Miss Lonely
Magnolia
Auden woke up with a blistering pounding to his head. He didn’t know where he was, but it was cold. He sat up, and discovered that he had spent the night in a bus shed. He remember locking his stuff up in one of those boxes at the central railway station the day before. As he sat in the smelly bus shed, the thought of the apartment-girl came to him once again. He missed her greatly, he realised. He didn’t get her name, and for the moment he thought of how their time in the apartment was the perfect story. No hearts were broken. But her force of attraction was too great to let it be that way. Auden felt small all of a sudden, when thinking of how fragile he was. The face of the other girl, from Miss Lonely, stood much clearer in his mind, as the apartment-girl was nothing but a vague silouette of imperfection. The perfect imperfection that he desired so badly. Her brown eyes were unimaginably beautiful, as to why her face couldn’t reappear in his head no matter how hard he tried. Miss Lonely seemed accessible and realistic, as where the apartment-girl seemed more like a product of his imagination. He wondered if she even existed. His memory of her was taking such abstract forms that he started to doubt it. An abstract recreation from a disillusioned mind. She was no grey cat, she was a green force of nature.
He started walking towards the central railway station to gather his stuff and his guitar. On the way he stopped by a phone booth and called his friend Rami, asking for a place to stay.
MAGNOLIA, Auden bursted out to his inner thoughts, realising that the apartment-girl mentioned her name while talking on the phone in the apartment.
While on the phone with Rami, Auden hastily looked through the phone book inside of the phone booth. Magnolia couldn’t be a very common name, he thought to himself. And rightly so, there were two Magnolia’s in the phone book. He called the first one, who he after the brief conversation concluded must have been a hundred-and-sixty-five years old at least, so it couldn’t be her. He called the second and last Magnolia in town.
“Hello?” The voice in the phone said softly. He knew it was her. Her voice was warm as the sun and blue like the midnight stars. It took him a while before realising that he had no clue of what he was going to say. In a quiet and slow movement he hung up. And suddenly the phone booth felt like a warm and isolated cave which Auden didn’t want to leave. The actual confrontation with the apartment-girl scared him. He tried looking out the window of the phone booth, from where he couldn’t see anything but his own reflection. He looked petrified. What if the the pure image of the apartment-girl that he kept in his mind got dirt on it. As the dirt on the windows of the phone booth on which he could barely see his own reflection from. A shaken reflection, that was - shaken as rings in the water. Rings breaking the surface of an untouched image. He wanted the image of her to remain that way; Untouched. Pure. A stranger came by and interrupted Auden in his thoughts by knocking on the door. Auden left the warm booth and had it replaced with a cold and light blue urban image. There were people on the streets now. The teacher, the salesman and the cashier made their busy ways to their jobs leaving no thought for each other, wrestling through the anonymous world. As if they were injected into the street, the same way a drug addict would inject heroin into his veins.
After having retrieved his backpack and his guitar, Auden found his way to Rami. He first met Rami at art school, from where Auden dropped out after only a few months. Not because he didn’t like it, the commitment simply scared him. He had considered going back heavily. He dropped out five years before, and had been in and out of low-paying jobs ever since. Auden had always been a bit of a loner, despite being surrounded by friends who would consider him as close. He found himself distanced from any human relationship. However, Magnolia, the apartment-girl, was compelling on a whole other level. He had trouble getting used to the fact that she had a name though. It brought her closer to planet Earth, and planet Earth did not seem like her natural habitat.
Rami lived in a small apartment up north in the part of town called Copper Village, where the people of the working class would be found. That included artists, criminals, musicians and the socalled scums of society. Auden used to live in that neighborhood as well, before he got kicked out. He remembered the smell as soon as he got out of the city bus - it was like returning to his teenage room with rock’n’roll-posters of The Who and John Lennon on the walls. The smell was thick and substantial, and it took him right back to his happier days.
The graffiti on the grey concrete walls were of fluxuating quality, but Auden kept it all close to his heart. Even the most dreadful of the urban artists were speaking on behalf of everybody who lived there, unlike in the wealthy neighborhoods where only the perfect creatures got to make their mark on the world. Copper Village was a world in itself. A world isolated from war and inequality.
