Electricity

Jared scanned the bar code around the neck of the pineapple. Beep. The desiccated coconut. Beep. The box of lite Kraft Singles, the low-fat yoghurt, the tinned whole tomatoes. Beep, beep, beep.
'Oh please put those in another bag," the lady, mid-forties, hands encrusted in gold snapped at him.
"Of course," he said, and then whispering, added. "You old bag."
"What?"
"A new bag..." he rebuked himself with confidence, and pinned a new bag to the frame before him.
"Oh, ok, yes," the woman replied with unease.
"That's seventy-eight dollars and fifty-five cents," Jared yawned.
"Just this one," the woman pulled a Visa Debit from her YSL clutch.
Jared swiped the card for the woman and was told by the machine to enter the chip, as he did he noticed the name on the card was one Mr Herbert Mariweather. He smiled at the woman while the card was processed, an uneasy pitying smile. The woman entered her pin and in a couple more seconds was gone from Jared's life until next week when he would be greeted by four boxes of bran flakes, a kilo of caper berries, and another designer handbag.
Jared shuffled his little stationary colection before him with futility. He put the ball-point pen on top of the register, the stapler he moved an inch to the left of where it already sat. The motley assortment of coloured rubber bands he let stay where they were before he moved the pen back where it had been before, straightened up its placement and then nodded with approval. He looked up feeling someone's gaze upon him. Kristy was looking down on him from the mezzanine where she was pricing boxes of mineral water. She blew a bubble from the hubba bubba in her mouth boredly and then looked away. He watched as a father in a pair of fitted Carhartt cords, a tweed jacket and Oliver Peoples glasses pushed his daughter's pram down the toiletries aisle calmly telling her because people need groceries... why? because otherwise we go hungry... why? because we would starve... why? because our bodies would become little skeletons even tinier than you...why?
"Hi," a girl was standing before Jared with eyes more purple eye shadow than pupil.
"Hello," he responded and promptly knocked his pen to the ground.
Truss tomatoes. Beep. Pappardelle pasta. Beep. Garlic cloves. Beep.
"How has your day been?" the girl asked, chirpily.
"Um, you know, it's been ok," he responded nervously.
Jared slowly lifted the few items in the girl's red shopping basket, Aubergine .23kg, bagful of lemons .17kg, a single banana .08kg. He stole a glance at her wrist, adorned with an old men's Longines watch in rose gold. His eyes crept up her forearms to where her blouse sleeve started, the lace hem was a little tattered in a charming kind of way. His eyes moved to hers and she was already looking at him, smiling the coy smile of cat about to pounce.
"I think it's gonna rain out," Jared said quickly.
"I love the smell in the air just before it rains."
"I do too," Jared replied surprised at his own conviction, and cleared his throat. "I really do," he confirmed.
"There's this kind of electricity in the air, you know?"
He nodded and scanned the last of her items, a selection of chocolate covered almonds and hazelnuts and she handed him forty dollars in cash. Her fingers brushed his and a static charge pulsed through the contact of their skin. He jumped a little and tried not to drop her money, he noticed her eyes were giving away a smile that her lips were not privy to. He gave back her change, and smiled. "Apparently the electricity in the air is due to the vapour build up from precipitation," he said and immediately regretted it.
"You don't say," she replied, letting the smile in her eyes take over her face. "You don't say."
She made her way to the automatic doors and disappeared from eye shot. He greeted the next person in line but watched through the closing entry doors as a flash of lightning cut through the white sky.

