Pulp Romance

Lana dreamed of Summers in Spring. 

  February. A little white sail drifted across the black-steeled sea; it was a forlornly hopeful confetti, gleaming with the white Sun’s blessings. Cheap sweetness rippled in the air. Saline sweetness, sour and sulphurous. A white van drove down the highway of Spring. It harrowed like Spring, honked like Spring. It scurried by the beach, by the naked palms, by the asphalt linings of quiet dread. It brought the only green-eyed boy back to the seaside town Lana lived in.  

  The townspeople called him the outsider on the shore. They always saw him trailing along the rigid and glassy coast. The nymphic sea breezes always gently whirled his swirly hair. The lazy afternoon sunlight always goldened his sparsely freckled skin. The milky white waves always brushed the itching sand grains off his lightly tapping toes. There was something eternal about him. And his name was Antonio. 

  Lana loved him. 

  It wasn’t love at first sight. It wasn’t even her first love. But it was a furtively raging love. A love so blindly humble and bitterly hurting it may well be called obsession. She knew it and she continued to love him.

  And I love him, like I love Eternity. Like I love the sound of waves, echoing my seismic heartbeats. Like I love the erratic brinks, chastely transient. 

  Alice, Lana’s friend, called her insane. ‘You lunatic, the moon isn’t even half-full,’ Alice said to Lana one afternoon, both sitting on a sky-blue bench by the sea. ‘You act all coy and bashful and never dare utter a syllable when he’s near, but behind his back you’re reinless and –’

  ‘It’s called liking someone,’ Lana retorted.

  ‘It’s called obsession. It’s called being madly –’

  ‘Not everyone has the privilege to be in a relationship.’

  Alice shrugged smugly. ‘Guess I’m just that much hotter.’

  Ignoring her last remark, Lana said: ‘and fuck Esther for saying that I like him because I feel like I’m obliged to like someone because everybody around me is in a relationship. Except Johnny. And fuck Lorraine for saying that I put him on a pedestal. You know I don’t. It’s just –’

  ‘You’re being insane.’ 

  A seagull darted by, crowed like a siren. The distant oil tanker bellowed bestially. A drumming cacophony was sounding and intensifying. A heat eroded Lana’s heart. It burnt like marshmallows above a campfire. 

  ‘I feel so small sometimes,’ Lana said, subduing her urge to tear up a hurricane. Instead she smiled, phony as hell. ‘I feel so small, like an ugly peck of dust. I feel so small I might well drown my damn ugly self.’ Her smile widened into a distorted grimace, foreign as hell. ‘Damn ugly. Damn small. But Esther’s right – I’m so damnably lonely sometimes when I see you bickering, I feel like I’m choking on acid. And Lorraine’s right –’

  ‘Lana,’ Alice pulled Lana’s head to her shoulder, ‘you’re not ugly.’

  Lana closed her eyes and imagined the oil tanker sinking. Oil spread on the tremulous sea surface like red algae. Ugly, ugly, ugly. The seagull mocks me, stares at me as if I were a clown. I am. And the heartburn, icy as our distance, Antonio. Alice you can’t save me. I want home. I want mum’s dinner. Nightfall is dripping like pearly tears of depraved angels. 

  ‘Lana…? Lana? Lana?’

  Dusk ate up the last sunray. Twilight separated the girls with a wordless farewell. Back home, Lana, without feeling much sorrow but only strangely empty, lay on the sofa and read Keats’ Endymion. 

  The waves surged under the February Moon. 

  March. A deluge of yellow and pink and blue. An explosive burst of merciless green. The sky reflected the foliage’s envious hues. The town was a rumbling grumble of old mistakes and new anxieties. Old loves and new ones. Silver and chrome vehicles zoomed down winding roads like chess-pieces across the unmoving townscape. Old lives and new deaths. Amid the furious and blasting impermanence was an inert constancy, demure and dreary. Lana’s eyes were looking into the melting future. 

  Maybe I’m going a bit insane.

  The town was rumouring that someone jumped off a bridge. A black Ford was found parked, unmanned on the bridge and the owner had been missing for more than fifteen hours. The newspapers, however, made no report on an unnamed fellow of no value; they were busy trumpeting new projects of governmental corruption and collusion, busy witch-hunting naysayers, busy naming names of roaring significance. Lana’s father was the first person to spot the van. He reported it to the town police. It took them an hour to arrive at the scene. The nearest police depot was a street across. 

  The town’s going insane.

  There were the people who didn’t care at all. There were the people who cared too much, taking personal offence in the matter. There were the people who didn’t even know about the whole thing.

  Someone said a wave of demonstrations was expected. Others scoffed at the idea. 

  The world’s always been insane. 

  The table next to Lana’s was contentiously preoccupied with a newly kindled but ill-educated audacity, not just with the rumour but every sort of social issue. The café was a parliament of cheap malice. Esther yawned idly. Lana drank her double espresso nervously. 

  ‘Full of the sound of fury,’ versified Esther, ‘signifying nothing.’

  ‘Huh?’ Lana tilted her head. Or it’s just me who’s insane; who cares so much about my own little pain I don’t – can’t – feel anything for that dead guy and the many dead guys killed by this dying world. Worse, I don't even know his name. Worse, I don't even feel that bad about my not caring. 

