A lesson in mythology, from Lou's quite-annoying date
Lou's quite-annoying date:
She has short blonde hair, spiky, with just the tips of it dyed a darker brown. She has jewelry that looks too new, like she’s not used to wearing it, like she hasn’t become accustomed to it, which, in itself, is not a reason to find her annoying, Lou knows. It is just that she acts as though she is so at home in it, in everything, as if she is so certain and knows everything and has been here, doing this, for ages, yet she’s so young and she has this kind of confidence that you only get when nothing bad has ever happened to you. And when you have money. Which in itself, Lou knows, is not a reason to find her annoying. And yet...
So there are two forces right? Two... impulses, doing things in the world.
There is the force that expands - ShellCreature’s rage, waves breaking, the bull leaping over the curve of the shell
Then there is the force that curls inward - detail-making, disintegrating, the kind of decay that makes intricacy, beauty, lace-thin leaf skeleton.
Both forces are life, both are death.
There is the infurling and the outfurling, and there is fire, which is between them.
Fire unfurls its heat and its power and its brightness, and/yet it disintegrates and consumes.
Both, also, are forces of love. Think of the love of looking. The kind that dwells in detail, and cherishes the detail and the aching beauty of it, yet the looking makes more detail and pulls it apart and dissolves it...
Then the other force is life and light and creation*, and yet it burns and pushes apart and destroys.
Lou's quite-annoying date twists the empty sugar packet in her hands, rings clacking. Lou stirs the last bit of coffee in the bottom of her cup. Outside, a blackbird starts to sing its dusk-song.