friends

One said let’s make a try of it, which was only a way one had of making a more graceful exit, of evading clutching hands, drawing sharp dry parallel lines where before rose confused floodwaters of dramatic feeling, which was only a way one had of replacing awkward animate clutching love with something crisper, more manageable.

The thing being tried the high concept of "friends." Friends! to be shouted standing atop roofs, etc., friends the concept left worn out rust- or dirt-encrusted in a kind of mutual discard pile.

Years pass and the end result is a kind of faint residual taste akin to a vaguely recognizable chemical in tapwater, punctuated by the occasional appearance of that special friend in one's dreamlife less as a friend so much as a kind of extra, a last minute casting addition brought forward by memory as a sort of unfunny joke, then to reappear in one's consciousness as a skipping record for the next several weeks. Sentimental 78 rpm hiss, standing girl, non-speaking part.