| and the vision that was planted in my brain still remains... |
[23 May 2003|10:42am] |
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She smelled like perfume that had somehow found a way to decompose. Her clothes were clinging to his hands (straps that were easily pulled away, snaps and not buttons, clasps that fell under the littlest amount of pressure) as if the fabric was sticky, like a spider's web.
Astin closed his eyes, not wanting to dwell on that, not even wanting to think of the fact that she spread her legs like it was a chore, like he was a chore, like life is, and might as well, be a chore.
It was her eyes that made him consider it. Round, blue, like the ocean as he had seen it out of the plane's window, like her chipped and cracking fingernail polish. It pulled him in like a fish that had given up hope of survival. She had smiled and asked in a breathy voice, cigarette between her fingers, lipstick on the filter, "Voulez-vous me prendre maison?" Home. Take. Astin was nodding and being reeled in closer, closer, before he knew exactly what was going on.
He kissed her once on the neck, and the smell had been so strong there that he had almost choked. She was murmuring to him in French, but he did not bother to sift through the words to find the meaning. It's like riding a bike, people say. You never forget how. And even though it has been a couple years, even though his heart was pounding in his throat, and her eyes were wide open and staring at him, he managed to remember, without exactly remembering.
Instinct, people call it. Astin would much rather call it obligation.
He thought it was the suit, the tie, the briefcase, and the shiny shoes, that made her pause before she gave him the price. He winced and paid her, face burning, eyes down. When he looked back up, the corner of her mouth was raised in what he thought was a smug smirk. Her eyes were black and void of whatever charm he thought she might possess.
He dreamed of the ocean that night, and when he awoke, it was because his face was shoved so very deep in his pillow that he couldn't breathe.
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| look down and see the sweepings at your feet... |
[14 Apr 2003|11:01pm] |
"I've changed," Astin thinks as he looks into his clean, unsmudged, uncracked, uneverything, living room mirror.
Changed.
His face is rosy in the light that spills in from the open window. Rosy and bathed in shadow, so that half of it is obscured, half of it is unreal. He can run his fingertips over this dark area and know that the lines are more finely chiseled... he is more finely chiseled.
In a couple hours he will lock up his apartment (new, brand new. more money means more options, and he doesn't miss his battered little place that he had when he first came to Paris. no, not at all), and leave for work. The charcoal suit that used to be tight across the shoulders fits him perfectly. Lack of sleep and increase of activity has seen it fit to shed a little weight. Shiny, new shoes sans scuffs. A gentleman's haircut.
He will walk out of his apartment (warm and snug and bright) when it is fully dark, and lock the door, handling his briefcase like an expert. That Sean Astin... he certainly knows what he's doing. He has power, for once in his life. (Harry has seen to that.) He will watch where he is going. He'll meet people's eyes (even though his face flushes and his ears burn and he has to look away, quick, quick, before they recognize the fact that he still doesn't belong, that there's still something wrong, he's still incomplete) and move on, not thinking about anything but, work, work, what must be done, what he must do, things that need to be tended to, things that need him, him alone, he's the only one can do it. And by the end of the night when the sun is gaining confidence in the sky, he'll crawl into bed and sleep, dreaming of nothing but numbers and contracts and people walking up to him saying, "Mister Astin, sir."
Changed.
"Hello," Sean murmurs to the two-faced image of himself in the mirror. The light is fading rapidly, and his eyes are itching with the sleep he has just awoken from. "My name is Sean Astin.
"Astin. Sean."
He watches as the light dissipates completely and he is bathed in shadow, smiling strangely to himself.
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| you meet, you greet, you feel incomplete... |
[08 Feb 2003|02:00pm] |
He had never intended to call. Never intended to have a reason to call. Elijah had given his number simply because it was the polite thing to do. And when he had said, "call me if you need help," he had really meant, "call me as a last resort."
Of course, Sean didn't have any resorts. Let alone a last one.
He had stood there, phone receiver (which was always a little sticky, as if someone had spilt syrup on it) in hand, Elijah's scribbled number in another. It had been written on a corner of newspaper. The last few digits were blurred from where Sean kept rubbing his fingers over it as he walked home with it in his pocket.
"call me..." Elijah had said.
"Hi, um, Elijah? It's Sean. Sean Astin. Yeah. Am I...? No? Okay. Look, I ah. Have a favor to ask you...?"
( L'escalier )
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| A day in the life... |
[20 Jan 2003|03:14am] |
His alarm goes off directly at 7:05am every Monday-Friday. eei, eei, eei, piercing through dreamless sleep of the nearly dead from exhaustion and homesickness and, oh, man, where is he, again?
Oh. Right.
He climbs out of his warm and comfy bed on such mornings and stumbles in his gentleman's pajamas (blue plaid or red stripes or green flannel) to the small bathroom attached to his slightly bigger bedroom which leads into the deplorably sized sitting room. Wash, wash, brush, brush. Making himself presentable. Transforming himself from bed-head crusty eyed slack mouthed Sean Astin into Astin, business man of finance, Accounting extraordinaire, debiting and crediting like nobody's business before your very eyes! Ta-da! And he's in his relaxed winter suitish thing that is a little too big on him in the cuffs of the arm and trouser leg, and he stands in front of his cracked bedroom mirror with a smile of accomplishment on his face and thinks, "...The hell am I kidding?"
Thirty-one years old and he's across the ocean away from all he's ever known, working for a place he'd rather see burn to the ground with people who look at him with sympathizing eyes who most of the time don't even speak English, which is one of the many sources of Astin's nervousness, because, yeah, American, and he had taken Spanish in school, but that's it. And, really, though. All they see is a drone. All they see is a money maker. And if Sean's tongue were to be unglued from the roof of his mouth, he'd probably say, You know, I'm a human being, damnit! I do my job and I do it damn well. I deserve some respect. I deserve... something else.
And this is the point of his morning where Sean's shoulders slump and he chews on his bottom lip, looking down at the scuffs covering his best shoes. I deserve what, exactly?, he asks himself, the weight of life itself bearing down on his shoulders, enough to make his fingers shake and his knees want to buckle.
Soon he will gather his briefcase with its files and sheets and legal notepads and Bic pens and number two pencils from the sitting room. Wrap himself in his worn, this close to being old, coat. Take one look around his shabby, drab, but meticulously clean apartment. And then sigh to himself before opening the door and letting himself out, already steering himself for the blast of cold Parisian air and the condescending looks on the faces of the people he will pass. There goes Astin. The nobody. Right.
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