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Piecemeal


Joseph cut off a quarter of his thumb peeling potatoes. But it’s a good idea to finish what you start. While Joseph’s thumb healed he rode the elevator: there were no hand rails, no mirrored ceilings.
            “Sir,” he greeted Kirby, when Kirby stuck his hand between the elevator doors.
            “How are you?”
            “Pained.”
            Joseph nodded. “I cut off a quarter of my thumb today, peeling potatoes.”
            Kirby frowned and nodded. Nodding is polite, you know. Even if you don’t understand, you’re pretending to understand.
            The elevator shook a little because of the wind.
            “What kind of a pain do you feel?” Joseph thought it might be nice to ask.
            “Piecemeal. Like each piece of me has a different pain.”
            “Well let’s make steak and I can sketch you. That way if you die or something then you can have a sketch of yourself.”
            Kirby thought that would be nice. “I should like to write a will soon, also.”
            Joseph nodded. “Let’s just have a luncheon on the balcony. I’m famished, friend.”
            They ate all types of cheese on the balcony and the sky looked like a colored pencil. Cheese should be crumbly, like souls just before confession. Crumbly like bread tossed out to seagulls on the green ravine bay. Joseph and Kirby spent a while peering down on passing heads, discussing phrenology as a pseudoscience. It was obvious from Kirby’s square skull that he had a tortured past
            the most annoying women were the giggly ones with light feet and small noses.
            Joseph asked Kirby about his loves.  
            “You know what I’ve found,” Kirby croaked, “when someone asks you a question it’s really because they want to answer.”
            Kirby has soul, you know. At nine o’clock every night he hums “moon river” on the patio, then he turns off the lights and goes to bed.
            Joseph sketched Kirby in blue colored pencil, because the monster sky threw up over everything today. The sky tasted like blueberry pie, dripped blue ash wax. It was hard to swallow, like diamonds growing up out of mud. Joseph loved the whole world and none of it, because it didn’t love him back. 
            “How’s your thumb doing?” Kirby asked.
            “It’s fine. It’s pretty scabbed over now.”
            “Did you eat the potatoes after you peeled them?”
            “No, they got bloody.”
            “Cold water does the trick,”
            “Gross, Kirby.”          
            “You’re the gross one with a missing thumb.”
            Joseph finished the portrait. It looked like Kirby. Good.
            “It’s nice, I really like it,” said Kirby. Kirby nodded.

            Joseph nodded and glared up at a milky sky. “Well it’s almost ten,” he yawned and left, saying all sorts of goodbye. He heard moon river ticking in rhythm with the nods.

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