Flora Simone

In Paris a woman rented a motorcycle. Not something big, but more of a bike perhaps. Not a hog; a moped maybe, only bigger. It was green with a thin white stripe horizontally spanning the metallic body. It did not reach excessively high speeds, at least not speeds that one, when not at all numb to motorcycles and the way they handle, would have to obtain in order to reach a certain degree of pleasure, but speeds that a woman who had previously only experienced her back to the safety bar (and only once for that matter) would have to obtain to enjoy it thoroughly. This woman was indeed not accustomed to the wind blowing through her hair and so she did indeed enjoy it to a tolerant-less caliber. She drove it with quite a sense of confidence and attempted, subtly, to fit quietly in with the European citizens. Her hair was dyed a light, reddish color that fit loosely with her deep, brown eyes and it flowed perfectly through the wind around her unprotected head as if a colorless photograph were taken of each strand and then thrown freely into the air and left to fall randomly and securely back to her scalp. If it were not for the roots of her naturally light hair opposing the color above it, you would not look twice before admitting that the truth lay buried in the maroon locks.
The weather was not heavy, as weather in such parts of Europe can often be, but more of a bright, underdeveloped, metallic sort of weather. A kind of weather that might be loosely described by a bad poet as “a smothered reflection of ill tempered ballet machines”. The sky was a deep blue that seemed to darken the clouds slightly as they moved slowly in front of the sun and then past it. If someone were blessed with a keen eye or a free moment, they would notice the faintness of a sliver of the moon peering down from the distance, resembling an awkwardly shaped cloud. The air was moderately crisp and refreshing and after a blistering summer, quite a relief.
As she rode, her mind raced furiously despite the relaxed expression on her face. She was in search of something. Something of a priceless and infinite capacity. Something that she valued with such importance that she would rely completely on chance and fate to find.
She had arrived in Paris that morning with dusty eyes and a cluttered mind. Her arrival was as unexpected as her departure, for the actions she took were not contingent on any sort of thought based, analytical process. It was instinct, or perhaps fear that brought her to this foreign place. Regardless of what to call it, pure emotion convinced her to proceed in taking a serious series of steps to arrive at this point. She had left in a hurry and was still cloaked with the white dress she had adorned the night before. What went through her mind, however was not anything regarding clothing but perhaps she silently wished for her dress to remain attached or at least with her for reasons that will become obvious later.
As she sped through the streets, she was somewhat blinded by her search and had not yet had a chance to collect her thoughts, for she was still running on the fuel of the emotion. She wanted something and was obviously attached so strongly to it, that she was willing to risk everything.
She was around the more uncivilized area of France at this point where the hills were becoming visible, but the sky was as big as she had ever seen. She was becoming frustrated now, because all of the details that are involved with such an extreme alteration of regular life had passed, such as the purchasing of the plane ticket and the renting of the moped, and now she was left in a huge land with an infinite amount of locations. She didn't know where to start; her mind was on overdrive and not thinking appropriately at all. She tried to calm herself by pulling over and crouching beside a small patch of unknown flowers. She picked a few and brought them to her nose before gently crushing them in her palm and letting them drop onto the others. They smelled faintly of butter and a corporation's attempt at fat-free honey. She peered off into the distance as she often did when life seemed overwhelming, as though to put herself on a different level than the one that had given her so much to think about. She tried to see herself relative to the vastness of reality that was visible through the endless hills and infinite sky. She looked up and saw the planets rotating around stars and those stars creating galaxies. Then she peered into the dirt and witnessed the deforming and reforming of millions of molecules. She tried to realize her importance compared to the importance of a spot of soil. She saw them as the same, but her mind would not let her disband the unreasonable authority that it held over all other existence. She tried to allow herself to realize what truly mattered in a life, such as health and reproduction for chrisssake but she had been taught too much already, her consciousness was warped with the influence of humanity and she remained only frustrated. She closed her eyes and forced an ear-piercing scream that traveled far across the open fields and stung her own ear with resonance. After, for a brief moment, becoming slightly paranoid that anyone might have heard her, she collapsed gracefully onto the unknown flowers and moments later, fell deeply asleep.
About five hours went by before even five people passed this vehicle on the side of the road and it was in the last thirty minutes of the final hour before any one of them cared to stop. The fourth person who went by was driving an out of date Saab with fairly expired tabs and plates. He slowed down, stopping behind the abandoned bike. At first he wondered why anyone in possession of any form of the human brain would think to leave a motorcycle among the great deal and large amount of nothing that surrounded it. He had this light grip on the situation until he stepped out of his car and noticed that there was actually an owner of the vehicle, contrary to what he had previously seen. And because the large moped was safely propped up by its kickstand and not sprawled disastrously across the road, it took him another couple of seconds to comprehend that the owner was on the ground. He walked quickly over to the woman and crouched as she had. He put his hand on her forehead so that his thumb was almost in her ear and stood up, stretched, put a cigarette in his mouth, looked crossly over his right shoulder, closed his eyes and lit the fag with one quick flick of a match.
