Genev

There were only a handful of people slouched on the barstools with their drinks. I felt like I had a story to tell just being there, like I should confide to the bar- tender some bothering blabber about my day. I forgot for a few minutes that I did not normally talk with people. At the cafe I only asked the necessary what-can-I-bring-you-to- drink questions, occassionally I would spill a cup of coffee a little to close to someone's lap and have to apollogize, but that was it really. So, I slouched too, like the rest of Seattle's losers, but after a few drinks I began to look at people. And maybe I was a little scary, I remember my penetrating gazes caused some people to actually look away. After awhile I arrived at this strange sort of interplay with the social lights. I enjoyed catching them looking at me. I think I made people nervous, but at least they noticed me.

I began to feel like my uneasy self again when I noticed the clicking of someone's pale thin fingers on the sticky surface of shot glass. I looked for the hand and found it matched its owner. Her hands, long and perfect, reminded me of the praying mantises that I used to catch as a child. Her fingers took me home and for a few seconds I thought I was in North Carolina with my parents. However, the velocity of modernity kicked in when I noticed that the source of the clicking came from the most perfectly sculpted nails in the northwest. She was Prada from head to toe. Her outfit could have paid for three or four months of my rent. Her dark hair was too surreal for her. It could not have been natural, but it seemed the only thing real about her. She was beautifully intimidating. This is something I would never allowed myself to think. People rarely made me consciously humble. Although, I am sure that humility was some sort of disposition for me.

The more I drank the more surreal the Prada girl became until I found myself wanting to talk to her and the whole thing disgusted me. She seemed to be unawaringly extending herself out of this world, like she was above the idea of everyday existence and one had to deserve her presence. I told myself that I would not speak to her. It was a matter of principle. I would not associate with the epitomy of surface people.