Upcoming Shows
Roadside Graves
w/Bart Budwig
FRIDAY, Aug. 6, 9PM
@ Mikey's GyrosStereopathic on Hypem
Jun
29
Jeff sat with the book in his lap. Tori sat with her book on the arm of the couch. The commons building sat in the middle of the campus.
Jeff did not look at his book, but looked instead at Tori. Tori looked across her book at Jeff. The commons building looked at the chapel just past the art building.
“How’s Marquez?” Jeff asked Tori. “Just fine. How’s Calvino?” Tori asked Jeff who shrugged. The commons building posed questions about architectural monstrosity to everyone who met its gaze.
“Gin?” Jeff offered a jar to Tori. “Bisque?” Tori offered a thermos to Jeff.
The commons building offered a bit of respite for students, Burger King food, live music occasionally, a piano, an art exhibit occasionally, rooms for meetings, chairs for sitting, a chance to humanize the activity of studying, roof access for intrepid students who had no respect for the rules of the building, and a labyrinth in the basement accessible for a $3 fee.
Jeff and Tori drank the gin and the soup. Jeff paid $6 and they both went down into the labyrinth. “I love,” said Tori, ”the number of nooks and the plenitude of the crannies. It’s porous as a piece of lava rock down here.”
“They call that ‘pumice.’” Jeff felt in control. The labyrinth offered two turns. Jeff took Tori’s hand and led her in the direction he felt was right. The labyrinth was made primarily of cardboard, due to budget cuts at the school. But the cardboard had been supplemented generously with paints from the art department, which waited to receive its cuts the next semester. Jeff led Tori towards the section made out like a dinosaur diorama. “No more brontosaurs,” Jeff said with authority.
“Obviously?” replied Tori.
“Well, extinction-wise, it’s quite obvious. But there aren’t any brontosaurs in the gymnasium of the scholastic mind either. Only in the recessed playpens of the ignorant do brontosaurs exist.”
“That includes me.” Tori dropped Jeff’s hand and slapped hers to her side.
“It does include you,” Jeff said. “But you’re the goddess of the ignorant.”
Tori punched her hand through the cardboard.
They walked apart, and Jeff pretended to admire the new mural of Thomas Jefferson whipping knickered redcoats with a switch. At the end of the line, in the center of the labyrinth, Jeff attempted to kiss Tori. She allowed the kiss but did not move her mouth and looked directly into Jeff’s eyes with a ferocious expression. Jeff did not understand the expression. If he had understood it, he would have realized it said, “My flesh has not warmed to you, but you aren’t so bad. Still, you better not try such a thing again. The brontosaurus is a noble animal in my mind, reaching through the brown barren low branches for green leaves above, tickling the highest arcing point of my cranial globe. And though taxonified out of existence, still strong in my mind and thick in the neck.”
She threw herself down against a mural of three druids directing gorillas in the construction of Stonehenge. Jeff stood there.
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Beach House – “Heart of Chambers” mp3
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