Ame Tendre

He was lying in bed dreaming of what it was like

to rest on soft moist grass. The computer
hummed by his bed, and produced the sounds of
some unknown band. The smell around him was
of uneaten doughnuts, the hard smell of sugar.
He had nothing to do but lie there and fantasize
about what it was like to be surrounded by
anything but wiry fences and graffiti maps. The
smell of constant gasoline filled the air, mixed
with the smell of wild fires, which turned the full
moon a crimson red.
-1-
He had spent eight dreary hours writing in tiny
spaces, building words that ran and fell unfolded
and incongruent across cheap notebooks as if a
wild bull was chasing them. And was drenched
in the summer sweat- the heat that wrapped
itself around him like an old skin. Outside there
were the noises of beefed up cars and beefed up
bass sounds of the strange cars-- an ambulance
was spreading panic and dust in some distance-
but the sound of siren receded from him like a
stone thrown down a well. He was staring at his
computer monitor as though a miracle might
pop through, The heat and aloneness orbited
around him in single movements—and the city
and his neighborhood were but cautionary tales
he didn't quite want to believe in, like a story
that takes on the form of a nightmare, he
wanted to throw the closed book, away.
Suddenly a pop-up screen lurched on his
monitor, like a token, like something new and
with a certain promise. It showed someone was
looking at his profile. He clicked on the arrow to
see who was sizing him up- in the loneliness of
his work and being, any contact from ‘out-there’
was like a welcome mat-almost like a letter that
is arriving too-soon, or too-late?
It turned out that his gazer was a woman, in her
thirties named: Ame Tendre-‘what kind of name
was this?’- reading him, from Australia, a
Brazilian woman- her picture and profile was in
front of him instantly.
It really meant: she wanted to be seen, he was no
snoop. The gazer could have controlled that.
“What does Ame Tendre mean?”
“Its Brazilian for: Soft, breezy spirit.” She
answered back.

“Vow.”
“A soft breezy spirit?” He repeated it to himself-
he really had no idea what that meant either!

She had had her picture taken from afar, not a

close up, not a vanity shot, but a warm cozy
photograph. In the picture she'd knelt by some
ivy plant that climbed above her head on the
wall, in multiple streams, looking rooted,
suspended- looking as though she too looked
forward to things moving up, ahead, forward.
And as though she was content with life. With
whatever she had.
And he hair fell around her, abundant, like
waterfall, and her stare through the lenz burned
its path-- like something rare and exotic. He
instantly felt a certain escape; felt attracted,
and wondered why. She messaged that she
would like to be friends, they were both on a
socialization site. Did he want to chat?
He wanted to chat, like the end of the world was
coming. He replied yes, before any of them was
aware , a type of conversation began, that only
develops in between two yearning, and alone
things, the miles and miles in between them
didn't matter much, they spoke as though it
hadn't even been, she wrote with a quality that
only the happy and contented deeply possess,
and he replied with the forlornness of his being.
She replied as though somewhat aware of his
surroundings, the smell of burned brushes, the
rarity of even a tree, the aloneness filled dark
spaces of his apartment living. It wasn't long
before she broke intro describing her
surroundings, though he hadn't said much about
his, only the scarcity and punctuation of his
words carried the weight, the burden of his felt
world. And almost as if she could sense the
concrete metal spires that rose out of his
windows view. Their tired bulging in the skies.
She began to talk about her apartment, out of
some wish for consolation, For the pure wish of
soothing another. She spoke of the long, long
moist grass , she named each fruit tree that lived
in her yard, branching above the grass, and was
almost poetic in her details, calling each fruit
tree by florid names, as though they were her
siblings or cousins, all objects were humanified
in her almost serene, soft language, voice.
Outside his apartment, the wild fires went on,
the wind carried the smell of burned grass and
brushes directly to him. The wild fires occurred
every year with a precision that only nature
harbors. They would burn through two-car-
garage houses in between hills, it seemed to him,
that they came against this brutal invasion of
man into the sloping mountains and hills, they
would burn garages packed with yesterdays
papers and an onslaught of plastic toys, and
kerosene lamps, and what not. In a city where
one of the biggest trades was renting out storage
spaces, the wild fires came untouchable as to
fight this general obsession to hoard things.
Almost everyone was a pack rat, old men walked
around busy neighborhoods cursing the
congestion of things. No one wondered why
everyone hoarded, the storage places business
were in every corner like starbucks’ and
Mcdonalds’, the wild fires came and burned
things, as though, the pack rats had a disease
that went beyond occupying spaces, it offended a
factor that slept in the nature, now aroused, now
wept-and wild fires would come to restore some
wonted peace, but never could for their return
every year was a sure thing, and a sign of their
almost defeat.
Their conversation took him out of the
congestion of his surrounding for mere moments,
and then doubt came, like when innocence has
left a being and the being is a felt swan, and he
was stilled, dumbfounded for words, outside it
was still, dark and clouded, a dead sky that
reflected no light. He longed to tell her of his
grief. Perhaps to awaken in her a sense of not-
empathy, but surprise, a harsh sense of knowing.
So, he started to tell her back of his
surroundings, just to be not buried in her little
paradise, he was afraid of losing himself, to a life
that didn't occupy or led him.
She, as if aware of his fear asked if he would like
to see her apartment for himself, the forlornness
in his words had frightened her. They made her
conscious of discontent, unlike her aloneness
which was a tangible, treatable thing. But more
like unhappiness hadn't visited her for a long
time, but its bits of pieces were recalled by his
words, and she wanted him to see, with his eyes,
so her happiness would be immaculate like
words, her name. She repeated the question: 'Do
you ant to see where I live.' He answered how?
How could he see her flat, she said she had a
camcorder, and instantly she connected it, and
he saw this beautiful woman dressed in a
turtleneck and a plaid short skirt sitting in front
of the camera, slooped, pale, and draped in a soft
natural light, like a felt madonna. The floor
around her, he could see, was dark polished
wood, it reflected a soothing light into the
camera, and he could tell behind her sat much
unoccupied space, spaces he would have killed
for, then without notice, she took the camera,
and placed it on a window that looked onto her
garden, plush grass, looking as green as the sun
could illuminate, and the small camera could
exhibit, small humble trees, which shook in the
wind and were bent as though pregnant with
their weights of figs and tangerines. She turned
the camera, slowly around, so he could see that
she was truthful, and her happiness despite
aloneness real, and unmoving, stilled.
They lost the words to communicate then. The
passing of the words in between them stopped
like a clogged highway that's been suddenly re-
opened. Not a word was exchanged, in this
silence, she brought the camera back to the
place in front of her. She waited for seconds or
were they hours, but staring at the camera
mesmerized, she began to take off the turtleneck
first, then her skirt, and in the orange and blue
light of he camera, she proceeded to take off her
bra and underwear, then she sat like a windless
tree, still and unmoving, bent, staring at the
camera with the innocence of the first woman,
looking like something out of this world but
belonging strangely and fantastic. And he was
struck by her body, by its resemblance to her
garden, and didn't utter a word, and stared, like
a man in the eyes of a hurricane, calm and in
some strange forgotten peace, neither of them
knew for how long she sat there naked, but the
darkness had descended on his side of he world,
the lights unturned on, he sat in that darkness,
and at one moment in their stilled time, neither
of them knew when and why, she gently bent
forward and turned off the camera, and the
connection went dead, and it never were turned
on again. Never did. He never knew what to
make of this experience in words, or even in his
thoughts alone. But he knew he hadn't smelled
the wild fires or the gasoline, hadn't heard the
sirens and car alarms for the duration of their
almost touch, but soon, and almost instantly, he
knew a way out of there.