(no subject)
Even now, I cannot forget Ana -- the pink of her lips, the smell of her hair. The way she moved, klutzy and awkward. She wasn't beautiful; she was ghostly -- transluscent. An apparition with her stark skin and white-blonde hair, she floated into and out of my life like one of the undead.
She haunts me now, like she haunted me before. Her reflection lingers in the hallway mirror, her scent in the carpets. I can almost smell her funeral-parlor essence, almost hear her clumsy footsteps. Her memory is almost alive, still smiling softly.
I was infatuated with Ana and all of her nuances. I obsessed over the curvature of her frame, the veins beneath her skin. I wanted to explore her virgin terrain, teach her how to feel. In hindsight, I didn't love her. I had wanted to, but I had never been able to, perhaps because there is no real way to love a ghost.
*****
Ana's arrival is still epic in my mind. The atmosphere changed that day, as if the universe was preparing the rest of us for her coming. The cool late-autumn weather that had been so persistent throughout November changed abruptly, the temperature dropping down below zero. The cold air crackled, burned our faces.
Ana, so seemingly ancient, arrived at the pinnacle of what I believed to be my maturation. I was a grown boy, a man with a five-o'clock shadow and a chip on his shoulder. Ana's frailty, her slight frame and wiry limbs, somehow dwarfed my coming-of-age. The facade of the pragmatic, twenty-something nihilist I had adopted was almost immediately shattered by the virgin innocence she, a wisp of a girl, possessed.
White as a ghost, Ana glided into the book shop I worked at (one of my attempts at an avant-garde lifestyle). She purchased a used paperback copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover and, stumbling over her own feet, left.
It was outside the book shop that my infatuation began. Sitting on a wooden bench that looked almost as weak as she did with the book open in her lap, Ana read, her eyes caressing the pages. She looked as though she were deeply in love with the book -- with the characters, the language, the plotline.
The sensuality she exuded still alludes me, even now.
She looked up at me with her pale, doe eyes and smiled a little bit, as though she hadn't smiled in centuries. She seemed antique, sitting on that bench, as though she were about to collapse in upon herself. She was far too small, too fragile, to be in a place like New York.
I told her this, and she smiled the knowing half-smile that would persist in my memory long after she was gone. "I think the same goes for you," she said. The elegance of her quiet voice astounded me.
I sat down beside her, wanting to drink in her essence.
I would continue to sit with her, every day, watching her with her books, silently willing her to love me as much as she loved the words she read.
*****
I still cannot put a finger on what it was about Ana that enraptured me. I felt pedophilic, obsessing over her as I did for so long. I wanted to touch her hair, kiss her lips, worship her body. I started putting books aside for her -- old classics, all used, just to see the passion ignite in her wide eyes.
My fascination with Ana delved far beyond the realm of sexual attraction: I obsessed over every idiosyncrasy, every nuance about her. The way she crossed her ankles when a book captured her interest threw my stomach into knots. Her antique fingers enthralled me; I coveted her almost insubstantial body.
someone tell me what they think. because i need feedback. it's halfway done.