Read Online Green Girl by Kate Zambreno - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kate Zambreno
Tags: Contemporary, Adult
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coolly in her feather-voice. No harm to it, he elbows her chummily. She smiles again in spite of herself. Sorry. He stops and as she walks ahead, she looks back at him. He is waiting for her to turn and walk back. He smiles, waves, clipboard in hand. Still waiting. But she turns and keeps on walking.
The end is near! The end is near! Save yourselves! Save yourselves! Her Oxford Circus preacher is prophesizing the rapture from his bullhorn.
She walks in the spaces between the raindrops. She touches her chin to the butt of her cheap Boots umbrella—her face is wet. This kind of rain casts a veil over everything. Somehow one can see more clearly. Old old buildings. People living life somehow.
The question is—does she awake? And what does she awaken to?
I get the impression that her life was one long meditation about nothingness.
— Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star
She sits in her usual spot by the window at Foyles café. It is still raining outside on soggy red brick. Ruth sits on a stool at the window and watches from up above, dipping her chin into the foam. Umbrellas proceed almost solemnly down the street, rims touching each other almost tenderly. Like schoolchildren proceeding hand in hand.
She thinks about HIM. How could I have washed off so easily? She wonders.
You leave. You leave and leave.
In the morning, you begin the disentangling. In the morning you go. In the morning you are gone.
She is impressionable. Yet she does not leave an impression. She is like a ghost, a non-thing.
Ruth doesn’t know this but a man in the café is watching her too. He has a sketchbook in front of him. He is drawing her outline. He is sketching her dramatic silhouette. A young girl pensive watching out the window. She is an unknown. He has discovered her. A beautiful sight. She has a beautiful figure, this slip of a girl. He wouldn’t mind poking her a bit with his pencil.
The rain has let up momentarily. She gazes at the top level of a double-decker bus stopped outside. The passengers seem unaware that they are being looked at, secure in being so high up from everything. They are in fact naked there, relaxing their tense city selves except for the small dramas of transport, the bumping and pushing and excuse-me’s, no pardon-me’s. The looking without looking. She catches a boy regarding himself in his reflection, shaking out a light caramel shag, a mustard scarf, a leather jacket the color of toffee. A bled-out brown. She meets his eyes boldly, safe within her bubble. I see you. I see you.
Suddenly Ruth spies the silver-haired shopgirl from Liberty. She seems to be waiting for someone. Her long yet uncertain body against the wall, posing daintily with her paper coffee cup, looking out into the crowds of people with a practiced look that is both cool and yearning. How many sets of eyes warm her. She looks off into the distance. From time to time she looks down at her mobile phone pocketed in her hand. She must be aware of her to-be-looked-at-ness. She is ravishing. She is untouchable. She hangs there like a dress one cannot afford.
She is such a pretty girl. Such a pretty girl. Everyone showers compliments on the pretty girl. She really has a delightful, dreamy quality to her.
That wonderful pouty mouth she has all of her original underclothes. What marvelous coloring. No hairline chips or cracks.
Pushing her way back down the stairs of the tube station, past bodies and briefcases and elbows and legs. Mind your head. Mind your head. Crowds and crowds. She stumbles around, outside of herself, looking at them looking at her.
The train comes shuttling through.
An advert on the train: Feeling knackered? Although Ruth does not know what it means to feel knackered, she has the feeling that this is precisely what she is feeling. The holidays were starting to get to her. The city was starting to get to her. She ached, an indeterminate
The end is near! The end is near! Save yourselves! Save yourselves! Her Oxford Circus preacher is prophesizing the rapture from his bullhorn.
She walks in the spaces between the raindrops. She touches her chin to the butt of her cheap Boots umbrella—her face is wet. This kind of rain casts a veil over everything. Somehow one can see more clearly. Old old buildings. People living life somehow.
The question is—does she awake? And what does she awaken to?
I get the impression that her life was one long meditation about nothingness.
— Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star
She sits in her usual spot by the window at Foyles café. It is still raining outside on soggy red brick. Ruth sits on a stool at the window and watches from up above, dipping her chin into the foam. Umbrellas proceed almost solemnly down the street, rims touching each other almost tenderly. Like schoolchildren proceeding hand in hand.
She thinks about HIM. How could I have washed off so easily? She wonders.
You leave. You leave and leave.
In the morning, you begin the disentangling. In the morning you go. In the morning you are gone.
She is impressionable. Yet she does not leave an impression. She is like a ghost, a non-thing.
Ruth doesn’t know this but a man in the café is watching her too. He has a sketchbook in front of him. He is drawing her outline. He is sketching her dramatic silhouette. A young girl pensive watching out the window. She is an unknown. He has discovered her. A beautiful sight. She has a beautiful figure, this slip of a girl. He wouldn’t mind poking her a bit with his pencil.
The rain has let up momentarily. She gazes at the top level of a double-decker bus stopped outside. The passengers seem unaware that they are being looked at, secure in being so high up from everything. They are in fact naked there, relaxing their tense city selves except for the small dramas of transport, the bumping and pushing and excuse-me’s, no pardon-me’s. The looking without looking. She catches a boy regarding himself in his reflection, shaking out a light caramel shag, a mustard scarf, a leather jacket the color of toffee. A bled-out brown. She meets his eyes boldly, safe within her bubble. I see you. I see you.
Suddenly Ruth spies the silver-haired shopgirl from Liberty. She seems to be waiting for someone. Her long yet uncertain body against the wall, posing daintily with her paper coffee cup, looking out into the crowds of people with a practiced look that is both cool and yearning. How many sets of eyes warm her. She looks off into the distance. From time to time she looks down at her mobile phone pocketed in her hand. She must be aware of her to-be-looked-at-ness. She is ravishing. She is untouchable. She hangs there like a dress one cannot afford.
She is such a pretty girl. Such a pretty girl. Everyone showers compliments on the pretty girl. She really has a delightful, dreamy quality to her.
That wonderful pouty mouth she has all of her original underclothes. What marvelous coloring. No hairline chips or cracks.
Pushing her way back down the stairs of the tube station, past bodies and briefcases and elbows and legs. Mind your head. Mind your head. Crowds and crowds. She stumbles around, outside of herself, looking at them looking at her.
The train comes shuttling through.
An advert on the train: Feeling knackered? Although Ruth does not know what it means to feel knackered, she has the feeling that this is precisely what she is feeling. The holidays were starting to get to her. The city was starting to get to her. She ached, an indeterminate
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