EJourney is a flaneuse (an observer/wanderer) who writes about,
and illustrates (oils, pastels, digital) what she sees and loves. In a past life, with a now-dormant Ph.D.,
(University of Illinois), she researched, evaluated and developed mental health
programs.
Elise stared, with lids drooping over glazed eyes, at the
newscaster on television, while she nibbled on some take-out falafel from a
neighborhood restaurant. But as bright as that pita tasted, with her favorite
spicy filling of bean balls, she could not relish it, although she was
famished.
What she wanted was rest. She needed more of that than what she could stuff
into her mouth and her stomach. She plopped the remaining falafel on the coffee
table in front of her. Then, she slid her body, weary and heavy, down on the
supple seat cushions.
The last two weeks had been hectic. She was exhausted from running around
during the day—interviewing witnesses for her first big case—then working late
in her apartment. She had devoted her nights to reading and analyzing
transcriptions of interviews and depositions. This evening was not going to be
any better.
Sweet, glorious slumber soon took over. But not for long.
Insistent ringing jarred Elise for an instant out of the thick fog in her head.
She stirred, but she could not move her limbs and she slid back into another
fitful dream.
The ringing began again. How long after the first, she could not tell. She
groped for the phone on the side table behind her head.
“Hello.” Elise slurred, still dazed from sleep, her eyes closed.
Her greeting was met with silence.
“Hello?” she said once more.
“Hello. Do you remember me?” The voice that answered was deep and resonant; one
resurrected from her past.
Elise sprang upright and swung her legs off the couch. She switched on the lamp
on the side table. Now wide-awake, she reached for the remote control and
turned off the television, still blaring the same headlines about the uncertain
economy and businesses continuing to fail.
Did she remember? How could she forget? There was not a week that passed when
that voice did not speak, answering one question or another, on the radio, on
television, or merely in her head.
No, she had not forgotten. How could she? But she never expected that voice to
address her again. It had been two years, after all, since they were last
together, and one year since she had given up on him.
“Yes, yes. Of course, I do.”
Elise could not say anymore. Her heart was thumping. She tucked the strands of
hair that had fallen on her face into the barrette on the back of her head and
waited for the voice to say more.
For a long moment, there was silence at the other end, although she could hear
him breathing. She imagined his chest rising and falling, deep, rhythmic, and
regular. She remembered how it felt as it did that, its muscles lean and strong
against her br***ts.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately,” Greg said.
She gripped the telephone tighter and licked her dry lips.
“Oh?” She managed to squeak the word out of her parched throat.
“Off and on the last two years. Mostly on.”
“Mmmm. Me, too.” She bit her lip. Damn! Sleep had stolen her self-control. She
didn’t want him to know she still thought about him.
“Really? Listen, can we meet?” He was never one to beat around the bush. That,
she remembered very well, too. She liked that about him. She also liked how his
greyish blue eyes peered into hers and how his direct gaze burrowed into her
soul, even as those eyes bared his own. She liked the sharp, introspective mind
behind them, too. She liked…..
”Stop!” Elise said to herself
“Are you still there?” Greg’s voice jolted her out of her imagined residues of
their past together.
“Yes. I’m sorry. I’ve had a long day. I’m still trying to wake up from a nap.”
She feigned a yawn. “It kinda came over me this afternoon. This is so unlike
me.”
“I see, hectic days as usual.” Another moment of silence at his end. “Would you
fit me into your busy schedule? Please? I need to see you. I want to see you.”
Her heart went thumping again. She bit her lips harder to suppress the breath
that heaved at her chest. A few moments went by before she could trust her
voice.
“Why not. When?”
“Tomorrow night?”
“That soon? Aren’t you busier than me? How could you fit me into your schedule,
just like that?” Early in their acquaintance, she risked falling into sarcasm
whenever she spoke to him. Tonight, he provoked it in her again.
“Please, Elise.”