"I should probably let her rest, who knows what kind of madness I would have on my hands if I disrupted her peace", he said aloud. This man was the type who had become considerably used to saying things aloud because he often didn't have anyone else to hear his words; he had no problem speaking his mind. He found no reason for being afraid to talk or being intimidated to voice his view of anything simply because he did it most of the time and he was alone to do it, most of the time.
This man's name was Aengus. And he sat around patiently waiting for the woman he had found on the ground to awaken. He knew that if at least she was breathing than it would be easier for him to predict the situation that might have happened to lead up to what he was seeing. He thought that, since she was alive and her transportation device was gently parked beside her, that maybe she had been riding for a good two days and simply decided to put her bike in a spot that seemed appropriate for blocking the wind, allowing her to fall asleep for a few quick hours in this pretty little bed of flowers she had found. The only thing that really confused him was the dress and the way she was positioned on the ground. It didn't seem to make sense. He was pretty much accurate about the whole thing, except not really at all.

When the woman awoke she brought her body up and rubbed her eyes. With irrational confidence in her surroundings and an exhausted but professional glare in her eyes, she looked up at Aengus and said, "Where are we?"
"You're crushing those Daffodils. Or as you would say here, "Jonquilles. I think," Aengus said with his thumbs resting on the ledge of the pockets of his blue khakis. He looked down and noticed the practically black sneakers on her feet.
"Yeah I really didn't appreciate their smell you know but umm do you live here?"
"Well that depends. Do you?
"No."
"Than I can easily say I do, miss."
"Well, I was driving for a while but I've been driving for so long I guess I got lost or something." She gave a concealed sigh to let air into her lungs and got up. With three quick and hard brushes of her hand, the dirt that was on the front of her gown leapt off and quickly became lost in the air. Can you tell me which way I would go if I were looking for like a shack or something? On a field...I guess."
Aengus laughed. "Why? Are you interested in the market? Or, is there a particular shack of which you are having trouble finding coordinates?" He said with a smile. Aengus was amused by the situation he had encountered and lit another cigarette, placing the matchbook underneath the bill of his raggedy, discolored panama style hat. He however did not want to pressure this woman into revealing any information. He thought it quite more entertaining to let her exclaim it when she felt right. Aengus knew that if this woman has already found herself lost and asleep in the middle of France on a rented motorcycle dressed in a five thousand dollar white dress asking him now where she can find a goddamn shack on a field, than he would be able to do nothing but observe the events that would follow without influencing them in any way. He would of course, in order to witness these events, have to be able to follow her or be with her or something. He decided however, not to put himself at risk of being considered some sort of stalker.
"Well I'm actually looking," she paused for a moment and peered away from Aengus at the ground, "For my Grandfather." She said this as she picked up a small rock and threw it unconsciously at Aengus' car.
"And I guess he lives in a shack?" Aengus replied.
"That’s what I've been told," she said now looking back at Aengus, "Or at least that’s what I've heard."
Aengus took a drag on his cigarette and spoke as the smoke was on its way out, "Are you staying someplace?" He had a feeling that this woman was not being as truthful as he had wanted and at this early in the relationship, he thought it a red flag, or at least a character flaw.
The woman looked up with a deeply focused gaze as she unearthed a small Daffodil and picked it slowly apart with the nails of her fingers. "No. I just flew in this morning. I haven't even ate or anything."
"Would you like a cigarette?"
"No, save it. My stomach doesn't feel as good as it could right now. You don't like have any sandwiches or anything in there do you", she said acknowledging the Saab parked behind her motorcycle.
"Yeah I have some...Chips or crackers or something," he said bending is head back to look into his car, "But why don't you just follow me to a place to eat? I'm hungry too, but I prefer meat and grain."
"How far is it? Because I guess I'm in somewhat of a hurry. But...
"I dunno a couple miles, c'mon."
Aengus threw the singed butt of his cigarette towards the soon to be departed sun and walked onto the road and opened his car door. He waited until the woman got on to her bike and put on her helmet. He then removed his hat and ducked his head, sitting roughly in his car and slamming the door to make sure it closed before trying the ignition twice after it wouldn't turn over. He thought about where to go and not too much about the strangeness of the woman as he sat, waiting for his radio to receive some sort of signal. He lost patience eventually and did a U-turn in order to proceed in the opposite direction because he knew for a fact that there was not a barn, shack or even makeshift hut until the Pyrenees.

