No Audience


Underneath it all, under the covers, under the cover of sky, under the influence, undercover, underman, under the sun.

It's a room full of people feeling nothing.

Veins, dried up like canyon roads in the hills, handicapped they cripple around in small circles circulating with very tight parametres sipping cocktails with parasols swaying words they never heard of.

A roomful of human errors. Flubbed fly balls, booted grounders in a society sandlot sinking. They profess no mistakes, admit no errors. These kids are flawless. Their eyes don't blink.

And when they all go home sleeping together, their post coital figures fade, sun light returns, no one can find their sunglasses and nobody can be cool.

I flip a coin.

Not randomly. I want this one to count.

I flip a coin and just as it's about to land in my palm someone laughs and pushes someone in front of them forward which happened to be my back and then I slipped, disc and all, the coin fell to the hardwood floor, bounced back up a time or two and then slept, heads up.

Everyone stopped moving, everyone stopped talking. You could hear the neighbour's tv. A dog was barking three blocks north.

I picked up the coin because the coin was worth something. A broken tooth, a jar of marmite, cross eyes, everyone wondering about this coin and the hand that collected it and the body connected to it that stood up, straightened out and made moves to leave.

Thank you, I said. I'll be doing this again tomorrow night.