“Where?”
“There’s an Indian restaurant on the corner of Huston and Kramer. Maybe 8 pm?”
“Three blocks from my apartment? Yes, I’ve passed by the place.” She knitted
her brow and wondered, for a moment, why he would know about a restaurant in the
area. But all she could manage to add was, “At 8 then.”
She hung up and did not wait for him to respond. Her hands started to shake and
she clenched them tight, close to her stomach, to keep them still.
She blinked away the moisture gathering in her eyes and turned off the lamp.
How exasperating! Why could she not turn off the sensations that flooded her
then? The way she could turn off that lamp with a quick flick of her fingers.
Her head began to reel and she leaned back on the couch. She was breathing deep
and hard, straining for air. Her limbs tingled from a million tiny delicious
pricks on the surface of her skin. Stirrings of sensations, too exquisite to be
buried, churned her insides. But she wanted them buried. She needed them lost
in some unreachable recess in her brain. She did not dare hope again. She
clasped her arms around her chest.
What was she thinking? Why see him again? What did he want now?
Elise sat in the dark a long time—at least an hour, according to the clock on
her side table.
Work. Work was always a good antidote to the messiness of feelings. She turned
on the lamp again and stared at the thick putrid green folder of depositions on
the coffee table. Next to it, lay the falafel, its sauce liquefied by wilted
lettuce and oozing too close to those precious depositions. She rewrapped the
uneaten mess in its brown bag and threw it into the trash basket by her
foot—already half-full of rejected drafts and notes for her new case.
She picked up the folder and placed it on her lap. But she could not open it.
It weighed her legs down and reminded her how exhausted she was. Drained. Not
so much from her work at the Public Defender’s office as from all that happened
within the last hour or so.
She unloaded the folder back on to the coffee table, turned off the lamp and
went to bed.
That night, she lay, tossing, two hours past her usual bedtime. A couple of
times, she skimmed through the book on eastern thought that she kept on her
bedside table. Her trusty first defense against insomnia. She read it when
fatigue could not put her to sleep. But that night, it failed at its task.
She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, over and over. She tried to
lie still, but her muscles twitched and trembled. The sensations, Greg stirred
in her again, had stopped. And, yet, sleep continued to elude her.
She reached for the bottle of Benadryl under her pillow and popped a pill into
her mouth.
Thoughts and dreams floated through her head that night. She fell asleep at
some point, she was sure of that, because the following morning, she bounded
without much effort from bed, alert and ready for the frenzy of the day.
***************
Guest post from the Author!:
By EJourney,
author, Hello! A Modern Love Story
I paint in oils, acrylics, and pastels, as well as in digital medium. So, when I write fiction, I conceptualize my
characters by doing illustrations of them while the story is taking shape.
My illustrations for characters are digital and often done
on an iPad, a handy hardware the size and weight of portable sketchbooks.
"Painting" apps on an
iPad take advantage of the touch screen, which makes it easy to approximate the gestures I
use when painting on a real canvas.
And, yes, I do use models—loosely—generally of figures from foreign films, of which I watch a lot. But I alter them so they take on
personalities of their own and pretty much depict the character I had in mind.
These illustrations find their way in my book covers, video
trailers, and even within the ebook version.
Generally, I don't use them in print copies because the price of the
book would be prohibitive.
The first illustration I did for Hello! A Modern Love Story made it to the book cover, which I had another designer, more experienced in
doing book covers, do for me, using my
character "paintings."
She presented me with other alternatives using stock photos
and illustrations but I eventually went
with the one that had my "painting," for one good reason:
This cover would be unique.
In researching book covers, I was appalled to find different
books by different authors using the same stock photo. You must admit—not good if you're trying to
make the book stand out. In one case,
two different books with covers that looked exactly alike (except for titles)
were even shown on the same website.
Related article:
http://www.printmag.com/imprint/what-do-you-think-of-illustrated-e-books/
