Purple Monster

The dream was upon her, waves crashed at the creaking hull of a ship, the ceasless motion was comforting, she drifted with the knowledge that a shore would soon be in sight, the ice coated the sides of the boat as its oars men kept warm by rowing. The wood splintered there was shouting and then the rushing of water. The sensation of a blade at her throat.

Icy water, shocking the air out of her, she sat up in the bed gasping, the room was harshly white and smelt of ozone. A warmth was there huddled in the bed with her, for a moment she couldn’t remember where she was or the name of this gangly male beside her. So warm he was almost burning to touch. Goats flittered across her vision and tears of frustrated anger threatened her. She kicked him in the side.

‘Wassup?’ he drooled, she sighed and climbed out of bed, naked and in need of a shower, she could smell him on her, felt his primal cliam in scent upon her. Yuk bodily fluids.

She took extra time with the shower even if she did get fined she didn’t care, the aerated waster felt so good on her skin.

When she got back in the room Snake was already dressed and was to her suprise boiling a kettle she tried not to dwell on him being in yesturdays cloths and having not washed – it wasn’t like it would be the first time she’d kissed someone who hadn’t washed – hell there was a time when people thought that washing was bad for your health. That it would was away all the protective grime.

She snorted at the thought but then thought about the autoimmune system diseases that had spiked half way through the last centry due to things being too clean. Everything seemed cyclic, everything a balance. She wondered if she was something that would tip the balance, how had this system produced her?

She shivered as she stepped into her decontaminated suit, the cathiter inserts still wrapped away in their hygine seals where she hoped they would stay for the longest of times. He handed her a badly made cup of coffee which she sipped gratefully, he wasn’t meeting her eyes. His hair needed brushing and he seemed pensive. She sat down in the one chair and watched him over the rim of her white plastic mug. His eyes darted to hers and then quickly over her body, he blushed. She slurped the coffee in a show of unladylikeness.

She kicked her legs up and stretched back in an apparently relaxed poise – what was wronge with him? Had he not enjoyed last night? He was certainly pensive enough she stealed herself for a blow. Synical and yet desperate for it not to be the case. She felt the rejection building and found that it hurt more than she thought possible. After all these years, all the loses and betrayal adn it still hurt deep and hard. Her throat felt soar.

Finially after what seemed an eternaty he sighed and stamped his foot slightly in agitation then looked up at her. ‘Do you want some breakfast?’ he asked in a rush. She raised an eyebrow. All that tension just to ask her to breakfast after they had slept together?

‘I mean I’ll understand if you don’t want to go and stuff, if you want me to just leave or somthing?’ Good grief the poor guy was on the verge of stuttering. She smiled at him, sometimes she forgot that they were so much younger than her, no she forgot she was old.

She had seen the new world arise and had seen it progress and the uncertainties of youth had always been there sometimes it was pandaered too other times it was quoshed into a zeloest zeal far scarier and unpredictable than any mature person would do.

At some point the concept of teenagers had crept in, she was always unsure of weather it was a good thing or a bad thing. But once there it remained sticking itself as another wedge in society. Kids for longer, they hated it as much as the responsibilty had crippled half of them into never fully growing up. But then what did she know? She had been a teenager for a long long time, she had also been an adult for alot of that time and it hurt, deep down in the raw place she coushioned so well.

He was staring at her intently and she realised she had gone off into a pondering daydream instead of answering him.

‘Breakfast sounds good,’ she said, he sagged with relief.

‘What do you want?’ he asked her, meaning breakfast but she tempted to say something crude – she bite her tongue he was already really edgy.

‘Do no something sea foody?’ she said he wrinkled his nose and went a bit pale but nodded.

‘We’ll go to Dev’s’ She looked at him Dev was a friend and the best chief off all things fried, to a crisp if not burn to an unregonisable blob. Some people really loved the stuff had it pegged as traditional food though as it was tempura mixed with deep fried mars bars she was never entirely sure which country it was supposed to be traditional of. ‘Well its cheap!’ he said then blushed, ‘erm not that that matters I erm… we can go somewhere else if you want.’

She grinned at him fast and shark like, ‘no Dev’s sounds fine he does smoked mackerel. Vat grown macerkel but its ok.’ He looked relieved and he stood up excited and worried looking still. He offered her a hand, she stared at it for a moment wondering what he was upto then decided to take it anyway. Once they were stood up he didn’t let her hand go and she let it nestle there though gave no impression of ‘holding’ the hand back, she just let it lay there limply just not pulling it out of his grasp.

He looked happy but slightly confused. She wondered why she was playing games with him like this. She gave in and held it propelly. His eyes gleamed at her, the intensity of emotions almost sent her rolling.

Dev’s was basically up on a roof – not in one of the garden plateforms but next to the cubby whole offices that where the cruise islands admistration. The place had plastic wipe clean red and white or yellow and white or green gingam style table cloths though as they were all scared and rucked the whole wipe clean business was mitigated by food detritous getting wedged in the rips.

