"Hello, is this, uh, Mary?"
"Maybe."
"Oh, uh, well I saw your ad and I just thought maybe I had what you're looking for."
"What makes you say that?"
"Well, it just that, uh, I've been working out and, uh, I think I have an okay face and, uh. I can be real mean in bed and stuff."
"What's your name, stranger?"
"My name is, uh, John, and, uh, I'm like 6'3'' and muscular and stuff."
"Well, 'John,' if I was to meet you somewhere, would you be interested in a little... action?"
"Uh, yeah! I mean, that's what I...
She adjusted her collar, the mic hidden surreptitiously behind the pearly buttons. Her career was waning to the point were SNL parodies portrayed her as a confused old hag and the use of her name was synonymous with the people she had worked hard to objectify. She had once sparred with Palin, but was now firmly under the Madame President's heel.
"I can take you away from here," the apparition wavered into view. The faint scent of lavender and soft scratch of lace on silk pervaded the air. "Ma chèrie, souvenez vous la contracte?"
Sarah draped a second blanket over her shoulders and cupped her hands over her mouth. She huffed on her fingers in an attempt to warm some feeling back into her frozen digits. It had only been three days since the power had been cut off, but already her apartment felt as if it had never been heated. When she had woken that morning, she had felt as if she were lying on a block of ice instead of a bed, and upon finally slipping from beneath her inadequate duvet, she had been shocked to see that frost had formed on...
I had already been running for way too long. Over rocks and streams, around trees, it didn't seem to matter. The maze of the landscape seemed perfectly clear to me as I forced myself through the forest.
The only things I knew for sure were that I had to get away from this thing and that the only advantage I had was my familiarity of the land.
The beast was definitely faster than me. And hungry. Those two things together weren't making things look good at all.
Why did I have to go into its territory and steal food? Why...
Cameras lie. Greasy gray hair shining with oil tied back with a cheap rubber band. XXL sized elastic joggers pulled over a stained white t-shirt, the underarms looking greeny yellow. Round face, tiny eyes. Arms folded trying to hide the belly.
Security rushing onto the stage, standing between Sonia and her tormentors, skinny family members disgusted with her appearance and laziness.
Sonia reliving her bravery, assertiveness finally expressing deep held thoughts and emotions. Given the space and security to speak.
Now watching the tape she could not recognise the overweight woman. She was thin wasn't she? She did not even...
Light as a feather.
Light on the eyes.
Light flashing into tear streaming eyes.
Light in my arms,
My long-lost love.
Light as the clouds
soaring above.
The oil had come months ago now. They had thought it would disappear. It had always done so before.
But it had remained. It had refused to go. It had clung to them, like a desperate duckling clinging to a mother, only this duckling was parasite.
It had tainted them.
There was no escaping it. None whatsoever. They had tried it all, but it followed them. They wore it like a winter coat they had no reason for. It was summer now.
So he had set out, away. That had been his goal at first, but later when he saw...
Six minutes. You wouldn't think it a long enough span of time to affect anything. Anyone.
And yet.
It's time enough and more to change your life. My life.
We were given six minutes. The span between one time slot and the next.
Six minutes to explain.
Six minutes to speak.
And I couldn't. There was nothing I could say to erase what I did.
So.
I kissed her.
Again.
And this time she melted into my arms.
Wrapped hers around my neck.
And for six minutes it was perfect.
Bliss.
Until the buzzer rang. And someone rapped on the...
She'd always come running when I called, well figuratively anyway. The experience of that rush of warmth when her headlights punched holes through those dark and cold nights. The litany of why me questions she'd serve as I kept my hands firmly pressed on the vents to chase away the chill. I'd never known anyone before or since who could shift so smooth. Especially given the roughly 75 scrunchies positioned on the gear shifter.
I would share with her the joys and triumphs of the seventeen year old psyche. Then after waiting out the enevidable diatribe on my selfishness we...
Peasants. They wouldn't understand. Or perhaps couldn't. Yes. I like that. Their brains too small to grasp the magnitude of this installation.
My art has always... eluded those without intellect.
For example, to the untrained eye and mind, my first installation looked like a series of bricks, forming a wall. If you didn't notice the mortar, it looked just like that. A wall. "Oh, hey, is this the wall guy?" That's how the peons remembered me. The wall guy.
My next installation wasn't much better. Televisions playing to televisions, broadcasting video of televisions. This was before Facebook, even. Don't tell...