Tag Archives: car

A General Hegemony

Six months had passed since I put her portrait in the trunk of my car.

“Why is this still in here,” she asked not long after, her hands full of groceries. “So I always have you in my trunk,” I replied.

But her portrait–all glamour and heavy eye make-up–soon became covered in dust and the fine wood frame in which she was encased became scuffed.

Still, I was so used to her back there that the thought of hanging her on the wall was mildly unnerving.

We had a fight two days ago. She accused me of stealing her old wedding ring to finance my cocaine habit.

I called her three times. I sent twelve text messages.

Silence.

I opened the trunk yesterday morning to fetch my umbrella. I gave her portrait a knowing look, thinking, “What the fuck is your problem?” That’s when I noticed that her previously immaculate smile was now twisted into a scream.

“Well if she’s dead,” I said to myself, “now’s the time to steal her wedding ring.”

When she was found this afternoon in the trunk of a new Mercedes I felt mildly guilty, though I didn’t really know why: Fucking rich people.


Ideological Fantasy

K started smoking, apparently, though given the way he coughed and convulsed after each drag, his starting was not, also apparently, that long ago.

“Put her crab rangoon on my bill,” he told the waiter, stubbing out his cigarette just the way he practiced at home. The girl should have sat somewhere else while she waited for her takeout. But it was too late for all that.

“Thanks,” she said, awkwardly.

“Do you smoke,” he asked, flashing his pack of cigarettes like a P.I. flashing his badge.

“I don’t.” She was going to be mean. But he did, after all, buy her crab rangoon. “You don’t really see too many people who smoke,” she offered, feeling bad about the crab rangoon.

He was going to tell her that when he smokes, the fumes become people he used to care about, and that, in smoking, he was trying to re-establish bonds long severed. The first time he took a drag, the air around him took on the form of that girl he liked in 5th grade who died in a car accident.

He had sadness in his eyes.

“Wanna take me home?” she asked, feeling bad, still, about the crab rangoon.