Aengus was not French. Nor did he aspire to be or have any prolonged exposure towards the social or environmental aspects of the French. He simply kind of liked the scenery. Now, this concept of "scenery" appealed most generously to Aengus and convinced him to proceed with many, what would seem to you or me but not necessarily to him to be, particularly important, decisions. He didn't base them on anything that could be described by words or anything like that. It was more of a feeling or a sort of respect. For, when he had to trust a person for example, he would consider his feeling towards that person and sort of rely on instinct instead of their appearance or what kind of negative events had scarred their path. He would trust people that normally wouldn't be trusted but he would only see the truth in people who deserved it. The same goes for surroundings. Where he has ever lived has been based on a somewhat impulsive decision based on nothing else but whether the scenery pleased him or not. He could find himself in the position to be able to live in the most commonly desired situation and choose the exact opposite and not have that decision be based on any sort of influence one way or the other. Therefore his decision to live in France had nothing to do with the people, what sort of cities it had, the culture, how well respected he would be if he lived there, or whether or not he could afford it. If he liked it, he would have it, simply because he realized that this is the way the world works. He wasn't held back by anything, even what he didn't have.
This man, Aengus was from a nice town in Maine and after seeing all of the pieces of America that he thought necessary, moved to Eastern Canada when he was nineteen to pursue a desire to experience a different country. He traveled around the Western Hemisphere pretty much just making enough money here and there to project him somewhere that he wasn't. He was now almost thirty and for some reason or another had been brought to Southern France. He did not speak the language, nor did he care to learn. He had only had to speak to twelve people since he had arrived there two years ago and about seven of them spoke English. He would drop by the grocer here and there and use the little money he made towing cars around once in a while to buy necessities. Other than that he spent his time pretty much alone, driving around the beautiful lands of France and tending to his small garden.
These details of his life, now seemed boring and unimportant, despite how he loved every bit of it. However, he was now thinking of the woman who was following him closely on her motorcycle. Since he was rarely around people, when he was, he liked to sort of play games. He decided that it would be necessary now for him to design an intricate story to recite to the girl, convincing her of something that is completely and blatantly untrue. He would disregard all of the details about his actual life and fill in the holes with completely made up material. It would be great, but he had to think about it. He had about twenty about minutes to create a fictional history and pretend that he believed it. He decided that since the girl was from America and not extremely accustomed to France, or probably even Europe, that his trials would not be too far into the challenging department. He spoke aloud in a deep mockery style voice, "Simple name. Sven. Occupation. Retired... Chemist. Heh. Raised in... Russia!” there was a slight pause then, "Yeah, I was raised with an American family. That's crazy, I know, a Russian living with an American family... in his own country," he sort of laughed, "but to me its just regular shit." He stared now, intently forward with his brow flattened and hands firmly on the steering wheel. "I'll have to have a dark secret. Like... something about a werewolf. Or that I've always wanted to be a professional boxer. And I could show her." He was now imagining in his head the scene where he throws his fists into the air, punching invisible foes and biting his cheeks in serious mockery. What else, he thought? He thought again of a dark secret. This time in more of a serious manner. It just wouldn't be entertaining enough or worth all this effort unless it was challenging. To actually get her to believe something unbelievable. Something that forces her to stare at him with pale, shock-blazed eyes. Something that is too hard to believe because it lays on the precarious verge of utter disbelief. That would be fulfilling. He would get a definite kick out of the connivery of this rather absurd scenario. He went back to the idea of the chemist and tried to artistically stretch it. Perhaps he could have been a notable scientist. One who leaned more towards the philosophical side of the chemical spectrum and veered away from the mathematics of the science. Perhaps Sven grew up always having an instinctively driven desire to solve problems and riddles. Always thinking in a severely efficient way. As he aged, Aengus thought, Sven enhanced this mental benefit into a career. And a lifestyle. He had the patience to become submerged in the strenuous craft of exchanging variables and theorizing equations but understood that those tasks are only for explanation. Not belief. He had a very rational, accepting understanding of existence and used it to project himself to where he wanted to be.
