A Requisite For Lu Lu

The following I wrote, oh, back in 2009 if I remember right.  I wrote it for my friend Lu Lu on her birthday.  Some of the pacing and descriptions I've changed only slightly just now.

Partly inspired by her actual physical appearance and partly by unrelated events from my life, the short is an attempt to describe a kind of feeling that comes with separating two lives through the breaking of relationship - specifically when, after one party tries to forget the other, what it can feel like when one small unconsidered thing can make all defenses break down completely, and memories, unwelcomed, come flooding back in.

The woman in this short is also named Lu Lu.  It is a work of fiction.



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It’s like being reminded of thunder.

It’s like being reminded of trains at midnight out the bedroom window.

She can’t help but look around startled when she hears it.

It reminds her that much of certain things she remembers

That it makes her start, electric muscles flinch in sparks
And her voice timbre crack in mid sentence

When she hears the looming sound.

It was, after all, his favorite song.

He’d only listen to it now and again, with hopes that it would never wear out

So many other songs just wear out sometimes.

Like barestrand socks.

He didn’t want to try his luck, so he’d only listen to it sometimes.

When they would be together at a coffeeshop and it would come on the radio

He would stop talking, with his hot mug in his hands

And close his eyes.  
The ivory rim of the cup this close to his mouth.

The steam fingerprint fogging his glasses.

It was something that just happened sometimes.

And when the song was over

Conversation would begin again, and he’d say sorry, 
You were saying something special
I remember!  Don’t look at me like that, I was totally listening to you!

Or something close that.

It’d usually make her laugh. Under normal circumstances.

The sound of heartache, when it comes, wells in great deep sighs

Shaky wondering sighs

That make her eyes close.

So she does what she can, avoid the places they used to go together

Get rid of the things that remind her of him

Change her phone number

Change her address

Change her hair color, her vocabulary.

The usual.

She hates that this happens so often to her, and that she believed
It wasn’t going to happen,
Again,

This time.

She’d done all that she could to remove the possibility of remembering him

But she couldn't control the playlists of coffeeshop courtyards
And rail station patios.

And it jars her friends when she covers her mouth

And clenches her eyes

And turns her face

And runs like swift lightning from the room, her skirt a billowing cloud.

The empty chair her leaping point.

She runs to somewhere less crowded with electrons 
Like a brilliant and bright beautiful blur.

And like lightning, people murmur with head winding shock through their surprise

At something so beautiful and cast leaden strong falling back to earth

The way she does in those times.

Like lightning.

Like thunder.

Like lilting piano.

Like chalk bright sky blue eyes.

Like the rumbling momentum of his train leaving town.

Like tear stains and coffee grounds
On a blouse that she forgot she was wearing
On a rainy day