So... this is more of an exercise than a prompt.
In the book I finished fairly recently (Half-Life, by Shelley Jackson), which I know that at least two of you have read - one with love and one with less than love -- some of my favorite chapters were lists. In particular, lists of made-up books that lined the shelves of one or the other of the character's bedrooms. I don't have the book with me, so I can't quote directly, but I'm thinking of books like Spying and Thieving for Dummies... titles that made me laugh out loud in public spaces.
So, for this exercise: Write a characterizing list (or description) of a bookshelf. It can be books only, but the shelf might also have other items on it... everything has to be fictional though.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Something
“Your mother.”
“Your breath after those salads.”
“I have to eat those salads, they’re part of the diet.”
“Your breath still stinks.”
“Look, you need to consider the fact that I’m brushing afterwards. I can’t help the garlic. You’re the one who said I was fat.”
“I never said you’re fat, but since we’re on the topic: you taste like garlic. I mean all of you. All of you tastes like garlic.”
“It’s an antibiotic and antifungal and Ariana says I should make it a part of my daily edibles.”
“Fuck Ariana and her bourgeoisie dietary sanctions.”
“Guess you have opinions on that,” she says after a pause.
With that, Aaron spends the evening in his Wendy Room. He thinks about attaching a picture to the bull’s-eye, but after an hour tossing the one remaining loppy dart, its velcro tip usually attaching (after a wobbly flight) to the inner fleece lining of his raincoat—because he’s a very bad shot—he wanders outside to their garden, where the dirt is freshly overturned. The stars are out, their tools still left scattered throughout the beds—trowel, hoes, weird twirly tool, what is the weird twirly tool good for? As he contemplates the flickering light from their house, Aaron alternates between picking the tools up, stacking them in corners, sucking on his whiskey, talking to himself, and missing her, his arm throbbing with missing her, the smell of garlic in their garden so sharp and fresh, and why doesn’t he like it anyway?
Letty spends this time in front of the television, her arm stretched down her leg, the remote in hand, freely choosing its direction without consideration from her brain. What she can’t get over is how interesting each show independently is, but how little intrigued she is, in the end, by how they end, and isn’t it amazing how she never remembers what happens? What happens is a given. Aaron is out in the Wendy room without her. She pulls the blanket closer around her and pats Darth on the head as he clutches her breast in feline self-preservation. In the Bones episode, someone is at risk. The fridge is humming strangely, which Letty intermittently worries about, and then she gets up, shoving Darth off of her.
Inside the fridge, everything is damp. It doesn’t seem as though the fridge is going to die, but it’s certainly not doing its job. She places a rag on the bottom shelf and turns the dial up to high. Has she ever put her keys in the fridge? No, she hasn’t. Although she’s looked there when they get lost. She despises losing her keys; it makes her cry every time, and one of the reasons she married Aaron is that he can always find her keys. It’s like he has a memory map in his brain; he remembers each step, even the ones he hasn’t taken or even watched, and by tracing back her steps, he solves the key problem even after she’s searched everywhere and cried for awhile, and Letty feels a part of her innards turn to strawberry lassi consistency when she thinks of this feature of Aaron. It’s like… unexpectedly hot, this ability. Goddamn his sexy mapping features.
Facebook is on in the computer room, and Aaron’s signed on and she can see that he’s posted something witty about Sarah Palin, and how dare he hate Sarah Palin. True, she’s a god-awful heinous black mark on female humanity, but shouldn’t Letty stand up for her? Shouldn’t she acknowledge the female hate embedded in most of the comments attached to Aaron’s witty Facebook comment? Is it possible to despise Palin or Obama without being a fucking racist sexist pig? Letty thinks not, and she deletes Aaron’s comment, disregarding the twelve (12!) comments that go along with it.
“You’re grinding your teeth again. Turn over.”
Like she wants to turn over! Like she’s obliged! Like it’s her fault her teeth grate out her angst in her sleep as she dreams about Froot Loops and boats with cereal for live-savers!
“Your momma…”
“No,” he says, “your momma…” It’s a draw and she finds herself grating her teeth and pulling up against him, his skin raw and bristly, errant furs clutching at his nipples and her clavicles, and he rolls on top of her, his breath not-garlicky but sweet like he’s been drinking whiskey and throwing darts. She thinks of the monkey, and his job, and her teeth are chattering by the end.
“Not again,” he whispers against her neck.
Letty’s monkey is a proboscis monkey, and they are very ugly with their ridiculous noses. Hers lives mostly inside her gall bladder but occasionally makes the journey up to her brain, where it makes everything difficult.
