E. Hathorne (leeched) wrote in repose, @ 2019-03-08 15:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | *log, aubrey rois, elijah hathorne |
Elijah and Aubrey: the garage
Who: Elijah and Aubrey
When: Recent
Where: Bill's garage
Warnings:Nada
There was a book under the counter. Elijah could picture it without seeing it. The cover was dull beige with a bird cradled in the centre, goldenrod yellow. It was fat with promise and hours and hours of sitting until his feet cooled and the blood pooled in his legs until stretching provoked the sensation known as 'pins and needles' and was the restoration of the circulation system. There was a book under the counter but in the absence of one of the birds (the girl who was in her thirties and less girl than woman, but who dressed in denim and who smelled strongly of cherry suckers and hair-products and Elijah lacked the vocabulary for such a woman despite all his reading) he was behind the counter instead of out back. This unnerved him. He evaded eye-contact with anyone in the vague proximity of the street in the hope that none would come into the garage and his hands were protected in thin gloves made for working with the parts outside.
That was the other reason he couldn't read: oil. Elijah was fastidious about cleanliness. He liked soap, and disinfectant and anything that would banish the suggestion of dirt, blood or viscera to a strongly-scented delusion. He smelled of mint, and a little of lemons and motor-oil, from the gloves. He couldn't read the book to while away the time waiting for people and he couldn't disappear into the back, which he wanted to do most because of the cash register. People were morons, present an easy opportunity and the thin veneer of civility flaked and cracked like cheap paint. Society was temporary, it didn't matter what political philosophers thought.
The radio was on. A station mostly music, less chattering radio heads. Elijah couldn't think in the face of too much talking, and he loathed the peppy sound of the presenter's voice, but he didn't talk frequently enough for it to hook underneath Elijah's skin and pull. There was someone walking toward the door. Elijah flinched, looked wildly in the direction of the breakroom in the hope that the other girl would materialize out of thin air and take this encounter out of the realm of likelihood, and gave himself up to the inevitability of contact.
It wasn't that Elijah didn't like people. He did. Behind glass, or at distance enough they couldn't touch him. He couldn't smell disease on the air, or the coughs and colds of winter, but he imagined what it might be like. He was a narrow man, in navy blue wool sweater turned over at the elbows over an undershirt that was faded gray, and his face was mistrust over a beard. Elijah's facial expression was flexible as rubber, and transparent as glass.