Date Freeze

[Pause]...

I smell the fabricated scent of flowers, and I don't know how I can tell the difference, do I even have the sufficient experience to decide who's right ? For all I know the real flowers are probably wrong.

But this smell has a kick to it;

Alcohol ... I think to myself,

the cheap kind... have the flowers been drinking ?

I picture a dirty back ally , a bar's back door , flowers wobbling without the help of any wind.

Even I know that this is far fetched ... I hope ...

Now I decide to use my eyes ; a plastic bottle with a dispensing mechanism , slightly torn out label, it says "HiGeen" but I'm sure they mean hygiene ... does it have drunk flowers in it ? I prepare myself to hate the name but a hand wave breaks my angry eye contact with the bottle, the hand is too blurry to figure out but too persistent to ignore.

It's kind of small compared to mine , definitely less hairy , and its' finger nails are red! It must be a painful disease , I feel sorry for the hand holder and I trace it up , I'm thinking the best way is to follow the extrude to the elbow and from there I'll follow the laid down path to the shoulder , I feel smug ; I like my plan.

The hand corrects my head angle using my chin as a controller, 'that's not fair' I think , I had this, I had a plan.

But now I see moving red lips , I would say it's the same shade of red as the nails but for me all colors have the same shade of red. But they must have the same disease as the hand owner , wait , this IS the hand owner. It must be spreading !

I now realize that I should be listening, this lips-hand combination is trying to tell me something , for all I know it could save my life , I hesitate , but I tune in my ear.

Ice clinking in glasses , silverware fencing , vague generic music and the sad combined redundant hum of the collective knowledge of hundreds of people ... The lips couldn't possibly make all that sound ... could they?

"Hey ... are you in there?" , I finally tune in to the vibrations that the lips are making. A woman's voice, it doesn't sound like a question , it has some built up anger in it , but I choose to address it as a real question ...

Am I ? I ask myself , 'Am I in there? wherever "there" means ....this can take a while .... should I just say yes ?

I try to swallow whatever is in my mouth preparing to speak .... 'I could use some flower whiskey now' ,

"Yes" , I barely recognize my own voice , I've been not listening long enough that I didn't know I could speak ....

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