—YOU SEE IT YOUR WAY, AND I SEE IT MINE, BUT WE BOTH SEE IT SLIPPING AWAY

 

 

Syrup on Fire

 

At the office party, past midnight, those of us still there were all stoned or drunk and on ecstasy, and so someone said we should have a staring contest, and whoever blinked first had to remove an article of clothing, the game continuing until one person was completely naked.

I got paired with Sarah, an account rep two floors down. She had unreal, violet eyes like Elizabeth Taylor, and inside them a kaleidoscope of various sprockets, tiny bursts of chestnut and gamboge. They were hypnotizing, as if my past and future were bundled inside each one and every past and future was entirely different, almost as if they might belong to someone else.

Minutes later, Sarah asked me, “What’s going on? You haven’t even blinked once and I’m down to my panties.”

When those came off, she wrapped them around my head and face. They smelled like summer, like life, sunflowers, leaves, mountain streams and honeydew. Through the sheer silk, I could see those purple eyes staring, my future and past all jumbled and conjoined inside them, nonsensical yet prophetic. The more she stared, the more I did, watching my past slip away until I saw my kids graduating, or else someone else’s kids graduating. I saw them having grandchildren. I saw a moving truck. Saw an empty apartment. I saw my wife signing papers then flipping me the bird across a mahogany table. I saw the lawyer mouth, “It happens sometimes.”

And when Sarah kissed me through the fabric, her lips tasted like an insurrection, like syrup on fire, like a cross on a hill where I’d been crucified by a desire I’d never find again if I didn’t kiss her back, right then, with my entire soul. 

And so, I did.