Namesake
Tiny pinpricks of ice and fire meander their route, tracing spirals and fairy footsteps on rough skin, dropping prints of indicator solution wherever their touch can wander. The monotone beat of viking ships raises in that imperceptible place located between eardrums, but its presence can only be felt and seen if listened to through empty, domed headphones. Listen now. Listen here. Disconnect from all foreign sockets and plug the headphone jack into your own ear, causing a comforting click of connection. Pay attention to what cannot be heard.
Through the creaking of cheap plastic in fits and spits, the sound of the faraway shore meltingly hisses, just beyond reach. The detail in such memory has not been kind; there is no more today than whipping winds and saltsplashes leaving talcum-like spots on starched skeletal fabric. Not even the monologue of commentary normally present, the announcer describing the scene to the people who aren’t there. As if they need to know the details; as if this event were important to anyone else but the people who aren’t there. They can watch, but they won’t see. Their rubber-streched skin reeks of empty but for decaying air, the fragile membrane ever waiting for a pin to burst the bubble of existence held so delicately in an unlocked box, which unwinds in pockets from time to time.
No matter how much the cuspid shells are painted over and glued together, the vacuous saline content remains the same. A sea peace, at least, a quiet place of locked doors, momentarily providing a cool shadow of lucidity in which to wander.
Once the doors are closed, a namesake cannot further permeate.
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