Coda can denote any concluding event, summation or section (music).
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1.0
It's late. Java is in Restaurant Bar and Grill, at a table reserved for two. The other side of the plus sign hasn't arrived. It equates to an expensive meal for one. Java is convinced that the waitress thinks he's pathetic. He should leave, but instead Java takes out his journal and a pen and begins to pretend he's a food writer. Java is pathetic. Java gets weepy over romantic comedies and falls for women ahead of speaking to them. Java is already enamoured with the waitress. Java convinces himself that the low light and large glass of wine is to blame.
The waitress sweeps over to his table and doesn't even ask before she clears away the cutlery opposite. He can't tell if it is an insult or an act of mercy. She asks him if he has decided what he is having. Pathetically, Java reads this as flirting.
Java explains that he hasn't yet had a chance to look, he smiles a lopsided smile and swallows audibly. Java suggests that perhaps she could recommend something. The waitress smiles and says she'll get him another drink while he makes up his mind. Mercy. Tells him the menu is a real page-turner. Insult. She turns on her heels and clicks off in the direction of the bar. After a few minutes he looks over and sees her smiling with a bunch of the bar staff. They look right at him and laugh. Java understands that he is amusing to them, but decides to think that he is doing them a service. Java is pathetic.
Java is not the age he is. He just doesn't act it. He's 13 in spirit. 60 for wisdom, when he applies it. He's 25 only when applying for credit, looking at his passport, gets asked by bouncers and when confronted with his birth certificate.
When Java sleeps he can be himself. When he's awake he's stuck being who he is.
Java eats what he's ordered and when the waitress comes over with the bill he asks her out. She says yes. Mercy. She says she's got nothing better to do on the night he suggested. Insult.
2.0
Zivora is the waitress at The Restaurant Bar and Grill. Working, she gets paid to smile at the unfortunates who come in to order this, that and whatever. Zivora has to act like she likes their jokes. Has to pretend to find them 'interesting'. Dealing out cocktails is garnish to the pretence. She gets paid to make people fall in love with her. Actor/smiler. She's cheeks and teeth. A grin for drab gentlemen. Her apron is a nest of bills, printed with the faces of long-dead contributors to a nation she's not even from.
In life Zivora is unsure whether her production outweighs her consumption. She has promised herself she'll only love people who produce more than they consume. Therefore, she can only love herself if she follows the same law. In work, Zivora produces feelings of radiant hope. She makes the patrons feel good. At work, she outweighs her consumption. She listens to their stories. She is consuming their lives, but a smile is enough in return. Their lives aren't worth much more. Outside of work, that's where her philosophy pales. Outside she might take and take without returning the gift of anything.
At work she smiles a different smile than her real smile. At work she will give while she takes in return; because when the customers move on, they don't feel the loss of themselves, only the loss of her. While they are in The Restaurant Bar and Grill she contributes light suggestion. “Try this drink.” “Try this dish.” Meat to the exchange is that smile, but the eyes hold the suggestion. All with too little sincerity, but just enough to pass for honesty. They choose to follow her guidance. It means they think she's worth believing in. If Zivora likes a guy, she'll refuse to suggest anything. At work, Zivora switches her eyes off.
3.0
Before the date, Java thinks a lot about Zivora. Java likes to think he's never seen the act she's paid to perform. Even though he understands how things work in The Restaurant Bar and Grill. Java is unsure though. Java asks himself how easy is it to change? How easy is it to leave that pattern of expression in the place that gives wage to it? Is it ever possible to refund the cost? Java is pathetic. Java wants to mean something meaningful to her.
Java's favourite café/bar is Mello Mello. Great vibe and tea to swallow, he chatters nonsense to staff members. Tallest of them is Paul. Tall Paul is not paid to smile. He's not even paid to sweep. He's here to bring forth the drinks that are ordered. Everything else is charity. This charity is the reason Java tips. And when the tip jar said 'great tippers make great lovers' he gave a little more. He tips because money isn't the sort of change he's scared of.
So, Java decided to bring Zivora to this place. The place of no pretence. The aim is to target the real her. The arrow is the truth of himself. Java is not a rich man. Java is not a man of particular talent or genius. Java is Java. And Java wants to know if being Java is enough for Zivora. So Java plays the game of disinterest. Decides that he wont flirt, or give signals (best as he can avoid it) and will treat their time together as a time between friends. He decides it is best to be dissimilar to every other man who's met her. In this way, Java hopes to be better.
4.0
Though each is unaware of its name. Both Java and Zivora believe in Homa Coda. In Homa Coda all is seen with closed eyes. Safe in bed is the need to speak, or rearrange earrings. In Homa Coda a haircut walks quick past periphery and swarms to gather with other things that go unnoticed. Homa Coda makes you blind to everything but the thing you want to see. So Homa Coda makes a break for sanity and trips up on the journey. Homa Coda be praised for the blind and the mute. Praise he who halves a newspaper page to rewrite a headline. Praise he who borrows salt for a mouth ulcer. Homa Coda is the cure to the human sickness.
