Beasts Bounding Through Time

I watched her as she packed her leather handbag with care in the hallway. It looked like she was preparing to leave the cabin, which made me curious because neither of us had left for weeks.

She was muttering to herself as she did in some stoned internal monologue. I smiled and leaned against the doorframe of my room, she looked stunning. I knew she had smoked more than normal since she had for one, been wearing sun glasses indoors when she had been making coffee this morning when we bumped into one another. Secondly, I could smell it from my bedroom.

We hadn’t shared more than a few words over the last few weeks. I was a little disappointed. I knew she had only invited me up there so I could work but somehow I wished she would pop down and speak to me. Maybe she was just like I was. Someone with a one track mind, once she got a hold of something, she ran with it till it was nothing but dry and brittle bone. I had pushed many people out of my life by doing that. I knew she wasn’t doing it to offend me. It was just her creative process.

But even though I sat in that bedroom most of the day, every day, I still hadn’t came up with more than a simple melody. While she, on the other hand, seemed to be doing fine. When on one rare occasion we had spoken she told me that she had managed to fill up her first Moleskine journal with some usable material, and she was moving onto her second to see what else she could dig out from her mind before she began drafting her material.

I was envious of her work effort. It was unusual for me to be stuck in this deep of a rut. I thought sticking myself in the middle of nowhere where I wasn’t bothered would do me some good. Seppo could not get ahold of me half the time because the cabin didn’t have a phone and the cellphone reception cut in and out often. The few times I did speak to him the signal cut off much to my gratitude. I felt a little bad about distancing myself away from my band members, but they knew how I was and often allowed me to distance myself away from them, but I always did get a bit of guilt inside of me because I wasn’t sharing new guitar riffs with Linda or the newest keyboard notes I knew Burton would love to dabble with.

Sylvie didn’t have much of a problem with anything lately. Her publicists weren’t even getting on her back. She was quite in her zone most of the time and it was a bit unsettling for me. It could have been because I longed for whatever muse she had because my one track mind was taking detours at every rail change. My mind could have been wandering more than hers though because the woman’s head was always constantly intoxicated by her favorite plant. Occasionally she would pop down to my room and offer me a couple of joints she had rolled. There was little chat between us when she did appear. I always wished she would stay to smoke them with me so we could reenact the conversation in the car, but it seemed like every time I figured out how to ask her to stay in my head she was already turning out the door. It was as if she knew I was going to ask for the company, but did not want to be bothered with the company of her own.

That could have just been paranoia on my part. It was frustrating for me to have the chance to be alone and to have complete respect towards my solitude, but not having the inspiration that usually sparked when those chances came to me. I guess my restlessness provoked me to yearn for the chatter with another human being. I had started to speak aloud to myself more often just so I could hear another voice.

It was time for me to try to get somebody to speak to me. Either I had to invade Sylvie’s space if I was daring enough or take a little wander into town to talk to the locals like I did with my last stay in Lapland during one of my creative ruts.

I pulled out a cigarette from my packet and sparked up, inhaling deeply. I thought about how I should say something to Sylvie instead of just allowing my eyes to wander over her.

“Where are you off to tonight, love?”

She looked up, eyes wide, I had startled her. I wasn’t surprised that I did. We hadn’t spoken at all that day, nor did she probably notice me standing near her.

“I, uhm,” she looked down at her feet then back up to meet my eyes quickly. “I’m off to see Jaska. He’s an old friend. He owns that little dark hole of a pub I told you about. I think since I’ve managed to produce some decent work that I deserved a night off, so we’re going into the city to get dinner.”

I nodded, and took in what she was wearing again. She looked breath taking. She defiantly took the area we had been residing into account when dressing herself. Her outfit looked like something a designer would make if inspired by Lapland. Her heels were brown with a strip of grey fur covering the front that tuffed up between the buckle straps that held it. The dress she wore was cream and looked as if it was stained in tea. Black lace with a bow of matching color clutched around her thin waste. She picked up a tan coat that resembled a peacoat that had matching fur like her boots around the collar. My eyes lingered down to her legs, pausing for a few seconds more than I did with the upper half. As always, she did not care too much about temperature due to her bare legs poking out from under the layers of lace. I shook my head in amazement, wondering how she had yet to catch hyperthermia.

I wondered if friends usually took the time to dress up for old friends. I knew I didn’t, but then again I was never one to really catch onto common human actions. However, her upscale attire seemed overdone for an outing with an old friend.

Once she straightened out her outfit in front of the hall mirror, she turned to speak to me, “How is,” she paused to pull her bag onto her shoulder, “your work doing? I haven’t heard much, or maybe I’ve been that engrossed. Sorry if I’ve seemed rude.”

“Good, and no of course not, we’re here to work aren’t we?” I felt like I was lying. “What time will you be back? I’ll stay up and wait for you. We can maybe share what we’ve been doing.” I had no intention of showing her any of my work. I had nothing to show her, which was kind of embarrassing. Tell a lie, I had a rough outline of a song I had worked on that day; it had no lyrics....It was just a melody but it was better than nothing.

“Maybe, I don’t really like showing people my work when it isn’t finished though. It’s too raw, not enough lies.” she smiled wryly, “I might be late anyway. Jaska and I haven’t seen each other for a long time and, well...I’ve missed him.”

I thought I saw her blush, or maybe I was being a little paranoid. Regardless, I could feel a boiling anxiety in my stomach that tossed around as if it was mixing some kind of bad bodily stew with the acid in my stomach. It was a retched feeling, especially because I didn’t know exactly why it was there. Was it cause I just wanted human interaction for once? Sometimes I really do need to communicate with people to gain some inspiration.

She headed towards the door and opened it. Half way out the door she said, “You shouldn’t stay up for me, all right?”

“If you say so...” I trailed off, stuck in my thoughts.

“Are you all right?”

“What? Yeah, yeah,” I tried convincing myself more than her. “Go, go, you don’t want to be late to your rendezvous.”

Nodding, she saluted me, waited for my salute back, and closed the door behind her. I admittedly dashed towards my room to grab my guitar in hope that this anxiety would create something.