It was darkening outside and inside had not adjusted, the hour of the lamps, the ceiling lights felt dim and antiquated, the bespectacled lady’s skin was turning a shade of citrine, the cream wastebasket in the corner a vitamin-enriched urine yellow, my dark skin unaffected. The bespectacled lady had given up the search, with quite a bit more care she returned all the stubs and knickknacks to the handbag. Concentrating and earnest, her mouth seemed weighted at the corners. I was about to give her pen back, but Satan chided me for being stupid, Such a silly boy you are, he said, so ungrateful, and I slid it into my jeans pocket, my hand remained there, caressing it, and I began to click the red, counterclockwise from the clip, then the clockwise blue, red, click, blue, but she did not seem to notice, didn’t remember that I had her pen. Hopeless you are, Satan said, and I told him he was using Yoda grammar, I’m poetic, he replied.
The bespectacled lady told me she saw Genesis at a concert in 1974, or around that time, she couldn’t recall the exact year, she said, I am too old in memory.
Ask her to repeat that in Yoda grammar, Satan said. Well, she wasn’t going to remember a silly click pen, I told him, and I hadn’t seen one in ages, but I felt guilty about keeping it, not that I haven’t swiped pens before, but never had I taken one from someone so helpless. She won’t even remember she ever had a pen, Satan said, treasure it, you ungrateful buffoon, write. Here’s what I’ll do, I told Satan, I will spin the pen in my pocket and then click one of the buttons, if it turns out to be the blue one, I return it, red button and I keep it. Hey Catherine, Satan yelled at the ceiling, see what I have to deal with here, he’s going Matrix Morpheus on me.
I didn’t have the chance to do anything, thud, thud, went the sound of heavy footsteps on the linoleum, and Ferrigno came for me.