Fridge Poetry: because we’re all a little awkward and disjointed, and trying so hard to be significant
an excerpt

I met Sy when she was twenty four. That was a while ago now, I guess but it didn’t feel like it. I was still working at the club, making big tips for batting a lash or two. And I felt sleazy, and worthless, and I thought it was ok. In fact, I thought it was my niche. The skuzzy end of whatever city offered cheap rent. That was my place in life. The perpetual slums, different every year, but always the same when it came down to it.
I’d just got off work, and all I was conscious of was the smell of sweat, drugs and 12 hour shift, the cigarette in my lungs, and the overwhelming urge to have a scalding hot shower. My skirt, shorter than I’d care to mention, was some cheap shiny fabric –pleather? – (classy I know), and the light from her flashlight made it sparkle oddly. Not like stars. More like alien ships.
“What are you doing?” I asked her. Not out of interest, but out of shock. She was standing on one foot to reach the highest point of a wall with her paintbrush, lathered up with bright yellow paint. In her other hand, she held a brilliant flashlight that showed she’d already been at work for a while. Her hair was twisted around another brush, and stuffed back into itself in a makeshift bun. She had paint on her cheeks and a huge green smudge on her forehead. Her clothes, reasonably nice, in a disheveled preppy sort of way, were spotted and spattered. She never looked at me.
“Painting,” she said.
“Well no shit, but it’s 5am and this is public property.”
“Hmmm.” She pulled back from the wall, and nodded, tapping the paintbrush on her chin. “True. And it was just so bland.”
“Well, alright then.” And I started to walk away. Even though she didn’t look it, I’d figured she was hopped up on something. You couldn’t always tell.
“What do you think?” she asked, just as started to round the corner.
“Pardon?”
“Do you like it?” she said.
“Well… err…” what the hell was it?
“You’re too close.”
“What?”
“It’s symbolic. You know, being too close to see. Move back.”
“I’ll end up in the middle of the street!”
“You gotta take a risk or two to see the beauty.”
Her guru-talk crept me out more than anything else, but it was 5am and I hadn’t seen many cars go by. What the hell, I thought, and walked slowly backwards, checking left and right to see only deserted streets full of old posters and flickering streetlights. It was still a blur. I told her so.
“Move back further, you’re still to close.”
And I did.
And then it all made sense.
I suppose it was an underwater scene, but without all the blue. The water was every shade of fuchsia and yellow, green, purple, turquoise and orange, as though it was picking its colour from a sunset or a bouquet of flowers. They swirled around each other, and curled into subtle images: faces, creatures, words… and then faded out.
There were no lines.
There was no border.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, and stared for a long moment. She smiled. “How did you paint it?” I added.
“Hmm?” She looked up, but not towards me.
“If it only makes sense from back here, how did you paint it.”
She laughed a little, and then tapped the brush to her temple. “It only makes sense to you back there. It’s all up here for me. All up here…” she drifted off, deep in thought. There was a long pause, and then she was a flurry of brush and paint, splattering the asphalt and weed-cracked sidewalk.
That’s how I met Sy.