Please do not leave your tiny shrimp in the sink.
My mom hides a bag of Fritos in the Tupperware cupboard. I found them when I was searching for the lemonade pitcher. And so I asked her, “Why are there Fritos in the very back of the Tupperware cupboard?” and she responded, “I like to keep them here to share with the dog.”
She frantically wiped away boogers from the sink, the no bogey sign staring her right in the face.
My brother has acid reflux so my mom washed a meatball off for him and covered it in parmesan cheese so it wouldn’t taste like a washed meatball.
1) a lil bit of Diane Williams - she's pretty cool
He picks his left thumb. He picks it above his head, arm bent in one direction, other peeling away. He picked it all the way to the cuticle so that now he always wears a bandage. But when the TV goes on, and John Stewart arrives, the Band-Aid comes off.
“Stop it!” I hiss, my toe reaching out hopelessly to nudge his knee. He glares at me. Let me finish my business, his eyes say. We stare at the screen mindlessly, my finger as if pulled by a tiny string levitates to my mouth. “Stop biting your nails! People are going to think you’re crazy,” he says. “Lemme see you thumb,” I chide, grabbing at his hand. He yanks it away smiling, and we both recommence. I shift myself closer to him, to grab ahold of his thumb. Not to stop him, but merely to hold. It is big, an exact copy of mine, but larger. Or, mine is an exact copy of his, but smaller. We spread our fingers wide; comparing wrinkles and veins, nails and prints. His fingers are stubby like mine. His thumbnail is wide and round. “We have the same hands, Sarah,” he says to my mom. “Yes, but Rebecca’s are beautiful, Doug.” It’s not true, or at least I’d rather believe that mine are just like his. Otters hold hands while sleeping so they don’t float apart and so I hold my father’s hand tight. I clasp his hand while walking down the street because our hands fit just right. He is a tall man, robust and strong, but his hands are too small for his body. Not inordinately small, but small enough to cup mine perfectly. And it returns later in the night, when my mother takes me out onto our dock to gaze up at the night sky. We lie there quietly, listening to the rustling of the pine trees, to the calming water, to our own breath. And we simply stare at the sky waiting for streaks of light to interrupt the restful stars. Aware of the mosquito in my ear, I swipe at the air, taking my attention away from the sky at the exact moment that my mom sees a shooting star and then I relax again, letting my body sink into the floor. A loon calls across the lake and its echo responds quietly.
With the moonlight twinkling on the surface, we can see into the shallow water that lines the shore. A whole world looms under the glassy lake -- seaweed, tadpoles, tiny fish. At night they come out to swim through the stillness, and we watch them as they caress the soft algae that has grown atop the rocks, as they enjoy their last meal. My grandfather shines a flashlight from above and yells to us, “You okay down there?” My mother whispers to me, “Of course we’re okay, we’re always okay. When are we not okay?” And then we fall silent again, fold up the blankets corner to corner, and walk up the steps. When they pushed her in, she left marks against the sides, her fingernails clawing as the space darkened. And then it was cold and black. Her prints freezing in tiny, padded spirals on the plastic siding.
She wasn’t scared until she stopped shivering. Her bones cold, her fingers stiff, her eyes blinking slowly. She was steel wool in a white box and as her skin grew colder, she began to shrivel. And she knew it was over. Life as she knew it was over. The voices in her head had stopped. The hills were alive and all she could hear was the muffled sound of music. The music drifted, ambled, jumped, and glided. And she thought. She thought. No one ever seems to simply lie down and listen to the unsullied sounds of music. Or the whispers that buildings let out when they think they are alone. No one listens to the question that is the silence after the question. But why? Because we’re all so caught – caught by the past. So caught that we simply try to relive. Moments that we have forgotten. Futures we hope for. But in the end it’s impossible. You are gone. There is no heaven or hell, no reincarnation of some kind, no circular movement. Dead is dead, and maybe it’s silly to ask what else it may be. But maybe under the ground we find new legs. Maybe the weight of the coffin is to send us down to the new air below. |