had predictably gotten these bulbs the day after seeing Al Gore's movie. This habit of living off the sage advice of the entertainment industry was beginning to be a festering Voodoo doll in this relationship, the chance to plunge daggers all too easy nowadays for me. I used to blame her for making it easy to pick on her peculiar suburbanite traits but really it was an ugly scab for picking while I dutifully drove rusty nails into the layers of my own skin, my own neurosis.

-Where are you going?
-Out.
-Out where, the pub?
-Just out.
-Fuck you. Have fucking fun. Say 'Hi' to my own friends for me.
-Whatever.

The first of the car doors creaked open. She soon would be cursing at me for the broken driver's side door handle. It had been three weeks now since the mismatched, salvage yard door handle had cracked off and made anyone driving solo crawl through the passenger side, no easy task in the cramped cockpit of this rusting Honda Accord. Our cars mirrored not only our economic prowess but also our finely crafted portraits of how we wanted the world to view us. She: perfectly detailed Dodge Stealth, always paid on time full coverage insurance, neat piles of shopping receipts in the ashtray, designer shades always put in the affluent and poignant extra, the flipdown sunglass case. Me: matching door dents that assured one needed actual strength to open a door, overflowing cigarette butts out of the pennycase/ashtray, bullethole-shaped rust holes that made it look like a 30's-era gangster riddled my car with his Tommy gun, glued together Alpine stereo hacked back to life after recent comical break-in. She only took my car today because of an early morning romp around the downtown bars in which she proudly cheered herself for finally ceasing to drive drunk at 3am.

Leftovers cluttered the countertops and were starting to give off their warm, damp signal of overstaying a welcome.

Surprisingly, I heard my car pulling back into the driveway. Cigarettes extinguished themselves in anticipation of an upcoming fight. Acids and bases mixed themselves in the jungle of my mouth, readying themselves for battle purposes. I wish I had put on her underwear. Two nights ago I had worn them to work on one of the rare occasions she happened to visit me. After pouring her friends excellently crafted drinks meant for impressing, I pulled her into the ridiculously opulent men's bathroom to force her hand down my black dress pants. She grinned madly and actually squealed a little sound I had never heard uttered out of her usually venomous mouth. For once, I had made a good decision. Although they were a little too tight even for my admittedly feminine build, the unfamiliar silky hugging made for a scandelous, exciting night. Also the daredevil temerity of the girlfriend's now risque boyfriend gave her heating surges of pride and lust that she could translate into conning her friends that I indeed was a catch. A singular stroke of bravado that would make her friends let up on the relentless 'why are you with him' talk for a evening. There was now a gigantic sinkhole in the Earth where she could bury her deflated, pathetic 'but you don't what it is like when we are together'. She breathed a slutty, awkward impression into my left ear that left me a little too excited to return to my task of short-pouring the expense account, non-tipping idiots from CNN and Fox News. They were probably wearing women's underwear, too.

I, watching her scramble out the passenger door, enjoyed the hardship of it all, the amusing stupidity of a gorgeous girl falling headfirst out of a collapsing shitpile of a ride. She wore no obvious expression of attack or hatred. In her right arm dangled a double-sacked bag of groceries. I could see the clear, happy bottle of Stolichnaya Vodka poking out of the bag and it made my stomach warm in appreciation. She was plotting and scheming her way across the driveway. In her left arm slumped a five pound bag of ice, already cubed for ease. As an act of chivalry or more accurately an act of attempting to procure myself half that bottle of Vodka, I triumphantly opened the door for her. While I was reaching for the bottle she slapped my hand away.

-You know what?
-What?
-I love you so much.
-What?
-I love you.
-I love you, too.
-I know you do.
-Can I have some of that Stoli?
-Later. Grab that bag of ice and follow me.

The timing was impeccable. The bedroom exploded into a million sparkling glass shards and reformed in a curious universe where she smiled at me with rare and radiant depth and our breathing amplified to a silver, dull drone of serenity. Fingertips hooked the elastic on either side of the trackpants she had claimed as her weekend attire and slowly pushed past her goosebumped, milky flesh revealing that she had neglected to wear underwear out in the bitterly cold November Sunday. Slowly, she braced herself against the wall with her forearms, her multi-colored hair tickling the tops of her glacially carved ass, and bent down to fill a 32-ounce cup with two handfuls of ice cubes. Her anticipation had now reached my nasal passages and was wreaking havoc with my ability to remember all the reasons that this will never work out in the end. It made me feel drunk, stupid. She purred and cleaved my parched lips with a melting icicle between her fingers while she increased her nipple size through the sheer will of a drop of temperature. I bent in to navigate the nape of her neck but she shoved me to the ground with a domineering show of her palm. Heatwaves worked from within her precious garden in order to guide the cooling tongue home to create the ecstasy differential. My guess is that there will be no fighting on this Sunday.