eyedreamism_vii magicforest When I woke up the next morning I wondered exactly how much wine I had drunk with Sidney, or if we had had the same wine. I prefer white and Sidney prefers red. These are the sorts of important factual details about eachother that adults are supposed to be able to remember and regurgitate upon prompting. If they can do this, it is proof that they are in a serious relationship. Sidney told me this; she holds a kind of despair for what she calls “grown-ups”, but Sidney rarely goes into her childhood in order to explain these beliefs. There is a narrow black pit in her past that I do not touch; she will tell me when she is ready. It wasn’t that I didn’t remember the Tamarind night, but everything about that night had a sort of surreal dreamish quality to it; not enough to make me wonder if it really happened, but enough to make me wonder how much wine was consumed. If I run it over in my head it feels like a dream, there are so many things that should only happen in a gory representation of the subconscious—Sidney’s high heel, the fish flying in the street, the hands of the robber, the way I didn’t feel the cold of the street but I know that it was there. And yet there were too many things I remembered that would be faint to me if it were a dream; the seats in the restaurant were a soft mauve with red teakwood, the lighting was bright, the garçon smelled like dandelion pollen. When I dawdled the next morning at Sidney’s door I hoped she would have found the night as remote from reality as I had. There is always a moment before she opens her door in which I think for certain that no one will answer, and I will break down the door, and she will either be in bed with another man, or her apartment will be empty, without even a cryptic note left like in the films, and the red hands of Disillusion will swiftly box my eyes or spank me or do something equally mortifying and I will be left, unresolved and opened like a casket. She opened the door and I noted the bruise on her jaw where she’d been hit, a round purple mark so dark it looked like a pansy was blossoming from her skin. I also noted the attire, faded shirt with a veneer of grey lint, low-slung pajama pants with the scalloped top of her no-name panties showing, bare feet, her toes curled around eachother, cold. Just awoken, I suspected. She looked at me groggily. “Ethan?” I held my box carefully behind my back. “Today is the day, Sid.” “What time is it?” she asked, blinking. “Yes sir, today is the day that the indomitable Ethan bestows his knowledge on the uncultured and primitive Sidney The Wild, the day that—” Sidney emitted a small groaning noise and pulled me in by my shirt collar. “I need a drink,” she mumbled and launched herself towards the tea kettle in her kitchen, all the while rubbing her eyes and pushing her dark curls away from her face. When she reappeared her hair was pulled back messily, there was a small cup of Japanese green tea in her hand, and something smelled of cucumber. She looked at me, taking me in like I was nothing but steam, and then her eyes flickered gently with recognition. “Okay,” she said slowly, “I think I’m awake now.” I smiled. “Ethan.” she said. She closed her eyes again. “I can’t play meaningful-silence games. Not at this ungodly hour.” I could not stop smiling. It was relief and sheer repugnant love. All was not lost. Last night could be buried in our minds. Not as thorough as an erasure, but almost. Wine is a good excuse for leaving things be. I smiled more. She solved my problem by pulling the flat wooden box out of my hands. “What is this?” she asked. “It’s a chess set,” I said. Smiling helplessly. “But I can’t play chess,” she said. “Today is the day, Sidney.” I said. Smiling smiling smiling. She looked at me and then laughed. “Nooo.” she said. “Nooo, not this early.” She pushed a curl of hair behind her ear and looked at me. I smiled again, then I sat down cross-legged on her thick floor rug and she joined me, a little awkwardly. I opened the box, pulled out the board and pieces, and arranged them. “Here is the first piece,” I said. “This is the king. It is the most important piece in the game. If the king is trapped, the game is lost. The king can move in any direction, but only one square at a time.” “Any direction?” asked Sidney, leaning forward despite herself, her legs tucked underneath her, her arms forward, her shirt dropping. I blushed slightly. “Yes.” “Even onto the white square?” she asked dubiously. She leaned backward again. “Any direction.” I assured her. “Okay.” “Here is the second piece,” I said. “This is the queen. The queen is the most powerful piece on the board. The queen—” “I thought the king was the most powerful piece.” “No, the king is the most important piece. The queen is the most powerful piece.” Sidney looked incredulous. “What is the difference between being the most important and being the most powerful?” “Just listen, Sidney, I’ll get to that. Now, the queen can move in any direction, for any number of squares, as long as it’s a straight line and there are no other pieces blocking her