Ode to an Incredibly Beautiful Woman
that I saw at the liquor store one day.
(I can't help thinking about On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning, but it turns out the quote I wanted to take from it never existed.)
She was just the right height. As tall as or taller than me, but no so tall that I would question it. Everything about her body was perfect. It wasn't an exaggeration of femininity or of thinness, but it wasn't what I would call average. To be average is to be flawed in a usual way, but she had no flaws. She wore a tight purple dress that hugged her perfectly, but was not too thin or revealing. It was classy and professional; something that she could maybe wear to work, but that could have been meant for special occasions. At some angles it looked like a trenchcoat, fastened around the waist with a sort of belt, and it covered her knees. It cut a silhouette of her figure, idealized as if for a fashion magazine, if only they weren't so retarded. Her red hair trailed her perfect girl-next-door model's face everywhere. She could have come from a film noir. Another world than where the rest of us lived. A world I wanted to dive into.
I looked at this heart-aching beauty, brighter than a thousand suns, and I had no logical way to approach. There was no way I could think of for our worlds to meet, but I wanted to know what I could. What liquor was she buying? I couldn't see, but it was in a green bottle, back towards the rum. There are mixers on the endcaps, so it could have been that. Why was she dressed up? Was it just her style? She didn't seem to be wearing makeup, but she looked really good to be buying liquor, so maybe it was going to be shared with someone. To most guys, the solution to this nagging feeling you get when confronted with unspeakable beauty is to fuck it. But that'd be impossible. She looked so amazingly classy, yet unassuming. You'd need soft jazz music or old R&B, on vinyl, of course, playing in another room as you lie together on a bed with satin sheets while pale light filters in the window, casting long shadows on the two of us. Inexplicably we'd both be dressed, me in a suit worth more than I've ever seen in my life, and the room would be soaked with the scent of perfume, which I'm not sure she even wears. Everything that we said would be in French, subtitled for me to understand, and all our movements would be slow and stylized. Making love wouldn't be enough. We'd have to make art films with our lives.
I kept trying to hold her image in my mind, but it is fading away. I have an urge for something, but I don't know what. I wouldn't mind making those art films with her, but on this occasion, I didn't want to be her. I don't feel that classical lust very often, because my head's too screwy. I just had to hold the memory of witnessing her close at hand; retain the knowledge that there's something better in this world, something really special out there that reaches beyond our petty white trash and hipster bullshit. I loved each inch of her, with her literally perfect figure that was not out of place anywhere. And naturally she would remind me of someone I knew before, but that woman I knew wouldn't have had this body. It's just a solace that this person I had been acquainted with had a personality to match my mystery woman's body, and I can imagine the ideal of a perfect person rather than just a perfect model, and never tarnish it with reality.
Well, really, these thoughts and feelings were more intense a few hours ago. I felt then that I could really express this, but now I've been detached. It's a vague dream and I've been awake for too long, returned to my boring existence.