“What’s going on out there?” Some dude, standing in the doorway by the pool table, asked in the general direction of Garret and Joseph.
“It’s Tuesday night,” was Garret’s reply.
The dude stood there, uncomprehending, for long enough to prompt Joseph to say, “Cornhole.”
“Oh, right on,” said the dude, who grabbed a buddy of his, walked outside and around the back corner of The Druid’s Keep, and wrote their names on the white dry erase board, putting them fifth in line for a game.
Annabeth sat at a table outside with her friend, Eliza, sipping a $2 can of PBR, deep in thought.
“Are there, like, way more catastrophes nowadays than ever before? Or do we just have much faster and wider access to news, so it just seems that way?”
“I don’t know,” Eliza replied, “I think it’s both. I mean, we have nuclear power plants and deep sea oil rigs . . . they didn’t have that stuff a hundred years ago. And we also hear about everything in real time, which didn’t used to be possible.”
“It’s so depressing.”
On the two cornhole sets, one of the games moved slowly and the other hardly saw a bag miss the board. Mark and his ‘Kleenex Method,’ so called because he held the bag between two fingers and his thumb and just flicked his wrist ever so slightly, like someone pulling tissue from a box, dominated on the near court.
But it was Mark’s partner, Drew, who caused everyone to start shouting when he sunk four bags in a row to seal the game.
“Next! Bring ‘em on.” Drew called out as he and Mark slapped hands.
The Phillies defended their division lead, projected high and large onto an unpainted cinder block wall outside by the cornhole games, against the Braves while a cop watched from his car on the corner. Some people left the bar and took a walk and grabbed a slice of pizza and brought it back to the bar and ate it there. The night sky had a light blue hue to it, moonlight reflecting off the city and merging with city lights, shining down on that happy corner bar in their corner of the world.
Showing posts with label Eliza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eliza. Show all posts
Eliza Rises
Wings of various colors, some realistic and others fantastical, impossible; it’s her art and she can make it any way she pleases. Stacks of sketchpads contain years of drawings and she doesn’t realize how much of it there is until she thinks about the size of it all laid one on top of the other. She doesn’t think of it as some body of work, ever, it’s just what she does every day, if nothing else.
Eliza, 29, smitten with the butterfly since before she can remember, her earliest memories of the obsession her late mother’s reminder of when she chased them around the family farm. Her mother never saw the drawings, but Eliza thinks of her with each one she creates.
She spent too much time watching television and could always find some channel to leave on for hours as she intermittently drifted away until she stared at a monthly Comcast bill for five minutes and alternated between rationalizing the expense and understanding that it’s not for the unemployed before finally calling to cancel. Now she draws and reads and reads and draws until it’s time to leave the room she rents from an old family friend, one she was lucky enough to encounter at The Abbaye six months ago and who happened, at the time, to be passively seeking a tenant for the lone third floor bedroom of her house in Fishtown, the exact neighborhood where Eliza hoped to live and now does.
Wind blows through her windows, a perfect autumn day of sunshine and clear blue sky, and she stands, stretches her arms above her head, and breathes in the cool air, feeling the post of her nose ring move ever so slightly. She flexes many of the muscles in her slender 5’4” frame and then whips her wavy light brown hair around from her left shoulder to right.
Just enough bucks in her account to cover about two to three months’ rent, this fact and her current distaste for the hassle of finding a new job aren’t enough to stop her from sauntering downstairs and then walking toward Johnny Brenda’s to eat lunch there. She can go to a friend’s place for dinner, she thinks, if she feels hungry later.
Eliza, 29, smitten with the butterfly since before she can remember, her earliest memories of the obsession her late mother’s reminder of when she chased them around the family farm. Her mother never saw the drawings, but Eliza thinks of her with each one she creates.
She spent too much time watching television and could always find some channel to leave on for hours as she intermittently drifted away until she stared at a monthly Comcast bill for five minutes and alternated between rationalizing the expense and understanding that it’s not for the unemployed before finally calling to cancel. Now she draws and reads and reads and draws until it’s time to leave the room she rents from an old family friend, one she was lucky enough to encounter at The Abbaye six months ago and who happened, at the time, to be passively seeking a tenant for the lone third floor bedroom of her house in Fishtown, the exact neighborhood where Eliza hoped to live and now does.
Wind blows through her windows, a perfect autumn day of sunshine and clear blue sky, and she stands, stretches her arms above her head, and breathes in the cool air, feeling the post of her nose ring move ever so slightly. She flexes many of the muscles in her slender 5’4” frame and then whips her wavy light brown hair around from her left shoulder to right.
Just enough bucks in her account to cover about two to three months’ rent, this fact and her current distaste for the hassle of finding a new job aren’t enough to stop her from sauntering downstairs and then walking toward Johnny Brenda’s to eat lunch there. She can go to a friend’s place for dinner, she thinks, if she feels hungry later.
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