I have to buy you (The clockwork boxes 6)

Andrew Tyler

 People were sitting or standing in crazy poses, shouting at the top of their lungs, all of them screaming the same words:

“Going once, , , , Going twice , , , , Going three times!”

“Sold, sold!”

“It belongs to this gentleman now!”

“Look at this amazing piece!”

In the middle of an enormous and circular, like a bubble, room, there was a crowd of people who were raising  theirs hands like crazy, some of them opening their palms, some others sticking their fingers out meaningfully, like little students in a classroom, yelling one at other’s ears. All this racket was taking place probably for the purchase of a terribly desirable object, which I couldn’t see well from where I was standing.

«Auction is in progress as you see. Step forward please, don’t hesitate and first of all don’t think about it! Today’s bargains are something else! Please do proceed and you will remember my words!»

The man who had guided me in that room, was looking straight into my eyes wishing to guess how much impressed I was by his words. Everything on him was impeccable. His eyebrows were perfectly aligned, like buckram decorative borders.

I wanted to ask where I was, who he was, why he was wearing these strange clothes underground, what on earth was going on into that room but I didn’t have the time. He pushed me forwards so strongly that I almost fell down. My nose landed on the back of an old gentleman who was yelling like crazy, the amount of money he wanted to bid. I was now among the rest of the crowd being pushed all over and pushing in the same frenzy.

“Be careful!” I heard the man shouting to me. “If you don’t bid quickly then you will be the one to be bid. You need speedy reflexes! Speedy, I say!”

The echo of his laughter made me feel  a rather weird delight. A queer high rectangular machine was standing in the middle of the room. There was a very big leather ribbon in its centre, uniting like a flexible axis  two side iron boxes, the one of which was sinking  half in the wall without its ending or its start being visible. On top of it there was a big label with the huge sign “OWN your PET” flashing in blinding color combinations. On the wide ribbon there were people, one stuck to the other, people who were posing in crazy positions. Most of them were blinking their eyes shyly, while others were sullen as if someone had woken them up from their deepest sleep. Some were sticking their tongues out and pulling their ears, grimacing like animals, whereas others were picking their noses being focused on it and there were some who lustfully were baring their chests or stroking their muscles so voluptuously that I thought they were ready to masturbate there, in front of us, masturbate at the thought of their own body.

I was speechless. I had never seen such a spectacle. And when I see something that shakes me, I am used to standing impotent to any kind of reaction. I am lying..just a little..The truth is that when I find myself in the middle of confusing situations, I just don’t want to react. I stand still and revel secretly in what I see or hear, moved deeply inside me by the fact that I can still be so intensely surprised. My body pulses hammer my brain. My heart beats so strongly and so rhythmically that I feel every beat like the softest touch of harmony that has ever shaken my life thread. My fingertips get dizzy by the sweetest numb, so sweet that it becomes unbearably erotic, same with the leaking knots of the watered sugar dripping on the tip of an impatient tongue.

My throat veins throb excited, flooding all my chest with a warm feeling and my stomach gurgles happily, squirming and twirling with delight  like a cat that purrs  as her lady’s hand runs softly along its spine. My bones tremble and resorb like a jelly-fish. I don’t know what shook me so strongly with happiness when I saw all this. The fact that some people were making fool of themselves, the secret existence of that leather ribbon underground, below the city pavements or the fact that I was also craving to make a fool of myself, jumping without anyone noticing me on the ribbon and offering  my brightest smile, my most perfect face and my most arrogant teeth line to everyone around? Or the fact that I had, all of a sudden, forgotten the exact meaning of the word ‘’ridicule” ?

Image: Andrew Tyler