Without thinking, I answer the door. Who is there? The sound of my heart beating. I stare down the hallway in both directions. There is a note at my feet. "Hello. I love you." Who left this? On the back there is nothing. Drip drop. Driiiip. I left the faucet on. I should go back to sleep. Driiiip. That can wait for later. Drop. I fall. I surrender.
In the summer, sunlight hangs off tree leaves like a wet towel. I go against the motor running laps in its sleep like a young dog. Rum chum and chugalug. Days are often silent or perhaps I am mute. I carry too much change in a purse two sizes too small. I eat and deliver fish. Sometimes poached, sometimes smoked. Among the everglades there is movement, or so the papers say. I ask friendly and polite. Never an answer too short. Short on patience. Short on words. Some things like a response, others don't care for impertinence. Permanence is a virtue, they like to believe. However they can find it. Asking is knowing.
Tomorrow at this time, the tea cups will kettle. Black somber soot floating at the bottom. We will share a drink, a toast. To ravioli on rye and other resplendent things. Earrings make the man! Mermaids on bar stools.
In Bartook, some silly nincompoop handlers made off with four dozen or so eggs. They will hatch into prize beasts, of course. None the wiser will they be for it, however.
Sad pity. We came to the beginning when nearing the end. Smoke goes to the slow weasel. Again, we sit and wait. We read homologues aloud, stressing each syllable in stand-offish phrase. However they might press the reviews, no man has seen the show in its entirety. Seventy-five actors and not one has come forth. Simple in its elegance, really.
Back when I was teaching to orphans, I met a man who could whistle on one thumb. He wasn't much tall though. And I dare say he knew the workings of a trash compactor better than the governor himself! All in all, he was a terrible savage. A nasty brute!
Listen, if you ever get up the courage to go sky diving, ask for Winnie. She's the sugarplum with glasses thick as Sunday paper.
