Burgundy and the Slipping Through Between Sidewalks

I.

My cable knit sweaters are falling apart.

I tried them on this morning, each one individually. They fit like rose petals, smelled like coffee. I sent pictures to my grandmother. I forgot to clip my toenails.

I am defying social norms. That’s what they tell me, at least. I bought picture frames from Kroger. Sample photos are still inside. They shine from condensation, smiles glaring out and I am looking in. One photo is of an orange. Not an orange. A picture of an orange. Kind of like A Picture of Dorian Gray. I have to keep reminding myself of this.

“Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.” Mom mumbles to me, handing out back-scratches and candy corn. But I already know about objects and appearances. The real problem is when I forget to look in the mirror altogether.

My wall is decadent — a sort of gypsy bangle. Also, I stuck a poster of Café Terrace by Gogh on my wall. Cobblestones reflect the light. Reflect the dark.

“That’s wonderful,” I say, chatting to Gogh. Gogh is a character. He would probably wear a lot of large flannel shirts.

“Come on, P,” says my ceiling. “Get a move on,” Linus demands. Linus is my ceiling. He tells me what to do and when to do. He is very rude, because my brother programmed him.

So I get a move on, stuffing my cheeks with chocolate Wilbers. Stuffing my feet with grandma’s socks.

            II.

We are walking down Kamara Lane, the three of us. The three of us and our Ritz crackers. Squirrels all chirping ‘round from the sides, ravenous creatures.

“What kind of oatmeal do you have?” Libby’s neck. Long and thin, peering up at me quizzically.

“Maple and Brown Sugar.”

“Ah, ma-ple,” she says, “Aphid has the variety pack.”

So we all peer at Aphid and she is quiet. Her eyebrows are softer than seawater.

“Here. Eat some Ritz.” I hand out more Ritz to the crew. My hand shakes from the coffee, from the cold. From the general lack of self-control. The general lack of self-examination. 

“We must have an oatmeal-eating-party since we have so much of the damn oatmeal. But first we must eat Ritz,” is my afterthought. An afterthought is a treat. Mostly I withhold them. Crinkled calendars, lacy throws. Brilliant with a bit of luck, tragic in the everyday. Leaping toward the unknown is not always a wise choice. 

My screensaver is sprinkled with daffodils. I have concluded that daffodils have wings.

“You know what’s fun,” I declare, holding up my Ritz. “If you look through the holes in your Ritz to the other side. It’s a whole new world,”

I watch as Libby and Aphid hold a Ritz up to their eyeball.

I titter. “Just kidding. It’s not very different. I just wanted to see ya’ll try it.” So we eat our Ritz and call it good, despite the general aura of mediocrity.

“You know what would be nice?” Libby ponders.

“Apple cider with a lick of whiskey?” I say.

Libby kicks a rock out of the path. “Nope. I’d like a nice cardboard box that says 1-800 Flowers. Someone should send me flowers. I don’t even care who. My mother. . . Rush Limbaugh. . . the damn spaghetti monster. . . .”

“Guys let’s make sweaters! I want to start knitting again! Knitting is like spaghetti!”

“Spaghetti squash!” hollers Aphid.

On this hardly discordant note we arrive at the end of the path, hang our bananas on the hat rack, and stomp into the music frat house. “Hello Val!” who reminds me of a Wallaby. Val is a gem. A gem wearing, jam eating Wallaby.

“What kind of espresso would you like?” asks Val. There is something breathy about the way Val talks. Val’s words wear comfortable clothes.  

“Cappuccino,” I say. Because people always ask for it on film. Film is great for knowing foreign things. We watch films in school, all day long. Then we go home and watch films, and our ceilings tell us about films. This is history.

Which reminds me, I forgot to take my Vitamin Cs today. I usually take two. The bottle says to take one. I also have Gummy-Vites. I am supposed to take two of these, but now I take four. This is what happens when I run out of Nutella. I am a tea drinker now. I am not as nice as most tea drinkers, because when there is a lack of justice I would very much like to grasp that lack. Shake it out. Pour salt-water on it. Thrust it outside for deer to lick.  

I am a not-nice-tea-drinker.

A woman smiles out of one of my sample photos. Such mediocrity. Such cliché. Her right hand is wrapped around an orange mug. I wonder what she is looking at. I have no idea. I would probably be disappointed.

I bet she has tea in that mug. She looks nice enough for tea.

I bet she doesn’t have anything in that mug. I wouldn’t be surprised. She is such a phony.

             

            III.

It is Saturday now. On my way to the music building, I decided I would think of an idea for a novel before I got there. So I walked very slowly. When I got there the doors were locked. I sat down with my computer and started typing. What is a novel but a skewed sort of diary? It’s all subjective, which is scary. I don’t want the doors of the music building to open. I didn’t mean for them to be closed, but by accident I often mean for the worst.

The quandary is finding the correct sidewalk crack for others to slip through. When I was walking it seemed to me that the whole world slid away and there I was, with birdfeeders and rustling wind and the pitter patter of footsteps. My own footsteps.

They are clunky. Not at all similar to the sounds of a clock enveloped in cotton. Not at all true to the constant rhyming of thought. Rather, the sure dropping of acorns from an orange tree. The sound of burgundy. The linking together of two metal rings. Linking rings. 

I always avoid sidewalk cracks. They must go quite deep into the earth. If I look closely enough — if I use the tip of my finger to scrape away dirt, dried leaf, and insect carcass, I perceive a glimmer of the world below.

You know what’s fun? Crushing pine cones. Leaping up into the air and then stomping those puppies until they’re quite popped open and destroyed. Demolished. Decimated. August is really the best month to crush pine cones, but now it’s November and I work with what I’ve got. I peel back the joys of life until I find the center, because life is an onion.

Can I be any happier?

No. This is a good thing. My roommate has made coffee. There is a face on the trunk of my favorite tree. My nails are painted green. My friends are dear and familiar. Coffee — did I mention coffee — is warm in the mug in my hands. The sidewalk sparkles because

The sidewalk doesn’t sparkle. That is just it. I could be quite happier because the sidewalk sparkles in Alaska and the sidewalk does not sparkle in Michigan. In Michigan the sidewalk is dull. The inside of an eggshell, the back of bank receipt. Barren as the prickling of a door mat on the undersides of my bare toes.

Deranged, I sit directly in the center of the sidewalk and mope. Moping is an activity in and of itself. I draw a diagonal line from one corner of the sidewalk to the other, humming because now I am bored of moping. Jhumming with a J in front because the J is silent and my humming sounds like a little kid, perhaps from To Kill a Mockingbird. Usually vibrato hides in my hums, but not today. Today I am a vibrato-less kid. Today I am afraid of the cracks in the sidewalk. Alarmed at the lack of sparkle in the sidewalk. At home, there is a monster under under under the bed and once I leaned over to speak to him and we got to know each other real well and he is not scary at all. Here I haven’t looked under the bed. I’m not brave enough. I must not look under the bed. This monster will not be as nice. I just know.

Sparkling sidewalks and dull sidewalks are quite different, for sure.

I wouldn’t mind visiting or falling into the crystal world of sparkling sidewalks, but dull sidewalks are the film of Hell. Film like the top of a scalding cup of hot cocoa, ruining the whole brew when cocoa has been toasted far too long.