“Keep the fire hot for me,” says Grace before she leaves. “Keep it lit. I’ll be back.”
There’s enough wood on the pile for five days; Teviot makes it last nine. On the tenth day he burns his chair, then the table. On the fifteenth he burns their only book.
On the eighteenth he burns his blankets, then his sweater and socks. On the twenty-first he burns hair and fingernail clippings. On the twenty-second he burns the last matches. He burns their dust, and their memory.
He burns air. He burns hunger.
On the thirtieth day he burns hope, blue-hot, white-quick.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Peony rocks onto his heels, knees spread a little, feet pointed. He lets his back sag.
He finds the first knuckle on each of his thumbs, the ones that are almost part of his palm, and presses them to his eyes. The back side, the softer part. He touches the pads of his fingers and bows his head.
This is how he is praying–not for luck or protection, but for revelation. I have shuttered my sight, he is saying; lend me Yours. Trade me, for these few seconds, vision for Vision. Eyes for Eyes.
Orange on black, the patterns begin.
“School shooting! Three and eleven!” Homer calls off the tape. The floor explodes.
“Gimme two points!”
“Six! Family in the area!”
“Two and one!”
“Six in two, teacher’s union!”
“A dime!”
Homer’s busy tossing out chips, but he shoots a skeptical look toward that one.
“I know a victim. ‘S parent,” she says defensively.
“Downed or dead?”
“… Downed.”
He rolls his eyes and throws her six.
“Three on three!”
“Twos! All the twos you’ve got!”
“All right, all right.” Homer shoves out the last points and grabs fresh ticker. “We got a mudslide in Chile, sixty-three and rising!”
Somebody coughs.
Melroy reaches too hard for the sage and spills the pepper demons. His eyes go wide. He grabs the hammer and aims for the big groups first. This is unkind to the countertop, but Melroy has to hurry!
He breathes through his shirt; he’d cover his whole face if he could, because pepper demons are made of the capsaicin they use in Hell (for bloggers). Eventually he drops the ballpeen and goes at them flat-handed. It’s like swatting gnats, until one of them manages to point its tiny pitchfork straight up.
“Redacted!” grunts Melroy, and sticks his finger in his mouth–
“Resist or die!” Fortado bellows as he opens the door through the window.
“Sounds good!” says the burly man inside. “Where do I–”
Fortado fills him with lead.
“Resist or die!” he roars, as he and the squad burst into the hovel.
“We surrender!” gasps the young mother, holding her triplets.
Fortado fills them with lead.
“Resist or dNGH!” Old Alberto sticks out his cane, and Fortado goes down. The Kalashnikov spins away; Alberto snatches it.
“Never!” he creaks.
“Okay!” The squad’s laughing, and Fortado chuckles as he sits up. “You got it ri–”
Alberto fills them with lead.
Her 2001 taxes go into the shredder. Frozen walnuts hit the trash, then some old panties, that free clipboard, stained mugs. Everything she’ll never use is jetsam now.
Aldi builds speed as she goes; she’s learning the rhythm of rejection, how to set its acceleration. That jacket. This book. Those markers.
Bag after bag she empties out the old apartment, thinking of scramjets. They have such frantic names. Get one going fast enough and all it needs is air to sustain the burn, and that’s what she wants–that deep urgent glory within her, escape velocity, a skywise blaze away west.
“Be advised Assistant Principal Mailer is on intercept course,” buzzes the little voice. Staley pops her gum one more time and flicks it under a water fountain just as Mailer turns the corner, oblivious. She grins.
“Be advised the intersection ahead was recently mopped. Be advised Andrew Khoi is no longer within fifty meters of your position.”
Finally, she thinks, and stops to open her compact. “Be advised that your facial makeup is excessive.”
Staley growls and flicks the Wingit, hard, and of course hurts her own ear.
“Be advised that you are smarter than that, young lady,” it says primly.
“Love is a coat that you wear,” says Micah to himself. “Hunger is ice on your fingers.”
“Love is… waking her up with a kiss!” burbles the refrigerator magnet.
“No, refrigerator magnet,” says Micah. “That’s contentment.”
“Love is the sound of food on the water!” says the goldfish.
“No, goldfish,” says Micah. “That’s hunger.”
“What is?” says the goldfish.
“Love is how I can forget like you can,” says Micah sadly. “It’s how it grows back, green up through ash.”
“Love is hunger,” says the goldfish.
Micah opens his mouth, then shuts it, considering.
Then he opens it. Then shuts it.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Chubby girls don’t get promoted, so Sherry eats yogurt, when she eats. She wears tight shirts (her abs are still good!). She wears loose pants (her thighs).
Pretty girls don’t ride the subway, so Sherry spends lunch money on taxi rides. Sometimes she’ll take a taxi two or three blocks. They’re so easy to catch.
Nice girls don’t put that there, so Sherry keeps her hands under her pillow, even when it’s lonely and dark and he is so, so far away.
When she stops needing tampons, a couple months later, she’s glad. Her body understands, finally. It wants to help.