A tale in three parts
Mark the gait, the way his arms swing in such heavy-looking arcs. Note his smile and the sadness it tries to conceal, which is still visible in his eyes. See it as his human weakness mixed with his strength, to make for the blackness of pupils – and that ring of incandescent blue. See this contradiction walking toward you. Allow your sight to focus on the figure of Harry Lewis, master only of his own movements. Subject to his limitations, as well as to life’s cruel schooling. Harry, so much the victim of all that is weighed against him. Yet all-too-frequently the victor of each of them and, therefore, doomed never learn from them.
Baring left into Paradise St. Harry jogged past a flash of shop fronts and turned left again. As much an element of the city as he had previously been removed from it, Harry was learning the lay of Liverpool with unbridled ease. Knowing most of the main streets by name and their intersecting points by the shops that populated them, he could navigate his way to most locations at the city’s thumping heart. Always a child of impatience Harry (manifest prophet of The Cosmos Kid) quick-stepped to meet with Jensen in a café we cannot name as they refused to pay us for the mention.
The plaza was ripe with stuffed shopping bags, a tapestry of brands. It was the moment when the open space was at its most crowded that the sky saw fit to burst down a curtain of rain upon all attended. A stone’s throw from his chosen destination, Harry reaching the doorway and was in such a hurry he almost met the fate of colliding with Starla Couture the saddest looking example of the female species. As the jazz track reached crescendo, blue eyes met those lined with eye-shadow. In an attempt to shake off his true nature, Harry let her first and followed after.
Standing in the cue her crown reaches his chest and no higher without the aid of heels. She’s in converse. He’s behind her. The line moves quickly as the orders are taken and dispensed without staff paying heed to undue distraction. Starla flutters off to an armchair next to an old woman twice her age and four times her weight.
Starla herself is a tiny little thing – hollow-boned, almost weightless – in denim shorts and a moss-coloured leather jacket. The heaviest thing about her is the sullen look on her face and it is this that grips you, almost bringing you to the same melancholic state. Harry can’t help himself but steal fleeting glances at her. He notes the way her hair is chastised for its unruly nature, pinned down and replaced behind the ear when it escapes. Her face is an ebb and flow of sorrow. The only time she smiled was to ward off the worry of the woman sitting next to her. A sort of forced-gesture of faked spacial proclivity. It was that or be the subject of concern. Act followed act and the next pretension was to a gentleman opposite, our Harry, who tried for the same smile and got a look of disgust.
Harry isn’t attractive, never could be – all things considered. He holds no fame, fortune or royal title. He owns no home, car or untapped potential. The sad fact is, he has nothing to offer that she’d be after. Or, rather, that were he to love her and be loved in return – there would be nothing to keep the wheels of attraction in motion. It’d be a freeway ride with a broken axle.
Sadly Harry is unremarkable except for being the chosen Truth Talker for The Cosmos Kid. That in itself brings no pointed pleasure. 6’2’’ and lean as a runner. Thirty two and not a single success to show for his years. Two forty-five in a cafe we can’t name, the sun making a break through the thick cloud outside. No, Harry has a life that means no word will be spoken between him and Starla – save for the sorry that already escaped him at the doorway.
Not too many moments later The Born Son of the Infinitesimal Spirit walks in through the door. Not even part saturated, Harry is aghast at Jensen’s all-together dryness.
“How did you escape a sousing?” Harry asks as Jensen removes his coat and lowers himself artfully into the armchair.
“Just avoided the raindrops.” Jensen said scanning the room for points of interest.
“Miracles? You cheat!”
“Not a miracle,” Jensen said pulling out an umbrella and shaking it off, “who needs them when you have these? You are too quick to jump to the miraculous as a conclusion for most things.”
“Not ‘too quick’, just acutely aware of the magic we’re exposed to.”
“Mournful creature! I still don’t understand how you manage that, with all that you know of the world and where it’s headed. Every moment approaching it should be enjoyed!”
“Or, knowing what I do, I can’t seem to focus on anything but the foregone conclusion.”
“So, any new whisper of the future?”
“Just the same dreams, the same signs seen daily.”
“We should try getting our god’s on the line, we’re too much the servants in this daft arrangement. There’s still no promise of survival!”
“Do you think we’re owed one?”
“If not us, then who?”
Jensen shifts in his seat. He looks at the empty coffee cup in front of him and, moving a menu to obscure it from the staff, places his hand just above it. Steaming water rises like a river level and it swirls black like a cosmos at the half-way point. He removes the menu and lifts the cup into his palms to warm his hands. He smiles at Harry. Harry can’t help but smile back.
“You’d not really care to be seen, would you?”
“Not really.”
