A LITTLE LESS CONVERSATION

Elvis Presley was a man, head, hat and hairy hands. Men woo women, don’t understand. There’s lesser to her than interpreted, extrapolation makes her worse. Smoking is respiratory, lipstick isn’t finesse. Pretty doesn’t mean blonde, dark hair isn’t dull. To drink isn’t to defeat, lack of conscience is a memory loss. Fountains are potable, and I’m a man.

“Twenty fifth”, she smiled, looking distant. “Yours?”

“Seventy nine”, she replied, indifferently.

“Minty?”

“Orange”, she shook her head. “I doubt if he stood your queue.”

“Back-packer”, she tried recollecting. “Lopsided glasses, po-”

“-ked my eye taking it off”, she turned to her, awestruck. 

“Last-moment nibble!”

“Heck, I denied payment”, they said together.

Moments of disbelief and silence, repentance and a touch of envy.

“How’s your mother?”

“Good”, she nodded.

“Out of hospital?”

“Hardly”, she said. “All boxes taken, none to spare.”

“Oh?” she looked querulously. “Oh!”

“Blocks”, she shrugged. “Not to mention cholesterol.”

“Could use some, though”, she said, squeezing skinny sides.

“I’d sell if I could”, she shrugged again. “Or pro bono.”

“Don’t you start there...”

“I hate them too”, she agreed. “Can’t beat Hitchcock.”

She hummed ‘Vertigo’ only to halt instantly. She caught her eye, and she caught hers. Moment after the next had them walk again.

“Catchy tunes…”

“Vices”, she flared up. “We understand, you buy!”

“I download”, she clarified. “Doesn’t make me better, though.”

“I see right through.”

“Die to know what’s there”, she said. “Knowledge is death.”

“Clarity is a single life”, she complied. “Lesbian, if lucky.”

They kissed, a pat on the (lower) back and a stroke of hair as additives. Both smiled, corrected falling handbags and wiped the rain off their faces.

“So…” she cleared her throat. “You buried-”

“She’s burning hers.”

“Oh?” re-creation, not recap. “Oh!”

“Indoors”, she walked on. “Fire without smoke.”

“Like one?” she extended a roll.

“Burn to get a taste of it”, she cringed. “Depresses me.”

“There’s my bus”, she pointed, expectantly.

“I fly, girl…”

They kissed again, this time deeper than before. Romanticism is nihilistic, cameras lie and obscenity, as we all must know by now, is ‘point of view’.