Skip to main content

Bellboy

Bellboy

Susan and her unremarkable friend—visitors from there, here. Ambitious adventurers in the form of light lock hair and paper cup, plastic lid. Listless wanderers collecting silver leaves, collecting unopened maps and chamomile teas. They curve in the wind like crescent moons.
            Susan’s friend points, her pointing finger poking at least one hole in the air. “Look there, Susan—under the pine—there’s the bellboy.”
            He’s shut-eyed and chapped-lipped, conifer cones clinging to his cloak. He came over from the metro but belongs here where glow-in-the-dark stars fade and fall from the ceiling onto the backs of his dusty eyelids. His shoes are dusty too, from places he cannot go or come from—the golden graham coast, the orchard, the whole lot of life uncontained in a capsule.  
            Dust is elegant.

In the earliest and whitest of lily robe dawns, Bellboy sets out a vat of crystal water. He carries apple orchards on his back and hoists lighthouses under his eyebrows. He stands straight and solitary, stomping outside in the largest, dustiest storm puddle . . . . wiping down weathered shoes with rainwater. 
    



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pulitzer

I. I am reading a children’s book called Hamish and Trieta , in which Hamish is a cow and Trieta is a bird. These two become fast friends. Good pals. Buddies. Sometimes the bird sits upon the cow’s back. Often the cow wishes he might sit upon the bird’s back, but of course this is impossible. The poor darling bird simply flits away, c hirping, chirping, always chirping, full of nonsense, not explaining. They fall apart, like many others in this fickle universe. Separated. I close Hamish and Trieta . What a hideous story. I was seduced by its whimsical cover, entranced by its gilded pages. Mother bought it for me ages ago from some downtown bookstore with cerulean walls.  Pulitzer, declares the cover, in golden script. I do not understand what a Pulitzer is and I do not particularly care.             I am a child, yet I know that horrid things do not deserve Pulitzer awards. Rage, like vomit, pools in my throat. ...
1 comment
Read more

Which is why they have sailed

I. It’s strange for Claudia, who has never been boating before, to live in a boat. Its name is Arden.             “Why do we live in a boat if we never go boating anywhere?” Claudia once asked her father. Her parents are both short, so at least they fit under the snug roof. Claudia won’t be short, but for now she is. “Bah,” Her father says, “We’re always going somewhere. Just think of Attila the Hun.” She always thought that comment did not make sense. He flips an egg on the stove, “Just use your imagination.” If you walk by you can see how charming the Arden is—look at that little window with Claudia’s father frying eggs. Look at his kind face with his curly, white-haired head too-big-for-a-hat. He is moving back and forth in a kind kitchen, with a miniature flowerpot on the windowsill. These are clay flowers—they keep on living even if they have been forgotten (except that Claudia broke one of the pedals recently, o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Each other

  I. Orange juice. We used it as a kind of cure for insanity. Greg made it in the morning and then we would all run off to our prospective studios, and sit there in our prospective studios and know that we could hear the air conditioning and that we could taste our tongue in our mouth and that we worshiped all the things. Mostly ourselves. “We should form a jazz group,” Greg said in the morning the other day, and yes, yes Greg we should form a jazz group YES WE SHOULD FORM A JAZZ GROUP TOM. But who has time for that? “Yes,” we said, especially the girl with the very curly very short hair who made me think of the word “very.” I hated her. Jiminy just did not respond to the suggestion about the jazz group because we knew he would be too busy in the graphic design studio doing whatever the hell they do in there, especially being genuine which was something that other people did not do was “be genuine,” and then also drinking snickerdoodle flavored black coffee. ...
Post a Comment
Read more