FLASH
Sitting at the bar on Pacific Avenue. With the seashells in the walls. Same bartender from last year, still here, making the same lethal Mai Tais.
He used to hold my hand on Commonwealth. I wonder sometimes if he ever still thinks about my mouth.
You’re joking, I say, interrupting the steady bumping of the doctor’s bushy white mustache.
A man with a fistful of showbags said, “That cow sounds like a person trying to sound like a cow.”
At the end of the meeting, the villagers agreed to contribute shillings and pounds to sponsor Elochi to a university in America.
At twenty, the world is yours because you’re beautiful. But never acknowledge your beauty, or it makes you a bitch.
Another image rises to us both: A man hunched before a TV, watching historical documentaries, correcting incorrect facts. Rasputin was not a priest, damn it.
I reached for my invoice, which Dr. George, holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it were a soiled diaper, dropped into my hand.
The day does not conclude with the gentle exhale of the earth, but with Mother Superior flipping the hourglass over, again.
On the first day of our new life together, my husband realized that I was not interested in theoretical debate. He said it was okay by him and went out to get some pancake mix.
The weeks go like this: accepting, horny, hopeful, sad. I’m four different people trying to establish one perspective on a major life event – on the creation of life itself.
I know you shouldn’t keep wild animals as pets, but I’ve had the same spider in my bathroom sink for over two weeks.
None speak of how the streets collide in coarse seams like scars, the fresh cobbles unable to level with the ones shaken from their mortar by uncountable seasons.
Sound engineers believe Alan Rickman possessed the perfect male voice. Early acting teachers told him he sounded like he was speaking from the back of a drainpipe.
It was spring and the hills were irradient, like they had to get out all their green in one short burst before catching fire.
