Diary of a Madman, XXIII

A deep decline into the strumming fingertips of rain, a cloud of cigarette smoke lost into the curve of a moral universe, and a refracted beam of light that cuts through thick silence.

Diary of a Madman, XXII

The world spun into a swirl of mud. It was the magnificent, repulsive, irresistible, and dour filth of humankind. Sweet jazz played from hidden speakers in corners of the room, under which, like mistletoes, young couples explored with the pedantic fascination of laboratory researchers the hidden secrets of the human anatomy. The trumpet exploded with noise discordant, whining away in the most palpable blues. My heart started sweating, but my brain was shivering with the chills. She had on that strappy dress that made men sink into the abyss of their lonely presence---I was sinking fast. I loosened my tie and lit a cigarette in as suave a way as I could, but I ended up fumbling and lighting the wrong side. She didn't see, most fortuitously, but she had a kind of smug countenance that suggested otherwise... or nothing at all. The human condition curled like a ribbon on her lips. The shadows in that place were thick, emphatic, and gave the sound from the cello an orotund resonance that made my spine jitter. Even my cup, now empty from a once delectable glass of Jameson, was soughing from either the harmonic vibrations from the stage or my pitiable state of affairs.

"They're so fucking demonic," the words seemed to slip out of her mouth without her actually saying anything. She was the paragon of nonchalance and disembodied cool that it was hermetic. He wasn't listening to a thing she was saying because his mind was galaxies away, exploring the inner realms of his unbeing.

She was easily the most beautiful woman on campus. Why she agreed to go to this place with a schmuck like him he'll never know. He led a questionable existence immured in the fondly suffocating cloisters of academic buildings. Her coordinated presence baffled him. It was one of those deliriously impossible events that it heuristically blurred the separation from dream and reality. A chance so abnegate that it was not so much a prospect as a passing thought that was influenced by that feeling of having nothing better to do. He didn't know if he liked it. Her munificence made him into one of those dusty gaping mouths of poverty. She emaciated him.

He ordered another drink for more well-mannered quaffing. She was speaking about somehing, but he couldn't pay attention. The music was too intoxicating, not to mention that he was becoming increasingly inebriated. The place was baking in the heat of human bodies and broken air conditoners. He could feel the unctuous veneer of sweat formulating like an embarrassing postulate across his forehead. She was looking at him now. Whatever she was saying was no longer in the tone of passing rumination. He was being directly addressed. He must have look beastly. He wanted to go home, away from her scrutinizing eyes, but this was too promising. Everything could have changed in an instant.

"Hey, you listening?"

"H-huh...? Yeah."

"So is that a yes?"

"Yes, I'm listening."

She gave a low chuckle and it shot straight through his brain. "No, not about that. About what I was talking about."

"Sorry, I didn't entirely hear what you said."

A radiating smile. Was his world about to change?

"About last week's lecture notes. May I borrow them?"