from a collection of short stories. for Lukas
We still lived in the Babel apartment then, each inch of the home seeped in and dripping from the grief of my mother. The grief of us all. We sat in Arthur’s room together, my mother, my brother, El and I. Darren and Polly were there too. I was quiet, I wanted to listen and gauge Els’ presence. He talked about how grateful he was to be taken in by Jude, to have a room to stay in, and he proceeded to explain that Los Angeles had become tiresome; he just sounded bored of it. There was a trace of volatility behind his eyes, a desire to dismantle his stability. It was one I was all too familiar with at the time, that same insinuation written on every corner of my body. Although ever present, it was unbeknownst to me how much of this infliction was guiding me through my days. It only became clear after the fact, when much damage had already been done. I was no longer just a girl, but on the cusp of womanhood, in the most erratic state I had ever been in. Nothing was important except for what was in front of me, all mundane duties falling away, all outside forces allowing them to; they too knew that things were now different for me. I was incredibly sensitive to the words of others, but they also meant nothing at all, and could be brushed away with a quick motion. I was becoming grown in a plethora of ways, all at once.
El had been grown. He was shrouded in a sickly skin, one that would never come off. He had already experienced death, and he was experiencing a compulsory devotion to something corrupt and beautiful, something that likely brought him places inexplainable, moonless, magnetising. I imagined it was much like death itself. And now he saw me grown too, no longer just the timid and awkward girl I once was. He showed me this, he told me all the time.
Despite the morose undercurrent, I was happy to see him mostly. He had a warmth that I knew very few people to have, and it felt like a privilege to be near it. My reality, my family’s reality had been turned into a sick adjustment to new circumstances, but he was a muse, I think for many of us. Despite my memory of that time being like looking through a thick dewy haze from the grief, the parts with El feel easier to remember.