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I was in the middle of my morning coffee when I heard a roaring sound descend outside. I peeked out the curtains, and sure enough, there hovered a helicopter in mid-air. What the, I thought, rubbing my beard.
My thoughts went to the recent economic crisis, to IRS and my precarious immigration status. Are they evacuating or coming to get me? I stepped outside for a smoke. I saw the helicopter balancing the light breeze and I gave it a defiant stare. After a moment it seemingly lost interest, turned around - showing me its tail - and set off in direction of the middle-school. I threw away the cigarette that had tasted like mold anyway.
Yes yes, go on, I nodded to myself. Don't come around here no mo. Big government got bigger fish to fry.
Back inside, my daughter had voiced her own protest by pulling out Emily Dickinson's "Collected Poetry" from the off-limits section of the bookshelf. I felt suddenly faint. Not Emily, I gasped.
No no, put that back, I mumbled. So little but so aware of what buttons to press. I couldn’t help but be impressed by her manipulative abilities and wit. My baby.
I made it over to the couch where I laid down, pulling a blanket over me. Caffein and nicotine taking turns in the dark. The roar of the helicopter congealed with Emily's exquisite rhymes in my head. Save me, I yelped beneath the blankets, but salvation was but the privilege of death. Some brief lines made temporary use of me to recant themselves:
I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.
A stillness, yes, possibly. What’s left behind, and the intriguing form. What is a form? My form falls off every so often and blends with my enviorment, sinks into the rug, or is taked off by a persistent October wind. Flakes of skin, strands of hair, my whimsical moods.
Before I could reach any conclusion the blanket was pulled back, and there I was. Yes, daddy was hiding. Peek-a-boo. Pappa gömde sig. Tittut. A grin and a cackle. Civilization begins with a game, a vanishing act, I thought. It is wilderness that hides here under the blanket, in the dark. That wilderness have no form. Lock it in a room, and there you have it, a poet polishing her lines.
I returned to the kitchen table, where the coffee waited, black but lukewarm with the wait. I lapped it slowly, disowning any bad thoughts. I was restless, felt like doing something but couldn’t put my mind to anything in particular I wanted to do. In a book I’d recently read the main character ironed shirts whenever he got nervous; I don’t wear shirts, and besides, I don’t have an iron board. It’s not for me. I must find my own way.
*
Much later, the helicopter returned. The pilot took her down with ease and experience and stepped out on the freshly cut lawn. He took off his helmet, kneeled and smelled the grass. This was his last day before retirement.
He walked up to the house and stood listening. Not a sound. One of the windows had left a corner uncovered. He walked over to it and looked inside. No movement. Nothing. He stepped back and walked around the house, slowly, looking for nothing in particular. His thoughts his own. Back at the front door again he listened. At his feet he found the butted cigarette, kneeled down and picked it up. He put the cigarette in his mouth, found his matches and lit it, drawing a couple three times before tossing it to the ground, using his boot to put it out.
He sat down at the steps for a while, thinking. Maybe about the passing of time and the passing of things. He sat there for a good while, until he got up and returned to the helicopter, its blades having come to a stop. He climbed up inside and restarted the engine.
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I think there's a correlation beween helicopters and paranoia. I recall it happening in the film Goodfellas too. I enjoyed this. Drew me in. Wanted to carry on reading. Looking forward to more. |
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| | | From: _susan_ | Sent: 10/8/2008 5:40 AM |
there were 3 in the sky early nyc morning. monday. it was foggy. earlyearly. traffic. or maybe they were gonna bomb wall st. not sure. there are always helicopters for one reason or another. i was caught by this one line (all the others felt like me with the covers over my head): What the, I thought, rubbing my beard they have beards in blond? hardly. s. |
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yes it was a traumatic experience when i realized i in fact wasn't blond at all. for many years i walked in the belief that i was and no one pointed out differently.
then, out of the blue, one day, my wife made a remark about it and my world came crumbling down.
besides. this isn't about me. at all. no.