way.” “Even onto the black square?” “Sidney, this isn’t checkers, chess pieces can be on different colours of squares.” “Are you sure?” “What the hell do you mean, am I sure? Of course I’m sure.” “Sorry.” She bit her lip. She does this to make me feel guilty. “That’s all right. This—wait, Sid, give that back to me—this queen has the powers of a rook and a bishop, combined.” “A what and a what?” “A rook and a bishop.” “Isn’t the bishop from the clergy, not the royalty?” “SIDNEY!” “Sorry, sorry, keep going.” “The rook is the second most powerful piece—” “What? How can the rook be the second most powerful piece? If the king is the one that can end the game isn’t it the most powerful piece? What’s the point of being important if you have no power? Isn’t that a little bit—” “Sidney, from now on you have to put up your hand to ask a question. The rook—oh, damn it, Sidney!” “Never mind, it was a stupid question anyway.” “All right. May I continue?” “By all means, Ethan.” “The rook can move any number of squares—no, that’s not the rook, that’s the bishop, this is the rook, the castle-type one, with the turrets—yes, that one. Oh, what! What’s your question?” “If the queen can move any number of squares and the rook can move any number of squares, how is the queen more powerful?” I unknowingly clenched my fists. “You didn’t let me finish. The rook can only move horizontally and vertically, not diagonally as well, like the queen.” “Oh.” “Now, what you are holding right now is the white bishop.” “What the fuck—” “Sidney! What did I say about putting up your hand when you ask a question?” “I didn’t ask a question, I said what the—” “What the fuck is definitely a question. It starts with what and ends in a question mark. You don’t say ‘what the fuck’ in the same context as when you say ‘what a nice day it is’, you say ‘what the fuck’ the way you say ‘what are you talking about’ which is clearly a question, so you should have raised your hand.” “It turns me on when you get all authoritarian. Can I pretend to be of your students?” She pulled a piece of hair from her lips. “Trés seductive,” I said. I have bad French. Sidney’s is better. “No, and your sarcasm isn’t appreciated, I am trying to instruct you in the fine-tuned language of chess, if you don’t mind.” “Please, continue, headmaster.” “Now, what you are holding is the white bishop. Close your mouth right now, Sidney, I mean it, close your mouth. I fully realize that the colour of the bishop is black. I am calling it the white bishop, as is the custom, because the bishop can only travel diagonally, therefore this bishop will only travel on white squares. Your bishop could be called the black bishop, because it can only travel on black squares.” “Did you ever read Through The Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, Ethan?” “Yes, I did, and that’s beside the point, they only had queens and kings in that book anyway.” “No, Alice was a pawn, remember?” “Sidney, please.” “Sorry.” “I love you, Sid, but—” “I love you too, Ethan.” I closed my eyes slowly. “Sidney, I love you but I need you to focus now, because this can be a very difficult piece to understand, all right?” “The unicorn?” She sounded eager. “It’s not a unicorn, it’s a horse.” I said with a tired patience. “Oh. How does the Horse move?” “Agh! Damn you. It’s not a horse, it’s a knight.” “You said it was a horse.” Sidney accused. “Forgive me. That’s the species of the chess piece. It’s actually called a knight.” “How can a chess piece have a species? It’s made out of china, or plastic or something.” “Marble, actually, and it’s meant to depict—depict, I say, depict—the species of a—” “Isn’t a knight supposed to ride the horse? Why don’t they make it a depiction—depiction, I say, depiction—of a knight riding a horse? You couldn’t even a fit a knight on this horse, this horse seems to only have a head. Like a bust. A horse bust.” Sidney giggled and made a sound as though she had spit tea out of her nose. I looked away, sort of above her head and to the right, and waited for her to quiet. She didn’t; she rolled on the floor. I sighed. Sidney is difficult in the mornings. I continued anyway. “The knight moves three squares. Two squares horizontally or vertically, and one square at a right angle. For example, if this was here, and this pawn was here, the knight could capture the pawn by moving one, two, and then see—right-angle turn, three, and there we go!” “My head hurts.” I leaned over and kissed Sidney on the forehead affectionately. “Don’t worry, it’s much less—oh, I forgot, the knight can also jump pieces.” “Aggagggghhhh.” Sidney collapsed backwards, sloshing tea over the carpet. “This is what purgatory is like, isn’t it.” “Now there’s the pawn.” “Alice…oh, Alice…” Sidney slurred drunkenly. I started to smile again. “The pawn can move forward only one square, but captures other pieces diagonally. It can move forward two squares if you want it to, but only on it’s first move.” “Hurrah.” said Sidney. “Now, there are three more things you need to know. These are called castling, en passant—” “IN PASSING!” “Yes, Sidney, and the promotion