With the frequency of Mazey's bad days she had become a regular at Joe's, which was populated by men coming off a twelve hour shift at the refinery and a few haggard, anemic looking college students looking for cheap food on the cheaper side of town.
Her usual brew was waiting in her usual seat at the counter where she could both literally and metaphorically turn her back to the world behind her.
She didn't like the way most of the working men eyed her. The girl in her late twenties who moved around the refinery like a ghost. Touching nothing but changing seemingly pointless processes in their jobs.
She took a long swallow of beer and loosed the tortoise shell clip that kept her hair up. The fall of smooth brown that stumbled over her white t-shirt looked more unnatural to her than the ink well black she kept it before landing this respectable job.
Soon the E.P.A would be all over this “respectable” refinery. With the dozens of briefs and studies she'd done in the past year, the hammer was bound to drop soon. Maybe this week.
She smiled, impish, into her cup. Her boss thought that threatening her career was enough to keep her silent, and the hush money sat collecting dust in a separate account. They'd all be fairly surprised to find that not everyone could be bought.
Some people just wanted to fuck with the men who thought they were immune.
Her pizza steaming in front of her, she didn't notice the man sliding into the empty seat to her right. Or the way his eyes read her face, understood the verse hidden there, the strange, blind desire to hurt and heal.
“Can I get you anything?” Joe asked without looking up. He only had two hands but used them with the efficiency of an octopus with fingers.
“Jus' a beer.” His voice carried, like a splash of yellow in a black room.
His hand rested on the counter, a few inches from her elbow. That was the first part of him she fell in love with. Fine fingers, like fleshy bones, delicate the way they drummed on the counter top to a tune that she recognized as older her mother.
“Hows the pizza?” the man asked while Joe was away wrangling beer from a schizophrenic tap.
His face was like cold water that turned to steam indoors, with eyes pale gray as dawn and lips so red they seemed to have just been soundly kissed.
“It's...delicious.”
(448 Words)
2 comments:
I like the description here. You really brought Mazey to life, but it looks like your inner poet took over and you abused the right to sentence fragments in prose.
The way you described the man's voice was pure poetry in motion, but I was a little lost on the metaphor you had going for his face and his hands. "Fleshy" comes with a mildly negative connotation.
It seems a little like you tried to pack a lot into a short space, but you have time and weeks and weeks to bring a world to life. Let us get to know Mazey slowly, comfortably. You don't have to sell us on her here. I like how food is comfort, and "panacea" is officially the word of the day. :)
On the first read through I was confused, the second time through I was able to pick up more. I do like the phrase where she can turn her back to the world, and the hands like an octopus with fingers.
The poetic snatches of description were very nice, but offset by some confusion. At least I was confused. I echo Nagi, introduce us slowly to your characters.
Welcome to the board.
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