On a Balcony in Hackney

Isobel walked through the darkness of palm fronds and Tiki torches. She lit a cigarette and watched as the smoke billowed upwards into the fire-red night sky. She walked to the balcony overlooking the blue abyss of the apartment rec area, the bean-shaped underground pool, the neon blue 'artistic' lighting. She hated living here. Almost as much as she hated the student union's idea of a fun movie night. She watched inside as the boys dressed like foot ballers out on the prowl, cheered as Nicholas Cage jumped from the exploding wreckage of something airborne, a blimp, a chopper, a spontaneously combusting commercial jet? Who really cared.
"How did Nicholas Cage ever get a career any way?" a voice to her right sneered.
"He was the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola," Isobel responded automatically, then realising she was not alone on the balcony turned and saw the dark figure standing next to her.
"Sorry, I thought you saw me here," the figure offered.
"Hi," Isobel said, awkwardly turning back to stare at the fascinating burning process of her lit cigarette. She saw him take a sip from his bottle in her peripheral vision. She looked sideways and discreetly took in a pair of black gusseted Chelsea boots and a pair of painted on black jeans.
"I think the hair of Nicholas Cage should probably get its own billing in the credits," Isobel said, deadpan.
"The bald mullet is a defining moment in cinematic history it is true," the figure said.
"As defining perhaps, as a slap in the face of sight," Isobel added dryly.
The figure laughed, and inched himself closer.
"What are you doing here?" The figure asked.
"Making sure my house-mate doesn't decide to bring the University football team back to our place for some form of wall knocking entertainment."
"She sounds lovely."
"Yep, her parents should be proud," Isobel said and tapped the ash deposit from her cigarette to the ground, she noticed her scoop necked t-shirt was hanging too low down her chest and she quickly lifted the fabric above the definition of her breasts to feel more comfortable.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"I'm going to this show on Kingsland High Street and waiting for my girlfriend in there to say goodbye to her friends, she's been in there for a half hour now."
"Maybe she likes bald mullets?"
"Maybe she also likes engineering students with a predilection for words like matriculate."
"Maybe she just doesn't like you."
"That's been crossing my mind," the figure reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a pouch of rolling tobacco and lifted a paper to his lip, letting it rest there.
"What's the band?" Isobel asked.
"This noisy little band from Scotland that sound a bit like Suicide."
"Ahhh, I don't know Suicide."
"Yeah, this Scottish band sound a lot like them."
The figure lit his cigarette and took a drag. Isobel dropped her butt to the ground and placed her hand down on the railing. The figure put his hand down absently on the rail so close to Isobel's, that she could feel the warmth his skin was emitting. She felt the breath lift in her chest.
"I wish I knew them," Isobel said. "It'd be nice to say I like suicide."

Snippets in Transit

"Ooh, you look just like Buddy Holly," said Vera.
"Yep, and you're Mary Tyler-Moore," said Tom.
Vera and Tom sat huddled in the corner of a dank little watering hole, watching the afternoon sunlight cast dead skin cells and other humid paraphernalia through the air.
"Put on an argyle sweater and put on a smile," said Vera.
"I pull off your jeans and you spill Jack and Coke on my collar," said Tom.
"Nice," Vera mocked. "I didn't think you'd get that."
"You didn't think I knew The National?"
She smiled at him, her elfish smile that sent off way too many signals for Tom to decipher without a map of the female mind.
"Ok... you are my only girl..."
"What?"
"You are my only girl." Tom repeated.
"Ummm, thanks?" Vera searched his face with a raised right eyebrow.
"It's a song!!" He cried, trying not to laugh.
"Oh, I thought you were coming onto me for a second, oh yeah, Hot Hot Heat. Talk to Me, Dance with me"
"What's the line though?"
"I am your only girl, but I'm not your only girl."
"Would it be such a bad thing anyway?"
"Would what?"
"Nevermind."
"No," she smiled. "What's a bad idea?"
"Nothing, ok... another one "making love in the afternoon..."
Vera was staring at Tom with piercingly large eyes, dishes, little satellites of blue that had made many a man before feel their tract, "...with Cecilia up in my bedroom, i got up to wash my face, when I come back to bed someone's taken my place."
"That was quick,"
"I love that song, how about 'I don't have to sell my soul... he's already in me'".
"I wanna be adored!" Tom shouted, a little louder than he'd anticipated.
They both laughed.
"Awww, I know you do," Vera said eventually, before sending them both laughing again, and then adding. "It wouldn't be, you know. Such a bad thing."
"What wouldn't?" Tom asked, almost crying in laughter.
"If you were coming on to me."
Tom slowed his hysteria with a few final chuckles, and composed himself. He searched those features of hers briefly and before he could even decide whether or not to speak she had met his lips with her own.
Suddenly the bar started playing What Difference does it Make by The Smiths.

DISTANCE

His canvas plimsolls tracked through the paved white sheen of the afternoon snow, his hands clenched into fists inside the pockets of his auburn leather jacket, his ears growing red under a thin fleece hood, his knees numb and brittle moving like the unloved axle of a seized up old bicycle. He imagined her warm hands nestled under her breast, lifting with the light breath of slumber, that rose to the chime of a distant hour some many miles away. In her country the sun would rouse her with the humid warmth of summer in less than four hours. Her blue eyes would recoil and her tanned arms would reach and snap the shutters closed. When she finally found her feet her bones
too would feel awkward and mechanical. It's strange what is said about distance, hearts growing fonder in absence, but does the mind have the faculty to listen and not just ponder?

