www.babelfruit.com

Writing under the influence. I paused. And thought. Humph. And took another swig of Whiskey and Coke. I don't think they mean...because that would be...


I started to read, slumped in my chair, arm hung in the sling. Fucking shoulder. I was all but paralyzed in that arm when i stumbled on the link. Typing in a strange one-handed hybrid. Uncoordinated fingers dancing from qwerty to bnm,. Under what influence. It didn't cut into the pain at all. Diffused it, maybe so instead of the intense burn in my chest and shoulder, the burn spread. spearing creepingcrawling up and down my back and arms. Across my face. Into my bowel.

Fuck.

Cultural influence. I saw the beast rouse in the corner, and wished the shotgun was loaded.
"Go back to sleep," I grumbled, thinking i should try it. Sometime. Soon.

The story had been dissatisfying.
"So why don't you stop reading?"
"Go back to sleep!"

I closed the window. I didn't really care about cultural influence. I hated it anyway. "I have had too much and too little of it. My hodge-podge princess. Now, sleep.

"I won't. not now that you have started talking to me."
So i turned back to the screen. It wouldn't take long. Soon something equally insulting would slap me in the face. Humph. Under the influence, I thought. Taking another swig from the mug.

1. Here Comes February

It wasn't so perfectly night time that night as Jane left work. The days would still be growing colder, but at least they were slowly getting longer. She wondered how long a long day was in this country. The enigma of the sunset had still yet to unravel itself, though she never missed a sunrise.

The offistel studio faced sunrise directly. And appropriate was for a lady like Jane to wake each day, rising with the sun as it crept of the old church, the only building in the vista. If you'd met her, you would think she was a bit like a sunrise. Enchanting, unwanted, wanted, unremarkable, often unremarked.

Jane quickened her pace against the bitter cold that night, on her way to the bus depot. Thinking about the orange-red glow of that morning. Like the sunsets she used to race against as she flew on her bike back home.

Academies had just let out for dinner break, and the street was full with children, thankful for the recess, even if there were no play gyms to spend their energy on. Instead they spent money in multitude of snack shops, buying duk, or kimbab rolls. She dodged several near collisions as kids with sticks of gooey treats weaved and bobbed up and down the sidewalk.

In a moment of clarity, Jane realized it was colder than she thought, wondered if she should double back for a sweater and miss the express bus and the early class. No, I have made up my mind to go straight to Yoga.

The instructor was terrible, and something about the bus--its smell or the way it weaved and bobbed like a small child with gooey treats--always upset her stomach. She still went to the class out of a cursory politeness. She was pulling a James, rather inconvenience herself than offend anyone. Even if she wasn't going to see that person again. She thought about James, wondered where he had got off to these days. It had been a long 8 months, he could be in Afgahnistan by now.

The light changed to cross the busy highway. And the day is longer, she thought, it is a good day to do something after work.

Jane arrived at the bus depot as the sky took on that truly night time grey. It only ever got dark in the city around 4. A long way off, she thought, as she waited for the bus.