Homa Coda is alive in small things. Homa Coda is the real name of true love. Homa Coda is the energy that goes between two people when they meet for the first time. Even if they have met before. Homa Coda is the glue between them. Homa Coda is the magic, for want of a better word, that makes fools out of those most logical and slaves out of the disloyal.
5.0
Zivora has a game plan for the night. Speaking slowly always wind them up. Speak like you're breaking poetry over your knee at the line-breaks. Speak like each word is enough in and of itself. Like even the word 'tea' has potency. Speak like you've got a five-year-old cross-legged on the floor before you. Speak like they aren't able to process. That always pisses them off. Zivora hated this. So, if Java hates this, if Java speaks of hating this. If Java has the guts to say so, Zivora will know. Anyone owning less splendour would put up with it to get in her panties. If Java riles to it, Zivora will know they are a match. Zivora knows this because Mylo did this. Mylo the ex.
Mylo worked as a mental health nurse for Liverpool Royal Hospital. Mother and sister trained him before schooling took over. He was dolling prescriptions; and, from time-to-time, on suicide watch, while other kids played with tonker toys. Mylo was a musician. Mylo with a camera lens for vision. Mylo, who tried to hold onto everything.
Mylo might have caught the curse of genes. Might have been natured into feeling depressed at regular intervals. In truth, most things are infectious. Habit isn't the antithesis of restraint. When you're around the mentally ill, you'll find the truth of this. Call it understanding. Call it empathy. Call it what you like, but you'll soon be rocking back and forth.
Mylo was a depressive and this weakness was good for Zivora. Weakness always breeds sympathy and sympathy keeps a bad relationship on its legs until the last. Fuck the band, fuck the photographs, Mylo and Zivora lasted until even the pity-brand of lasting began to falter. Limitations were set aside. Homa Coda in all its glory. This was the last time Zivora felt the faintest hint of Homa Coda.
6.0
Inside Mello Mello, Java waits for Zivora. Outside, Tall Paul runs a brush over cobbles. Java moves outside to smoke a cigarette. Tall Paul says he's 'sweeping up,' but means 'sweeping along.' There are no carpets to drag trash to and under. So he corrals it into a corner. Java gets some last minute advice from Tall Paul about how to snare Zivora. Tall Paul says that all he has to do to keep her, is act like he can live without her. At this moment Zivora rounds the corner and comes into view. Homa Coda from here on out.
They order. Java suggests nothing, retaliation for the previous night.
Java wonders why Zivora is speaking so slowly. Thinks maybe he could get a word in between each of hers. It is beginning to upset him. Java wants to fit more into the conversation. Wants to hear her life, her history, her particular take on whether life is just a journey of perdition.
Tall Paul brings out their plates and sits down with them. He tells them a story about his fish. His poor fish that died that morning. Says he's spent all afternoon trying to decide how to say goodbye. Java says he should treat it to a dose of the elemental. 'Spent it's whole life in water, why not singe him.' Java says, and Tall Paul agrees to run with the suggestion. They comfort him. Say that some things are meant for short lifespans.
Zivora goes back to speaking like she's set to a lower BPM. Breaking point comes when Java asks about her current position. He tells her he's had an earful of the too-slow conversation. Says he doesn't want her to take him wrong, but he wants to hear at break-neck speed too fit more in. Says he's loving what she's producing, but the conveyor belt seems to have snagged on something. Zivora smiles. At this point he sees an honest smile. And Homa Coda strikes to forge the bond between them.
7.0
Homa Coda has been blamed through ages for the current state of romantic tension. The truth is that few things are Homa Coda's fault. Homa Coda has to deal with derision. Homa Coda has to deal with humanity's need to see an evil in balance of the equation. Homa Coda is all glory; so, in the face of this, it can forgive them. Few romances are caused by Homa Coda, too few people pay it the correct attention. Too many people see a pretty face and launch for engagement. These are the sad times we live in. Married to a movie's impression of true love's expression.
Homa Coda is equal parts tension and elation. True Homa Coda is one person accepting another's limitation.
8.0
While Zivora dances below Christmas decorations, Java tries to straighten the spokes on a locked up bicycle. It isn't his bicycle. They've left Mello Mello behind them and the invitation to her apartment has pressed sole to concrete in a journey to see it.
Answer me, honestly, would you join her dancing in the rain of LED's flickering? Or him fixing the world, one bent spoke at a time?
Would you take her hand, sweep your other hand around her waist and dance like you can hear music? Could you break step to be with her?
Or would you conspire to fix what you can see is broken? Could you fail to notice that there is a heart below surface tension? Could you grin and smile in the face of a broken heart?
