MR. MAGIC EIGHT EYES
PT. 2 - WALK
Last night, I walked with Mr. Magic Eight Eyes.
He has expressive eyes that have settled down on a still face. They are the eyes of a child. And that child’s drawing of an eye — symmetrically almond, like a football, a lemon, or a sunrise and its reflection into a sea. His irises are unusually large; they bleed into the sclera.
Today, he seems out of balance. To my memory, he is someone with centered features. All situated narrowly, leaving negative space at the chin and forehead, equal on both sides. This gives him an innate sternness. Parental, but not necessarily paternal. His expression is somewhere between judgement and concern, but quite frankly, he’s too nonchalant to be either.
On this walk, he is sick and pale, and now the child's eyes are lined with two parallel, old-man wrinkles. Exhaustion gives him an even upper and lower bleph. Another cut has been added to the folded paper snowflake.
I hear only his spoon scraping the bottom of his ice cream cup, in quick, light flicks. He’s sucked the chocolate dry. His saliva, browned from fudge, is stuck in the divot of the paper cup.
I ask if he wants to walk up a hill. He tells me he hates “excursions.” He thinks it’s futile — the day-long exercise of hauling ass and not staying in a hotel. The labor of travel — the early wake-ups, the misplaced passport, the challenge of typing on bobbling coach trains — is consoled with an overnight stay. Perhaps all men have a disdain for journeys that do not end in 100-thread count sheets, or if you’re into trashy bitches, then the cotton ones you’ve had since childhood.
But all joking aside, I wonder what would be commensurate reward for the best day trip — no strained selfies on bridges, no stolen luggage, no cramped rental car ride. It was so trite to judge his prioritizing of juice and squeeze — after all, why go all that way, linger for a few hours in some tourist town, only to schlep back. He was right. He is a pragmatist; he makes things worth his while.
So this presented the obvious question — why was he still here, with me, on yet another Saturday night, meandering? Regardless of whether we made out, made love, made each other look like naked asses, we’d meet the same questions from last Saturday: What should we do? What will we do?