Hologram (ii)

ii. arpeggio



Keaton knew her stiff falsetto; her unalloyed vocals of dulcet cacophony, reminiscent of woodchip-tainted meringues and strained dogwood evenings.

He coveted her descending arpeggios; the times when her voice dipped two octaves lower, and, for the fleetest of seconds, was shorn of all of its gloss and glamour, all of its jaded filigree. Masculine and dishearteningly raw. Like an unshelled shrimp. Like an unpeeled prawn. Surreptitiously, one evening, he had recorded her, mid-laugh. (Not a video, you see, for he could never bear to stare at her face for too long, for fear that it might reveal something he has always known. All along.) What had she been laughing about? Some obscure joke, no doubt. It had been such a rich, and ebullient sound, like the brimming of champagne from a crystalline mouth, yet alien, somehow. Her head had been thrown back, curtained by an atrous mop of ringlets, and lacquered by crepuscular rays; gently quivering.Then, the low, male timbre of her laugh had reverberated in his heart and in her throat (forever).
(And, in the minutest of moments, she had not been Brona, but her/himself).





(The metronomic butchering of carrots. Thunk thunk. Thunk thunk thunk thunk.

A sigh. “Benny is a very attractive man, is he not?”
Keaton had paused his agitated chopping to toss her a wounded stare, his hands algid and white-knuckled on the handle of a knife he had too often contemplated using. “Benny, huh?” Then:

Thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk.

“You didn't answer my question, Keaton, dear-heart, are you all—are you jealous?” Oblique eyes narrowed in suspicion and growing comprehension. She had set her phone aside to stare at him, arms crossed. Such grace armoured within the winding musculature of her arms. Her arms, her fluidity, her spryness and pride.

“Why would I be jealous?”

“Why indeed. Did you honestly imagine that I never noticed your little crush on our sweet little Benny?

He had slammed the knife down with a force that had startled them both, whipping up jets of carrot and spice. “I do not have a crush on—no, fuck that, I've never had a crush on Benny.”

“Is that right?” Impassive and utterly disenchanted. “What is so infuriating about the idea of liking him anyhow?”

“Well.” Keaton had drummed his fingers on the delicately enamelled countertop. “First of all, he's male.”

“So am I. Yet, I do not see you running away and screaming.”

“That's different. You're no longer male. You're...different.”

The incisive whistling of indrawn breath between her lips of fauve “So...if I were male, would you still like me the way you do now?”

“I don't know—I,” He had bowed his head, his shoulders drooping endearingly. “I might. I might not. I'm not, well, gay. Brona, I...”

“Don't know?” She had laughed, albeit astringently. Had flashed her off-white teeth under the off-white luminance of a kitchen light. “It's all right. I don't know if I would like myself either. I don't understand it any more than you do. A right mess I am.”

A right mess we both are.)