STAY WITH ME UNTIL YOU FIND SOMETHING NEW
STAY WITH ME UNTIL YOU FIND SOMETHING NEW
It is San Francisco or the East Village. It is either one of those or it is Seoul, South Korea or the Lower West Side. It is a city sidewalk in late autumn and the plate glass windows like eyes reflect the fine gold light. Shadows have begun to darken the street.
Our protagonists have just been laid off. They are not worried. They graduated into a good job market. They are still young. Late 20s, early 30s. Mid 30s. Late – ok they are worried but they are still young, fed rates are holding, they will feel much better after therapy next week.
The girl is on the phone with her mom. Her mom’s voice sounds thin and distant, like the ocean heard through the shell of a conch. Come home, says Mom. Get a job with a certification. They don't lay off people with certifications. The girl briefly considers saying: Mom you just don't understand, but decides that she is much too tasteful and evolved for such cheap dialogue. Instead she shifts her weight from one foot to the other and says: Ok. Yeap. I’ll think about it. Love you. Then hangs up and immediately tells her boyfriend everything that her mom has just said, exaggerating slightly for sympathy and comedic benefit. That's ridiculous, says the boy. Stay. Stay in London. Stay with me until you find something new. Are you sure, asks the girl. She will take the offer, she knows this, everybody knows this, but it's poor form to appear overeager. He shrugs. We spend so much time together anyways. He's not worried.
They're going out to eat tonight. Omakase. If it comes down to it he'll ask his parents to bail him out with rent. If we don't hurry they'll cancel our reservation. He checks his watch, grimaces theatrically, and begins to run. Come back, she yells, laughing, and runs after him. He takes her hand. And then they're running through the open Vancouver evening. His loafers make a very pleasant pure athletic sound against the pavement, he is saying faster, faster! to her and sorry, excuse us to the passerby; she is making these adorable high-pitched kind-of-sexual yelps of surprise at the dogs, the honking cars. Maybe someone is watching us. Maybe someone will see us and think we look like a scene from a movie. Look how beautifully my long coat billows around my chest, my thighs.
Our protagonists spill out onto the main street which leads to the Williamsburg Bridge. Suddenly everything is louder and much more chaotic. People are marching, they fill the entire street, preventing any other cars from passing. On second thought marching isn't the exact word. They're walking very slowly, banging makeshift drums, carrying banners and signs: 4 KIDS TO FEED / AXED AFTER 22 YEARS / IL LAVORO É UN DIRITTO1 / GET UP, GET DOWN, PHILLY IS A UNION TOWN / EL PUEBLO UNIDO JAMÁS SERÁ VENCIDO2 / 인간답게 살자3 / SIN EMPLEO NO HAY PAZ4 / 해고는 살인이다5 / NI ESCLAVES, NI CHÔMEURS6 / ¡NI UN PASO ATRÁS7!
The men on the street smell like unwashed hair. The girl thinks of her father, her uncle, her other uncle, her grandfather. A large dark wave of pain washes over her, and she wants to leave. But the boy is touched. He has half a mind to begin marching. She has to tug his sleeve multiple times and almost physically drag him away.
Over kohada nigiri he explains the gravity of the situation, which he read about in the news, which he pays for. She loves that he pays for the news. Reading the news feels to her like trying to follow a comic strip without having read the preceding panels. They continue their discussion of the world in a low voice as they walk slowly back to his apartment in the Back Bay8. This is what it’s all about, the boy thinks — confrontation with the Real Things, real suffering, real pain, hunger, death. Back home they wash off the smells of fish and the city.
Now that she’s here, laying on his bed, he realizes that his apartment is smaller, her body larger than he’d previously thought. He refrains from saying this out loud. Instead he kisses her on the forehead and reflects a little more about the current political situation as he drifts off to sleep. It seems to him that the world is within an inch of arriving at a decision, and that then a new, more beautiful world will begin. And then he sees that the end is still far, far away, and that the hardest, the most complicated part has only just begin.9
L’Amica Geniale, S2 E1
“work is a right”
“the people united will never be defeated”
“let’s live like humans”
“no peace without work”
“layoffs are murder”
“neither slaves nor unemployed”
“not one step back!”
for another story about girl-woman-man-boys trying-reaching-failing in Everytown, America, consider “Coming Sun. Mon. Tues.” by Don Delillo.
these last two sentences are from “The Lady and the Dog”, Anton Chekhov, 1899. (1899!) this is what humans have always been doing.
good aesthetics. it's so damn revolutionary.