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Ame Tendre

He was lying in bed dreaming of what it was like

to rest on soft moist grass. The computer

hummed by his bed, and produced the sounds of

some unknown band. The smell around him was

of uneaten doughnuts, the hard smell of sugar.

He had nothing to do but lie there and fantasize

about what it was like to be surrounded byanything but wiry fences and graffiti maps. The

smell of constant gasoline filled the air, mixed

with the smell of wild fires, which turned the full

moon a crimson red.

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He had spent eight dreary hours writing in tiny

spaces, building words that ran and fell unfolded

and incongruent across cheap notebooks as if a

wild bull was chasing them. And was drenched

in the summer sweat- the heat that wrapped

itself around him like an old skin. Outside there

were the noises of beefed up cars and beefed upbass sounds of the strange cars-- an ambulance

was spreading panic and dust in some distance-

but the sound of siren receded from him like a

stone thrown down a well. He was staring at his

computer monitor as though a miracle might

pop through, The heat and aloneness orbited

around him in single movementsand the city

and his neighborhood were but cautionary tales

he didn't quite want to believe in, like a story

that takes on the form of a nightmare, he

wanted to throw the closed book, away.

Suddenly a pop-up screen lurched on his

monitor, like a token, like something new and

with a certain promise. It showed someone was

looking at his profile. He clicked on the arrow to

see who was sizing him up- in the loneliness of

his work and being, any contact from out-there

was like a welcome mat-almost like a letter that

is arriving too-soon, or too-late?

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It turned out that his gazer was a woman, in her

thirties named: Ame Tendre-what kind of name

was this?- reading him, from Australia, a

Brazilian woman- her picture and profile was in

front of him instantly.It really meant: she wanted to be seen, he was no

snoop. The gazer could have controlled that.

What does Ame Tendre mean?

Its Brazilian for: Soft, breezy spirit. She

answered back.

Vow.

A soft breezy spirit? He repeated it to himself-

he really had no idea what that meant either!

She had had her picture taken from afar, not a

close up, not a vanity shot, but a warm cozy

photograph. In the picture she'd knelt by some

ivy plant that climbed above her head on the

wall, in multiple streams, looking rooted,

suspended- looking as though she too looked

forward to things moving up, ahead, forward.

And as though she was content with life. With

whatever she had.

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And he hair fell around her, abundant, like

waterfall, and her stare through the lenz burned

its path-- like something rare and exotic. He

instantly felt a certain escape; felt attracted,

and wondered why. She messaged that she

would like to be friends, they were both on a

socialization site. Did he want to chat?He wanted to chat, like the end of the world was

coming. He replied yes, before any of them was

aware , a type of conversation began, that only

develops in between two yearning, and alone

things, the miles and miles in between them

didn't matter much, they spoke as though it

hadn't even been, she wrote with a quality that

only the happy and contented deeply possess,

and he replied with the forlornness of his being.

She replied as though somewhat aware of his

surroundings, the smell of burned brushes, the

rarity of even a tree, the aloneness filled dark

spaces of his apartment living. It wasn't long

before she broke intro describing her

surroundings, though he hadn't said much about

his, only the scarcity and punctuation of his

words carried the weight, the burden of his felt

world. And almost as if she could sense the

concrete metal spires that rose out of his

windows view. Their tired bulging in the skies.

She began to talk about her apartment, out of

some wish for consolation, For the pure wish of

soothing another. She spoke of the long, longmoist grass , she named each fruit tree that lived

in her yard, branching above the grass, and was

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almost poetic in her details, calling each fruit

tree by florid names, as though they were her

siblings or cousins, all objects were humanifiedin her almost serene, soft language, voice.

Outside his apartment, the wild fires went on,

the wind carried the smell of burned grass and

brushes directly to him. The wild fires occurred

every year with a precision that only nature

harbors. They would burn through two-car-

garage houses in between hills, it seemed to him,

that they came against this brutal invasion ofman into the sloping mountains and hills, they

would burn garages packed with yesterdays

papers and an onslaught of plastic toys, and

kerosene lamps, and what not. In a city where

one of the biggest trades was renting out storage

spaces, the wild fires came untouchable as to

fight this general obsession to hoard things.

Almost everyone was a pack rat, old men walked

around busy neighborhoods cursing the

congestion of things. No one wondered why

everyone hoarded, the storage places business

were in every corner like starbucks and

Mcdonalds, the wild fires came and burned

things, as though, the pack rats had a disease

that went beyond occupying spaces, it offended a

factor that slept in the nature, now aroused, now

wept-and wild fires would come to restore some

wonted peace, but never could for their return

every year was a sure thing, and a sign of their

almost defeat.

Their conversation took him out of the

congestion of his surrounding for mere moments,

and then doubt came, like when innocence hasleft a being and the being is a felt swan, and he

was stilled, dumbfounded for words, outside it

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was still, dark and clouded, a dead sky that

reflected no light. He longed to tell her of his

grief. Perhaps to awaken in her a sense of not-empathy, but surprise, a harsh sense of knowing.

So, he started to tell her back of his

surroundings, just to be not buried in her little

paradise, he was afraid of losing himself, to a life

that didn't occupy or led him.

She, as if aware of his fear asked if he would like

to see her apartment for himself, the forlornness

in his words had frightened her. They made herconscious of discontent, unlike her aloneness

which was a tangible, treatable thing. But more

like unhappiness hadn't visited her for a long

time, but its bits of pieces were recalled by his

words, and she wanted him to see, with his eyes,

so her happiness would be immaculate like

words, her name. She repeated the question: 'Do

you ant to see where I live.' He answered how?

How could he see her flat, she said she had a

camcorder, and instantly she connected it, and

he saw this beautiful woman dressed in a

turtleneck and a plaid short skirt sitting in front

of the camera, slooped, pale, and draped in a soft

natural light, like a felt madonna. The floor

around her, he could see, was dark polished

wood, it reflected a soothing light into the

camera, and he could tell behind her sat much

unoccupied space, spaces he would have killed

for, then without notice, she took the camera,

and placed it on a window that looked onto her

garden, plush grass, looking as green as the sun

could illuminate, and the small camera could

exhibit, small humble trees, which shook in thewind and were bent as though pregnant with

their weights of figs and tangerines. She turned

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the camera, slowly around, so he could see that

she was truthful, and her happiness despite

aloneness real, and unmoving, stilled.They lost the words to communicate then. The

passing of the words in between them stopped

like a clogged highway that's been suddenly re-

opened. Not a word was exchanged, in this

silence, she brought the camera back to the

place in front of her. She waited for seconds or

were they hours, but staring at the camera

mesmerized, she began to take off the turtleneckfirst, then her skirt, and in the orange and blue

light of he camera, she proceeded to take off her

bra and underwear, then she sat like a windless

tree, still and unmoving, bent, staring at the

camera with the innocence of the first woman,

looking like something out of this world but

belonging strangely and fantastic. And he was

struck by her body, by its resemblance to her

garden, and didn't utter a word, and stared, like

a man in the eyes of a hurricane, calm and in

some strange forgotten peace, neither of them

knew for how long she sat there naked, but the

darkness had descended on his side of he world,

the lights unturned on, he sat in that darkness,

and at one moment in their stilled time, neither

of them knew when and why, she gently bent

forward and turned off the camera, and the

connection went dead, and it never were turned

on again. Never did. He never knew what to

make of this experience in words, or even in his

thoughts alone. But he knew he hadn't smelled

the wild fires or the gasoline, hadn't heard the

sirens and car alarms for the duration of theiralmost touch, but soon, and almost instantly, he

knew a way out of there.