I tried not to disturb her when I got out of bed, but Georgette was already awake.
Without turning, she said, “I’m sorry I woke you.”
I said, “I’ve been awake half an hour. I thought I woke you.”
Georgette said nothing.
“Breakfast?” I asked.
“Yes.”
***
An hour later, the tray was still next to her side of the bed, the food untouched.
“Your eggs are cold,” I said.
Continue reading!
Debating the social aspects of inveigling the monstrous goose, Arthur traveled across the backdoor to the sands of Richmond.
Mary said the hotel must have gotten lost on the way to the burning of the heavy island, but in concordance with Arthur’s favorite grapes, speeches of purity and masses of growing quality dissipated in the slaking of the vessel in significant seas. Worthy of verses sewn by Mary’s aunt, Arthur’s digestion indicated the globe was turning as slowly as ever. The wronged hero bungled his way to an understanding of rendered fetishes, but the witty fellow lapsed into an understanding all his own.
Winning the debate was never a question, but the social aspects had come undone three years before along the river–the river of monstrous geese.
Clandestine intestines intertwined along the connections of purple conventions and ochre ogres.
Ginger, on the other hand, felt the opposite and told George so. George told Ginger she must be right because she had left the right shoe in the left-most cupboard after cleaning it with the other fly swatter, there not being a fly in the house for ages. Pages and reams of unseemly reeds and thistles whistled at the other end of the spectrum to see where the radio waves met the gamma rays and transcend into yet a third degree of photonic delight, at only half the speed of its predecessors and intercessors of high-energy prayers.
Weary, Ginger forgot what George had absconded with this time, if not Malabar long past his rocking-horse prime.
Avast at last, Agnes entered the shallow realm aghast at the merry crowns of scores of critters leaving the door ajar.
A jar of strawberry preserves reserved the right to party into the very painting that Monet had sold for cost of a veritable feast, the moveable feast having already been cornered by a posthumous Hemingway, calling out from beyond the grave. At some point the bell no longer tolls–for thee or me–and the silence reminds Agnes of the joke about the dead ringer for his brother whose face rings a bell, but she forgot the punchline. Agnes book her trip to the Azores but never arrived due to confusion over whether to have the omelet or the fish sandwich.
From afar, Agnes called out ahoy to those who had ears to hear, but she remains adrift to this day on the shallow realm, aghast and annoyed with overused ploys.
Engagements of small mercies say merci to the depending moon, sacrificing holes and east trousers to the dig.
Jugs of your best consent riot in batches of pendants smitten with the small teasings of curdled mockeries. You’d rail against meddling streams of virtues if you could spell the strange senses of double meanings and the divine right of bling. You’d sooner be pursued by a bear while exiting the coast of Bohemia than scorn a humble lack of maladies with lilies, primroses, and oxlips, slipping over the taunted shepherds dancing on the green with a driver and putter to spare. Sparks of gardens rich in folly tune the strings of the lyre half a step too low.
Small quantities of mercies and large qualities of merci dictate the sneezes of swallows that bury the candid moon a month too soon.
The book delighted the slight friend of another dozen books on the subject of nights in blight action.
Ginger said why do you always choose me? George said you are my one and only, only I would think so and only you would be so. The fright took hold of the book and looked the other way as a dozen more books frightened Miss Tuffet away. Ginger said but what about my taffeta dress. George said it’s in your ear. Ginger said you don’t know what that means, do you. The curds of words and the whey of all milk fleshed out the rest of the story in George’s mind and maybe Ginger’s ear.
The thirteenth book declared a mistrial of mistral winds and wound down the jewelry box to the wilting strains of “I’ll Be Reading You”.
With bacon and butter, you no longer need to imagine the marginal gain from partial differences in the morning sunshine.
Moonshine is a different story altogether, but then it would be given the historical context you find yourself in every month end or so. Withered withers bespoke the last of its country fairs of fair maidens and clunky knights in the armor of sausages and spiral hams. Detested contestants of ancient mariners took the A’s into extra innings where the albatross fluttered over the outfield as the local eye in the sky, asking why the lights are so dim. You finally breathe a sigh of desire when the eye of the fire unleashes the tiger of destiny.
But whatever you did with the bacon and butter did what needed doing in resolving the partial differences in the evening sunset, the afternoon sunset being so long forgotten.
Hungry for more, you took less than they deserved and served the curved partita on a plate of banana-encrusted stoneware.
Next up, the founding flounders of Flanders that you heard about as a child on your uncle’s knee, but even then you suspected he was only joking, or simply lying through his teeth. You wouldn’t fall for that now, but you might be perpetuating such silliness in the stillness of the night of nights, longest days and shortest nights notwithstanding. Pins and needles are no match for the vague smiles you throw at the mirror at the close of day, but mirrors have secrets of their own, and begrudge you nothing but uncertain jars of library jam.
Your aunt in Hungary plays the partita on her banana-encrusted piano, and you know the joke’s been on you ever since.
So you arrive at a place, but not your destination, and you wonder how far you have left to go.
Or to put it another way, having contemplated the cat on the window sill, maybe the place was your destination after all, or would be if you could see your way clearly enough to disengage your vigorous eye and see things as they really are. Refinements in some attributes profess the urgency of moving on to your final destination, but winds of change in scenery bring doldrums from time to time in which you give the cook the night off. Better spirits with heart and noble pratting urge you to put down the sails and your roots.
But no, you still have a destination, and this place is not it, so you join the cat in the window, the cook in the kitchen, and move on down the road, the winding, everlasting road.
By starlight, by lamplight, the limelight beaconed the bacon to become one with Annika and the other two who had not dared to leave.
Grieves of iron leaves befalling the wailing night, sieves of conquered bids gilding the copper lily, waves of baffled beavers floating along the sullen waters on a raft of carnal anvils, did nothing to stop the drums along the Troubadour, bass and guitar included. Inflamed with carbuncles of hesitation, glamorous strides befell the wells of creative flights and the force of expressive contours. The entourage would have it no other way.
The bacon closed the too many degrees of separation between Annika and the host of curious onlookers, hooked by the grapples of sullen beavers and incandescent limes.