welcome to the world of fiction. |
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a tapestry of modern kafkaesque passages skillfully woven .. brought Metamorphsis to mind Stella |
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i liked this, engrossed me. |
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| | | From: gypsy | Sent: 10/8/2008 9:06 PM |
WS, I have only read a part of it, for I am suffering from a sort of dissection and multiplication of roles and sand accumulation in my avalanched endeavor to keep up with paperwork. At least I already voted for the pitbull, so you can all hug me and love me and whip me to raw skin. Now, before you do that, look at your belly button and tell me if you exercised your duty to vote, and later, maybe, if it matters at all to tell you why, if it does not become self-evident why I did not vote for Mr. O., for the benefit of having no taxes to pay as per his promise, of having health coverage as per his promise, maybe I will venture to say why. In the meantime, I watch and begin to do this little marking off of things that come to pass under his administration, for, it appears to be that he will get elected. Mind you, if I had voted for ME, myself, I would have voted in the belief that Obama would follow through with those promises that would make it possible for me to return to the US. I won't say what, I, instead, believe will come from him. So at least be kind through knowing that I voted against Obama (not really for McCain, whom I dislike), thinking of the lesser evil for the country, not selfishly, not blinded by ideology, not because I am an adamant right winger, for I am middle of the road, slightly to the right on economics, slightly to the left on social issues. No extremes. We are, slowly, going the way of defined socialism, anyway. We have been seeing this a long time. At least, I have been believin this is what I have been seeing a long time. Back to WS. At beginning of reading, your paranoia, which I share to a degree known well by you, is hilariously familiar and expressed deliciously. However, I think describing the setting first and the giving the punchline later would build up to it and not the other way around. I will continue to read. But, first, tell me if I should sew up my big mouth for a while. I know how every word uttered is inhaled like that nicotine that makes a person dizzy and lose balance at times. Please know (all of you), that I am reading, if I am not answering yet. I am at that horrible spot to admit, when egocentrism is a necessity, where anxiety is excess energy to burp out more than I can take in to chew. Which means I may have the temporary nerve to write and not comment on others' writing, at least for the time being.. I am around, and I do not wear lipstick, for I have no mirror yet. I only have time to babble and smudge, aside from papá and paperwork and survival of the most basic kind. So much for the grand arrival at Lima and a good thing I hit so many galleries then. None for a while now--I am having withdrawals. Soon! gypsy |
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ugh. (and not to the story, i like it) |
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| | | From: _susan_ | Sent: 10/8/2008 10:34 PM |
i thought that possibly -- just possibly -- if you washed your hair... it would come out blonde. but yes, i must be confusing you with a swede. whereas you and your pal, jimbo -- go to the same barber. s. |
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| | | From: _susan_ | Sent: 10/8/2008 10:52 PM |
is this you in drag, kim? you know - posing as Miss South Carolina - because you were jealous of Sarah, and wanted to up her one better in the Teen USA pageant? just call me curious george. |
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| | | From: jbond77 | Sent: 10/9/2008 2:04 AM |
we only trust the fine tailoring of sir john weathermore dewhurst of yorkshire thank you very much but I did highly enjoy this piece, not it was plesent for all, ( I do have more grisly versions of our blonde on blonde blood on the tracks available at any of the more astute finerys of liverpool) |
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WS, I'd read more, willingly. Keep going. gypsy, I'm speechless. gray |
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| | | From: gypsy | Sent: 10/9/2008 6:27 PM |
Grayling, do you love me any less? I love you all the same, and more each day, regardless of race, color, creed, or political inclination. I have a conscience nagging me to vote, or I would sit with no deadline, no forms to fill out, no long hour and a half like in a post office way away from my home to do what duty calls me to do--vote. I have never seen a benefit from the government, only taxes raised and more than tithing to a church taken off a modest income. I may have voted for Hilary. gypsy |
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| | | From: gypsy | Sent: 10/9/2008 6:47 PM |
See? A second read, and I like it just the way it is. Should I delete my previous comment? The only question now, is how the narrator came to figure out it was the pilot's last day before retirement? Just a few words, like I conjectured, or I heard him yell it out, or is it just me wondering? This is great! I am glad you posted it! And, as usual, you pack feelings, imagery, perk reality up with imaginative wording. Your transitions work smoothly. ... I applaud! gypsy |
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