NINE LEAVES INAMORATA
Fortunately today was Sunday, January 19, 2003, and Lauren could relax. It was true that most cops had to work on weekends, this is why they pride themselves in not having a routine or a normal nine to five even though they have meager wages, cops are fond of saying that their jobs aren’t the nine to five labor of their fellow citizens; in order to say that with the amount of pride that they fluff on top of it, cops have to accept a longer work week and unspecified nocturnal and diurnal randomly disruptive schedules. This allows for a certain sense of constant physical and mental discomfort which is fundamental to the essence of being a cop. But fortunately today was Sunday, January 19, 2003 and most detectives were of the habit that Sunday could be a normal day off.
Lauren, amidst all of the eventful happenings, had not forgotten her normal routine of preparing the coffee maker so that it would automatically produce the caffeine feast that she needed to jump start her day. She walked over to it, followed by her cat, Loki, oh yes, she had a cat, a male cat, but right now she was trying to get to her coffee while Loki was trying to catch her attention saying something to the effect, “city living is fine, I like being an indoor cat, but I don’t get to see many rats, and I need some nutrition now or I am going to die a cold death.” Well the truth was that Loki wasn’t probably saying it like that but I have to try to emphasize that look in his eyes, here he is about five feet down from Lauren, lovely thick white and black cat, with sort of olive green eyes, the eyes are looking up at Lauren as Loki’s legs keep pace and try to even trip her, and the eyes are saying “food.” “food.” really that is all Loki thinks that Lauren is able to understand, and Lauren herself knows only three states for Loki, food, play and sleep, food, play and sleep; this is all Lauren really knows about Loki, though she does sense that he is a very affectionate cat, but she also senses that that could go away as fast as the food or if some drug dealer killed her in one of those wild police shooting events; then Loki would find comfort with another cop, maybe even the captain. Still Lauren loved Loki’s independence from her, she respected it and admired it, what she did not know was that it wasn’t independence, it was indifference. Loki was indifferent to everything that went on in Lauren’s life, including the fact that Habakkuk had disappeared.
After stumbling a couple of times and unfortunately crossing over and between her, the feet body of Loki, Lauren halts, places her heads on her head then reaches down for Loki, “oh no baby, I forgot to feed you last night, oh no I am sorry my baby, you must hate me now, oh please don’t hate me now, I love you, you are my baby boy.” I would like to tell you that the expression in Loki’s eyes changed from seeking food to some sweet lovable expression of tenderness and forgiveness, but his eyes kept precisely the same stare which could be now only translated into “you’ve kept me from being a wild natural animal, I need a rat, you ain’t got any rats here, I am tired of coachroaches and flies, now I am reduced to having to listen to your pathetic baby talk which only maternalises you, just so that I can convince you to feed me.” More or less that was what Loki was saying even as cats only have two very definite and never altering stares. In one they are saying nothing, just looking, leaving everything blank in their stare, this so that their masters or enemies can fill in the blanks with whatever meets their expectations; and look number two is a severe widening of the eyes, which does not contract, but merely looks as if their eyes were actually engulfing their entire little heads, and when they get this very look, their jaws squander and their body stiffens and through what appear to be gravity like contortions traveling at the speed of light, they tell you with these physical evolution of a stare that you are bothering them, that they are not going to listen to you and that they don’t care if you are one of the good guys just because you think you are one of the good guys.
Lauren was of course a detective, she was used to seeing dead bodies, so a conjured image of a cold dead Loki cat on her floor, did not prevent her from putting him back down and proceeding to get her coffee. She sipped the hot liquid a couple of times, then uttering a breath that had been consumed by her lungs the day before, she felt some respite, enough at least to save her cat from starvation but not the tuna from her cat.
While Loki ate tuna almost as if guarding it from Lauren, Lauren sat at her dining room table, seeing through a window while a beautiful tree plant flourishing with nine leaves sprouting, rising vehemently with the aid of nine firm branches, kissing the ceiling, and obviously saying to Lauren, “please raise your ceiling a couple more feet so that we can continue to grow,” but more this plant was telling Lauren to please water her, because Lauren had not watered her in two weeks, and Lauren suffered heavily from a guilt complex that she had to constantly address, however here the huge plant inside of a large Indian faced pot, was at a severe disadvantage because Lauren, had an ongoing feud with her plant, and not watering her was a guilt that she could endure. And enduring not watering her plant was how Lauren told her self, “Not guilty your honor! I am not guilty!”
See the plant had always been one of Lauren’s favorites, she loved the way in which the buds forming from each branch produced the seemingly circular nine leaf arrangement, Lauren, remember, was mildly superstitious, and the number nine possessed spiritual suppurations, and the mathematical association and the looped geometrical relish gave Lauren enough of a sensual nudge fund of tenderness towards the plant; this even as she had not bothered to name it nor bothered to look up the plants real Latin name, though then it is doubtful that Lauren was even aware that plants were all Latin by virtue of baptism.
