where birds don’t fly
It was a short plane ride here, mostly a blur of awkward avoidances on the moving walkways and marginally attractive stewardesses who broke smiles per minute records on a daily basis. Still, bar the untidy men with beards and no suitcases lurking in the bathroom it was a smooth transition from KC to Chi-town.
I’m still unsure if I’m allowed to say Chi-town.
A friend named Andrew and I met up at the aquarium. It was a twenty five dollar entry fee and hour long wait in line for three displays of fish. Somehow we pushed through and found ourselves in The Bubble Net, a daytime food court, extremely overpriced.
“I fucking love this place, I don’t know about you,” he said, examining his nine dollar mini-pizza.
“I guess, yeah- yeah I guess.”
He ignored the palindrome, “so many chicks here, so many, I was just blown away when I saw them.”
“You’re not single.”
“Does that mean I can’t be observational?” he took a fifty cent bite of pizza and leaned back in his chair. We talked about Beck and how smart we thought his voice made him sound for a while.
He went back to his hotel, I to mine.
I saw Bianca, the receptionist. I couldn’t tell where she was from, I assumed France because it made her that much more attractive. I asked for a bottle of orange soda, realized I had no money, and ran.
I don’t know what I expected to happen. I thought about it as I ran up twenty one flights of stairs: First an Orange Crush then a hot fuck in the storage room? Dollar here handjob later?
The only thing I know now is that I’m thirsty. The water here tastes like tomato soup as well. I sip the plastic cups and let my eyes glaze into a shimmering photograph of the receptionist, the all so sudden secret love I’ve found.
“Hello, Bianca.”
“Do I know you?”
“Your nametag…”
A short nod and kind smile, just someone sitting in the lobby watching the skies, where birds don’t fly, only airplanes and smog.
Do they share wings?
