One Page #34

Are you praying for rain little girl? The old woman with the crinkled eyes leaned over the girl in the spotted browning dress. The girl was weeding in her garden of herbs but looking more at the sky than the dirt falling between her fingers. The clouds were filling in, diminishing the blue and darkening the earth. The girl looked up at the old woman with curiosity and a little bit of fear. She had never seen this old woman before, and she hadn’t heard her come up from behind. The woman still bent over the little girl, sending the girls blonde curls into the shade. The girl smiled and said yes, she was praying silently for rain so that she wouldn’t have to water her garden but could let God water it for her. The old woman smiled and said that that was what God did best, water little girls’ gardens. The girl looked confused at this statement, so she went back to her weeding with reinvigorated force flinging unwanted weeds into a pile that grew into a mound and then a small mountain. The old woman stood up straight and the blonde curls danced back into the sun again. The woman looked at the sky and prayed for sun to guide her way home. She was miles from home, and lost with no food or water for many hours. She looked back at the girl whose arms were now covered in dirt. She prayed that the girl would offer her water and she prayed that the girl would stand up and talk to her the way little girls were supposed to. The girl stopped weeding and stood up, but did not look at the old woman and did not offer the old woman water. Instead she brushed off her arms and hands and looked again at the sky. She saw a giraffe parading across the sky with a small mouse in tow, both eating from the trees that leaned in and blocked their path. The blue diminished and disappeared and small drops began to fall. The girl smiled as they plopped onto her cheeks and moistened her lips to a shiny red, washing away the dirt that had clouded her face. The drops came with greater and greater speed and the girl twirled around a few times before waving and running up the front path and inside her door. The old woman stood and watched the girl disappear. Then she knelt next to the pile of weeds and systematically replanted each and every unwanted green stalk until the garden looked as it had when the old woman first arrived behind the little girl. The woman patted down the dirt, got up and brushed her hands off, and continued on down the sidewalk, humming an old tune. Her belly was full and her lips were saturated. Around the corner she came to her home and inside she found rest and silence. The little girl heard thunder and saw great flashes of lightning. Her cat purred at her feet. Tomorrow she would plant tomatoes.

One Page #33

The color of sleep was a silent S in red. It was splattered against the wall in random polka dots dancing with graceful feet and angular arms. Red curls flashed wildly. The only meaning I could decipher was an encoded inscription of a passage from Deuteronomy in verses that were numbered backwards. I wasn’t sure where to begin. When she looked at me through the pane of the glass window divided into seventy-seven panes of awkward sizes her eyes were huge and her eyebrows arched. She held up a book up, but the division of glass blurred the title and I had to squint and move my eyes around to focus on each letter spelling a word that was so long I didn’t think it possible. I read one letter after the next and the list continued on like marching soldiers through the misty swamps up to their necks in murky water so warm from the sun that sent spirals of light through the water that lapped around their collars so stiff but wilting from the dampness. I never got the title of the book and her face disappeared from the pane that had distorted her face into a microcosm of worlds each flesh toned but flushed and synonymous with pain. I winced. And turned around and walked away from the splintered panes. I heard a man singing and banging on a bucket, but I couldn’t see him. He must have been around the corner where the shadows danced and the trees bent low nearly to the pavement. His voice resonated and echoed and I recognized the tune until he changed it and I couldn’t hum along anymore because it was strange and disharmonious. My pants felt heavy on my hips and my shoes scuffed unnecessarily on the ground. I found a shell, a perfect circle, in the middle of my walk. It sat there effortlessly until I disturbed its rest by removing it from the ground and holding it in my palm so close to my eyes that my eyelashes almost touched the soft shell speckled with grays. In one exhalation it turned to dust and blew away down the street swirling in the gutters and falling into hair curls and book bags. It was gone so quickly I thought I had imagined it and I put my hand into my pocket to keep it safe, just in case it reached again for something that didn’t exist. A light flashed ahead and lightning flashed through the sky and rain began to fall just as I reached my red door the color of sleep with a lion’s head knocker so regal and shining bronze. My groceries felt heavy in my arms and the sun disappeared behind a black cloud that sent the street into instant night with no stars and only storms on the way. The air was chill and I thought of peppermint tea and a slice of lemon. But I had no lemons and only had chamomile tea, so I figured I would have to sleep soon, the color of red.