But see Lauren and the plant sort of became hostages of each other through a casual event. The casual event was brought about by a more tragic event, Lauren’s mother’s death. Lauren’s mother died of apoplexy, a stroke paralyzed half of her body, and Lauren due to the importance of her detective work did not have the time to care for her ailing mother. Lauren felt guilty about this for as her professional obligations kept her away from her mother, this did not keep her mother from suffering and from wishing to see her daughter. Then one day, Lauren’s mother died. She was found dead, alone in her apartment. Lauren had received a call from her, earlier that day, but she was in a meeting, she stayed in the meeting, her mother died alone some time during that meeting.
Lauren had time to go to the funeral, and there she wept a good while, part of her watching herself weep and the other part of her weeping. Why Lauren could be outside of herself in these types of situations was also the reason why she could be a detective and why Lauren could never have a lasting relationship with a man. I mean here we are, you and I at Lauren’s mother’s supposed funeral, and Lauren is watching herself weep! Makes me want to ask! “Have you wept long enough Lauren! Ah, have you exceeded the standard time for weeping Lauren!” But of course we cant ask Lauren this question because this is all after the fact and now we are just like detectives trying to figure this Lauren character out; through the circumstantial evidence of her life includes people that can’t add any detail like Habakkuk.
Anyway, sorry if I get mad but it is difficult for me to remain an objective observer when any correct person would have chopped her neck off. Anyway, Lauren’s mother, whose name was Maria, was burned, I mean Maria was cremated, and her ashes were picked up by Lauren’s estranged sister Audrey; which unlike Lauren had been extremely close to her mother physically and spiritually. Lauren and her sister did not talk much, Lauren was a detective always looking for the wickedly bad in people and her sister Audrey was a pastor, nurturer and seeker of only the good in people. The two could not be further apart, one shot guns the other wore crosses, there is a distance there; one was a loner, the other loved to be around people; Audrey loved nature, Lauren loved the city, Audrey had a son, Lauren never wanted children. I could go on but lets just summarize, the only thing that these two sisters had in common was their mother, they both by birth certificate had the same mother. And sorry to add more clutter here, but while they had the same mother, and even by birth certificate the same father, the reality was that Lauren’s father was not the same man. A simple DNA test would have proven that, but Lauren was born in the fifties and in those days cuckolding could not be technically proven, DNA would have to wait for fingerprints to be discredited. Now it has been said, and I think it true, that women that are unfaithful to their husband, through some form of medium womb conductance, urge characteristic similarities between the child and their husband so as to ensure his support, but in an unusual act of defiance, Maria had apparently made her womb conductance to nurture the lover that she could not have!
This strange rendition of love between Maria and her lover did not unfortunately translate to a unifying principle between mother and daughter, rather than uniting them the two became uncomfortable with each other’s emotional attraction to one another, so much so that they could not cope with it and maintained their mutual distance! The mutual distance was attracted by the daughter repelling the advances of her, lover, loving mother.
One day, a while back, Maria had called Lauren to tell her that her circle of metaphysical friends had had a wonderful reunion, and that in this event they had summarized each others cosmic numbers. Lauren still lacking metaphysical knowledge dared to ask what the meaning of all this was, and Maria responded that the cosmic number is what determines if you reincarnate or if you get to move on to higher states of consciousness, or if you are closer to being a Buddha of your own or if you must still admire other Buddha’s more. At the time of this particular conversation Lauren was working her way through an intense pedophile case, and the idea of the Buddha life, or the mystical was as far from her as possible, and so when her mother Maria said, “9, nine means that I don’t have to come back to this life, nine, 9 means that I am not coming back here…” And Maria’s voice was so happy, and Lauren was partially reading the list of witnesses of the pedophile case, while saying, “good ma, that sounds really good ma,…” and in such forgettable way that very relevant conversation ended.
Relevant because the plant had nine leaves, relevant because it was Lauren’s plant, and relevant because Maria was telling Lauren that she wasn’t going to come back. The latter which could be interpreted by any rudimentary psychologist as unrequited lover abandoning project, “My beloved lover I am leaving you for good.” But then one day it became relevant to Lauren, one day she was talking to Audrey on the phone, and at the same time that she was talking to Audrey she was looking at the majestic plant, and she felt something, and uttered, “ Audrey I am thinking of getting rid of the nine leaf plant, its just so big, I don’t know, I am going to get it out of my apartment.” At the other end of the phone line there was a silence, and long enough to justify Lauren’s calling “Audrey are you there?” Audrey responded in a very low tone, “Lauren, you can’t get rid of that plant.” “Why?” “Because mom’s ashes are in there, I placed them there when I went to your apartment.”
