“Words” by Tatjana Miloradovic-Lindes

It was in front of an ice-cream parlor with a big neon sign of some foreign word with lots of Ls that he first saw her and realized she reminded him of a lollipop. He could just lick her all over in no time, that was the first thing that came to his mind. He continued to stare at the woman from the comforting shade of the only tree, until she finished eating her ice-cream, threw the napkin she had wrapped around the cone into the garbage can, and walked away. The second time he saw her he made sure he walked by her close enough that their arms touched. The third time he saw the woman he knew he had to initiate a conversation with her.

You are full of the letter L, was the second thing he said, after the generic, I’ve been admiring you for some time now.

The woman just laughed at his comment, quite pleasantly, and when she spoke he was delighted to find out her voice wasn’t any less sweet than her outward appearance.

The letter L? How did you know I am a lover of letters?

A linguist?, he asked delighted that he hit the right note with this woman. She shook her head.

A poet?

Nope, she said, a big smile still on her face.

A writer?

Hmm-Hmm! Don’t ask me, she continued in that velvety voice that slid down his ears like music, If I tell you, that will spoil everything. I want you to discover it.

He interpreted this as a big yes to his advances, although the word discover bothered him a little. It sounded too scientific so, to counteract  the stiffness of the word, he invited the woman to join him for a walk on the beach. She happily accepted.

They are walking on the beach. The sun is setting above the sea. A few seagulls are standing near the water, preying. He is walking next to the lollipop woman trying to match her pace, delighted that she so favorably responded to his advances, but also nervous that any minute he could say or do something that might ruin everything he has built so far.

She suddenly stops, looks directly into his face and says, Pour Sand down my throat. He is unsure how to respond to this request. He reminds himself that it was the words, not actions, that brought him close to this woman in the first place and that that’s the frame of mind he should preserve. That means that filling his hands with sand and shoving the sand into the woman’s mouth is the last thing he should do.

Before I Seal your throat with Sand, I want you to Sing to me, he says hissing into every S to make it flat and long.

OK, the lady says and starts humming some lullaby-like song into the salty air. He can see castles of admiration rising from her eyes so he knows he said the right thing. He takes the woman’s hand into his.

Please Slide your hand off my hand so we can maintain our individual connection to the Sand, she says gently, her voice almost a whisper. So my Song can Sink into the Sand.

He lets go of her hand. Less and less concerned about doing the right thing, he basks in this emerging game of words. He acknowledges the fact that the relationship with this woman seems to be taking the shape of S. He likes the fact that she herself is the L and the two of them together are riding the waves of S, but he suddenly starts to wonder what he himself is. He is a little upset by the fact that he has never taken the time to define the letter of himself. OK, he was diagnosed with Scoliosis when he was fourteen, he fell in love with Spanish when he turned eighteen, he dated a girl named Sissy for about three years in his early twenties, he embarked on the path of a Software engineer in his mid-twenties, and he was referred to as Sociopath by a few angry people in his life. But deep in his heart he knows he is not an S, because S is blooming between him and this lady, every minute more prominent and more wavy, almost a cursive S written by someone who is a calligrapher by profession. The question remains, what is he? What if the woman asked him what he was? It suddenly occurs to him he could ask her what she thinks he is, and he can just pretend he is testing the accuracy of her perception while actually knowing what he is. But he decides just to wait.

When the woman stops singing, she sits down on the sand and he sits next to her.

It’s lovely to just Sit on the Sand, he says, But maybe you’d prefer Lying down on the Sand, and if you do, I’ll do the Same. Because I utterly enjoy the Leisure of Lying on the Luxurious blanket of Sand. And if you like, I’ll try to Sing to you until I Lull you into Sleep, and it will be great, you’ll see, just please keep in mind I am not a Lush Singer, I am more, something like a clown.

When he says the word clown, the woman freezes, pointing right into his chest with her finger curved into a C and screams, That’s it!, and then continues in her regular soft voice, After you so Clearly pointed out the L of me, I couldn’t stop thinking about what letter you were. I could have just asked you to tell me, but I chose to discover the letter of you myself. And now I know, you are a C.

Once she said it, it was as clear as a day, on the surface he might have looked like an S all his life, at any point attached to a Skirt, never without a girlfriend, considered to be a Stud with his curly blond hair and jade eyes, but deep in his heart he knew he had always been a C, nothing else but a C: Cigarette addict, Coca-Cola Can collector, teary-eyed in the presence  of Coneflowers for the reasons he couldn’t explain, in love with Cilantro (in his salad), Cedar (in his bathroom), and, of course, Cannabis, always. Truly fascinated with the populousness of China and ready to argue for the importance of buying only fair-trade Coffee.

He can go on and on. The only thing in regard to the C of him that puzzles him is the fact that he hadn’t noticed the persistent C of his existence until the lollipop woman pointed it out so he starts to wonder if the woman somehow contributed to him being a C.

The woman lies down on the sand and pulls him down.

Let’s Lie down on the Sand and Stare at the Cloak of the Charcoal Sky in front of us, she says, her voice velvet again.

