Love In a Maze

Bread and Music III

Crushing the small piece of paper in his hand Kid once again stuffed it back into a pocket as if to seal the memories that were being drawn from the coat. His fingers slid into another pocket grazing the cool smooth surface of an unseen object tucked within the shadowed space, but he refused to acknowledge the thin plastic surface. He knew exactly what it was, but he wasn't ready for it, not yet. Retreating almost instantly, he dug deeper into another pocket. Excavating another artifact of a forgotten memory, a girl he had promised himself to put away, shutting her up in a small white box so he didn't have to revisit the pain, the mistakes he made. Again, reliving his self-made despondency, torturing himself with the past or maybe torturing himself with the future that could have been... that should have been.

Unfurling his hand from a pocket 3 black buttons glinted in the center of his palm. They shined like the shells of beetles beneath the dull lighting of the lamp next to his bed. He smiled at the thought of Athina picking up the small pieces from the alleyway. She had always squirreled away little treasures, trash to everyone but her. She saw them as tokens to collect, memories to relive. That he had once sent her large bouquets, perfume, or fancy delicate lace, trying to seduce her was laughable, they were soulless gifts and she had sent them all back one by one. He would however always find little pieces of him or them tucked away, hidden in a book, a drawer, a shelf.

A flower he had given her pressed between pages for safe keeping, scrap paper he tore from a book to write her his secrets, she had been so pissed at him until she read his words... the damaged pages meant nothing after that. A random flier she had taken from the museum as they had dinner, her smile more beautiful than he had ever seen, a nickel he had found and given to her to start paying back the cost of her store always being closed for him. All of them were so meaningless but meant the world to her. Before he left, he had taken everything, every small piece from her collection of him, as if to erase himself from her, those moments they shared or created left with him, trying to find control over the pieces to a game they had both ended up losing to.

Rolling over the round buttons in his palm. The sound they made being ripped away from their threads echoed in his mind. Bits of plastic pinging off the brick walls with such force as he tugged at the thin fabric of her summer dress in the alleyway. Hearing her gasp between a wicked smile as she tried to keep composure underneath him, her arms still laced around the handlebars of his motorcycle, gripping the metal tightly as he uncovered her. Hearing her voice, he was once again lost to another talisman of the past.

"Thief." He teased, eyes dipping seductively through a curtain of dark hair. His leather-bound hands slowly inching up the golden skin he just finished exposing.

"Liar." She responded with just as much debauchery, tilting her body toward him.

It was a Friday or maybe Sunday... then again possibly even a Tuesday. All the days seemed to meld together within the walls of Athina's apartment. Seconds, minutes, hours meant nothing anymore as long as he was there with her, but she was starting to feel claustrophobic. Days on end without leaving, not feeling the sun on her skin, or the gentle autumn breeze as it had only been allowed to blow through her windows, the curtains dancing slightly. He didn't want to leave, not yet, content in playing out his pauper's fantasy, his starving artist facade that allowed him to shut everything out around him... everything but her. Again, she was held a willing captive except this time it was within her own space and not his hotel. Somehow, he managed to still be the one in control, or at least she thought he was. Finally though he relented, agreeing to take her for a ride on his bike.

They had spent all morning looking for his belongings, his shirt, which Athina refused produce, tucking it away for her own selfish reasons. Then finding his jacket, his glasses, his gloves, his keys whose location was still a mystery. It had seemed like a fruitless search; she knew each item would again be thrown into corners unknown just as they had been days before. Their bodies struggling through the glass door of her shop, a mass of limbs and lips making their way up her staircase. He was wasting time on a trivial pursuit, and she knew it, but she wanted to see how it would all play out in the end.