Sunday, February 08, 2015

the marque de sad

Flickering red neon crosses radiated down toward us from the two towers of the cathedral as we quickly strode through Plaza las Armas. The dark navy sky attained a splatter of stars like diamonds on a windshield. The Plaza was empty. A light breeze blew eddies of trash against the long, vacant concrete benches.
It was necessary to make the bed when we got back to my apartment. It was three in the morning. I’d washed the sheets earlier and left them drying on the sagging line behind my building. The locale I rented offered a communal patio for all six residents.
“I wasn’t expecting to have anyone over tonight,” I said, a sentence which left a weird note of sad-clown loneliness in the air. He smiled and took charge of the process, being less drunk than I, informing me which corners to hold, when to shake it out. We dressed the flat sheet, spread the blanket smoothing it out with our palms, put the pillow covers on and took off our clothes. We left stains on the freshly washed sheet. Oh well. Worth it. In the morning he disappeared in a puff of smoke, back to his boyfriend, after a coffee and a hug.

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