Java can sense the death of Homa Coda around her. Even with the birth of a new brand, old Homa Coda is clear. Zivora gives him a name for it. Mylo. The low soul with the band. The sad spirit wrapped in photo film. Java thinks that it is a little early for Zivora to be tending to a new crop of Homa Coda, but he wants her. So he forgives her for it. Accepts there will be a limit to how far she wades into it. At least in the immediate.
9.0
Homa Coda is never solid. It is dissolved into all things. It is the sleeping salve. It aims to heal when the healing is needed. More-often, it is the cure for itself. When a new swell of Homa Coda appears, it repairs the hole left by the one that proceeded it.
Zivora's Homa Coda with Mylo ended months ago. Only fragments remain. Java is to follow. The pace increases with proximity.
10.0
During sex Java has made Zivora's coil slip in her pelvis. She jokes about giving birth to something invented to prevent it. Java blames himself. Imagines he has a cock that enjoys tugging on string. A cat to yarn. They can say these things to each other. Homa Coda is a catalyst.
Java's mind is whirring. He's still trying to come to terms with Mylo. The spirit of the last lover. Java realises that there are no words that are used singularly and exclusively between them. Every word used has been used before. He longs for words only their mouths can manage.
Zivora's mind is stoic. Slowly she is extracting the shards of leftover Homa Coda. Mylo has less of a hold on her. She struggles with how to show it. Knows she has to set Java's mind at rest. Her coil is a bone of contention. She knows Java is sorry, but can't find a way of easing him of it. Far as she's concerned, she's producing more than she's consuming.
11.0
Zivora gives birth to her coil. Java held her hand and tried not to squeeze back. Some ten minutes later Coil is sat on the cold kitchen linoleum. From now on it will never be just Zivora, Java and a book waiting to be written.
From this point forward, Zivora knows that her production will always outweigh her consumption. Giving birth to something made to prevent that brand of production is the hallmark of a new age of thinking. Coil is birthed to linoleum floor, slick with blood. Red, white. Candy striped. Growing and wiggling. From this point Zivora knows that, that which limited production has now been birthed free of her.
Zivora fixes her hair-clip. A click commands her own brand of self assurance. Light runs the line of her cheekbone. Kindles a stray hair she's missed. Coil lays twitching. For Zivora Homa Coda is a feeling that gets switched on after a second swig from a gin bottle.
Java can't believe his eyes. Not a product of him. A symptom perhaps. His hand in making something living. Something that should not be living. Horror subsides and he asks Zivora if there isn't somewhere to put Coil. A few moments later the fucia is uprooted from its pot and Coil is planted. A glass of water is a shower and the candy stripped youngster is clean. Bloodless. A shrug with arms raised to sky. Now Homa Coda is split three ways. A diagram in the shape of a coil. Zivora sharing Homa Coda with Java and Coil.
12.0
After Homa Coda comes on, Java and Zivora love Coil. Coil, though it cannot be expressed, loves its parents. Coil sharing Homa Coda with Zivora and Java. Coil can't smile either. Coil wiggles. Coil is a new shoot through topsoil. Coil needs a light mist to feel well. Coil is a ne'er-do-well. Coil is a symbol. Coil represents two paths to a dead end. Coil is the conception of contradiction. A way of moving forward which relies on staying in one place. Coil is the theft of, a yet unmade, something,
13.0
To be cliché. Music is the food of Homa Coda. Notes are a call to arms. A melody is a template for how things ought to be. So we share music when our tongues fails us.
Java and Zivora take Coil on an outing. They steal themselves off to Mello Mello for something soothing. A harp to make the tuning fork Coil reverberate with feeling. So that 'I love you' can be balanced, held on each string until it is freed.
The harpist runs miles on her fingertips. Around her, people listening close their eyes in an effort to afford more power to one sense. They do this until they are all ears and the rest of them falls into insignificance.
14.0
Your personal antitheses will always rely on qualities you own. It is these things that make 'it' what it is and what 'you' aren't. Homa Coda can make your enemy a friend for life. But Homa Coda can not revive a life.
15.0
Coil stopped wriggling early the next morning. The lifespan of a mayfly, poor thing. Zivora's distraught. Java can't say anything. Their grief is part disbelief. The other part is what is missing. There is no consoling either of them, not even in the face of past declarations. 'Some things are meant for short lifespans.'
Zivora takes to drink. To drown a feeling, mouth to throat from lip of bottle. My, oh my, oh my. The death of Coil is too sobering. While she wets the tongue, Coil is still dry soil and no wiggle.
Java looks down at Coil, wilting, coming slowly to lay on topsoil. Java would give his kingdom away for one more evening.
Homa Coda three ways is removed and the effect of it dissolved. Sad and fickle Homa Coda, so strong head-on, so weak against suffering. Homa Coda gets pissed free of the body. Homa Coda is itself only when acted out. Mass/massless substance.
Their Homa Coda needed a smile to remind them of itself. This body has to have words with this soul. 'This' today and the same 'this' tomorrow.
Java and Zivora end with the death of Coil.
