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Novelo Rectangle

<p>“It was just a dream”, heard Marl as the old drunk next to him finally stopped rambling. He had spent the last twenty minutes or so, sitting next to this guy on a bench in the park listening to him regurgitate his life’s story, meandering back and forth, repeating anecdotes almost as if repeating them heightened their wit, whilst Marl sat there in a daze. He found himself periodically tuning in not exactly intentionally, rather that he was bored. As he sat there in the ultimate silence, the old man began to speak again, but this time he asked Marl a question, “What’s your name young fella?” Although he had already been asked this, Marl answered out of habit. “You ever wonder where ya got it, or what it means?” blubbered the old man. Marl responded “its Marl, short for Marlboro, my mother said she named me after the only thing she loved more than me in this world. Cigarettes. “Well, that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day, that’s a great story”. “I hate that story” Marl responded. The old man perked up, “Why”? Marl stood up from the bench, “Cause it’s a lie, my mother doesn’t love me”. With that Marl wandered away out of the park. As he peaked out onto the street it occurred to him how lonely it felt. The lonely streets of Dublin. As he pondered on this, he acknowledged it was not the streets that were lonely, in fact quite ironically, they were spontaneous with company. It was his attitude that was lonely. His subconscious almost sought it. Nonetheless, it was on his mind to meet a girl. He longed for company. An old gimmick crossed his mind, and he adjusted his path accordingly. He approached an effervescent sign. It read ‘Clooney’s, It’s a Cats Life ‘playing at 10:25pm. The movie was a romantic comedy. He often frequented them with the intention of encountering single girls with lonely hearts and seducing them to offset his own lonely heart. He went inside and purchased a ticket. As he entered the dull theatre, he saw nobody there except for an older man in the very front row. Marl wondered had this man similar intentions to his own. Despite the foresight of his failed objective, he sat in the back row and waited. Just as the film began to run, a girl wandered around the sharp angle that meets the theater. Marl sat up in excitement. She wore a yellow dress, complemented by a short curly cut of blonde hair. As she walked up the aisle, he observed his own luck with her choosing to seat just in front of him. He let a few seconds pass before he lent forward and spoke, “Yellow looks good on you darlin”. He was met with surprisingly more intrigue than he thought he had allowed himself and the girl turned to him and smiled as she whispered just beneath the opening soundtrack “It’s my favorite color”.  Whether the manner she delivered it in or Marls palpitating loneliness, Marl was overcome with feelings, and the two continued to whisper in a quiet but passionate manner. “Would you mind if I had a taste of your popcorn, I forgot they were selling it” Marl whispered. But the dulcet of his whisper, became too subtle beneath the volume of the movie, and the girl requested he repeat himself twice before she suddenly stood up and proceeded to shuffle out the aisle. As she done so, Marl sat up in attempt to welcome her, quickly fixing his hair and clearing his throat to prepare himself to up his antsy. As she arrived next to him, he watched as she caught her dress by the back, pulling it in to meet her seat. The two continued to talk for some time. Marl was struck by how her initial intrigue didn’t seem to be a symptom of interest at all, rather innocence that he had seduced and if that wasn’t a fair conclusion it was that she was much more innocent and playful than he had first thought. “What’s your name” asked Marl. “Oh, its Emma’ the girl replied. Marl responded with his own, adding the story behind its conception, only this time adding considerably more humor to the story than he had done whilst reciting it to the old drunk. Unknown to Marl however, the older viewer at the front, had slipped out, falsely alerting the cinema manager that the two were having relations in the back of the theatre. At the pinnacle of their romance as Marl was shifting his hand closer and closer to the girl’s leg, almost tactically on his seat by her behalf, an angry man stormed in and began berating them with threats of punishment. Marl shot up, he grabbed Emma by the hand and cascaded down the aisle with the intentions of appeasing both himself and the manger and leaving, but when they met the manager at the door of the theatre, it became obvious these threats were real. The manger instructed them both to stand there and await authorities. In a moment of haste Marl dashed past the manager, sprinted through the lobby and out the door of the cinema. He broke out on to the street and ran some hundred yards before the frivolousness of the situation occurred to him and he burst out laughing. He turned around to meet Emma with his newfound perspective, but she was not there. Marl stood there in confusion, and he realized, the girl had not followed him. She was caught. Marl stood there in the street for some time, struggling with the notion, whether to go back to retrieve her or continue home and sulk. Ultimately, he chose the latter, reassuring himself that he had not known her that well, or maybe she had been spooked by the confrontation and bolted on him. He turned to meet the beginning of a legion of streetlights and followed them back to his house. That night as he tried to fall asleep, he found himself staring at the sight of women. A poster of Marilyn Monroe taped to his bedroom ceiling. After some time staring at, he noticed himself not looking at the poster anymore, but the cracked paint that existed around it. He looked around to see the decay of his bedroom walls, contrasted by the beauty of Marilyn Monroe sitting in their epicenter. He lay his head back down in the pillow and promised himself to wake up with a new sense of purpose, and he did. When he got up, it was early. He strut down to shed in the back garden and searched around till he came upon two pales of paint. One a crimson red, the other a banana yellow. He looked at the two, and he found the yellow resonated with him, reminding him of the shade of the dress the girl he had encountered the previous night was wearing, and by that reasoning he picked up the yellow pale and a brush next to it, hauling it up to his bedroom. Marl spent the next while clearing his room and covering the remaining furniture and floor in old bits of magazine and newspaper. Then he began to paint, and he was so happy doing so. He got into quite a groove, enjoying every stroke of the brush as the banana yellow gleamed next to an old dull blue. After a while though the scent became quite strong, and to mitigate this he had to open the window, allowing the sharp scent to waft out on to the street below. Nonetheless, he took back the pale and sat it up on the windowsill, and continued painting.</p>

Cigarette meets Banana

micheal.edmund12

n/a

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The old drunk

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Micheal Ryan Prendiville

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