Spies on Vacation

There she is, distracting you from your own thoughts, that silk  dress too low for any decent woman to wear, that back, those twin tanned pillars stopping too soon where the folds of cloth touch her skin. 

There’s that obligatory walk to the bar, that obligatory drink, that obligatory small talk. You touch her elbow and escort her to the window. Of course the window, of curse the balcony, of course the beach. 

Everything has that soft glow of dim lighting and starlight and no one has anything really important to say, just that smooth undertone. You eye each other over the rims of your cups and murmur soft words until the night is over and it’s a polite time to leave together. 

She’s too perfect. Too much. Much too much. But there’s that something. That thing that draws you in. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but oh the places you’d put your hands...

And then your brain butts in, stubborn and pissed, Of course you have to have her. She’s got you hooked like some kind of trained monkey. You’re brain is eating up the endorphin jolt you get every time you look at her like it’s candy. You complete idiot. You’re hooked to her, slobbering after her like Pavlov’s dog next to a ringing cathedral. It’s all a government conspiracy, haven’t you heard of the Denver Airport? The president’s not the president, you know that! This woman isn’t here for you, she's here to disrupt the mission, but now you’re stuck aren’t you? Detox, quit cold turkey man. 

Nothing for it but to get out of there and hitch a ride in a tiny puddle jumper from your island to the next, hope and look for salvation in isolation. 

Because you’re sure as hell not going to find it in this pit of snakes with her dribbling poison onto you every chance she gets. Get out of there, man. Get focused. Get one of those tiny planes and don’t care who pilots it. 

End up with a big Jamaican man with dreadlocks as long as you are tall, eyes as red as blisters telling you it’s time to take off. Nothing but you and him and that smell of smoke. You figure fuck it and ask him for a blunt and he hands you one, tiny in his giant, dark hands like a golem holding a twig. You take it and inhale, sucking in the dark forgetfulness and thinking of drowning her in the smoke of your lungs. Get all of that poison away from your system. Drown her. You hold the smoke in until your vision turns pinpoint and then let it out as slowly as you can. Watching it smoke away, curling its finger at you as it floats inland. 

You look straight ahead as the pilot starts up the plane. He laughs at the look on your face, ’I'm good to fly man, no worries.’ he says, and then starts the plane. He’s got a pet moving around back there, he says. You can’t hear anything but you look back and see there are boxes stacked on top of the four empty seats. 

He's NOT good to fly, man. He's high as a kite and looking for quick cash. Going to fly around for awhile and he roofied that blunt and now you're gonna end right back where you started but now they know that you know and you'll be paralyzed and they'll get anything they want from you. No one ships boxes on planes this size but criminals, your information sold to the highest bidder and your body in the the deep blue sea. 

Then the smoke hits you and you don’t care any more. You look up and feel the sun and let it go. 

You open your eyes and it’s just you and the silent beach and the sound of the dreadlock man powering down the plane. You look behind you to see there’s a boa constrictor migrating its way across the boxes. Well now you know what the pet is. You climb out. He’s still looking for weed in his gear. You walk along the beach, nothing here but you and memories of her and that lingering feeling of missing something that you know will grow into a craving and then an all consuming hunger in a little while. Nothing to do but wait. You’re in withdrawals just your body doesn’t know it yet. 

Good luck with that, my corporeal form, I’m checking out for awhile and going to another plane while that takes place. Gonna become my own warm little center of the universe. My zen nature, my own private mediation palace. 

You are ravenous though- ‘Where’s food here?’ you turn and say to the pilot. Your voice too loud without the plane's engine. The scene too intimate. You wonder if he's going to rob you now. Or if he's working with her. Maybe he'll kill you. Shoot you and leave you to die on an island where no one will find your body but the seagulls. 

But the pilot looks up from his boxes. He's thrown two to the ground and is lighting another blunt to smoke before he flies again. ‘Fish and coconuts, man. You wanted a deserted island, this a deserted island. Real hippie nature feel good shit.’ 

Nothing for it, then. Fish and coconuts. You walk away down the beach. Fucking hippy. Rasta man watches you go for a second and then starts to get the engine going. You imagine him muttering, ‘Crazy fuckin white people,’ and why shouldn’t he? You’ve used your vacation time to check yourself into a personal rehab on a deserted island to escape what you think might be a spy, based on no evidence but your own paranoia. You are fucking crazy.