One Page #32

I wonder how many people put their hands together in prayer every day. I wonder why people clasp hands, or put their palms together. Maybe it is to still the hands. In a dark room a woman in black clasped her hands together, knuckles white and tense, arms shaking. Looking to the sky in desperation. If lightning struck her down right now. If the floor fell out from underneath her. If a window shattered sending shards into her open eyes. But none of these happened and I watched her from where I stood deep in the shadows where the darkness covered up my slow breath. Her eyes pleaded. I wondered what she was praying for. I didn’t know her. I had never seen her before. The lines on her face showed long times of stress, worry. My brow wrinkled. I wondered why she worried. I thought about the row of rooms, all stone lined up and down the hall, where other women in black kneeled in reverence. Did they all have worry lines? A bell tolled many miles away. It was eleven o’clock and the night was only getting darker. I leaned quietly against the stone wall, so cold against my back, so unfamiliar in texture. I doubted anyone had ever leaned her before, the stone felt virgin of human contact, unaccustomed to the heat and rhythmic breathing. Lightning struck. The floor fell. A window shattered. The woman in black did not move, still looking at the sky as the roof caved in and she had a clear view of the stars. The walls collapsed around us, and instantly disintegrated into the earth. Her arms still shook slightly and her knuckles tensed whiter. I had no where to lean and nearly fell over. I steadied myself and stood with my arms crossed over my chest still watching. The woman didn’t seem surprised and the change in her environment. Now she kneeled in the night, surrounded only by the blanket of darkness and the winking of stars above. Her eyes closed a moment and when she opened them she glanced briefly at me, but seemed to be expecting my presence. Her eyes stayed on mine, and her gaze was calm but sad. I wanted to move toward her but could not lift my feet. I unclasped my arms from across my chest and held my hands at my side. Her arms still shook, but mine just rested, motionless. She slowly rose, her eyes still on mine, and came towards me. The woman in black stood before me and the breeze that lifted through the valley caught our hair and blew it in circles, mingling her blonde curls with mine. I smiled at her. She just looked. It was her turn to study my face. I swallowed. I tried to reach out for her but her body was not there. She nodded at me and I understood her worry lines that creased her face. She smiled. I lowered my arms. And smiled back.

One Page #31

A lobsterman in worn yellow rubber coveralls walked down the pier towards his boat. The sun had not yet risen and the waters were calm, reflecting the moon that danced in the ripples. The stars still shone above and he looked up once, staring, as if he had never really looked at the sky before. He steadied himself with one hand against a weatherworn pole that had withstood many storms, floods, hurricanes, and seagulls. He heard a few other men preparing their boats, pulling lines, rearranging nets. And then silence. The lobsterman walked to the end of the pier and sat on the edge with his legs dangling over. This he had never done either. He saw his boat a hundred feet away, floating, waiting, bobbing gently up and down. But he did not move towards it. He could feel the oars of this dinghy in his hands so rough from rowing and hauling and shelling. He lifted one hand to his face and felt the salt-laden beard dripping with the early morning fog so damp against his skin and pooling in droplets on the folds of his coveralls. He rubbed his eyes, blinked, and looked again out to sea. He could see the open ocean beyond the cove and the small scattered islands and the lighthouse that stood white in the moonlight. The lobsterman breathed in and out slowly, savoring the salt air, and wondered why. His father was dead and lay in his grave a mile away and six feet down. His father had been buried wrapped in a fishing net. He smelled like rotten fish and warm salt air. He smelled like the ocean. The lobsterman had inherited his father’s boat. He had grown up on its decks, and sailed around the islands thousands of times, every morning before the sun rose. But he had never wondered why. His friends were lobsterman, and his friend’s wives were friends with his wife, and they all smelled like the ocean, the salt so deeply imbedded in the wrinkles of their skin and soaked behind their eyes and in every strand of their hair. He didn’t think that any of them wondered why. It just was. The boats came in and out with the tide and he knew the moon’s reflection better than the shadows cast by the sun and the ring on his finger turned green with the constant dunking into the sea. The lobsterman flicked an abandoned mussel shell into the gently waves and it floated a moment bobbing up and down before sinking and disappearing into the green. The weatherman said it would rain today. He looked up and saw the beginnings of clouds forming. He wondered whether the clouds were salty too. The lobsterman stood up and took off his yellow coveralls and removed the green rubber boots. He padded back down the pier in his thick wool socks and walked home to his bed and his wife.

