Once you stop to listen you’re hooked.
—John Ashbery
We messed around with the circumstances
and got a little turned around. It’s not always
us versus them, even though it’s competition
that keeps us alive. Only one of us believed
that one. And it wasn’t me.
We were both drawing on maps in the Strategy
Room, thick books in the hands that weren’t
able to draw nice. We were at the point where
we were looking up a word or two from every
sentence we read. I took a quick survey of
those who mouthed what they were reading
and those whose lips remained pursed or
slightly open. I was good with physics,
knew the room’s tension points were
generally consistent.
When it came down to the wire and
everyone looked up at the behemoth
of a television that hung on the wall,
garnering central focus, the genre
changed from suspenseful whodunnit
to supernatural psychodrama.
We stayed for a little while just to watch
the top psychic generalissimos do their
prognosticating. But this was no science,
and neither of the two of us were psychic.
Telepathic, of course, we both were, and for
a while it was a game of who was going to last
the longest. But by the time the third honcho
walked up front and center with his crystal ball,
without even a nod or a darting look, we were
both walking out of the dungeon and into the
brightly lit hallway.
Down the marble steps we skipped. We pulled up
our sleeves a bit giddy by the beauty of the October
afternoon. We felt around at each other’s opinions
over where lunch should be taken, and settled on
the Greek place a couple blocks into civilization.
We were both fond of the restaurant, which gave no
visible indication that it was a dining establishment.
He had the moussaka and I had the souvlaki, same
as always, and we spent the next two hours talking
over subjects like penguins and handwriting analysis.
We intermittently laughed, often until the tears came
We messed around with the circumstances
and got a little turned around. It’s not always
us versus them, even though it’s competition
that keeps us alive. Only one of us believed
that one. And it wasn’t me.
We were both drawing on maps in the Strategy
Room, thick books in the hands that weren’t
able to draw nice. We were at the point where
we were looking up a word or two from every
sentence we read. I took a quick survey of
those who mouthed what they were reading
and those whose lips remained pursed or
slightly open. I was good with physics,
knew the room’s tension points were
generally consistent.
When it came down to the wire and
everyone looked up at the behemoth
of a television that hung on the wall,
garnering central focus, the genre
changed from suspenseful whodunnit
to supernatural psychodrama.
We stayed for a little while just to watch
the top psychic generalissimos do their
prognosticating. But this was no science,
and neither of the two of us were psychic.
Telepathic, of course, we both were, and for
a while it was a game of who was going to last
the longest. But by the time the third honcho
walked up front and center with his crystal ball,
without even a nod or a darting look, we were
both walking out of the dungeon and into the
brightly lit hallway.
Down the marble steps we skipped. We pulled up
our sleeves a bit giddy by the beauty of the October
afternoon. We felt around at each other’s opinions
over where lunch should be taken, and settled on
the Greek place a couple blocks into civilization.
We were both fond of the restaurant, which gave no
visible indication that it was a dining establishment.
He had the moussaka and I had the souvlaki, same
as always, and we spent the next two hours talking
over subjects like penguins and handwriting analysis.
We intermittently laughed, often until the tears came
swelling, which must have annoyed the rest of the
diners (all quiet as church mice) to no end.
