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Fueled by The Sartorialist

http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/

It feels like some sort of exercise day. I have a handful of pictures of well dressed Europeans from The Sartorialist. I could do some character sketches.

At first you might think Tom was a well-dressed longshoreman or a transplanted pirate with his full brown beard and woolen pea coat. He stands a hand span above most other men you know but he’s not overly broad for his height, so you’d never think ‘mountain of a man’ in your head. His voice pitches incongruously high and soft for his size. You want him to bellow; you want him to roar and be gruff and bearish and dumb, but he won’t. Tom’s a librarian.

Well, Tom’s not a librarian, he’s the librarian.

If Tom is a librarian masquerading as a seaman then Collin is a coke addict, rapist, and killer pretending to studentry. From his short-collared Oxford shirt to his blue knit vest and skinny jeans he looks safe. He looks like he might join the boys on the pitch later for a bit of field hockey. The worn jean jacket he dons in the Fall softens his bony frame and drapes more like a sport coat. Eventually his clothing can’t distract you from his scrawny chin, unslept eyes, and Clorox-whitened curls. His black eyebrows sweep too far back toward his ears and never arch happily.

225 words on day 695

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The Post Killing Bath

I thought I might clean up yesterday’s work but I’ve decided to move forward instead. Knowing my enthusiasm for writing about sublimating snow, I doubt I’ll forget to add that bit in when I finally do get back to that scene. I’m halfway afraid of locking in a sensibility to that scene that I wouldn’t return to later and would do well at the moment.

“I have a theory,” Jessica said.

“You have a theory? You have a theory? I have a th…” Jessica splashed water on Prince Carta.

“I’ve just slain a dragon and I’d like to be the only one talking. You can shit on me later.” Jessica Matthews pushed back from the edge of the bath because the stone wall cooled the water too well and she wanted to be surrounded by warmth. She suspected that even though Carta would continue staring out to the sparkling white mountains that hearing her swim to the center of the bath would put a woman’s body to mind—she wondered whose. “What was her name?”

“What? Whose name? What do you mean? Who?”

Jessica didn’t really want to tease Carta right now, but she also doubted she’d ever get the chance again. She sighed. “What was the dragon’s name? That wasn’t ulubenu’unedulu.” She watched his frame relax.

“No. No, that wasn’t Ulubenu’unedulu. It was probably Opuondo or Millowollim maybe. She was a cousin not a sister. I’ll ask Tandi for you; he should know.”

“That’s OK. I guess it doesn’t really matter. Aren’t you cold?”

Carta’s hands rose on both sides. His fingers splayed tensely then fisted then open wide again before they sagged back to his side. “I’m chilly. Dame Matthews, you said you had a theory.”

Jessica slowed her treading and let her head slip under the surface with the rest of her body. She thrust backward till her feet brushed the sandy slope of the shallows. When she came up she shook out her short red hair and cleared the water from her eyes.

“Come over here and sit on the bench by the fire. I don’t want to yell.”

Some of this is how I’d right it up, but some of it’s stalling because I’m not sure how to have the ‘theory’conversation yet.

378 words on day 693

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Dead Dragon; Dame

http://gorillaartfare.com/2011/02/burn-to-shine/

At first Jessica Matthews clung to the sword for fear the beast was not yet dead; she might lose her grip if it rose up again. The rest of the world filled her consideration in stages and her focus softened to allow for the things around her which weren’t a dragon. Her desperate grasp on the pommel was technically shoddy. Her knees were in the snow and cold. Sweat and snow-melt soaked her torn tights; each time she exhaled a chilly breeze ran between her body and the still-hot scales of the dragon. She didn’t worry it’s blood would stain her limited edition Schepacz t-shirt, but the thought of ruining her leather duster slapped her with dread. She stood.

A movie scene of boys drinking the blood of a newly killed deer.

A clear solution—tears she supposed—pooled in the corner of the dragon’s iridescent eye. The liquid appeared tinged with purple or may have only seemed that way because of the eye’s swimming hues. It was shot with a tendril of red blood which acted more like a crack through granite than one liquid in another. Jessica touched the surface with a single finger then dipped in two to get more of a taste. She expected the tears to be salty, but not sweet as well. And they were. [a little more here]

Finally removing her left hand from the pommel of her borrowed sword she wedged her fingers into the pocket of her denim cut-offs and pulled out a bottle of contact saline. She squeezed the bottle till it made several wispy wet-air noises and she was certain it was as empty as she could get it. She squeezed it and far shut as she could get it and dipped the tip into the dragon’s tears. She capped the bottle once it was full, stuffed it in her shorts, tugged the sword free, and walked away from her kill.

319 words on day 692