One Page #30

I am not quite clear. The shadow passed through my arm, not over my arm. It felt cold and sent a chill up to my shoulder. I looked back, thinking I might see what it was. But it was gone. I was in shadow. The trees were dripping on my head, falling through my body to the ground where they puddle and spread out and away as if scared of being to close to my feet. My feet were rooted far into the ground below the gravel and the dirt and the dark dampness far below. The cold traveled up and met my heart and my head and forced my eyes closed. My fingers were unsteady, shaking a bit. When someone walked by, so purposeful and determined, she didn’t seem me even though she passed inches away from my rooted body. Her eyes were focused forward only, glancing occasionally at the ground to make sure that she didn’t misstep. I thought maybe she would trip and fall into me so that I could see whether she would fall through me or into my chest hands first. But she didn’t trip or fall into me, but passed by arms swinging. I bird overhead watched her as well, maybe hoping for a spare crumb from the bagel in her hand, or maybe protecting a nest in the branches far above. Neither of us moved as she walked by, and soon she had disappeared out from under the line of trees and into the sun. A small child toddled along near me, poked my knee, and wandered on. Her finger met my pant leg and I felt the pressure on my kneecap and into the bones and tendons like a quick shock to my nerves. My nerves. I was shaking. The child hid behind a tree and peaked out to look at me once before disappearing again. The mother raced by. I knew she was the mother because the child, even though she was only a couple of years old, looked exactly like the mother. It was in the eyes. The mother didn’t see me and nearly passed over me. But she didn’t notice, arms flailing, looking for her girl in the polka dot dress holding a worn brown teddy so scruffy and soft. I was shaking. My feet were rooted. The cobblestones rumbled. A truck passed and then all was quiet again. Leaves fluttered down from the trees, silently, like ghosts falling to the ground and settling. With a gust of wind they lifted and swirled around my legs and then out into the street. They passed through me. Only the child with the brown teddy had seen me, touched me, looked back as if to make sure I was still there, to make sure I was real. I was real. And I was shaking. The air was perfumed with fall as if the leaves took on a scent when they turned from green to red or orange or brown. The air brushed against my cheek as if it were a hand caressing. I was still shaking.

