Glue

"Anything can be an instrument, Chigurh said. Small things. Things you wouldnt even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People dont pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that nothing is the same. Well, you say. It's just a coin. For instance. Nothing special there. What could that be an instrument of? You see the problem. To separate the act from the thing. As if the parts of some moment in history might be interchangeable with the parts of some other moment. How could that be? Well, it's just a coin. Yes. That's true. Is it?"

-- Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

--

Two shows today. Early morning, gray morning. Felt groggy through the first show, ate much and tried to rest before the second show, lying in the thick black costume on the cold tile floor of the cafeteria stage, staring at the ceiling, trying to relax my lower spine, feeling the stress ebbing away into the floor and spreading away like mop water. Not that it was really stressful; I was just tired. I tried some warmup Pilates moves and felt the cracks and pops, joints snapping to attention, nerves sliding into at-ease. It's like a controlled earthquake in your back, your hips.

Some people believe a good chiropractor can replace a good shrink, that mood problems and the ache of daily toil can be relieved by skilled hands applying centrifugal force in the oddest places on your body. I might believe that, too.

--

I needed a stick to stoke the fire. My fire-stoking stick was nowhere to be found, and the show was starting soon.

So I peeled the feathers off an arrow. It was just a prop arrow, didn't even have a head, just a long stick white and skinny as bone with some clipped wings at one end. Razor edges of blue. The feathers had been hot-glued in place, and I cursed my recently-trimmed nails as I pried the soft plastic away. I must have stood there for five minutes, breaking off pieces of synthetic feather, flicking it out from under my fingernails, going back for more, scraping at that space on the end of the stick, brows furrowed, mind stopped, teeth grit. The glue clung to the wood, unwilling. Finally, it wiggled, flecked, and came off in an unbroken strip, like a miniature creek of dented gray plastic, peeling away bit by bit. It was a small victory in a long day, but for those five minutes, it was my entire world: me, the feathers, the glue and the stick.

Funny, how the smallest of things can consume you.

--

Over lunch, I confessed that I can never tell if a girl is legitimately interested in me or is just being nice. "Been wrong too many times," I said, munching a fry. "That's why I move slow." I came away from the table with an odd sinking feeling, like the indent in a pillow. I felt like that. They tried to instruct me in the ways of the flirt--or rather, the ways of detecting it--but I felt immune to it. Unwilling to learn, clinging to the plainness of my naivete with all the petty force of that small strip of cooled glue. The glue that was once hot, now cooled, now stubborn and well-used, now comfortable in its niche, holding onto itself and its host. You can pull that strip apart if you wish, but like a rubber band, once it breaks, it ceases to be what it was. Better to leave the glue on the stick, perhaps?

"Maybe you should move fast," someone said. "Maybe then they'll be impressed. They'll be caught off-guard."

(but i dont want her to be caught off her guard, i want her to lower it, to drop her guard willingly, i dont want to grab and tossle, id rather coax and relax, revel, reveal; its not the speed im after but the rest stop)

"Maybe," I said.