beyond far.

how can a life be explained?

a man is sitting across the table from a girl and he wants to know what she does. he has no basis for comparison and will only know her for a few hours total.

its hard anyway, for her to concentrate on anything but the scar across his cheek and the way he keeps looking at her every time he stands up to get a beer.

she tries, knowing he will not understand - he has told her about sweeping desert plains, cattle ranches, truck stops and unfathomable animals and sand in his teeth. this she understands in a plaintive longing sort of way - she's wanted that life more than once, wanted the sunburnt muscle ache blinding white of it. but this is what she has struggled with for the last however long of her life - what it means, how it reeks of complacency and entitlement, unearned privilege and laziness.

she stumbles, the words tumbling out too quickly and in improper order - it is not the alcohol (she could handle twice as much without blinking) but from the shock of discovering her inability to describe.

that life is so graceful. so elegantly simple. how could she tell him that hers exceeds the rest for reasons like these: the blue tint of the air outside the front porch in the early morning, the mingled taste of white wine and laughter, the complete confidence in those people who surround her, the sound of her own voice over a microphone.

i play tennis sometimes, she tells him hesitantly and he chuckles, lighting a cigarette. take the dog for walks, watch television. he expects more; to him she looks new and exotic and she has to do more than this. but its the background that matters, the soundtrack. the tinkling of windchimes and the howling of wind against window in the dark of early morning.

is that it? she holds his gaze steady as he waits for an answer, but all she can do is put her chin on her hand, her elbow on the table. when he smiles, the light catches that scar on his face and makes it glow.

finally she shrugs, she says, i live with my friends. they're around all the time. i spend hours at school and at work and then i come home and every moment is exciting, even though we don't do anything. we sit on the porch and drink coffee in the morning.

he finishes off his beer and she has nothing left to say; they have so little in common. if he kisses her, though, he'll probably be able to taste - just a bit - that grace and that elegance, the feeling of weathered wood floors under bare feet.

he never kisses her.

she's realized it doesn't matter.