One Page #29

Shamed into the salt flats that radiated gold and blue like a thorn in my side so sharp. Sun fades and my arms are cold. Belly sticking out and falls into the sea carried away by the waves on whales backs and fishy brine. Sea eagles circle overhead cawing to the fish below as a warning so useless. Rocks protrude from the waves angled pointy to the sky providing perches for the gulls and sea lions that don’t get along and bark at each other mouths wide open catching the salt air on their tongues and deep into their throats. Pastures of blue waves turning gray and green with white caps blowing like wheat dancing in the wind. Spry kites. Rainbows against the sky so gray now with the coming storm. Clouds reaching high into heaven standing so tall and proud bringing darkness like a blanket in behind them. Blanket ripples. Sends me into shadow. Goosebumps leaping. Hairs on end bristling. You walk up behind me and your faint shadow merges with mine. Arms around. Skin settles and smoothes. Our shadow disappears with the darkening sky. We back away from the waves that tickle our toes. Waves crying out in urgency. Seals and gulls disappear, falling into the sea, leaping into the sky and away like specks then gone. We stand like a rock into the wind impenetrable. Skin like bark reflecting the weather. Clouds cover the blue and sea turns to gray almost black with white foaming in anger. Boiling. We turn to leave arms still wrapped around each other, our chests sheltered from the wind. Our shoulders taking it all in, hair flapping. We fall in the sand that blows and stings our ankles. With a glance we run through dried seaweed and hollow crab shells empty and abandoned. I don’t know what a palindrome is. But the saints are knocking around in my skull wanting in. And there is a crow slowly eating my eyes out. If I grew horns I would wear a crown so that you would never know. And it would be decorated with rubies and sapphires and sharp as a knife in case I needed protection. The moon reflects off the gold. It is so shinny that if I held the crown in my hands I could see whether there was anything in my teeth, even in the moonlight. But I won’t take it off my head. Otherwise you might see my horns. And run away. Scared. Because the wind is picking up and the sea is rolling and we haven’t reached the house yet but I see it up ahead coming closer. The rain has started and it has soaked through my shirt. My goosebumps are back. Ten more steps and we grab hands to hold each other down and we reach the screen door that bangs several times as we race through. Thunder is grumbling now with my tummy rumbling and I towel off, and towel you off, and we shiver together.

One Page #28

Are you praying for rain little girl? The old woman with the crinkled eyes leaned over the girl in the spotted browning dress. The girl was weeding in her garden of herbs but looking more at the sky than the dirt falling between her fingers. The clouds were filling in, diminishing the blue and darkening the earth. The girl looked up at the old woman with curiosity and a little bit of fear. She had never seen this old woman before, and she hadn’t heard her come up from behind. The woman still bent over the little girl, sending the girls blonde curls into the shade. The girl smiled and said yes, she was praying silently for rain so that she wouldn’t have to water her garden but could let God water it for her. The old woman smiled and said that that was what God did best, water little girls’ gardens. The girl looked confused at this statement, so she went back to her weeding with reinvigorated force flinging unwanted weeds into a pile that grew into a mound and then a small mountain. The old woman stood up straight and the blonde curls danced back into the sun again. The woman looked at the sky and prayed for sun to guide her way home. She was miles from home, and lost with no food or water for many hours. She looked back at the girl whose arms were now covered in dirt. She prayed that the girl would offer her water and she prayed that the girl would stand up and talk to her the way little girls were supposed to. The girl stopped weeding and stood up, but did not look at the old woman and did not offer the old woman water. Instead she brushed off her arms and hands and looked again at the sky. She saw a giraffe parading across the sky with a small mouse in tow, both eating from the trees that leaned in and blocked their path. The blue diminished and disappeared and small drops began to fall. The girl smiled as they plopped onto her cheeks and moistened her lips to a shiny red, washing away the dirt that had clouded her face. The drops came with greater and greater speed and the girl twirled around a few times before waving and running up the front path and inside her door. The old woman stood and watched the girl disappear. Then she knelt next to the pile of weeds and systematically replanted each and every unwanted green stalk until the garden looked as it had when the old woman first arrived behind the little girl. The woman patted down the dirt, got up and brushed her hands off, and continued on down the sidewalk, humming an old tune. Her belly was full and her lips were saturated. Around the corner she came to her home and inside she found rest and silence. The little girl heard thunder and saw great flashes of lightning. Her cat purred at her feet. Tomorrow she would plant tomatoes.