  ‘The history of this town is just an unchanging mess, a contained chaos,’ Esther said while yawning again, ‘it’s not like nobody’s jumped from the bridge before. People are only caring so that they can vent their long-accumulated anger. At the mayor who’s recently bought his billion-dollar manor. At the fact that the cops arrived half-an-hour late. At the newspapers which were just demagogues’ mouthpieces. At the fact that Spring moulded up their white wallpapers. At the grocery store lady who didn’t greet them with a smile. At the congested traffic. At life’s incessant waves of vicissitudes. At themselves who ride along these waves like idiotic sailors.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ I know what she means by that. But we don’t want truth, we want morale and a miracle. We want happy. We want sad. We want pain. We want the things which can excite and send us into frantic oscillations. Because we – I’m sick of stagnation, alone praying in the dark. 

  ‘Let’s not talk about the dead guy anymore, ok?’ A third yawn, ‘Lorraine and Alice’ve been spamming the group chat enough.’

  Lana’s cheeks flushed red, seeing the neighbouring table were irritably glaring.

  ‘Do you see the protests happening?’ Lana felt obliged to ask. Reassuring exhalation issued all around. No one’s listening; everyone’s listening. 

  ‘Let’s not talk about the dead guy anymore, I mean it.’

  Afternoon daylight shifted outside. The bricks and cements were singing. A fleeting brilliance enveloped the world. Then a sudden, transcendental silence drowned the café. 

  Lana saw Antonio walk down the opposite street. 

  ‘You’ve still got feelings for him?’ Esther saw him too.

  ‘I said I’m learning to give up.’ Lana said.

  ‘You’ve still got feelings for him.’

  ‘You don’t like talking about dead things, so stop talking about dead loves.’

  Esther sighed, almost sad, never sardonically. ‘If you mean it, then go ahead with it – giving up. But you know us silly lovers of life, broken human beings, are monstrously good at repeating history. Repeating past mistakes. I’m not calling your love a mistake. Just…an accident. You think that too, you said – I remember. And you’ve got a bad record at giving up your crushes, at remedying your “accidents”.’

  ‘It’s not the same this time.’

  ‘Not the same because this time you haven’t even spoken to him – not once!’

  ‘It means it’s easier to…’

  ‘Means it’s harder. Because you’re more unreasonable, more unforgiving, more devoted to something as insubstantial as his shadow.’ Esther reclined and sighed again, and said: ‘sorry, I went too far.’

  It’s alright. Not like I’ve not been hurt. Lana was silent. 

  ‘You know I love you, don’t you. And so does Alice. And Lorraine. We love you. So much love. But I know the love we give you cannot fill the void in your heart. Because it’s fundamentally different to the one you’re seeking…’

  ‘We should stop talking about him.’

  ‘…I wonder how you would react if he talks to you.’

  ‘We should change subject.’

  ‘I wonder…’

  Even if he just waves at me, and looks at me like he does at the sea, I’ll cry. 

  ‘I wonder what he feels,’ Esther sighed a third time and said, ‘having been an outsider in this loveless town. Probably feels like being drowned. In black currents, surging. This town never learns. This town has too much history to have a future. To love by subduing its rage, to seize by peaceful evolution. Just sounds. Just furies. Nothing.’

  Even if he just waves at me, once. Near the end of summer, ideally. When the protests will be ending and the dead buried by forgetfulness. A new wave of anger and serenity will sweep by and shake up this town. A new sea of evanescent virtues and vices. A fertile crest of miracles. He is the miracle on the shore, never an outsider. The outsider is me, millennially solitary. 

  ‘I think the protests are most definitely happening,’ Esther asked for the bills and paid. ‘And I’ve got no better things to do than to take part in the sound and fury.’ 

  Dark undercurrents marched beneath the deathless sea. 

  April. A chilled chalice of once boiling blood. A townspeople once clamouring liberté égalité fraternité forgetting it was life they were roaring for in the first place, a lost life. By mid-April the protests died away like nothing had ever happened. Collective amnesia censored revolutionary ecstasy. Contentment and folly coexisted, commingled. Someone found out who the dead guy was. But by late April, no one really cared about him anymore. Ragged cardboards became his sundry tomb, forever nameless. He became trash in death – Lana might have cried a little over this thought. 

  Lana might have also cried over Antonio, many times, every time weightless and noiseless like the advent of many tomorrows. 

  Lorraine picked Howl off the bookstore’s bookshelf and handed it to Lana telling her to read the line ‘starving hysterical naked’. 

  ‘Protestors starved hysterical naked, beat and tattered and became us,’ Lorraine said, not without sadness. 

  ‘Allen Ginsberg…’ Lana read off the cover. 

  ‘If we all have his spirit… Never mind, we’re already defeated. We have much rage, but little stamina. In short we’re always fucked by ourselves. Hopeless bastards.’

  ‘You could have donated to his family.’

  ‘Couldn’t. It’s said the family moved away even before the protests have happened. It’s said he committed suicide but no one knows why. It’s said his last name’s Lee. No one knows his first name.’ 

