tuckova

On Friday my favorite wine bar was closed when we got there and the second wine bar closed just as we finished the pickled cheese, but the third wine bar was open all night, Goldilocks, and we so started late and finished later, a nimbus of alcohol and fine fellow feeling around our heads as we stumbled home in the wee hours and did not brush our teeth before we collapsed into bed. On Saturday morning just after sunrise I learned the word tetrad and then after breakfast we sweated across the well-lit cobblestones and sat in a sweet shady garden behind the cathedral drinking tall glasses of mint and lime and watching women in dresses just right for opening barn doors. We were locked in a dark room for an hour with cameras on us and puzzled till our puzzlers were sore and passed notes but could not remember chemistry enough to realize it wasn't important. We walked and walked and ate and ate and then watched other people's relationships for hours; relationships are hard even for KGB agents, imagine how it would be if you could kill a person with your pinky and still be unable to navigate marriage without crashing on the rocks. And yet I know how they feel. On Sunday various CGI monsters on a small screen lulled me to sleep and then I walked past a million Christians to sleep in a park and burn the back of my neck while the wine in my bag turned warm. I rolled a blade of grass between my fingers and explained how I got here, to this place where I only feel what I want to, then we went inside and put the wine in the fridge and watched the storm come closer and closer until it was right overhead, and we turned off the lights and let the lightning strobe across the room, our faces briefly illuminated and then plunged back into darkness, eyes adjusting almost by the next flash. This morning I bought a chocolate muffin at the bakery and ate it slowly, reading. I've nearly finished Norwegian Wood.