One Page #27

The woman knelt at her bedside with her eyes squeezed shut and her hands clasped before her and resting on the soft flannel of her bed sheets. Her knees hurt from kneeling, but her devotions muted her pain. She spoke the same words over and over again in a low whisper, nearly silent so as not to wake her sister who lay sleeping on the other side of the bed. There was one candle that remained lit on the bedside table, and the woman could see it flickering behind her eyelids. She imagined the shadows dancing ravenously across the walls in the breeze that blew in through the open window. She had been praying for many long minutes, waiting for a sense of God, and connection, a feeling in her chest that she always felt when she prayed for long enough. But it hadn’t come yet and she momentarily worried that she would never feel it again. Her sister snored lightly. The woman tried to clear her mind, but she was distracted by the heavy beat of a bass coming from the house next door. She found her head was nodding in time with the beat and she immediately stilled it. Her hands were sweating and her knees ached into her thighs and calves. She winced in pain and her sister turned over in her sleep, facing her now. Her light breathing rhythmically fluttered the hair that fell over her face. The woman took a deep breath and focused all of her attention on her prayer. She was praying for guidance. She hadn’t prayed in about thirteen years, ever since he mother was killed while crossing the street. The woman had cried and screamed and raged against the walls, but never prayed. Eventually the pain of her loss began to dull. But now she didn’t know what else to do. She felt utterly scattered and confused. Her sister still attended the Episcopal church of their youth. But the woman despised the people there and had long since ceased going. Now she yearned. She was not sure what for. Her cat padded in through the open doorway and nudged into her side and her knees and her back, wanting to be pet. The bell around her neck jingled softly. Then there was silence. The breeze had stopped and her cat had lain down, and her sister had paused in her night travels. All was quiet. She heard from far above her the strain of a high voice, following one note and holding, suspended. The woman’s head raised, her eyes still closed, but relaxed. The note continued. Everything else disappeared. And then all was silent again. The woman’s chest felt lighter, like it had risen far above her body and held there with the note, suspended. Her clasped hands relaxed, and her knees no longer ached. Her sister turned over and the jingle of her cat’s bell faded into the other room. Rest.

One Page #26

She called herself Myrtle and she looked at me and laughed, spit flying into my face and resting in shiny pearls on my nose and cheeks. She turned away from me, and I was relieved because the look in her eye was dangerous. I knew she was about to propose something to me, and it would be something that I didn’t want to do. It always was. The light was fading as we stood on the beach. We had moved away from the water because the waves lapping against our feet sprung goose bumps on our arms and shivers along my spine. We were nearly warmed by the sun now, which had turned a crystal yellow orange surrounded by rays of red and deepening purple. My feet were dry now and my hands were deep in my pockets as I faced Myrtle’s back. Her neck was unusually long, and I always thought about this when I looked at her back. There was nothing else extraordinary about Myrtle, except for her neck. I had once touched it and she had looked me coldly in the eye. I never went near her again, even though sometimes I thought that she wanted me to. But only as a dare. I turned my back on her and looked towards the mountains in the distance that were rimmed in fog. I could see the first of the stars appearing. From behind I heard Myrtle turn around and then felt her hand on my shoulder. I spun around unnecessarily quickly and looked at her. Her eyes were soft and her mouth slightly open. A plane flew far overhead. It whispered a rumble in my ear. Myrtle’s hand was still on my shoulder and we were closer than we had ever really been. Sometimes when we went to scary movies she would grab my hand in fright, but we weren’t close then; her reach was only out of necessity. But now something had changed. The red light reflected in her eyes and glinted off her stud earrings. Through her tank top I could see her chest rise and fall with her breathing, but I didn’t look down, I only looked straight into her eyes. She looked away first and headed toward the pier from where we had come. There were kids and old men fishing off the pier, but they looked bored and tired, even from far off. I waited a moment and then followed her. We didn’t walk next to each other the whole way back. At the pier she hopped up the stairs and headed home without saying goodbye. My house was in the other direction. I felt like I had failed a test that I hadn’t signed up for. It was more of a pop quiz really, sprung upon me unknowingly. And I had failed. I wondered what the consequences would be, if I would fail the course or still be able to get an A later on if I worked hard enough. Myrtle wasn’t her real name, it was really Rose. But she was not a flower in my eyes.

