All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 5: The Invisible Leash Part 1

I started eagerly flipping through records, having to force myself not to buy the whole crate then and there, which had everything from Iggy Pop to Samantha Fox to Gregorian chants. I finally settled on Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, which I likely already owned but it felt like kismet somehow, thinking back to my epic fortune. Now in the past, I would have bartered the price down but feeling rich also had made me feel generous so I paid the whole amount: a whopping five bucks.

Brown-paper wrapped album in hand, I sauntered towards the next booth, and viewed the sundry of vintage knickknacks on tables: aluminum wartime canisters and ivory bone carved cigar cases and stacks of faded sienna-printed stereoscope cards. In the midst of the eclectic riffraff, I spotted a glass prism paperweight and chuckled. The prism was an actual pyramid like the one on the album cover I held in my hands. Before I could reach for the paperweight, another hand from across the table grabbed it, and felt its weight in a small feminine palm; the rainbow light cast from the prism danced all around the table as it buoyed up and down. I looked up at the woman holding the prism.

Have you ever had a moment that shakes you to the core? Like one moment you are just standing there minding your own business when BAM! you feel the electricity stirring in the air nanoseconds before you are thunderstruck?

It took a moment to place her but it was definitely the girl. The one from the All Your Fates flyer. In the flesh. 

She was even more beautiful in person and with two eyes on her face. Her hair was softer, less curly, more buttery than in the flyer. And her eye color was not violet but the dark smoldering grey blue of a heavy ponderous sky right before a thunderstorm. But that same strength, ancient power, and impetuous charm were all there present in the face that was literally an arm's length reach away from me.

I just stared at her with my mouth open and watched as she gingerly set the prism down. Her heavy moon shaped eyes fell upon mine as she looked up, and then she scrunched her nose at my expression, before quickly turning away. Like I was some skeevy perv drooling over her. Realizing my jaw was gaping, I took my hand and pushed my chin up until my teeth clamped shut.

As I watched her swivel over to the next table, my mind raced in all directions at once. I'd try to translate but the closest approximation of what the twelve different languages my mind spoke in at once would be: "whut."

I wandered over to the next table where the girl was now examining the pearl beading on a vintage clutch purse. I pretended to look at some mirrored aviators, "Cool Hand Luke" sunglasses, while peeking at her out of the corner of my eye. Hot damn was she hawt. One of those cool chilled out blondes...the sophisticated regal type, ya know? The kind in vintage blue films whom would be all ice queens at the beginning but fire pokers in the sack by the end. My eyes wandered over her nude colored skinny dress with the swinging skirt, the pull-tie belt flat and tight against her narrow waist, the buttoned-up blouse opening right above the creamy skin of her cleavage contrasting against the rest of her glowing sun-kissed tan. Stop thinking with your dick, David, and concentrate!

I put the sunglasses on, and imagining myself looking pretty boss, looked up at her with a broad cheesy smile. "Uh...how do they look?" I asked while the price tag hanging from the bridge tickled my nose. She looked up at me and squinted with a sour expression that said, "Puhlease, don't even think about trying to charm me, asshat," before she turned away.

I coughed nervously, and took them off mumbling to myself, "Everyone's a critic." By now the girl was examining vintage silk gloves on the table but I could see the faintest smirk in the secret corners of her mouth. Was that smile for me? It gave me hope and reminded me of the smile on the card, the smile that beckoned me to come hither and here I was: hithering in my boots and wondering what secrets she had pinned there. Isn't that what they call a Mona Lisa smile?