The sky was cloudy, resembling the color of the concrete walls - the ones without graffiti, that is. Concrete walls growing out of the equally grey pavement. It was a grey neighborhood, except for the people living in it. Auden thought of it as an interesting contrast, the prosperous neighborhoods had mighty colorful buildings, yet grey people, as the Copper Village had it the other way around. A unique diversity in the population, which was of big admiration to Auden. Rami, for example, had both of his parents killed during a robbery when he was a child, also living in the very same neighborhood. Auden thought that it wouldn’t surprise him if Magnolia was also resident in Copper Village. She had to be.
He started walking towards the central railway station to gather his stuff and his guitar. On the way he stopped by a phone booth and called his friend Rami, asking for a place to stay.
MAGNOLIA, Auden bursted out to his inner thoughts, realising that the apartment-girl mentioned her name while talking on the phone in the apartment.
While on the phone with Rami, Auden hastily looked through the phone book inside of the phone booth. Magnolia couldn’t be a very common name, he thought to himself. And rightly so, there were two Magnolia’s in the phone book. He called the first one, who he after the brief conversation concluded must have been a hundred-and-sixty-five years old at least, so it couldn’t be her. He called the second and last Magnolia in town.
“Hello?” The voice in the phone said softly. He knew it was her. Her voice was warm as the sun and blue like the midnight stars. It took him a while before realising that he had no clue of what he was going to say. In a quiet and slow movement he hung up. And suddenly the phone booth felt like a warm and isolated cave which Auden didn’t want to leave. The actual confrontation with the apartment-girl scared him. He tried looking out the window of the phone booth, from where he couldn’t see anything but his own reflection. He looked petrified. What if the the pure image of the apartment-girl that he kept in his mind got dirt on it. As the dirt on the windows of the phone booth on which he could barely see his own reflection from. A shaken reflection, that was - shaken as rings in the water. Rings breaking the surface of an untouched image. He wanted the image of her to remain that way; Untouched. Pure. A stranger came by and interrupted Auden in his thoughts by knocking on the door. Auden left the warm booth and had it replaced with a cold and light blue urban image. There were people on the streets now. The teacher, the salesman and the cashier made their busy ways to their jobs leaving no thought for each other, wrestling through the anonymous world. As if they were injected into the street, the same way a drug addict would inject heroin into his veins.
After having retrieved his backpack and his guitar, Auden found his way to Rami. He first met Rami at art school, from where Auden dropped out after only a few months. Not because he didn’t like it, the commitment simply scared him. He had considered going back heavily. He dropped out five years before, and had been in and out of low-paying jobs ever since. Auden had always been a bit of a loner, despite being surrounded by friends who would consider him as close. He found himself distanced from any human relationship. However, Magnolia, the apartment-girl, was compelling on a whole other level. He had trouble getting used to the fact that she had a name though. It brought her closer to planet Earth, and planet Earth did not seem like her natural habitat.
Rami lived in a small apartment up north in the part of town called Copper Village, where the people of the working class would be found. That included artists, criminals, musicians and the socalled scums of society. Auden used to live in that neighborhood as well, before he got kicked out. He remembered the smell as soon as he got out of the city bus - it was like returning to his teenage room with rock’n’roll-posters of The Who and John Lennon on the walls. The smell was thick and substantial, and it took him right back to his happier days.
The graffiti on the grey concrete walls were of fluxuating quality, but Auden kept it all close to his heart. Even the most dreadful of the urban artists were speaking on behalf of everybody who lived there, unlike in the wealthy neighborhoods where only the perfect creatures got to make their mark on the world. Copper Village was a world in itself. A world isolated from war and inequality.
The sky was cloudy, resembling the color of the concrete walls - the ones without graffiti, that is. Concrete walls growing out of the equally grey pavement. It was a grey neighborhood, except for the people living in it. Auden thought of it as an interesting contrast, the prosperous neighborhoods had mighty colorful buildings, yet grey people, as the Copper Village had it the other way around. A unique diversity in the population, which was of big admiration to Auden. Rami, for example, had both of his parents killed during a robbery when he was a child, also living in the very same neighborhood. Auden thought that it wouldn’t surprise him if Magnolia was also resident in Copper Village. She had to be.