Luke 12:25
You're so good, you're so good! Screaming out in my head. Fuck. Beat yourself up some more, you care about the wrong things too much. And you care about the right things too late. And above all human beings are made to be happy, said the Elder Zosima.
I stood in Angela's office alone for the first five minutes, I had to fumble up the dark and narrow stairway and once upstairs I scanned the wall with my hand for a light switch. No one was home, so I busied myself by nervously studying the map of Ireland that someone had hung on the wall. When she finally arrived I felt even more self conscious because of the peculiar way she looks at you, almost as if from behind her eyes, as though there is a detached entity looking through the openings in her head and rendering some secret judgment.
The awkwardness was amplified by the shot of some dark Hungarian liquor that she poured for both of us. A dark shot, like an ounce of molasses, and a half cup of some dark and what appeared to be entirely flat, beer. She made a toast to change and I raised the ounce of bile to my lips, and swallowed it in a gulp. In the furious half-second that the liquid mingled with my tongue I sensed anise and chimney soot and gasoline. She was looking at me, the now nearly full glass still at her lips. "You drank the whole thing!" The warmth of the alcohol was rising in my chest and combined with the embarrassment of not being privy to Hungarian drinking etiquette; I felt the internal flames began to lick my cheeks and ears, they were turning red. And there she sat, mouth agape, looking at me, and I felt very deeply within myself that, at that moment, I was a buffoon. "You will never be better than you currently are." Shame is what gives birth to sin.
Suffice to say that as far as filling the position of solicitor is concerned, there is still currently a vacancy. I left the meeting defeated, but only after she asked me if I was ok to drive home. I went promptly to buy a pack of cigarettes despite my vow to Anne that I was quitting, that we would quit together. Vice helps ease the sting of self deprecation. And so failure continues to give birth to failure.
I stood in Angela's office alone for the first five minutes, I had to fumble up the dark and narrow stairway and once upstairs I scanned the wall with my hand for a light switch. No one was home, so I busied myself by nervously studying the map of Ireland that someone had hung on the wall. When she finally arrived I felt even more self conscious because of the peculiar way she looks at you, almost as if from behind her eyes, as though there is a detached entity looking through the openings in her head and rendering some secret judgment.
The awkwardness was amplified by the shot of some dark Hungarian liquor that she poured for both of us. A dark shot, like an ounce of molasses, and a half cup of some dark and what appeared to be entirely flat, beer. She made a toast to change and I raised the ounce of bile to my lips, and swallowed it in a gulp. In the furious half-second that the liquid mingled with my tongue I sensed anise and chimney soot and gasoline. She was looking at me, the now nearly full glass still at her lips. "You drank the whole thing!" The warmth of the alcohol was rising in my chest and combined with the embarrassment of not being privy to Hungarian drinking etiquette; I felt the internal flames began to lick my cheeks and ears, they were turning red. And there she sat, mouth agape, looking at me, and I felt very deeply within myself that, at that moment, I was a buffoon. "You will never be better than you currently are." Shame is what gives birth to sin.
Suffice to say that as far as filling the position of solicitor is concerned, there is still currently a vacancy. I left the meeting defeated, but only after she asked me if I was ok to drive home. I went promptly to buy a pack of cigarettes despite my vow to Anne that I was quitting, that we would quit together. Vice helps ease the sting of self deprecation. And so failure continues to give birth to failure.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home