Uninvited (Brothers in Rhythm Mix) Alanis Morissette

Poor Charles Bovary.

He looked at her.  In his hand the crinkled wax paper carrying the take out had grown light.  His other hand rested on the steering wheel.  A cold and lifeless substance touched skin that so longed to feel the heat that radiated from her golden pure skin.  He had driven hundreds of miles.  He had come to the city to seal a deal.  That is what he told his wife.  His passenger meanwhile,  why she had driven three.  The business… ha… that had been easy.  Now began the primordial hunt: the close game of chess to seal a deal unspoken between the he and the she. 

The longing for consummation of the desire building grew between the two.  He didn’t tell his wife about this deal.  Don’t worry… his passenger hadn’t told her husband.  Indeed, the reason the food was takeout was her request.  She could not be seen.  Not with him.  Though three miles from her house, she could not afford detection.  Not if the transaction was to take place. 

Her hangout hideout was located nearby the strip of restaurants.  The shadow end parking lot of a distant store that was only visited by the Stepford wives amalgamated during the day with children in tow.  This trek usually followed a morning workout filled with brazen flirtations.  Perhaps innocent, perhaps serious, always playful.  To be longed for, something, anything to fill the void. 

Why did she workout?  She knew she had to stay beautiful.  She had to stay forever young.  To hide the fact that her body was a victim of the slow decay of mortality, she had to look good.  This was as much for her husband as well as the other ladies in the pack.  Any sign of weakness would cause her to be consumed.

The hideout served as an excellent locale for the scurrying movements of shadow hands desperate in the search for hidden heat.  An accepted dalliance.   The Madame had gone there before.  He didn’t know this.  He could only concentrate on the growing passion flowing within his blood.  The moment of exquisite pain, the painful labor that visited the birth of passion.  Nervously he combed back his dusty blond hair as the blood coursed through his veins.  When should he strike.  When?

That’s what I think happened.  At least that’s when Charles emerged from the store.  Poor simple fool.   He wasn’t supposed to be in town.  Not that weekend.  Miles were supposed to separate the two.  At least that’s the way it was supposed to be.

  Maybe if one of the other stores in the similar chain had had his item he wouldn’t have been at that store.  Maybe.  Maybe if he just gave up in his quest he wouldn’t have seen.  This whole thing was just some play of consequence.  It could be that, but Charles never liked to think the Universe was that lazy or that benevolent.  He saw them.

The faded stream of light from the halogen lamp in passing through the shade made the interior reflect blue.  The blond of her hair became jaundiced.  Shadows danced across half her face as if shamed by what the other half was doing. 

His heart collapsed.  The game that she had played with him, had been only that… a game.  With the shock of realization Charles finally figured it out: a half truth plus a half lie equaled nothing.  It’s purely mathematical .5 + ‾.5 = 0.  Everything she had said, everything that he had supposedly caused in her was merely a lie.  The renaissance was stillborn.  Why?  Why?  It was all he could ask. 

Poor Charles Bovary.

He could never know.  She had sold her soul to gain passage to a bankrupt future.  A future so dire that no matter what she bought, she could never redeem the soul she had sacrificed so easily.  To redeem back a moment, no matter how atrophied, she would go to her past.  She could try to capture that which had  been of her past.  Tiny trinkets that served to titillate.  For a moment… always for a moment.

Poor, poor Charles Bovary.

Poor, poor Charles Bovary.

And yes… poor Madame Bovary.

Oh yeah… happy Valentines day.

This work by the way was a modern retelling of Madame Bovary by Gustav Flaubert.