“What is this music?” said the little boy, snuggled up to his father in the pew. The organist worked her way further into a Bach toccata.
“Church music,” the father said.
Rice
September 6, 2008And just like that, the rice was ready. She loved rice, loved feeling each individual grain in her mouth, loved its slightly nutty flavor and the smell of it cooking.
She dished herself a bowl and ate it. She considered adding some butter and salt. She decided to leave well enough alone.
Holding it
August 28, 2008“Is it OK to hold it?” said one sister, dancing back and forth in Row 12 of the 737 as she waited for everyone to disembark.
The other sister, up a row, turned to face her sibling, shook her head.
“How long can you hold it?” asked the first sister.
The second sister looked up at the air vents above her and pursed her lips in contemplation. “I can hold it about three hours,” she said.
“I can only hold it about an hour,” the first sister said. The other passengers let her go ahead of them.
Via Chicago
August 26, 2008The clouds raced across the sky, although she called them fog and he called them clouds, and the music soared away with enough of her heart to sting her. Standing there, on that green blanket in trampled grass, she shrank under the size of the year from which she’d emerged, and reached out a hand to the one person who understood this the very most.
Scene of a crime
August 22, 2008“I feel like I’m returning to the scene of a crime,” I said.
“Your only crime is being a sexy bitch,” she replied.
“It’s not my crime,” I said, “that I’m worried about.”
Fortunate
August 16, 2008She took his right hand, pressed dirt into his palm, showed him how the dust settled into lines for head, heart, life. She held his left hand to her heart. There was no other way to tell him what he was in for.
No sense
August 12, 2008We knifed through clouds that appeared to have the viscosity of foam, the plane angling north, then east on its ascent. There were no other planes in view, no buildings on the one mountain that broke the cloud-plane, no sense of the density of the world below.
Later, the clouds thinned to wisps and the towns, lakes, cars below came into view. Later, the sense of it all returned.
100 Proof 