they admired her through the plateglass window between the cheap gaudy liquor banners the pricepoints their square bold printed numbers

yet even where she was obscured her exposed bits and pieces her red wrap dress tight as cellophane were worthwhile

they were men after all 

and men are visual animals voyeurs peering through keyholes not needing much to incent and excite them

he supposed thats what he didnt like about XXX porn its rawness everything laid out in the open like butchers meat check your imagination at the door aint nothing left to it

just then she leaned forward to brush something from her shapely calf her breasts swelled and threatened to spill from their containment  but only threatened  maddeningly

standing upright again she subtly in-the-open deftly rearranged them for her comfort

he stood looking over his shoulder admiring her

her boyfriend facing the counter as they rang up his tequila facing outside caught his breath Damn that woman takes my breath away

You and me both an I dont care squat that youre standing across from me while Im taking her in

No  Wear a dress like that built like that go out I cant blind everyone who stops to get an eyeful  Respectfully  No leering

My upside everyone else looks I get to touch

A definitive upside

Yes 

   However concluding our conversation while theres no one in the store you need to attend to and stepping away from our discussion of iteration  Your not having a death wish or instinct as youve said citing Freud and I concur is unique not that you may realise it but that you do not separate your dreams from your nightmares 

The years I prepared to become a therapist the years I spent as a therapist doing dream work with patients then clients not once did any of them hundreds if not a thousand plus ever say as you said to me

What did I say to you

That you did not differentiate a nightmare from a dreamTheyre all dreams to you

Yes  I said that

Yes you did

Everyone else I have ever talked with talks of dreams and nightmares  And nightmares

What you have done unaware that you have done it is accepted your death 

Have you dreamed you have died

Of courseSure I cant tell you how many times Ive died in my dreams

During my consultations everyone everyone at the precipice of their death an imminent death   everyone woke themselves from their nightmare in a cold sweat or terror

That awakening is them not accepting the reality that they will die

Thats unfortunate 

             Nobody gets out of here alive

But you accept that

Frankly you accepted death when you accepted that you only dream

Thats innarestin

You dont believe me

Its believe or thinkHUH

Im a born skeptic Ill have to do some legwork to see if your premise is legit

But in the meantime I have customers So mind it or not you say you dont Ill eyeball your girl one last time

he turned his back entirely on him and moved to one side so he could see her unobstructed
he gave her a soft wolf whistle
then turned back around 
                  As I said thank you for the exhilarating time

1241,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  7  9. 16

 Jim Morrison/Doors  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQA3wx4a-ow

We seek oblivion 

            we chase it our death wish as readily as we chase our life wish

some buzzed cat in conversation who wandered into the liquor store where he clerked

they talked before shelves of tequila

Manh who knew there were this many tequilashuh  Wha they think theyre scotch or whisky or wine

More than just a few Ill grant you

Yes

Exhausting

Who knewHUH(exaggerating echoing his dull rejoinder)

You got a queer look on your face manh when I mentioned death wish  You do know what Im talking about

I dont  I dont have a death wish

Of course you do maybe you dont call it such but you we all do

I dont

You may believe you dont 

                   you know your exhaustion at the end of the day  Were exhausted from contending with our jobs with other people making money were exhausted and when we get home we eat stay up for a bit then we seek sleep and sleep is the vehicle to our dreams and nightmares and they happen for us in pursuit of our death wishes       

Illuminating them                         

Terrifying us

Death reaches out of life

You need only look at a tree to confirm it see it exist in life in real time

Diseased they refuse to fall  

Dying they refuse to fall 

Killed they stand and weather death and over time drop pieces of themselves sticks and whole limbs

Think of their treetops dead and crooked  Wood shafts lightning inverted running up into the sky and nearer the earth the tree hides its death behind green leaves

They still flower and bear fruit

They grow more frail every year

And  if you really care to see  on windless days they move   

And seeing them move we have to create excuses to explain it away

Anything thatll sound legit

But why lie

        the tree moved it sighed it shifted as we do to make ourselves comfortable

No the wind did it                                   

There is no wind

So we lie to become more comfortable comforting ourselves because we havent an explanation

It seems everything needs to have a reason or an explanation if something is unexplained it creates doubt
And we dont like that

We want to be assured

So lying assures us

Lying is easier than accepting doubt                      

A lie is a coin weve minted

Heads or tails one or the other and agreed and decided on the result of the flip we accept it

Thats the deal we make when we lie

But now it has to be remembered or other lies have to be made up to protect it

Sever a lie and look inside it  tree rings  overlapped   overlapping     its heart its core is hidden and protected

he nodded his head firmly

he said  Yaknow I gotta wonder what you would have talked about instead if Id talked to you in front of the whiskys

The life and death wishes you mentioned you said occurred to you during your first iteration as a therapist

Yes  My first

And obviously youre a long way from that iteration

I am

Is it possible your recollection or the vernacular youre using now is faulty regarding it as a wishFreud I understand described life and death instincts

But instincts arent wishes

He identified associated his life instinct with sexFreud was all about sex and death with aggression and healthy if healthy is appropriate a healthy aggression externalised against the other

I can see how you might align a wish with instinct though to me an instinct is basic a wish is created it invites something more though I wouldnt think youd agree  

But no matter 

I am intrigued however that you have ascribed iterations to yourself

You disagree that we are iterations that they occur to us over our lives

Id call them changes changes that we have either brought onto ourselves or are ours by circumstances which initially had nothing to do with us                                            

Then unfortunately we are collatedl with them

My life is made of iterations

So youve been utterly guided by your decisions alone  No influences

Thats bullshit 

          and I say bullshit because right now if I were to assume the inspired warrior iteration you mentioned to me earlier and knocked you headlong into these shelves of tequila my fist to your jaw the crashing handles and fifths that randomness that influence might make of you an iteration you hadnt an imagination of not five minutes earlier

Not your decision

Which isnt to say that I havent found this conversation exhilarating

Its not often someone comes in to buy booze typically an in-an-out proposition and intellectually spins me

Although I might suggest you save your iterations for the likes of her outside leaning up against your sports car and looking quite fetchingShe got legs that go for a mile and I hardly ever pay attention to a womans legs

        

1516,  Monday --  Labor Day,  5  9. 16

1111,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  7  9. 16