And so it is that the plant is still in Lauren’s apartment, and as a way to defy her duties and sentiments, often it is that she doesn’t water it.
But it is Sunday, January 19, 2003, and all this is the past, and we are now more concerned with the future and more concerned with it than even the present, and to put a stop to our wondering through her apartment, Lauren has decided to go for a walk she is pensive, and so we must follow her.
Lauren, amidst all of the eventful happenings, had not forgotten her normal routine of preparing the coffee maker so that it would automatically produce the caffeine feast that she needed to jump start her day. She walked over to it, followed by her cat, Loki, oh yes, she had a cat, a male cat, but right now she was trying to get to her coffee while Loki was trying to catch her attention saying something to the effect, “city living is fine, I like being an indoor cat, but I don’t get to see many rats, and I need some nutrition now or I am going to die a cold death.” Well the truth was that Loki wasn’t probably saying it like that but I have to try to emphasize that look in his eyes, here he is about five feet down from Lauren, lovely thick white and black cat, with sort of olive green eyes, the eyes are looking up at Lauren as Loki’s legs keep pace and try to even trip her, and the eyes are saying “food.” “food.” really that is all Loki thinks that Lauren is able to understand, and Lauren herself knows only three states for Loki, food, play and sleep, food, play and sleep; this is all Lauren really knows about Loki, though she does sense that he is a very affectionate cat, but she also senses that that could go away as fast as the food or if some drug dealer killed her in one of those wild police shooting events; then Loki would find comfort with another cop, maybe even the captain. Still Lauren loved Loki’s independence from her, she respected it and admired it, what she did not know was that it wasn’t independence, it was indifference. Loki was indifferent to everything that went on in Lauren’s life, including the fact that Habakkuk had disappeared.
After stumbling a couple of times and unfortunately crossing over and between her, the feet body of Loki, Lauren halts, places her heads on her head then reaches down for Loki, “oh no baby, I forgot to feed you last night, oh no I am sorry my baby, you must hate me now, oh please don’t hate me now, I love you, you are my baby boy.” I would like to tell you that the expression in Loki’s eyes changed from seeking food to some sweet lovable expression of tenderness and forgiveness, but his eyes kept precisely the same stare which could be now only translated into “you’ve kept me from being a wild natural animal, I need a rat, you ain’t got any rats here, I am tired of coachroaches and flies, now I am reduced to having to listen to your pathetic baby talk which only maternalises you, just so that I can convince you to feed me.” More or less that was what Loki was saying even as cats only have two very definite and never altering stares. In one they are saying nothing, just looking, leaving everything blank in their stare, this so that their masters or enemies can fill in the blanks with whatever meets their expectations; and look number two is a severe widening of the eyes, which does not contract, but merely looks as if their eyes were actually engulfing their entire little heads, and when they get this very look, their jaws squander and their body stiffens and through what appear to be gravity like contortions traveling at the speed of light, they tell you with these physical evolution of a stare that you are bothering them, that they are not going to listen to you and that they don’t care if you are one of the good guys just because you think you are one of the good guys.
Lauren was of course a detective, she was used to seeing dead bodies, so a conjured image of a cold dead Loki cat on her floor, did not prevent her from putting him back down and proceeding to get her coffee. She sipped the hot liquid a couple of times, then uttering a breath that had been consumed by her lungs the day before, she felt some respite, enough at least to save her cat from starvation but not the tuna from her cat.
While Loki ate tuna almost as if guarding it from Lauren, Lauren sat at her dining room table, seeing through a window while a beautiful tree plant flourishing with nine leaves sprouting, rising vehemently with the aid of nine firm branches, kissing the ceiling, and obviously saying to Lauren, “please raise your ceiling a couple more feet so that we can continue to grow,” but more this plant was telling Lauren to please water her, because Lauren had not watered her in two weeks, and Lauren suffered heavily from a guilt complex that she had to constantly address, however here the huge plant inside of a large Indian faced pot, was at a severe disadvantage because Lauren, had an ongoing feud with her plant, and not watering her was a guilt that she could endure. And enduring not watering her plant was how Lauren told her self, “Not guilty your honor! I am not guilty!”
See the plant had always been one of Lauren’s favorites, she loved the way in which the buds forming from each branch produced the seemingly circular nine leaf arrangement, Lauren, remember, was mildly superstitious, and the number nine possessed spiritual suppurations, and the mathematical association and the looped geometrical relish gave Lauren enough of a sensual nudge fund of tenderness towards the plant; this even as she had not bothered to name it nor bothered to look up the plants real Latin name, though then it is doubtful that Lauren was even aware that plants were all Latin by virtue of baptism.
