It's just a person walking. But her behavior is strange, kind of mysterious. And meanwhile there's this quietly intense drama in the landscape. Why does she keep looking to the left? Is something over there? Is something about to happen...
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From "The Swans in the Fountain"
So with my body falling quietly towards the bed I walked into the glass elevator and stood there like that as I saw them. “Hey Dad…are those swans? Dad, those are two swans right there.” Lo and Behold, in the atrium’s fountain-pool, abutting the two elevators, were two gigantic white birds; just swimming or sitting or floating there, I’m not sure which verb best describes it, but anyways there they were, ethereal and mundane in the same weird moment. My dad, behind me, gave the same kind of snorting sound he always gives to that sort of ridiculousness, and I watched them as the elevator began to rise up and away and I repeated, “Swans; not ducks or geese, they’re huge, geez; they have two swans in their fountain.” In the room I was sitting on the sofa and my dad said “Here” and I looked up and he was handing me a yellow postcard. |
From "Don't Tell"
Jesus. Jesus, you wouldn’t believe. She picks up the frying pan, right, the cast-iron frying pan. I mean, cast-iron, that thing’s heavy, y’know? And she holds it up in the air, over her head for Chrissakes, I mean her arm is like, shaking, ‘cause the goddamn cast-iron pan is so heavy and she’s got this thin little arm, right? So she’s got this goddamn pan up in the air like this and she puts her other hand flat on the table, and she’s looking down at that hand and then she looks up at me. And her eyes, her eyes are like, broken, her whole face is broken, and I can tell she’s about to bring the goddamned cast-iron frying pan right down on her hand lying on the table. Jesus. Jesus Christ. What the hell did you do? Jesus Christ. I…I don’t know. I mean, I blacked out, I guess. I mean, all I remember is looking at her face, her face all broken like that, and picturing that cast-iron pan coming down on her hand on the table, and the next thing I know I’m on the floor. |
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