Chrome

My dogs were being taken care of so I felt comfortable staying a little while past sundown.

Part scrap yard,part museum of abandoned junk.

The ward time and the municipal board forgot.

Hidden in plain sight, it seemed like they had been squatting there for decades.

Keeping their shadows low and their voices down.

This space was theirs as long as no one fucked up.

And no one ever did.

Niko and I had finished our yellow tea with pepper sprinkles.

A thick,vague concoction that tasted like everything and nothing. 

We were making our way back down the narrow dusty staircases when I saw it.

The hand buffed chrome moped straight out of the 1950’s.

It was beautiful.

A raw metal art deco time capsule.

I couldn’t believe it was just lying there.

So much potential amongst all this ruin.

I sat on it and moved it back and forth in the tiny space it was allowed.

It seemed solid and squeaked ever so softly.

All the bits seemed to be there.

Mostly.

Then a curious face emerged from a door to the right that we never saw until her eyes met mine.

“Hello I’m Nasreen..” she said,inquisitively.

“Is this yours?”

“Yes it is mine…”

I couldn’t argue with the provenance.

Her eyes betrayed her ownership.

“I must have it.” I said.

She contemplated for a few seconds in silence.

“I will sell it to you but it will be expensive..

And I need to fix a few things on it.” 

Niko and I looked at each other knowing what complete examples such as this go for in today’s market and decided to continue the negotiation.

“Give us a number” he said and she disappeared for a short while behind a dusty cupboard.

Rummaging ensued for a minute or two and she returned hurriedly scribbling on a small scrap of paper,as if doing a long list of calculations.

“8900” She finally declared proudly.

Niko and I looked at each other.

We could barely contain our excitement.

“8000” I countered.

Almost as a force of habit.

“And you should bring her home to me when she is ready” I said as I penciled my address down on her bill.

She was beautiful and naive and I selfishly didn’t want her rusting away amongst all this squalor.

Chapter 1

“Read this” she said.

As she handed me smattering of notes 

Scribbled on the ripped out soft covers of trashy novels 

“This is writing!” she proclaimed.

“These are rejects” I retorted.

She looked at me disappointedly.

“So you don’t consider what I do writing?” I asked.

“You’re not for everyone” she replied.

“And this is?!

These are incoherent rambling’s made to appeal to intellectually vacant groupies wanting to belong.

What I do is distilled from a thousand curated thoughts.

Do you know how much of my work you haven’t read because it never made the cut?”

“So what do you want to do…”

She interjected.

As if what I had just revealed after 3 years together meant nothing.

“I know you’re leaving”

She sat quietly, and

stared ahead,as if willing me on.

All the while feigning the deepest sadness known to man.

“Do what you want to do

But I have one request,

Don’t do it here,

Because this is where I also live”

She got up to leave as the safety regulatory agents came into view.

Suits and briefcases and prejudice .

All rolled into a slowly advancing wall of doom.

As they sat down at the coffee table

It seemed as if the birds all suddenly stopped chirping.

“Tell us captain” one of them blurted out.

As a sort of crude introduction.

“What made you wake up?”

“Divine intervention I guess”

But my focus was elsewhere.

Mostly on the river.

And on her walking up the hill back to the house.

Coffee cup and book covers in tow.

On the phone to her lover,

To tell him the good news.

I guess I am the reject