of a pawn when it has—” “Are we done yet?” “No, we still have to learn about stalemates and checkmates, and how to—” Sidney had closed her eyes and lay limply on the floor. I patted her stomach. “Why don’t we try a game?” Sidney jerked up, stared at me, and then took one hand and without breaking my gaze, she hit all of the pieces off the board and sent them scattering on the floor. She pounded the board with emphasis. “I say we make love on this board, right here, right now.” I looked at her skeptically. She sighed. “Well, I can’t do it on a normal table because I don’t want to break any dishes. It was just a thought.” And I couldn’t stop smiling. sighs with relief 031031 ... bandersnatch i am almost speechless. that was just simply great. sorry i dont have more to say, but it takes about an hour for compliments to come after reading something like that (and trust me, it deserves complelemnts) and if i get back online i will just forget them again. so let me stop my ramblings to repeast, this is simply great. 031031 ... User24 smiles. and grins. griles, perhaps? :) 031101 ... neesh smins 031101 ... magicforest I wrote that one too quickly and got hasty. This one is the correct one. [[REVISED]] *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* When I woke up the next morning I wondered exactly how much wine I had drunk with Sidney, or if we had had the same wine. I prefer white and Sidney prefers red. These are the sorts of important factual details about eachother that adults are supposed to be able to remember and regurgitate upon prompting. If they can do this, it is proof that they are in a serious relationship. Sidney told me this; she holds a kind of despair for what she calls “grown-ups”, but I don’t know why, because I don’t ask Sidney about her childhood. It’s not that I am disinterested, but Sidney is so obsessed with childhood that I know that if I ask her about hers, it will spiral into the inevitability of several provocative and unanswerable questions about mine. There is a narrow black pit in my past that I do not touch lucidly; she is curious but I will tell her when I am ready. It wasn’t that I didn’t remember the Tamarind night, but everything about that night had a sort of surreal dreamish quality to it; not enough to make me wonder if it really happened, but enough to make me wonder how much wine was consumed. If I run it over in my head it feels like a dream; there are so many things that should only happen in a gory representation of the subconscious—Sidney’s high heel, the fish flying in the street, the hands of the robber, the way I didn’t feel the cold of the street but I know that it was there. And yet there were too many things I remembered that would be faint to me if it were a dream; the seats in the restaurant were a soft mauve with red teakwood, the lighting was bright, the garçon smelled like dandelion pollen. When I dawdled the next morning at Sidney’s door I hoped she would have found the night as remote from reality as I had. There is always a moment before she opens her door in which I think for certain that no one will answer, and I will break down the door, and she will either be in bed with another man, or her apartment will be empty, without even a cryptic note left like in the films, and the red hands of Disillusion will swiftly box my ears or spank me or do something equally mortifying and I will be left, unresolved and opened like a casket. She opened the door and I noted the bruise on her jaw where she’d been hit, a round purple mark so dark it looked like a pansy was blossoming from her skin. I also noted the attire, faded shirt with a veneer of grey lint, low-slung pajama pants with the scalloped top of her no-name panties showing, bare feet, her toes curled around eachother, cold. Just awoken, I suspected. She looked at me groggily. “Ethan?” I held my box carefully behind my back. “Today is the day, Sid.” “What time is it?” she asked, blinking. “Yes sir, today is the day that the indomitable Ethan bestows his knowledge on the uncultured and primitive Sidney The Wild, the day that—” Sidney emitted a small groaning noise and pulled me in by my shirt collar. “I need a drink,” she mumbled and launched herself towards the tea kettle in her kitchen, all the while rubbing her eyes and pushing her dark curls away from her face. When she reappeared her hair was pulled back messily, there was a small cup of Japanese green tea in her hand, and something smelled of cucumber. She looked at me, taking me in like I was nothing but steam, and then her eyes flickered gently with recognition. “Okay,” she said slowly, “I think I’m awake now.” I smiled. “Ethan.” she said. She closed her eyes again. “I can’t play meaningful-silence games. Not at this ungodly hour.” I could not stop smiling. It was relief and sheer repugnant love. All was not lost. Last night could be buried in our minds. Not as thorough as an erasure, but almost. Wine is a good excuse for leaving things be. I smiled more. She solved my problem by pulling the flat wooden box out of my hands. “What is this?” she asked. “It’s a chess set,” I