One Page #25

Patrick looked out the kitchen window at the waves that crashed dramatically on the beach below. Rain was splashing against the windowpanes making pink pink sounds as if it were hail. But I was unseasonably warm out for spring and it felt more like an August thunderstorm. The wind was fierce and the petals were blowing off of the newly opened daffodils and Patrick knew that his mom would be upset when she went outside the next morning. His parents had already gone upstairs for bed and his sister was long asleep in her crib at their bedside. He was alone downstairs. The lights were mostly off except for one leading up the stairs and he leaned against the kitchen window wondering how strong the wind would have to be to shatter the glass and carry him away, across the ocean, to a new land. He would ride the wind faster than his bicycle would carry him, and even faster than the family’s station wagon would carry him. He would fly faster than he had every gone before and arrive at this new land to discover faeries and unicorns and dragonflies the size of his arm. But the wind wasn’t strong enough and the glass panes held their weight and he could only watch the storm rumble across the sky, leaving streaks of lightening it its wake and blowing sand from the beach across the road. Tomorrow he knew their car would sputter against the sands resistance and he could already hear the crunch of shells and pebbles beneath the tires. He always planned the night of storms to get up early the next morning and see the wreckage before anyone else was up, but he never did. Sleep held him captive. He hoped that this storm would bring in a pirate ship that would anchor itself off the shore and send rowboats to the beach. Pirate would pillage the town, wreak havoc among the neighbors, and meet Patrick, shake his hand, and haul him off into their rowboat and out to sea where he would live among the scraggily fellows who stole their food and gold and sent shivers up the spines of all the people in all the land. He would wear a bandana over his head and a black and white stripped shirt and he would say ‘ello matey with a casual but threatening voice. But he didn’t see any pirate ships. He heard the foghorn from the point just south of his house and around a few corners and inlets. But it was dulled by the crashing waves and the rain pounding the roof. He opened the window just wide enough to stick his head out and soak up the rain, he hair laying limp and plastered against his forehead and face was drenched with the skies tears that tasted salty just like his own. After a moment he retreated back inside and knew his mother would be upset with the wet kitchen floor.

One Page #24

Their home was powered by brilliant blue sails that puffed into the wind and blew them out across the seas toward the new world unexplored and uncharted. New waters promised new hope that would carry them into the newly unexpected. Turnips and porcupines and scratched porcelain bowls and shards of glass in blues and greens and browns littered the deck that was shaded by the billowing sail but speckled with light that bounced off the glass lanterns that swung back and forth, back and forth. One misstep led to a spill into the silky black waters and so they walked carefully down the deck, holding the railing that had splinters that broke off and stuck into the fingertips. The waves were lapping gently against the walls that had circular portholes and pictures of trains and forests and long winding staircases. The air was smoky from the grill that cooked dinner, fish they had caught earlier. They saw a dolphin leap through the air and a school of sardines race by as one unit, so comfortable together but strangers to each other. The sky was fading into purple and orange and the sails caught the light and trembled in the breeze. The mast creaked and the floors creaked and tilted gently from side to side. They flopped about in their sandals; flip flop against the polished deck. Their cat crawled sneakily around the open door that swung in the breeze, hinges also creaking, door rocking methodically. They saw seagulls cawing and ravens leftover from dreams years ago and a saber tooth tiger and even a Viking with a pointed-horned hat and silver chest plates that caught the glint of the sun that was just disappearing under the horizon, sinking so liquidly into a melted puddle of colors mingling. They saw cliffs, but only in their imaginations, dreaming of land and solidarity and trees that shaded them from the brightness, and beaches that left sand in every crevice of their bodies and bananas ripe and falling from the trees into their laps where bowls of yogurt sat just waiting for the tender fruit so sweet, almost caramelized from the sun. But land was many miles behind them and in front, since they were always moving forward, there was only water littered with sparkling diamonds and bubbles of white in the choppy air. Shorts were to revealing now and hats were no longer needed and they settled into the cabin with goblets of brandy because that was all they had left and they ate grilled fish, picking out the bones from between their teeth and crackers that were soggy and limp and no longer crunched but smooshed. One smelled lavender and the other smelled chamomile and they both thought of bricks piled into walls and roofs that housed chimneys with smoke billowing.

