VD Musings

Romance walks in metal boots. You can hear the change jangle in its pockets, too, as it steps over the houses. It takes out adverts in magazines, peers against the foggy windows, and hums on the bus but you can't tell where its sitting. Hums and hums. You'd hum too, but it'd make you blush. That's romance for you. Its one of those tunes.

One day you see it in the restaurant, cuddling, moist and flacid. Two people sit across from one another, the man playing on his wife's Nintendo DS, complete with pink and sparkles. She just watches him, watches the back of her Nintendo DS. Its her DS, but she isn't playing. She's just watching him punch buttons. His face is scrunched like he's taking a shit. Is that sensual? Taking a shit? Playing a DS? She watches him, waiting, bored, listening for the jangle of change. The fire burns, in its own way.

It flickers, and gets summoned, and it rejects you when you call the loudest, but it never really dies. It gets displaced, maybe, or forgotten. Some couples bicker, others chatter politely, both parties sure of their loins' inattention. Until that glass of plum wine arrives, or that caberet fondue, and drinks are shared and saliva too, and so on. Until the cab ride.

And still it watches, after you've paid, slathering on its winnings, watching you close the door, until the energy saver bulbs wink on, and then off again.