said. Smiling helplessly. “But I can’t play chess,” she said. “Today is the day, Sidney.” I said. Smiling smiling smiling. She looked at me and then laughed. “Nooo.” she said. “Nooo, not this early.” She pushed a curl of hair behind her ear and looked at me. I smiled again, then I sat down cross-legged on her thick floor rug and she joined me, a little awkwardly. I opened the box, pulled out the board and pieces, and arranged them. “Here is the first piece,” I said. “This is the king. It is the most important piece in the game. If the king is trapped, the game is lost. The king can move in any direction, but only one square at a time.” “Any direction?” asked Sidney, leaning forward despite herself, her legs tucked underneath herself, her arms forward, her shirt dropping. I blushed slightly. “Yes.” “Even onto the white square?” she asked dubiously. She leaned backward again. “Any direction.” I assured her. “Okay.” She leaned back again. “Here is the second piece,” I said. “This is the queen. The queen is the most powerful piece on the board. The queen—” “I thought the king was the most powerful piece.” “No, the king is the most important piece. The queen is the most powerful piece.” Sidney looked incredulous. “What is the difference between being the most important and being the most powerful?” “Just listen, Sidney, I’ll get to that. Now, the queen can move in any direction, for any number of squares, as long as it’s a straight line and there are no other pieces blocking her way.” “Even onto the black square?” “Sidney, this isn’t checkers, chess pieces can be on different colours of squares.” “Are you sure?” “What the hell do you mean, am I sure? Of course I’m sure.” “Sorry.” She bit her lip. She does this to make me feel guilty. “That’s all right. This—wait, Sid, give that back to me—this queen has the powers of a rook and a bishop, combined.” “A what and a what?” “A rook and a bishop.” “Isn’t the bishop from the clergy, not the royalty?” “SIDNEY!” “Sorry, sorry, keep going.” “The rook is the second most powerful piece—” “What? How can the rook be the second most powerful piece? If the king is the one that can end the game isn’t it the most powerful piece? What’s the point of being important if you have no power? Isn’t that a little bit—” “Sidney, from now on you have to put up your hand to ask a question. The rook—oh, damn it, Sidney!” Sidney put her hand down. “Never mind, it was a stupid question anyway.” “All right. May I continue?” I blushed for no apparent reason. “By all means, Ethan.” “The rook can move any number of squares—no, that’s not the rook, that’s the bishop, this is the rook, the castle-type one, with the turrets—yes, that one. Oh, what! What’s your question?” “If the queen can move any number of squares and the rook can move any number of squares, how is the queen more powerful?” I unknowingly clenched my fists. “You didn’t let me finish. The rook can only move horizontally and vertically, not diagonally as well, like the queen.” “Oh.” “Now, what you are holding right now is the white bishop.” “What the fuck—” “Sidney! What did I say about putting up your hand when you ask a question?” “I didn’t ask a question, I said what the—” “What the fuck is definitely a question. It starts with what and ends in a question mark. You don’t say ‘what the fuck’ in the same context as when you say ‘what a nice day it is’, you say ‘what the fuck’ the way you say ‘what are you talking about’ which is clearly a question, so you should have raised your hand.” “It turns me on when you get all authoritarian. Can I pretend to be of your students?” She pulled a piece of hair from her lips and twisted it around a long finger. Her smile was alluring. “Trés seductive,” I said in bad French. I envied Sidney’s easiness with the language. Then I shook my head, remembering. “No, no, and your sarcasm isn’t appreciated, I am trying to instruct you in the fine-tuned language of chess, if you don’t mind.” “Please, continue, headmaster.” “Now, what you are holding is the white bishop. Close your mouth right now, Sidney, I mean it, close your mouth. I fully realize that the colour of the bishop is black. I am calling it the white bishop, as is the custom, because the bishop can only travel diagonally, therefore this bishop will only travel on white squares. Your bishop could be called the black bishop, because it can only travel on black squares.” “Did you ever read Through The Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, Ethan?” “Yes, I did, and that’s beside the point, they only had queens and kings in that book anyway.” “No, Alice was a pawn, remember?” “Sidney, please.” “Sorry.” “I love you, Sid, but—” “I love you too, Ethan.” The look on her face was bemused, teasing. I closed my eyes slowly. “Sidney, I love you but I need you to focus now, because this can be a very difficult piece to understand, all right?” “The unicorn?” She sounded eager. “It’s not a unicorn, it’s a horse.” I said with a tired patience. “Oh. How does the Horse move?” “Agh! Damn you. It’s not a horse, it’s a knight.” “You said it was a horse.” Sidney accused. “Forgive