One Page #23

Paula screamed at the girl across the counter, and then blushed and felt terrible. She apologized over and over again, saying she didn’t know what came over her. But she knew. She just pretended to herself and everyone else that she didn’t. It had been a long week and most things had gone badly and the sky felt black and like it was pressing down on her from above like God laying his great hand on her head and squishing her into the floor. She didn’t believe in God, but that was what it felt like anyway. If Paula did believe in God, it wouldn’t be a man, and he wouldn’t have a hand, and he wouldn’t be squishing her but lifting her up, giving her a hand and a moment of forgiveness. But in this moment all she felt was a great weight and all she saw was a dimming world that glimmered and faded into her skull so thick with mothballs and smelling of salt. The girl across the counter looked at her wide-eyed, not knowing what to make of the crazy screaming and the raging fists and the trembling hairs on the top of the woman’s head. Paula wanted to faint, only for a moment of relief, a pause that would allow her to think and let go and possibly shed the weight that burdened her. She thought of cacti in the desert and she thought of paper bags that crumpled and she thought of lentil stew simmering on the stove with tomatoes and herbs and onions. She looked at the woman behind the counter, blushed more deeply, and stepped out of line and headed for the door. People stared at her and a little girl in a pink tutu reached out a hand towards her and a dog watched her with woeful eyes through the front door. The dog moved when she opened the door, standing aside as if afraid, and she felt the sun hit her face with a force that almost made her take a step back, but she moved forward and closed her eyes a moment as she walked. When she opened them she was free of the stares and the pitying glances and the embarrassment and she looked for a way out. She wanted root beer, and a wedge of lime, and a strong shot or two of tequila, even though she didn’t drink any longer and hadn’t for years. It interfered with her medication. She fingered the small oval orange pills in her pocket that she brought with her everywhere in case she needed them. She took one now, swallowing without water. She thought of the time she had been caught in a rainstorm far from home and the orange pills in her pocket had disintegrated and stained her shorts orange. She had needed one then, but they were gone and she wondered if she sucked at her shorts pockets whether she would get any of the relief the pills offered or whether she would only end up with a mouthful of fuzz and lint.

One Page #22

He aligned his book so that the sun slanted diagonally across the page. It was so bright that he could only read the shaded side of the page but reading those words, half cut off and mottled, he was reading a poem of mismatched and undirected phrases. Cassandra was jumping through red hoops of fallen leaves towards Bethlehem that was divided by lightning in the early morning sky of purple shirts and olives soaked in oil and sage. He closed the book and rested it between his chest and his arms, which he crossed over the book, clasping his elbows against the chill that was settling into the air after the storm that had raced through the night, rattling the windows and soaking the chair, which he had forgotten to bring in from his front porch. It was sunny now but clouds still passed meanderingly overhead sending him into shade and then sun and then shade again. When the sun didn’t reappear he took his book inside and put water on for tea. The light was dulling and lazy and when he opened the window that had been shut tightly to keep the rain out he smelled the gardenias and rosehips that were splashed across the side yard between his house and his neighbor’s house. Their house had just been painted a shocking pink with yellow trim and he had closed his blinds for the first few days as the paint dried to shelter his eyes from the glare that bounced off the nearly florescent walls. But he had slowly grown used to the pink and even liked the yellow trim so his shades stayed open now and he watered his plants by leaning out the window. Sometimes his neighbor Ron leaned out his window and they chatted about the weather or the Red Sox game (even though neither watched the games, the just read the newspaper and pretended that they had because that is what men were supposed to do). But today Ron wasn’t around and his plants didn’t need watering and the teakettle was boiling into a piercing whistle that brought him away from the window and into the kitchen for his tea. He had given up drinking coffee the week before and was still suffering the headaches that tea didn’t abate, and he missed the smell of the brew early in the morning that filtered through the house and made it feel like a home instead of just three rooms that he resided in. He poured the water over the mint teabag and the scent permeated the air around him and he thought briefly of England where he had lived years ago in the countryside and grown a selection of mint plants for no reason aside from the fact that he loved the scent. He drank coffee then and never made mint tea, but gave away the leaves to friends that did. Now he missed those plants, and the rosehips were no replacement.