Athlete with Barbell

There’s someone at her window. La Betty stared at the pane just as she stares at any screen. She then glanced quickly at the screen in her hand, gauging the relative allure of the figure in the window compared to a Fendi pink python purse on www.BagTrend.com. The tiny figure at the window was standing so very still. He was a miniature strongman, holding his barbells with familiarity and respect. The strongman was floating 105 meters above the street, perfectly visible outside the clean condo window on the thirtieth floor. He was more than half naked in red boxer shorts. Neither cell phone nor wallet bulged in his pockets. His boxer shorts had no pockets. He was barefoot. His skin was as smooth as a peeled mango. Then, as if the strongman was being Photoshopped, the colours of his body, boxer shorts and bar bells began intensifying till they glistened like jelly beans.

The strongman was ogling the big crimson patent leather camellia stuck on the pink python bag. “Not cool,” said La Betty, but she wasn’t referring to the strongman’s gaze. La Betty was referring to the red boxer trunks, adding, “No price tag no value.”

Lowering her gaze La Betty scrolled quickly through

• Grey Saint Laurent Sac de Jour Nano $1,475.
• Hermès Blue Saint Cyr Cleménce Evelyne TPM $3,100.
• Grey Monogram Vernis Louis Vuitton Alma BB $995.
• Micro Fendi Peekaboo $993

Presuming the itsy-bitsy strongman in the window could be intimidated, La Betty insulted him, “You are cheesier than a knock-off.” In her most persuasive voice she recited a righteous incantation,

The ultimate driving machine Melts in your mouth not in your hand I’m lovin’ it zoom zoom It’s the real thing snap crackle pop Say it with flowers stronger than dirt Just do it finger lickin’ good.

La Betty’s psyche was a treasure house of slogans, jingles and ad copy. La Betty could not stomach phantom troublemakers like this weight lifter, the impudent entities who tempted her away from The Good Life. Whenever she was invaded by hostile ideologies La Betty recited commercial catch phrases, the mantras of consumerism. La Betty had every faith that these would thwart the enemy.

La Betty knew that sooner or later the anti-materialist entity might reappear, often quite vaporous. Predictably the vapour’s shape would change, often into something La Betty considered nonsense, such as an ancient scroll like The Pyramid Papyrus, or take shape as a cuneiform tablet. The vapour could transform itself into the jerboa hieroglyph, Shang Dynasty oracle bone or the letter Q in Carolingian miniscule. There is no grasping intangible visions. Someone other than La Betty might be able to decipher them, if only they didn’t change so quickly. Fortunately the sound of La Betty’s hiss would ordinarily cause intangible visions to wrinkle and whither like dry autumn leaves. If so La Betty could just pucker her lips and blow; her condo’s Febrezified air would be restored, and La Betty would resume her indulgence, for example, reading BagTrends aloud slowly. This time to her satisfaction La Betty detected a potent spell in the BagTrend list:

Sac de jewel Blue Saint confit Plush Peekaboo 993.

Not even this spell could disintegrate the strongman at the window. La Betty glared at him. She scowled. She was very irritated. In a gesture of defiance La Betty reapplied her cobalt blue lipstick. “Embodiment, flexibility, a centre of gravity,” the strongman said. “Weight lifting is a humble praxis.”

“Praxis?” La Betty pondered silently. Was Praxis a brand name?

Now the wee strongman’s face became warmer, as if, after all, it was cookie dough. “Come with me to the Main Street ‘Y’ and you will discover everything in between your mind and your body.”

“Sac de jewel… Blue Saint confit… Plush Peekaboo… 993,” spoke La Betty with a slight growl in her voice. The bizarre little strongman’s invitation held no attraction for La Betty. She emphasized this with a tantrum, pitching a pair of Caroline Groves bespoke Blue Lace Chalcedon high heels at the window.

The half-naked strongman twirled his barbell so swiftly it became a toy propeller. The strongman’s tar-black hair responded by tightening, and beside every curl between the swirls, so many pearls as if it was composing a rhyme. The curls formed a cursive script, a French song perhaps, or maybe a Danish recipe. The strongman’s eyes turned white as golf balls. “You will regret this,” the strongman said.

“I’m not listening,” La Betty answered in a childish lilt.