Friday, September 08, 2006


bones fascinate me. the way they jut out, winged, beneath gleaming skin. the way they should be covered by lean musculature. dusted with tiny brown hairs. your skeleton. the symbol of death, waiting beneath your living flesh.

you're afraid of death. but then so many people are. i confess to a blase attitude towards death, not just because i think i know what lies beyond - heaven or hell - but because life itself keeps proving its sheer transience. it's beautiful, but so many things are. i think its true beauty lies in its transience. of what earthly worth would be something that's there forever, to be admired and then slowly taken for granted? we all need a little jolt now and then, to stir us from our sleepy contentment and make us cling a little harder to what we view worthwhile. but who's gonna be the sacrificial lamb each time, subjecting itself to the electric chair?

you are beautiful, my friend, but beauty is not everything. neither is the length and tapering musicality of your fingers, the amused quirk of your eyebrows, the slow smile that starts at the corner of your eyes. show me something worth my while, and then maybe i'll bother saying yea or nay.

remember my fictional pet, my pookie? i can't even remember what breed she was now. probably a golden retriever or a labrador retriever. i've always liked big dogs. i think they like me better too. as a friend said today, i'm like the archetyepal old-man-on-the-countryside. i've translated that into meaning that i'm gruff, sour-faced and alone. i'm definitely not the rich-old-lady-on-the-cushions, with her fat, silky persian cats and lace trimmings. i'd probably yell at the dog to stop getting underfoot while i'm trying to cook or clean, or shout at it to fetch the newspaper, or glare balefully at it while i vacuum all the fur it's shed off the carpet. there's tough love and there's harsh, prickly pretend-it's-not-there-love.

i once had a huge toy border collie. it barked if you hugged it hard enough around its tummy. it came up to my knee, sitting up. i took it everywhere with me, on overseas trips and cruises. it slept beside me beneath the stars, with the sound of the waves in our ears, wrapped in my bony twelve-year-old arms. when my maid of ten years went back, she asked if she could take it with her. so now i hug eeyore instead. it's got a dent in its tummy from too much squeezing. but still i miss my doggie sometimes, with its rough black-and-white fur and smooth nose and soft pink tongue. its mechanical bark and glass eyes. and the dreams i had of it chasing sheep across a lush green field. of course, being me, i was quite rough with it. i think i manhandled it quite a lot, because over time the bark became harder to produce.

there was that cat last year at chris' place. i can't remember its name, but i remember its grace and self-assurance and the way it visited three times when i was there. it let me pet it, but it put my wrist between its jaws - i never figured out why animals do that to me. they don't bite down, they just slip my wrist into their mouths and hold it there until i pry their jaws open and pull away. small dogs, big dogs, cats.. maybe the blood pulsing at my wrist screams 'bite me!', i don't know. but to do them credit, none of them have ever bitten down.. yet. wait til i accidentally walk my wrist into an alsatian's mouth. wow, that'll be the day.
10:19 PM ; 5 comments