Cities and suburbs, real and imaginary.

Monday, March 8, 2010

peek over my shoulder.

Been working on this kind of stuff, of late. Ways to go, yet. See, this part is weak, and won't make it. It doesn't have the power of the rest, and will need some punch...

[quote]
I walked along the beach, and held my sandals in my hand and the men that worked there, with AK-47s slung over their backs, mostly ignored me. I was still wearing my communion dress. I had just gotten out of the church, eaten the communion lunch. My mother was angry because my father hadn't been there. She had a cellphone that she could call him on. She kept dialing his number, but he wouldn't answer. He sent her a text, and she threw the phone across the room and punched a servant in the face who was too slow getting back the phone.

I ate watermelon. I was not thinking about death or dead men. I was thinking about the world beyond the horizon, and all the marvels that must be out there.

After lunch, I walked along the beach, in my new dress, feeling beautiful.

I saw, at the edge of the water, a floating thing, perhaps a clump of kelp and trash from the mainland – cloth rags and floating plastics – and then I knew I wasn't seeing just trash and kelp. I saw exactly what that was: a man floating among trash, drowned...
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