He was listening to Carmina Burana by Orff. That was how he thought of it.
He could, and often did, rattle off bits and pieces of Burina arcana as he
liked to call it. He was self-taught, an auto-didact, the which phrase he'd
rigorously traced back to it's origins, and proud of it.


She was self-taught too, despite having been through a number of good
schools and having come from a moderately well-off family. She had a talent
for words and music and a voice of pain and purity. That description was
his. She saw it in a piece he wrote for a student magazine. What he actually
wrote was 'a voice of pain, purity, and passion'.


She had liked the piece when she came across it on a web site. She emailed
him thanks. He responded almost instantly saying the thanks were his and in
any case he had hated 'a voice of pain, purity, and passion' - it was his
vice to over-egg the pudding. His re-write was 'voice of pain and purity'.
She responded 'Yeah, sharper.' and they went on from there. Two sharp minds
like oddly cut diamonds, weird glints bouncing off their multi-facets. As he
put it. Over-eggingly.


They met in Chicago. She was gigging across the states and had a week off.
Bored with tinkering in the studio she'd hired, she saw he was online and
messaged 'Hey, are you anywhere near Chicago?'. 'No,' was the reply, 'but I
will be tomorrow. That is too synchronistic for e-words. Why?'.
'I'm here (Chicago) and I'm bored.'.
'Only boring people get bored.'
'And patronising people can get fucked.'
'I'm grinning 'cos I wished I'd said that when grown-ups gave me the
'boring/bored' routine.'


So they arranged to meet. She had money and time to spare so she would taxi
out to the airport. He said he knew what she looked like from pix on the
web. She said she'd wait in the bar nearest his departure gate and she'd be
wearing an orange hat and dark glasses. She was late because that was the
kind of person she was. An idea for a song had hit her that moring and she
got lost in the process of it discovering her. That was another phrase of
his. He used it when she explained why she was late.


He was listening to Orff, like I said at the beginning. She asked what he
was listening to. He told her and did his 'Burina arcana' bit. She gave him
a dead-face stare. 'What?' he said.
'TMI and TFP man.'
'TFP?'
'Too fucking patronising. I'm 23 and I can sing all the parts of 'Stetit
Puella' from Burana. Now how does it feel to be told I know more that you
do?'


He stopped and thought. She thought too. He was thinking 'Whoa, I'm in
trouble.'. She was thinking 'Shit, am I being an arrogant pop star? Nah,
fuggit, he talked to me like I was a pony-tail ditz-chick and I slapped him
down.'. He said 'Sorry. You want a drink?'. She put her head on one side and
studied him. 'Yeah, I'll take a white wine but look, you talked to me like I
was a pony-tail ditz-chick and I slapped you down. Best to start out right,
yeah?'. Her mind was like that. She thought it out, she said it. Not always,
but enough to frighten and amaze.


He nodded a bit frightened. When he came back with the drinks he wasn't sure
what to say. She saw that and also saw that he was older than she had
thought. 'You're older than I thought.' she said, doing it again. He
grinned, 'I'm older than I thought too. The shit I gave you about Burana
proves it.'


They talked for a long time then about how he, an older guy, could accept
that someone younger could be an equal, or even superior. For an hour or so
he protested that he didn't want to be like that against her pointing out
that that was how he was. After the hour had passed several drinks had been
drunk. They both got more strident then. He asked why it was that someone
younger should be considered better just because they were younger. She said
that was not where she was coming from. He countered asking why didn't young
people start off thinking that older people just might know a bit more than
they.


She hit him with the girl thing then. He was only treating her like a girly
air-head 'cos he was guy. She quoted the Burana,
'A girl stood
like a little rose:
her face was radiant
and her mouth in bloom.
Eia!'
and said, 'Cute and not a thing about what's in her head. You're like most
guys man, dick-lead and dick-taught.' He was silent then. He knew he had
admired her words and her music but he knew that he found her physically
attractive now and wanted her. Now.


She got up to go. 'You want a ride into town?'. Partly to be awkward ,
partly because he wanted to stay with her as long as he could, he said
'Yeah. Thanks.'


In the taxi she told the driver to go to her hotel, then sat at the far end
of the seat angled so she could see him. 'I never asked, what are you doing
in Chicago?'. 'I'm attending a conference tommorrow. We're meeting for what
they call a briefing dinner tonight.'


When the cab pulled up at her hotel she sat, watching him for a long moment.
'Well, thank you-' he started but she interuupted. 'I want dinner with you.
And I want to stay with you, and you with me, tonight.' He was confused. She
got out of the cab, leant down and said 'Coming?'. He slowly left the taxi.
She paid and he followed her into the hotel.


The next morning he left the hotel for his conference, still confused. When
they'd woken that morning he told that he didn't understand. She had replied
'I know that.' and had kissed him as hungrily as the night before.
They never met again. She responded to his emails occasionally and they had
some fine arguments. But whenever he mentioned that evening or suggested
that they meet she just gave him dead air. But she wrote songs about him.


______________________
copyright Author 1999
______________________

Day, and night, oh, everything
they are all against me,
Girls talking, virgins giggling
make me weep,
fill my chest with sighs so deep,
Scare me from sleep.