He is happy with where things are going. He is happy to stretch into an L and then curve into a C. He loves the exercise, but he feels frustrated a little that it was this woman who first put the C into his head. Or maybe in some way he had always known he was a C, but it was she who first said it aloud. Now, how can he ever be sure that he is not feeling like a C simply because the woman said he was a C. He starts to wonder how firmly she had believed she was an L before he said it, but he decides not to ask.

With his mind cluttered with many questions, he realizes there is only one thing that can help him reach the point of comfort and clarity: he has to put both himself and the lollipop lady through a test. The S of the relationship now feels marginal to him, standing so clear and loud between him and the woman, so he decides to focus on confirming the C of him and the L of the woman. But in the next moment, he is paralyzed by this scary thought, What if, in the process of confirming the C and the L,  the S of his relationship with this woman turns into something else, maybe something less pretty, like the I of infinity, or the H of honesty, or even the N of nothingness?

Hey, babe, he says to the lollipop lady just to quiet his mind , Let’s go Somewhere else, do Something else. He is happy with the neutrality of the proposition he has just made.

There is this play that I wanted to see for a long time, the lollipop woman says. Actually, I was on my way there when I met you. Maybe we can go see the evening performance together.

What’s the play called?, he asks, part of him trying hard to relax and simply enjoy the company of this woman, the other part of him scavenging for information, eager to prove the C of his existence, and therefore the S of his relationship with the woman.

Love and Stop and Cry, she says.

He immediately hates the name of the play. What kind of name is that, he wonders. He prefers concrete titles, something like The Necklaces, or The Cherry Orchard, or The Stolen Shoes. Just a noun, or maybe a noun and an adjective. With this title that includes three verbs and two conjunctions, he feels like he himself is being tested instead of him doing the testing.

Sure, he says, Let’s take the Ciciban Street, then we can go Left, by the abandoned Sanatorium, all the way to the theatre.

He puts his hand over the lollipop woman’s shoulders. She stretches her neck into a really long L to give him a kiss on the cheek. He acknowledges the fact that he really likes this lady as much as he likes the beautiful, strong L of her. It suddenly feels like her L is tall enough and stable enough to support, like a spine, the entire S of their relationship, even the upper hook of the S, which is his C. Then he realizes that all pieces seem to fit into too perfect of a puzzle, which makes him think that he might not be a C after all.

The moment they step into the cool dark space of the theatre, the lollipop lady takes his face into her hands and gives him a deep, long kiss. Then they continue to walk to their seats.

What do you know about Love? Really? What?, a woman wearing a dress in the shape of a heart screams the first line into the audience at the top of her Lungs. Do you know anything about Love? Does anybody know anything about Love? We all expect Love to Save us. That’s our problem, she says, her voice suddenly a whisper full of resignation. We expect Love to Save our Life from deterioration, or even worse, Senselessness. We expect Love to Save our Sovereignty while Stuffing us with Sense. We forget that grief and tears can do the same. That they are like Velcro. That things stick to them and make us realize how many things can make us cry and, therefore, how full our life really is. And seeing the breadth and the depth of our own life can help us save ourselves rather than looking for someone else to save us…and our Sovereignty.

At that point, he is totally confused. Do we need a relationship to be able to figure out who we are and therefore acknowledge our sovereignty? Slowly he tunes out of the play. His mind is quiet for a second. As the chatter and the clatter of the play continues, he slides his hand under the skirt of the lollipop lady. Her sweaty skin under the palm of his hand reminds him of the half-eaten lollipop that he might have left in some random spot for a while, and then, when he picked it up again ready to put it back into his mouth, the lollipop felt all sticky.

The lollipop lady moans quietly into his ear, and then places her hand over his. Her hand is like a shell that prevents his hand from advancing any further. This is what the lollipop woman whispers into his ear:

Do you like oranges? The big ones that go one for a dollar, or maybe even  the cheaper mandarins, it doesn’t matter. You will open your mouth widely, and I will slide a slice on your tongue, and while the sore gums on the upper left side or maybe the lower right side of your mouth are tingling, you will see a short movie play in front of your eyes. Something like this play. It will tell you everything you need to know, and it will leave you speechless and totally confused. And you might hate me for using my sexual appeal and some pretty sour oranges to introduce you to the movie, but that won’t matter at all. Because, when the movie is over and your gums stop tingling, you will go home, take off your pants, and go to bed, and you will have the best dream ever, the one that’s only pictures and not a single word, and you will spend the rest of your life trying to figure out why you had that dream, and if other people have similar dreams, and if you are ever going to have that dream again. And that will keep you distracted enough that you will be able to make love to any woman with a quiet mind, and every lovemaking episode is going to feel like the best one ever.

Once the lollipop lady moves away her hand  and is silent again, his fingers enter her lacy panties. In that moment it’s all clear to him, he is a perfect, very clear C, curving courageously towards the shape and the smell  of the lollipop lady in the violet space of the theatre. As he is fingering his lover’s crotch, he promises himself he will start from the flesh next time he meets a woman. And while the letters of him and his lover are evolving along with the relationship, he will be just muscles and blood and nothing else.

That’s what he is going to do next time. But now, with this woman, he can’t avoid words because he wants his lovemaking to be a song, and you can’t have a song without lyrics, without words, can you?