Carnival teacups.

“You really need to shave. I mean, fine, your face looked perfect as always but I’d love it better when it’s shaved.”
We were talking in the dark, though we were aware that we were hopelessly waiting for each other to catch some sleep, and that inability kept on throwing us things to talk to–random things, trivial ones, just to bore ourselves.
“Why are you concerned about my facial hair anyway? It hasn’t even grown itself to a stubble.”
“I don’t know.”
She slowly shifted her body away from my face–from sideways to a recumbent position.
“I mean, it’s natural–” I paused for a while–an expectant pause, that is–for she was about to say something. Sigh.
“I just think it’s neat, you know. Don’t be too hot about it.”
“So you think facial hair is dirt all over–”
“Don’t be silly.” I heard a distant sigh, a sigh coming at the other side of the wall of her body.
“It’s just that I think it’s neat on you, but that I leave it to you as a choice.”
Seconds passed.
“Hey,” I said hesitantly, “I think I’d get some water.”
“Sure,” she said while yawning, “I think I still have Tropicana on the fridge.” Her voice was distant and waning.

I sat first on the edge of the bed, the edge of my side of the bed, as the other side was hers, though the demarcation line was only set temporarily for that night. My face was lit by the nostalgic orange streetlights sifted by vertical blinds and by the oak trees as well. The bedside table clock said 3:04 am, and that its gloomy red digits were the only visible thing in the bedroom besides the afterglows of what had happened, which I had not really expected in the first place, but thinking of it made me look closley for the gradual guilt coming out of me. The muffled sound of the heater was the only sound I could hear with, of course, the steady inhale-exhale pace of her breathing.

I then stood up, wore my boxers which I had found–after an eye-straining inspection of things in the dark–right besides the tall standing lampshade which accidentally–or probably purposefully–fell while we were heading our way to the bed–to her bed–as we hungrily pepper each other with kisses, long and short ones.

Then I trod over her underwear and the clothes we had undressed, then I felt my boots situated near the door frame, next to it were her moccasins, walked a little to the kitchen and eventually found the switch in the dark. I turned on the switch but the kitchen lights were too strong so I decided to turn it off.

I found milk instead, but it was still cold from the fridge. I decided–after much contest as to whether I should serve it warm or cool–to microwave it. I was there at the kitchen, the garden casting overglows of faint fluorescent, the entire kitchen swallowed by the shadows, and I was staring at the microwave. My face could have radiated a slight tinge of orange-yellow as I stared closely at the two mugs of milk rotating silently like those carnival teacups circling and whirling in Uptown Girl, that movie with Dakota Fanning in it. My grandmother used to tell me not to look directly inside the microwave since it emits radiation, and that it has adverse effects and yadda-yadda, but maybe she had this ulterior motive of saying such thing–which was not really preposterous after all. Maybe, just maybe, she also got into the same situation of staring inside the microwave, probably heating some left-over corned beef casserole or something she cooks often, and thought of it as somewhat depressing. Well, it is depressing to look at. It’s such a lonely electronic kitchen piece.

Ting! rang the microwave, and right away I opened it, and I handled both mugs with care, and I nudged the microwave door with my head until it banged and sealed itself closed.

“I also got some grapes,” I said, cautiously walking, aware that the fallen lampshade is looming nearby.
“Great,” she said, and it sounded as if she fell asleep for some time. I handed over the bowlful of grapes.
She turned on the bedside lamp, and took a swig from the warm mug.
“C’mon, let’s shave your facial hair!” She sounds excited.
“No way. Just drop it. Please.”
“Why? What’s wrong with shaving down your facial hair, anyway?”

I could imagine the two of us in the bathroom: she was holding the razor and I was doing the necessary facial gestures. She would have said: lean right, look up, handsome, lean left, oh you looked great now. I felt guilty again. After the shaving, perhaps we would be cuddling again. Later at 7 in the morning, I would repeatedly murmur in my mind that I should be at home to fix some coffee, prepare myself to work; that I should act normal; that I should not look like I had sex with my ex-girlfriend right after we had accidentally–or probably purposefully–met at the moviehouse to watch 21, that movie about gambling and MIT students and stuff. Yet my face would show, and it would undeniably show that I had shaved my facial hair, and that it was unusual of me to shave it with a wet razor, since I prefer it dry, and that I would reason out to my present girlfriend (during our lunchdates or during her frequent home visits) that my razor was accidentally (or purposefully) stolen, or that it accidentally (or purposefully) fell down the toilet and that I went straight to Walmart or 7-11 to buy a new one, yet they ran out of stock, yes, the store in some weird reason ran out of their razors and that I had to buy the electric ones. Or that I ran out of shaving cream, yes, and that it would cause so much bleeding if I would shave without it, and that an electric razor is much cheaper than Nivea Shaving Cream. And that she would have smelled something weird going on, and that she would have thought of reasons that are plausible and believable and pivotal that might make me do the impossible, and that she would insist there’s something else going on, and that I’m a liar, that I’m covering things up, that she can’t understand…

“I’ll probably do the shaving at home.” I drank my warm mug of milk, detached some grapes from its stem, and thought of sleeping.

December 22, 2008 at 12:47 pm, filed under Fiction. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.