We Rose Up Slowly v10.0

From Tales of Boris a Novel in Progress
1997 to May 2003

The phenomenon began with birds flying higher and things falling slower. Now the phenomenon is everywhere and it has changed the way we touch each other. Once one evening, you finished your ice cream, I came close to you and we took our clothes off. Socks floating around the room.

I handled you roughly, as requested, leaving marks and bruises on your skin. Afterwards, you turned to me and said it was like being tickled by a giant slice of Spam. How unsatisfied you were and it was my turn to giggle. So then you chased and spanked me with a tennis racquet leaving hatches and bumps on my buttocks like a pale Danish ice cream cone. Later, you turned to me and said, “Being bonked by you that day was like having a mosquito attack my nether regions.”

I looked at you with your arms folded. I reached out for you. But you turned around and walked away; your buttocks flabbing about like two little fat ladies bumping bellies. And I must admit you were right, it wasn’t fun anymore.

The phenomenon began with birds flying higher and things falling slower.

Your father, the chicken farmer, who used to limp with a jerk and bump, found himself walking with greater ease and improved smoothness.

“Hey, don’t forget the people with goiters.” I remember you telling me once. Your mother had one. Your mother had one stuck, like a bloated parrot, on her left shoulder. Well, people with goiters found their goiters growing. Goiters clamouring for attention, sprouting white hairs, veins protruding, wrinkles deepening, tissues & fluid swilling about, balloon big, waiting to be popped. Once, suddenly, while watching TV I stopped staring at the screen and I wandered over to you and under the pretext of practising a Korean massage technique I pressed my hands about your body searching for protuberances, any early indication of goiters. The only odd texture touched was the silver surface of the locket floating around your neck.

The phenomenon began with birds flying higher and things falling slower.

I can remember. I can remember the first time the phenomenon touched our lives. Of course we’d heard about it and seen it on TV but the first time we’d experienced it first hand we were walking in the park. We’d just eaten breakfast at a cafe near the lake. I had a steak sandwich with extra onions and you had muesli. We were walking to digest. We were walking, hand in hand, on an autumn day, in the park, carefree beneath an arch of overhanging branches. We were discussing your mother, and her problems with the chickens. Then suddenly mid conversation you stopped and you clenched my hand tightly and said, “Look. Look at the leaves.” I looked. I saw. I said, “The leaves. The leaves. The falling leaves. This is … just … too beautiful.”

We stood there gaping like stunned mullets and we turned around, and turned around, and turned around, again. We couldn’t believe our eyes. The leaves. The yellow green leaves were falling … sure … as they do in autumn … falling to the ground. But they were falling as though playfully resisting an inevitable rendezvous with the earth. They were falling too softly, floating down, too slowly, as though taking their time, well aware they were being watched and enjoying the attention.
You said, “Wow. Is this a dream?”
And so I kissed you just to confirm we were not asleep. I said, “Perhaps it’s always been this way and we’ve never been in love enough to notice.”
Later, you said, “Of course it wasn’t a dream. When you kissed me I smelt onions.”

I remember when I first met you.

Somewhere, sometime in the mid eighties a long time before we rose up slowly. A long time before the phenomenon.

But then I don’t think I remember the details well at all … yes, I can. Oh yes I can. I think it was someone’s 18th birthday party in someone’s big yellow house. A house overlooking the beach; a house with a pool and ten pin bowling alley.

In the kitchen I found you. You were wearing a hot pink boob tube and aqua, polystyrene bauble earrings.

You winked at me. I saw glitter eye shadow. You told me I could call you ‘Chook’. I mouthed those words and put my hands against my sides, stuck my arms out, leant back, extended my neck and flapped. I stared at you smiling and smiled back. You giggled and stretched both arms upwards showing me your shaven armpits in celebration. Beyond the spiky peroxide hair I noticed a fragile silver locket, a tiny booklet hanging from your neck. As you laughed, it banged against your breast. I stopped flapping. I said something, anything, you laughed.

And also I couldn’t help noticing, in the kitchen light, your tongue was blue black, and around your gums … the edges were blue black too. This made me laugh even more and I said something pseudo witty like, “Ah. I see the black plague has reached the Eastern Suburbs.” That had you giggling. The delicate little locket bounces.

You pointed towards the freezer.
“You caught the black plague from a freezer?”
More giggling.
“No silly.”
And you opened the freezer and pulled out a black tub with a silver label stuck to its lid.
“Liquorice ice cream.” You prised open the lid and smiled at me. You licked your lips with your long black tongue.
“Do you want some too?”
So I ate and felt the cold sweetness inside my mouth. I slobbered over you, dribbled a drop on your breast, and created a mole. Another black drop fell on your locket.
“Aren’t you gonna clean it up?’
So I came even closer and leant down towards the hollow of your neck just above your chest and I stretched out my tongue and licked the surface of the booklet shaped locket and said, “Open your locket for me.” I could see your mood darkening as I leant even farther down. “Show me what’s inside. I think I … dropped … some ice cream … in between … its silver pages.” I opened my mouth in the shape of a kiss and sucked the little booklet deep inside my mouth.
Suddenly, you snapped at me.
“Hey you. Nobody goes there.”
And you drew back … and the locket left my mouth. It felt like you’d taken a fish hook and snared a tonsil at the back of my throat.
I looked at you and said, “Hey sorry. I’ve got the wrong message.” I turned to walk away. But then you checked yourself and smiled.
“Hey. My mother gave it to me but it’s OK. I’m sorry. You can lick here.” And you pointed to the ice cream mole above your left breast.

So that’s how we first got to know each other. And now, so long after, we have the phenomenon and we will rise up slowly. We are going to do it. There’s no going back. I’m waiting for you to finish your ice cream then you will return and we will follow your parents and we will rise up slowly.

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