by Aimee Delong
La Flaneuse orders breakfast
I sit at a table in a diner. I sit at a table in a diner that sells Swedish pancakes while simultaneously selling sardine sandwiches. I sit at a cracked plastic table with a boomerang design. I sit. At a table, confused about what to order. My waitress is standing to my side, with a pen and a pad of paper, tapping; she is actually tapping the pen to the paper. Impatiently? Impatiently with teal eyeliner, curled up at the corners, impatiently. Waiting impatiently, not simply waiting, the waitress. I don't know I just really don't know. What I want? I think this is a big decision. I feel that it is a huge decision. People just order food. A person across the room flippantly glances at the menu, then hands it back, as words that symbolize the desired food substances come prancing out of his mouth. Oh. Breakfast is easy and pleasant. Breakfast is for anyone. Anyone can do breakfast. But breakfast is somehow very important to me. I want it to be just right. I know, as I have been told, that there are many breakfasts in a person's life. But I can't let go of this one. Sometimes I want to feel a peaceful warmth from a cup of coffee . . . "Could you give me a few more minutes?" Teal-rimmed eyes grow stiff and sharp, trying hard not to roll their round fishy bodies upward toward the brain. I'm sorry. My face squints I'm sorry. But sometimes I want to feel the orange juice sing yellow and sun down my throat, on a good day. Biscuits with jam. I saw a little kid order an entire plate of biscuits one time. They were all cut into cute little halves. And the kid sat there for five minutes just spreading all the strawberry jam on every half, like a game, a fun jam game. "Are you ready?" I swear that wasn't a few minutes. A teacher once told me that a few is more than two but less than six.
La Flaneuse sees a girl in a coffee shop
I see a girl pulling at the sides of her short skirt, as she sits. I see her leaning far over the side - to check cellulite? She had the confidence to put the skirt on. Where did it go, the moment of glory? Vain? What did she see in her mirror? What does she see in her seat? What fails to stay in her mind that she had seen with her eyes? People, some people on, um, TV, in magazines, some sort of celebrity interview; my mother says that for some people it's all about confidence. It doesn't matter what one looks like, if one has confidence. Perhaps the wind blew the skirt hard against her imperfect thighs before she walked in the door. Maybe she received fewer stares than she imagined. Or more. What does she think about as her pupils dive through her ice tea well—the straw, the rope to her bucket face. Does she think of five extra pounds as her bony finger holds her place in an obscure work of fiction, a feminist author? Do you think she is beautiful? Do you think she is ugly or perverse, or a fashion magazine rag doll? Does she have a protruding or a meaty crotch? Is she more you than me?
La Flaneuse goes to the art museum
"You're going to die when you see the Starry Night. It's exactly how it is!" A lady says this to a man. A person says this with a mischievous smile to another. To compel the other to discover? That a well-known object is, in fact, what a person thought the object to be anyway. To a person whom it is now believed is going to perish. This person will cease to be conscious when this person - uncovers? - the mystery of the thing that is actually the thing it is believed to be. Will die when he finds this out. Because it is exactly how it is. Not how it is not. Nor, how thought of. How other could it be? It is exactly how it is. He will be changed from how he is, when he experiences that there has been no change to the thing he expected no change from. Or did he? He will die.
La Flaneuse takes the subway
I am on the subway. I have to sit next to this guy whose legs are open as wide as possible. This makes me angry. If he would just put his knees together another person could fit here or at least. I could be comfortable. Then I look across the aisle at this cute tiny girl, about my age. The guy next to her is doing the same thing. And she sits with her knees properly together. And I hate that guy. More than the guy next to me, because I can see his face. I wonder if he was ever one of those boys in high school that talked about girls' body parts smelling like various sea creatures. I'm really starting to hate this guy. I hate his knees. His big square man knees. How would he feel if someone told him to close his legs? Because maybe he is a nasty boy with nasty balls. I think about those cardboard box knees grinding into a pair of sheets as he bones away at some girl with a narrow pelvis. He probably doesn't care if he hurts her. As long as she keeps her legs open wide for him, but closed on the subway so he can sit comfortably.
La Flaneuse doesn't want to be bothered now
He sits down next to me on the sofa with a huff. The sigh gives the impression of exhaustion . . .possible world-weariness, possible depression. I become agitated because I feel that he is attempting to elicit a compassionate response. But I just feel irritated. I just feel that I want him to be subtle. Subtle and out of reach. I mean it's not that I don't care. I do care. I just don't want someone slapping his arms against his lap in frustrated resolution. I just don't want him expelling a breath of warm loud fatigue. I just don't want him looking over at me, expecting from me. I'll ask him what's wrong, when it's time. I just don't want him showing me. His pond-water eyes, welling from one harsh drop of rain. I'll let him know when I'm ready for his ordinary pain. Later.
La Flaneuse goes to a party
I am at a party where people talk and drink, and laugh loud because the talking is so interesting plus humor and the wine is so good. I am staring out a window at a party where others are laughing boisterously, boisterously drinking some wine. An arm goes up, and arm goes down. It is a talented arm that can go from side to side, emphatically, with a glass of wine, elegantly, broadly, from one emphatic gesture to another. I stare out the window, because I have nothing to say. Or the things I want to say I will not allow myself to say. They are involved things. Things that I actually care about. But I cannot appear eager. If I thought a person could appear eager, I would grab a person by her flailing wine-grubbing arm and sit her down on a sofa in the corner. Or the person could sit down on her own on his own. I would only lead them. I would tell them about how I am disturbed, that other people say things like, "Isn't it fantastic?" ten times in a row. I am disturbed because people are still talking about SAT scores at the age of twenty-five. I am disturbed because some classy business guy from midtown is talking about celebrity vaginas. Celebrities who have vaginas or specific vaginas that happen to belong to celebrities or vaginas because they belong to celebrities. But I don't want anyone being eager with me. I think I would leave.
La Flaneuse sees what's inside
I walk along the beach with a stark glinty winter sun sporadically warming the strands of my hair. But my cheeks are cold. There is a garishly red dead animal head in the wet-packed part of the sand. There really is a dead animal head in the wet-packed part of the sand. It really does look fresh, skinned. Its face is a smooth raw-meat fleshiness. A brute would bite into it. Its deflated tongue really is sticking out the side of its fully teethed mouth, like a silly stuffed bear, a silly butchered mammal. It has no hair to be heated by the stark glinty winter sun, only stale blood to be cooked, slowly . . . Then rotting. It really does have an eyeball sludged with soaked chunked sand. The sleepy in the ocean dead. I think about sticking a sewing pin in the water balloon sphere. I think it might be a dog. I can't tell.