  Leaving this carboard town of heartbreaks – antidote to incessant, resurging grief. Leaving this quicksilver town of hopeless pursuits. Wherefore art thou, Antonio? Call me once and I’ll stay. 

  ‘You know Antonio’s leaving,’ Lorraine said nonchalantly, ‘this summer. Late June, early July, thereabouts, back to Venice. Potentially because of all the protests and things that had happened before it.’

  Lana's eyes turned from the page titled Wild Orphan to gape at Lorraine incredulously. But she only said: ‘Oh.’

  ‘Why don’t you talk to him, for once.’

  ‘Not that it matters.’

  ‘You know Nina got his insta.’

  ‘Not that it’ll change anything. And I’m not close with Nina anyway. Esther also told me to give it up.’

  And I’m afraid. It’s like I’m running stark naked, being laughed at. I revive my dead mistakes, relive my hideous histories. I never learn. Like a child chained by nostalgia, refusing to grow up. Feeding on expired dream-sparkles. Surges of poison-ivy fancies. 

  ‘When’ll he be leaving again?’ Lana asked.

  ‘Late June, early July. About two months from now. You’re on borrowed time.’

  ‘We’re all on borrowed time.’

  ‘So be resolute. No “to be or not to be”, no tomfoolery with your feelings. I’m always annoyed at your indecisiveness. And now you’re being all nihilistic like Esther. It’s getting to me, I don’t know why.’

  ‘You know I don’t mean it. And don’t want it. Who wants to live like Ivan from Karamazov? But I don’t see a possible future where I could…you know…meet his eyes, let alone talking to him, let alone holding his hand, let alone…’

  ‘Too much unknown but much more is cowardice. That’s why we failed our protests, our procession. Because we’re afraid we’re losing time, youth, potential happiness, potentials, this, that, nothing. Afraid to make that damned step forward. I hate to break it to you because Alice who’s like your mum will never – you need to grow up and make up your own mind on things, instead of pulling a long face and sap all your energy on ghosts and yesterdays and lost paradises.’

  Lost paradises. A moonless sea of constellations and me sailing across like a fickle stray, Lana thought… Lana had no thought. She had no mind. She was but foams vanishing on the tips of waves. She was not herself, but the love which was the carrier of her soul. I have no form but a soul. A soul continually breaking, continually reshaped. This continuity was perpetual, and unchanging, and no god can save her from the maelstrom which someday would swallow her. 

  That night, Lana dreamed of the dead guy from a month ago. She dreamed that instead of him jumping, a water-serpent manifested from the rollicking waves and snatched him away to heaven beneath Atlantis. In death he would live another fruitful life, where no worry or fear would trouble him ever again. But it’d be a loveless place, no family, no friend, no lover, no self. He would consummate with the blueness of the parting waves, disintegrating into the ubiquitous cosmos. 

  She was woken by the savage waves which laughed maniacally – their malicious and much belated April fool’s mischief. 

  May. Summer flowers bloomed like ephemera. Adolescences tasted the just-ripen fruits of desolation. The town was jovial. The sea was blissful. The fish was dancing on the dimpled surface of the jazzing blue. A white van parked meekly by the beach. Antonio, elf-like, traced his fading footsteps on the coast. His shadow was wordless. He was an enigma that took up Lana’s entire youth to decipher. 

  Lana was sitting on the sky-blue bench near the beach. 

  She stared into an oblivion which only included Antonio. 

  She felt she was indeed going a bit insane. 

  She felt she was indeed regressing into her old insane self.

  She felt she was indeed indecisive like a grip of loose sand. 

  She felt she was not a voice, but infinitely many voices.

  One telling her to give up.

  One telling her to give in. 

  One professing me to love.

  One persuading me to indifference. 

  One’s calling my love a sonnet.

  One’s calling my love a pulp fiction.

  But Antonio –

  His rumpled hair glistening like the stardust sand. 

  Green eyes singing fairy songs. 

  Lips soft as floral wavefronts, parting to angels’ hymns. 

  Forgetful beauty contradicting this ugly town, this ugly townspeople, this ugly townscape, this ugly me.

  We remember our sins, our exploits, our protests and our voices as the tides rise.

  We forget them as soon as the tides fall. 

  You come with the tides.

  You leave with the tides. 

  You are a mayflower. 

  You step into the shallow water edge, toy with the empty shells, fondle a shattered grain of stardust. 

  You set sail to sunrise while I watch the Sun set on my sinking island. 

  Your voyage out is an odyssey to your destined Penelope.

  I’m a quiet Circe, a swine, a hallucinatory fire that’s about to be quenched. 

  You pause on the sand. 

  You turn. 

  He turned. He faced Lana. Lana wasn’t sure whether he saw her, was looking at her, or was staring lightyears into an isolated cosmos full of unreachable beauties. But he was there, metres away. They were together outsiders on the shore. The sea winds sent inland by Eternity carried away Lana’s heated tears. Tears that reflected Antonio’s eternally summery smile, and Lana’s transient springtime melancholy. 

  Closing her eyes she thought: I wish this moment was Forever.

  It almost seemed as if he had waved at her.