As the snow returned it fell across his face, bitter to his shivering lips. The splintered maples caught nothing and instead the melted blanket underfoot turned quickly to ice. When he reached the next
intersection he watched his grim reflection glide by slowly in a passing cab. She too saw her reflection in the bathroom vanity and thought of him, his pale skin she envisaged from photographs, his smile she remembered by heart. She had not seen that smile since January last, and the reason for their farewell had never ceased to trouble her. The suddenness of it, the very painlessness at the time had seemed foreign, as though it had belonged to another person, a denial not at all her own. He had left according to plan, but the plan had changed from its inception and it no longer included her hand. Fair weather friends they were not, and he knew one day he would again find her grace but he was never certain of what form it would take, the confidant, the memory, the letter writer perhaps, but always she would be his muse.

The months that had followed were not miserable, nor as he had feared were they filled with pain. A new life and new surroundings were as intriguing as they were puzzling and as much as she would find his waking thoughts, he would share only fondness for the lives they now knew. Occasionally she would be privy to photos of him, she would admire and she would be filled with a strange sense of pride but she would always put it down to an inane nostalgic flight of fancy. But as the months passed she would find herself more captivated in his correspondence than in the charm any potential suitor could provide. He watched faces, he listened to strange unfamiliar voices, he found solace in limbo and became content knowing that he would not find anyone new to engage him, not like her. The blooms came, and then the songs of summer, green turned yellow to red and the sun stayed well into the night. He felt close to his old homeland, it was in letters, in the papers, online, but it no longer felt like his.

On an afternoon of streaming through parks and traffic on two wheels he felt his hair dance with the wind. At the same time she was battling with a freezing gale walking home late in the night. She felt
her fingers scroll through her mobile and find his name with all the strange international codes at the start, but instead of dialing she locked her phone and stored it back in her over sized leather duffel, protracted her keys and rescued herself from the cold. He felt a chill lift up his spine, like someone walking over his grave and slowed himself to a stop. He was on a crest staring straight at a row of Tudor style houses, their green rooves lit brightly under the midday sun. There were moments when everything fell quiet, when the busy streets and the constant throng of passers by disappeared and left behind an eery silence. In a city that was built around noise and movement, you could often ignore the strings of the heart and just listen to the static that was all around you, when that buzz was gone he found he couldn't hide from what he yearned for most.

It was in autumn that he finally heard her voice, it was the sound he imagined velvet would make and he knew instantly by the tone in her voice, that love was still with her. She asked about his life, trying to live vicariously through his words, trying to not sound like she wanted his touch and not just his voice and in all of a few moments they had watched her afternoon turn into night, and he had watched the sun rise. Theirs was an eternal crossing of night and day, poetic in
theory, but in practice distance was simply a word that gave frustration to daily living.

In a Thai restaurant his thoughts were revealed on paper, pulling the thin piece of writing from his fortune cookie it read 'you will seriously consider moving by the end of the year'. He excused himself from the table and went to the restroom where he ran his hands under the warm water and stroked his fingers through his shaggy mop of hair. He wondered what she would make of him, with the unforgiving light of the flurorescent tubes he looked gaunt and dishevelled. The rain outside was coming through the open bathroom window and he could see the light of the moon refracting in the tiny droplets gathering on the sill. He pocketed the note and undid the top button of his plaid shirt
before walking through the restaurant and out and finding himself staring up at the endless stretch above him, letting the drizzle saturate him completely.

She woke with the birds, and for a second rolled over her bed expecting to find him there beside her, she now knew a date and that gave her hope, knowing that one day soon he would be there. Is there a reason why one person can fit where others feel cumbersome? It was more than fingers that interlocked perfectly or shoulders that were made for her head, it was an endorphin that she found only came with him. As she lay there she couldn't help but feel it in her just by imagining him.

He booked flights and sold all of his superfluous possessions in an east side street market. He thought about that old adage about love and letting it go, about that which is truly yours coming back to you in the end. She had let him go too, he wondered about all of the choices we make in life, the compromises and the mistakes. Are there really any mistakes? When he locked his door for the last time he looked at his bond cheque and laughed, he felt like throwing his keys into the
air like the graduation cap of a newly free student. With suitcase in hand he again trudged his canvas plimsolls through the snow, walking for the last time down the long stretch of town houses identical in their facades. His hands were frozen white inside the pockets of his three quarter length coat. His legs laboriously treading up the steps of his bus. His bones tight from shivering. He imagined his warm hands in hers nestled under her breast.