Aengus looked at his own eyes in the rearview mirror. He flung his head to the left, getting the hair out of his eyes that the hat had had held down before and raised one eyebrow. “Velcom to ma temporary livinG qwaters.” He said in a sleazy Russian voice. “Iope you find your stay…comfortable…”
Three more backdoor roads and they took a right onto a gravel road. The road was lined on each side with bricks that looked as if their position had never been altered but seemed as though they were not cemented together. The woman following Aengus did not take the slightest bit of notice, she was directing her attention to mental issues and had her eyes focused strictly on the top of the "Q' that was in the second half of Aengus's license plate. In the distance there was a two-story house with a satellite dish on the roof. The exterior paint was a shipping, dirty blue color that only came down to about six feet above the ground. It looked as though the painter poured a giant vat of blue paint on the top of the house and simply let it run down the sides, abandoning any further work because he wasn't going to get paid. The stretch of gravel was about half of a mile, and the two vehicles soon slowed down and stopped by the front door. Aengus got out of his car while the girl was un-strapping her helmet and with a smile, motioned for her to park around the side of the house. She did so, noticed the dirty tow truck and followed him to the back door.
"I live here", Aengus said as he was trying the key in the door, "There aren't many places that serve food around. Plus I don't imagine you have much money."
"Why?"
"Why?"
"Yeah why. Why do you think I don't have any money? I mean, its not a big deal but... Do I look unclean or something?"
"Well, no. Not that. Its just...” he looked down at her wide, questioning eyes and sort of squinted and frowned. He slammed his body into the door, "That dress is not cheap", he lied and looked at her butt. The door flew open.
The two of them walked slowly into the house, their steps being amplified by the hollow floorboards.
"You can sit down in here," said Aengus as he pointed to a room behind the kitchen and walked out of site of the girl. She walked slowly into what appeared to be the living room. Or at least it seemed to have all of the familiar characteristics of a living room. Dirty couch, brown, ecliptic coffee table, bad paintings on the walls, a fireplace with an incomplete, brick laced perimeter and a medium sized rug clinging gently to the floor beneath these items. The pattern of the rug reminded this girl of a water stream descending a cliff or mountain peak. Most of the colors used were forms of red and the corners were shaded blue. She looked up and began walking towards the window. Its torn drapes were strung open and Aengus's car sat in plain view beyond the wooden deck. She put her hand on the window and felt the glass beginning to loose temperature. She knew that since the sun had just descended that she would be spending the night in this very house, something she preferred not to happen. She rolled her eyes into the back of her head and turned it to the left, "Shit." She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands and let out a silent groan. This girl had nothing against the nice new friend she had met. He seemed pretty smart, she thought and it seemed like his attempts to be witty were more tolerable than most guys'. Its not as if she particularly minded him or anything, she just knew where the situation was most likely to head, or at least where it was desired to head by half of the characters involved in it. She would just have to be firm and establish ground rules as soon as possible. She would have to make sure he understood how she felt without sounding too hostile. She then thought that maybe it wouldn't matter. Maybe she could just be a complete bitch and see how quick minded this guy was. She could test him and continue to reward him with nothing. The only problem was that she often felt bad about these kinds of things. Because despite her attraction to evil, she was a very strong, true, good hearted person. She decided to bring him down with one glance of the eyes. This girl had always been interested in eye contact. She believed she could see an entire person with one look into their eyes. She saw who they were. What they had experienced. She could acknowledge one's wisdom or see through their soulless retinas, allowing her to accurately judge and analyze. Her first impressions were usually proven to be correct if she indeed took the time to establish a relationship with the individual, but of course she rarely had the courage to instigate conversation beyond the common head nod or simple pass on the street. This continually proven ability of hers however gave her quite a sense of superiority, which, without proper innate, intellectual structure, almost always leads to eventual destruction. And who knows if this girl was gifted with such a backing. It was hard for the average person to rise above the level she thought herself at and decrypt her personality because she lived in a different place than any other. Her mind was so far away from the blanket of social consciousness that is thread with so many others. It is because of this distance and outward view that she can so easily peer into a person's soul. So when an individual is able to witness her interior, she is automatically attracted to that form of mental thought. She thought now that it would take one carefully placed mutual glance for him to become convinced that she was against any form of pre-marital sex. Which was, of course, a complete lie.
The girl looked down at her shoes and tried to scrape a patch of dirt off of one shoe with the bottom of the other.
“Fuck.” She said quietly, rubbing her eyes with her palms and letting her hair fall over her hands. She collapsed onto her knees running her fingers through her disheveled locks. She sighed, leaning her back against the wall below the gradually fogging window. A large breeze flew through the trees and around the house, agitating it.
Aengus returned a few minutes later. He was freshly adorned with a black t-shirt and a pair of black slippers. “I heard the wind”, he said from the shadows, “I put together some soup and I have some muffins from yesterday. You could probably eat them with salami or cheese or whatever. Are you a picky person?” The girl stared at the floor on her left then forced a grin before looking back up into Aengus’ eyes.
“Whatever you have will be fine.” She replied with clouded eyes and a sweet, distant tone. Aengus stood still as he watched her sit. She was trying not to make any more eye contact with him. He chuckled and went back into the kitchen.