But see Lauren and the plant sort of became hostages of each other through a casual event. The casual event was brought about by a more tragic event, Lauren’s mother’s death. Lauren’s mother died of apoplexy, a stroke paralyzed half of her body, and Lauren due to the importance of her detective work did not have the time to care for her ailing mother. Lauren felt guilty about this for as her professional obligations kept her away from her mother, this did not keep her mother from suffering and from wishing to see her daughter. Then one day, Lauren’s mother died. She was found dead, alone in her apartment. Lauren had received a call from her, earlier that day, but she was in a meeting, she stayed in the meeting, her mother died alone some time during that meeting.
Lauren had time to go to the funeral, and there she wept a good while, part of her watching herself weep and the other part of her weeping. Why Lauren could be outside of herself in these types of situations was also the reason why she could be a detective and why Lauren could never have a lasting relationship with a man. I mean here we are, you and I at Lauren’s mother’s supposed funeral, and Lauren is watching herself weep! Makes me want to ask! “Have you wept long enough Lauren! Ah, have you exceeded the standard time for weeping Lauren!” But of course we cant ask Lauren this question because this is all after the fact and now we are just like detectives trying to figure this Lauren character out; through the circumstantial evidence of her life includes people that can’t add any detail like Habakkuk.
Anyway, sorry if I get mad but it is difficult for me to remain an objective observer when any correct person would have chopped her neck off. Anyway, Lauren’s mother, whose name was Maria, was burned, I mean Maria was cremated, and her ashes were picked up by Lauren’s estranged sister Audrey; which unlike Lauren had been extremely close to her mother physically and spiritually. Lauren and her sister did not talk much, Lauren was a detective always looking for the wickedly bad in people and her sister Audrey was a pastor, nurturer and seeker of only the good in people. The two could not be further apart, one shot guns the other wore crosses, there is a distance there; one was a loner, the other loved to be around people; Audrey loved nature, Lauren loved the city, Audrey had a son, Lauren never wanted children. I could go on but lets just summarize, the only thing that these two sisters had in common was their mother, they both by birth certificate had the same mother. And sorry to add more clutter here, but while they had the same mother, and even by birth certificate the same father, the reality was that Lauren’s father was not the same man. A simple DNA test would have proven that, but Lauren was born in the fifties and in those days cuckolding could not be technically proven, DNA would have to wait for fingerprints to be discredited. Now it has been said, and I think it true, that women that are unfaithful to their husband, through some form of medium womb conductance, urge characteristic similarities between the child and their husband so as to ensure his support, but in an unusual act of defiance, Maria had apparently made her womb conductance to nurture the lover that she could not have!
This strange rendition of love between Maria and her lover did not unfortunately translate to a unifying principle between mother and daughter, rather than uniting them the two became uncomfortable with each other’s emotional attraction to one another, so much so that they could not cope with it and maintained their mutual distance! The mutual distance was attracted by the daughter repelling the advances of her, lover, loving mother.
One day, a while back, Maria had called Lauren to tell her that her circle of metaphysical friends had had a wonderful reunion, and that in this event they had summarized each others cosmic numbers. Lauren still lacking metaphysical knowledge dared to ask what the meaning of all this was, and Maria responded that the cosmic number is what determines if you reincarnate or if you get to move on to higher states of consciousness, or if you are closer to being a Buddha of your own or if you must still admire other Buddha’s more. At the time of this particular conversation Lauren was working her way through an intense pedophile case, and the idea of the Buddha life, or the mystical was as far from her as possible, and so when her mother Maria said, “9, nine means that I don’t have to come back to this life, nine, 9 means that I am not coming back here…” And Maria’s voice was so happy, and Lauren was partially reading the list of witnesses of the pedophile case, while saying, “good ma, that sounds really good ma,…” and in such forgettable way that very relevant conversation ended.
Relevant because the plant had nine leaves, relevant because it was Lauren’s plant, and relevant because Maria was telling Lauren that she wasn’t going to come back. The latter which could be interpreted by any rudimentary psychologist as unrequited lover abandoning project, “My beloved lover I am leaving you for good.” But then one day it became relevant to Lauren, one day she was talking to Audrey on the phone, and at the same time that she was talking to Audrey she was looking at the majestic plant, and she felt something, and uttered, “ Audrey I am thinking of getting rid of the nine leaf plant, its just so big, I don’t know, I am going to get it out of my apartment.” At the other end of the phone line there was a silence, and long enough to justify Lauren’s calling “Audrey are you there?” Audrey responded in a very low tone, “Lauren, you can’t get rid of that plant.” “Why?” “Because mom’s ashes are in there, I placed them there when I went to your apartment.”
And so it is that the plant is still in Lauren’s apartment, and as a way to defy her duties and sentiments, often it is that she doesn’t water it.
But it is Sunday, January 19, 2003, and all this is the past, and we are now more concerned with the future and more concerned with it than even the present, and to put a stop to our wondering through her apartment, Lauren has decided to go for a walk she is pensive, and so we must follow her.
posted by Ricardo Correa at 10:18 PM
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