Hush Music

The finest strain of tea, and the finest of company, and there was I—me—, lashed between uneducated, crawling thoughts, each making an unwise break for my mouth, and chewing, as one does, on a December tart, whilst that unspecified companion of mine, clad boldly in red halves, echoed my jaw's joyous rhythm, only with a decidedly more mundane treat (and beat, while I'm at it), and, I suspected, a more workaday approach. As you will have no doubt gathered by now, this is a situation I often find myself in, but its bottoms are still, teasingly, never quite got at, despite my very sensible reach, and the only way I can inch myself closer (centimetres sound too ugly, you see) is by picking and clawing, sparing nothing in the process. So be it that I may never fully repay your patient eyes!

"It's a mystery to me," he decided, employing the least of his vocabulary.
"Oh, I know," I said. "Oh, I do!"
"You do! I know—I'm glad."
"I do! I am."
"Oh I'm sorry, what of you? I failed to ask. All this of me—unhealthy! What of you?" (This is all to the best of my recollection, mind.)
"Me? Oh, you know—you do. I rummage, I find, I get attached. And the prefix un ruins my fun. That's life, they say; yes—mine especially. There's the early heavens and the late hells, but limbo's the worst. Concrete, even the vilest, has the cool comfort of conformation as its plus; limbo has none such. Limbo is hell masquerading as two possibilities. It shows a skylight to safety and hands you a spade. Do I even mind, though? Somewhat, yes. When someone goes rueful walkabout, later citing a specious fuse, I lose kilos, and demand, quietly, a straightforward sentence. I'd much prefer a felled axe to swinging ligaments. I know, I know, I know—like a Disney lemming to a cliff, someone went off me. Yes, I went off, all right: first, like a rocket; last, like milk. What is it exactly? A smashing surface and an ugly depth? Temporarily interesting virtues? A role and nothing more? Heaven forbid great features. Curse these well-formed boobs."
"Oh, you're a woman this time?" chimed in Ben, helpfully.
"Ya-huh. Innovative spin, no?"
"Tell me, Miss, is this she to whom you refer (or so I infer) of the earth or of the air?"
"Of the nothing."