me. That’s the species of the chess piece. It’s actually called a knight.” “How can a chess piece have a species? It’s made out of china, or plastic or something.” “Marble, actually, and it’s meant to depict—depict, I say, depict—the species of a—” “Isn’t a knight supposed to ride the horse? Why don’t they make it a depiction—depiction, I say, depiction—of a knight riding a horse? You couldn’t even a fit a knight on this horse, this horse seems to only have a head. Like a bust. A horse bust.” Sidney giggled and made a sound as though she had spit tea out of her nose. I looked away, sort of above her head and to the right, and waited for her to quiet. She didn’t; she rolled on the floor. I sighed. Sidney is difficult in the mornings. I continued anyway. “The knight moves three squares. Two squares horizontally or vertically, and one square at a right angle. For example, if this was here, and this pawn was here, the knight could capture the pawn by moving one, two, and then see—right-angle turn, three, and there we go!” “My head hurts.” I leaned over and kissed Sidney on the forehead affectionately. “Don’t worry, it’s much less—oh, I forgot, the knight can also jump pieces.” “Aggagggghhhh.” Sidney collapsed backwards, sloshing tea over the carpet. “This is what purgatory is like, isn’t it.” “Now there’s the pawn.” “Alice…oh, Alice…” Sidney slurred drunkenly. I started to smile again. “The pawn can move forward only one square, but captures other pieces diagonally. It can move forward two squares if you want it to, but only on it’s first move.” “Hurrah.” said Sidney. “Now, there are three more things you need to know. These are called castling, en passant—” “IN PASSING!” “Yes, Sidney, and the promotion of a pawn when it has—” “Are we done yet?” “No, we still have to learn about stalemates and checkmates, and how to—” Sidney had closed her eyes and lay limply on the floor. I patted her stomach. “Why don’t we try a game?” Sidney jerked up, stared at me, and then took one hand and without breaking my gaze, she hit all of the pieces off the board and sent them scattering on the floor. She pounded the board with emphasis. “I say we make love on this board, right here, right now.” I looked at her skeptically. She sighed. “Well, I can’t do it on a normal table because I don’t want to break any dishes. It was just a thought.” And I couldn’t stop smiling smiling smiling. . 031101 ... Death of a Rose i retract my earlier statement. chess explanation is now my favorite. 031101 ... endless desire this one is certainly my favourite. it made me smile and laugh and smile and laugh. and now i am in love with Sydney and Ethan and far too disappointed that they don't exist. 031102 ... magicforest I am glad they aren't real. Real people make a bollocks out of everything. is real...so are you 031103 ... smurfus rex just when you think he's reached his limit in exasperated frustration, she snaps him back from taking things so seriously. psst, Ethan...there's a time for playing chess and a time for just playing. She'll let you know when. :) psst, magicforest...I don't know how these chapters come to you, but I'm glad they do. you've hooked me so that I wait for each new episode like it's prime-time TV. Except that these are better. keep it up. :) 031111 ... u24 why do you always rework your -isms? perhaps because you know/feel that you are capable of exceeding even this beautifully high level of prose. you feel compelled and.. rushed even.. rushed to pour your talent out in this form, keep it coming, magicdream-foresteye. 031117 ... magicforest I disagree with the "beautifully high level of prose" but the rush is exactly it. I always write them out in one long downpour and sometimes I forget to go back over them and make sure. It was Ethan with the hole in his past, not Sidney.....as I read through old ones I still see mistakes...my worst thing is character inaccuracies...I can't talk about this right now, I am so displeased with my eyedreamisms right now. 031117 ... Whitechocolatewalrus I like this one a lot, It makes me remember how much I hated learning how to play chess. I am too unpatient. Haha, I would have liked learning a lot better if it were with someone I loved! 031119 ... ferret i loved it. it's my favorite... at least, until i read another one. You're just too good of a writer. You're GOING to get published. or i'm going to kill you ;) i cracked up reading this one... which was kinda bad, because i wasn't supposed to up taht late and i think i woke my mom up ;) but that's my problem not yours, but anyway, it was so good it made me ramble! 031120 ... Lady Grey You write like you think. That is very good thing, because, of course, it means that you think like you write. Which also means, you write like you live, which in turn, allows you to write as you breathe the words of living and the echoes of time. You, my dear, then can write like those who have written before you. Greenearth~ 031121 ... At least it was funny to me The first blathe on this page is really, really funny. 060310 ... see also eyedreamism_index 060311 what's it to you? who go blather from