Month: November 2013

The day is warm, thoughtless.

Wide sturdy leaves of grass, vigorous green weeds, bees dart the air, long horn grasshoppers bound unexpectedly, cicada sing, small butterflies torn from the pages of rough cut books manage somehow to float and birds soar.

Children trail home from school: book bags, musical instruments, chase games.

A sudden wind blows leaves through an open screen door.

———–

Night arrives softly, as the sky darkens and the air fills with the color of tobacco juice, grasshopper spit. It is pleasant and still warm, swaying gently in a complex web of chirping and sawing provided by crickets, katydid and other insects.

 

Still early, a man and his son stand in the street across from a school looking at the bright street lamps and waiting. Moths beat against the street lights. Every once in a while, one of the power line transformers would arc.

A car rolls slowly down the street, its turning wheels sound as though they are peeling the surface of the pavement. The car makes a right into the parking lot of the school.

A man in a brown uniform gets out and walks quickly to the door of the gymnasium facing the parking lot, unlocks it and goes inside. In a moment, the gymnasium fills with white light and emptiness that pours, echoes out onto the parking lot and into the street.

The man and his son waiting across the street drift toward the gymnasium.

Soon other cars, wooden station wagons begin to arrive. The doors of each break open; feet, voices and people spill out onto the asphalt.

More and more cars come.

Not everyone comes in cars, some small groups walk from nearby homes. The parents chatter while the children occupy themselves with things they find along the way and each other.

They converge on the school gymnasium where gray metal chairs have been lined up in rows in front of a podium at one end of the basket ball court. Behind the podium is a long platform with more chairs, each of these chairs has a white piece of paper with a name on it.

Most of the children are wearing brown uniforms with shorts, scarves and caps. Voices grow louder, choppy, indistinct.

At a long table near the entrance, large metal pots containing lemonade and kool-aide are sweating cold tears. Boys are filling wax cups with cold drinks and either drinking them themselves or taking them to their parents.

More parents, more children.

Soon, the boy scouts begin to arrange themselves on the stage while the parents take seats on the floor.

A man speaks into a microphone, his voice echoes throughout the room, in the parking lot and out on the street, reflecting from the buildings and cars like a wave.

 

Everyone stands to recite a pledge with their hands over their hearts. Some of the boys look away, some of the smaller children look at each other and giggle. Babies blink blindly at the ceiling lights.

In a moment, it is silent.

The man speaks again.

 

Mike is sitting in a chair on the platform on the far left of the stage. His attention wanders.

He wondered, what would happen if his attention wandered away? Would he die? What if he died and they buried him and then he came back and couldn’t find his body?

He could just go home. But if he was dead, would he remember where he came from?

It could happen.

He could maybe start thinking about a flight to mars and building a spaceship with robots made of green Sound Scriber recorder disks for eyes, maybe some wood studs for shoulders. They could use the camp stove for an engine, and he and his dad would fly it. Maybe he and his dad could go to Mercury.

He looked up at his father who was standing with some other men on the platform.

It didn’t take any time at all to go from planet to planet.

And it was cold outside in all that black. His rocket ship would be egg shaped with the big end at the rear blowing out steam and flame and the little end up front, mostly glass so that you could see where you were going. And of course they would have really wonderfully comfortable seats, once you were seated you wouldn’t want to get up.

Except to eat and go to the bathroom. And that would be just like on an airplane, there would also be cream for your hands and tissues.

The kitchen on the rocket ship would be one of those sandwich vending machines but really big and you could have any kind of sandwich you wanted. Any kind. Whatever you chose. And there would be chocolate cupcakes, too.

It would be just him and his dad.

He looked around the room and found a girl fidgeting in her chair. She would pull at her hair and then stop and look at the man speaking, look at her mom, look at her shoes and socks, then sigh and start to pull her hair again. Molly might want to go. But he wouldn’t ask her, he would be too embarrassed.

Near her was another girl, a larger girl who was picking her nose then eating the snot. God! How sick, how could anyone touch her?

But he had had to. The previous Friday, his teacher was teaching square dancing and she was his partner. Oh, he hated it. Tip Tap, Tip Tap.

The teacher played a record with music in the background and a woman’s voice saying: “all right now tiptoe, tip, tip, tip tip …now we will take giant steps, everyone with me hung-sure! hung-sure! hung-sure!” He had been glad when that day was over. That was awful.

How did the teachers know what to do? First, she is talking about potatoes and then they are adding numbers, and then she had everyone stand and walk in two rows to the gymnasium where there was a record player and they did this dancing. How did she know?

Maybe someone was outside the classroom giving her signals. He would pay more attention to that.

Mainly, he didn’t like school. he would think of anything he could to stay home. Sick was good because he could stay home and play. Yea, sick was OK, except for the bathroom parts.

He shook and was suddenly aware of the echo of the loud speaker, someone was speaking.

Mike looked down at the floor wondering how many small kicks it would take to break the weld in the metal chair he was sitting in, and there it was.

It was a big black bug, really big and round with black legs like thorns but too short to do any good. It was so big it could barely move.

This was not good.

What if it got on someone? What if it got on Molly? O, gosh.

What if it unfolded giant black wings and flew up to the ceiling? Or into his face and went for his eyes?

Or somehow got into his pants?!

Extending his bare leg as far as he could, he made a motion to step on the bug but stopped before actually crushing it- he had already imagined the awful crunchy sound it would make, and what if it stung him?

Mike moved his foot to look. The bug was broken open like a chocolate covered cherry candy and it was filled with some sort of thick brownish liquid; could that be pond water, he wondered.