Dev was always going on about getting new-cloth gingam, a smart material that he could program to change colour – he had some insane idea that changing the colour of the little check patterns in the caffe on a sessional basis would make a difference. She couldn’t see it personally, there were even curtians in the same awful stuff she supposed that at least with the new-cloth everything would match and it was nion indestructable like the [can’t remember the name of the fabric with the little colour changing ecosystem in it] but there was just one down side to it – it cost more than the Caffe bought in in a year.

They went in and sat on the hard shiny plastic chairs and Dev busseled over, the Punk tried not to roll her eyes, he was wearing an ill fitting blue dress with baggy greying baige stockings, a floral apron with frills on it and a broom in his hand. ‘Dev why the stockings?’ she asked in mock distain.

‘It’s Caffe cleaning day – the most hallowed day of the week.’ Large brown eyes in a face of blotchy pink and brown looked at her, she raised an eyebrow, ‘and that means you have to wear baggy stockings and a broom?’ she asked.

‘Of course it is our siants day,’ he replied as if she had said something blasphomas – she supposed in his eyes she had but really come on! She didn’t really want to know anymore religion and militant creed where things she detested but had lived within. They always stiffled, always closed the doors, always provided a scaffold for the majority to cling to in desperation.

‘And your saint in?’ she asked fearing that she already knew.

‘Nora, the patron saint of caffes, cafe[need the accent], greasy spoons and caffiterias everywhere.’ He looked serious but she shock with laughter evently she had seen the birth of yet another religon and had not realised it. ‘Nora? As in Nora Batty?’ She asked chocking down her giggles.

‘You know of her?’ he asked truelly suprised.

‘Yes.’ she said simply becuase if she said any more she would be on the floor laughing until her ribs hurt. There had been some comedy programme in England of all places that satired country life – there had been a Nora Batty running a Cafe in it. She’d chase some old unkept guy with ferrets down his trousers – she’d chase him with a broom! Dev was indeed wearing a Nora Batty outfit. She wondered what the actress would have thought if she could see him. Mind due would have probably just been incorporated into one of the next episodes.

They ordered breakfast, she had calimary rings, and sweat and sour king prawns with a side helping of fried seed weed. Snake had the tofu special English Gone Large – which as far as she could see involved lots of differently shaped and coloured lumps of tofu which had been fried with some beans, chips, hashbrowns and a rather over cooked tomato.

He smothered it in red squirty suace and brown and white and green and yellow squirty suace as well. She smiled remembering the first time she’d encountered suaces like that – it had taken her decades to stop putting some of everything on anything.

She shoveled her food in, it was safe to do that in Dev’s she had seen and had to learn many different eating customs, but Dev’s was easy – anything goes.

It was well deep fried but the salt and the sea food hit the spot, she was starving again, Snake was still eating his when she finished and went to order a protien shake. Dev did a fantastic range of them, all synth but he added in real fruit and veg and cough chocolate or coffee or something stronger if you wanted.

She had a bannana malt and sat down spooning it out of the actually glass tall glass. ‘Wow!’ Snake said looking at her startled.

‘How comes you’re still so skinny?’ he asked and then went bright red.

‘I’m skinny?’ was the only answer she could come up with.

‘Well yeah in a sort of erm… curvey way?’ He was going redder.

‘I’d button it before you dig your self in furthure.’ She pursed her lips in mock disapproval. She hadn’t really thought about being ‘skinny’ most people had been skinny until the processed foods had arrived and then they spent like a century working out what the problem was and another trying to fix it whilst still keeping the convenience.

‘Are you taken pips?’ he asked suddenly. She laughed, ‘no – anthetimines are still anthetamines what ever they are calling them and reguardless of if they are produced organically with low CFP’ besides she thought all that happened when she took them is she buzzed for half and hour and then got a mild headache, no appetite supressent or anything no good enegry increase – drugs tended not to work on her.

‘I have a fast metabolism,’ she said shrugging, that wasn’t entirely true. But she tended not to dwell on the little things that set her apart like wanting to eat two three times as much as everybody else – she could gain weight but it took some doing. It was like her body had a unique way of storing the goodies from the food so that when times where rough she could get by though it hurt like hell. It had once taken her 15 years to get over one particully bad lot of starvation. She had been unconcous and laying in the snow when she’d been found. She had no idea how long she’d been out for – she got the feeling though it had been a long time.

‘What about all that salt and stuff? That can’t be good for you.’ he asked.

‘I like to live on the edge,’ she smiled. Hoping to divert him to another topic. ‘You ganna help me rebuild the bike?’

He grinned and nodded and then paid for her breakfast. She blushed but didn’t refuse she wanted out of the Corp debt as quickly as she could.

Posted: Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 @ 3:00 pm
Categories: Uncategorized.
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