Upstairs, the babies are bedded down, and warm and flush in their jammies. Henry is in his dinosaur PJ’s, which are footed, which he hates, and so he has one leg dislodged and waving about nude under his sheets. His other foot is still inside the pajama bottoms, a compromise he will maintain until the morning when he wakes up, pulls back the covers, and slips his one loose, errant leg back inside so that he can pad down the hallway to his parents’ room where he may or may not sleep with both, but at least certainly one, of his parents.
Jonica, on the other hand, is lucky with her nightgown, which is an ancient hand-me-down with Rainbow Bright on the front (along with several stains, no doubt ice cream). She sleeps with all of her stuffed animals piled atop her, and it is her style to slip through the entire night, without wavering, or half-undressing, or rolling—all of which makes her the favored pack member of Hebrew, their Jewish dog, who tucks himself up against Jonica’s legs, and keeps her content and safe. She sucks her thumb, and sinks further and further amongst the animals, not a monkey in sight amongst the pile.
“You forgot…”
“There is no…”
“Do you really expect…”
“Are you listening…”
“There is no easy answer…”
It’s like he has three-quarters the deck, and she is still waiting for the royals to arrive. It would only be fair.
“How many times,” he asks, “Do I have to tell you it’s not about fairness. There is no fairness in life, only humanity.”
Aaron is very business-like this way; his pragmatic vision of culture versus nature. In nature, he thinks, we’re fucked. But we are a part of a group of thinkers, he would like to believe, who have decided to rise up above evolution and create civilization. Aaron rhapsodizes on civilization as he tends to their garden. He pulls the buttercups, which are just about everywhere, always, and thinks about how humans have decided to be more than science. How evolution has taken a back seat to civics and ethics and compromise, but there is Sarah Palin, and the tea-baggies, all of whom eschew scientific evolution, but embrace the social version, which involves the disintegration of society and culture and humanity. How is it possible, he thinks as ruffles the dirt around a very healthy squash, to believe humanity sublime, but embrace everything that makes it base? Aaron has taken to crying while weeding the peas. His wife’s monkey is back. His children play at her feet like they are waiting for the minutes in between.
“You don’t believe me.”
“Have you ever noticed how Six Feet Under is theatrical in a filmic way?”
“You don’t trust me.”
“Do you think Joni is too attached to Mr. Possom?”
“You wouldn’t give up everything to be with me.”
“Are you coming to the school meetings tonight?”
(“Yes.”)
(“I would, but I won’t.”)
He has the Kings, all the Jacks, some of the Queens, one Ace still in the pack. He rakes on the upper lowers, and all she seems to get is the threes against his twos. Aaron loves her, Letty knows, but he doesn’t feel it, he doesn’t listen, he says one thing but he believes another. He’s pushing her towards the primate doctor. He tells her the monkey is loose. Throwing dung, but not picking the fleas. The fridge is doing better though. She takes out the rag, turns down the dial. The carrots are crisp, but not frozen. What if she has all the rest of the royals? What if her ace is just around the corner? She watches him in the garden, tidying all the tools. When he goes to the Wendy Room, she goes outside and looks at the stars. Below her, the garlic seems ready to harvest although the rest of the veggies are just getting started. She smells them, tells the monkey to climb the apple tree—its blobby fruit just getting started, already a little crusty in a way that she can imagine will taste nice.
“Your job takes you away from us.”
“So does yours,” he says, nodding to the pile of research books she has stored on the kitchen table.
“No, I mean if you cared, you’d…”
“My heart is a gorilla,” he interrupts, as he stares down at the pile of leeks and chard piling up under the sink. “Your monkey is trumped.”
Letty sits at the table, her hands buried in the giant-sized puzzle pieces Jonica and Henry have gathered and placed on the kitchen floor in no particular order. “Perhaps,” she says and pushes an edge-piece towards the center.
“Your breath after those salads.”
“I have to eat those salads, they’re part of the diet.”
“Your breath still stinks.”
“Look, you need to consider the fact that I’m brushing afterwards. I can’t help the garlic. You’re the one who said I was fat.”
“I never said you’re fat, but since we’re on the topic: you taste like garlic. I mean all of you. All of you tastes like garlic.”
“It’s an antibiotic and antifungal and Ariana says I should make it a part of my daily edibles.”
“Fuck Ariana and her bourgeoisie dietary sanctions.”
“Guess you have opinions on that,” she says after a pause.
With that, Aaron spends the evening in his Wendy Room. He thinks about attaching a picture to the bull’s-eye, but after an hour tossing the one remaining loppy dart, its velcro tip usually attaching (after a wobbly flight) to the inner fleece lining of his raincoat—because he’s a very bad shot—he wanders outside to their garden, where the dirt is freshly overturned. The stars are out, their tools still left scattered throughout the beds—trowel, hoes, weird twirly tool, what is the weird twirly tool good for? As he contemplates the flickering light from their house, Aaron alternates between picking the tools up, stacking them in corners, sucking on his whiskey, talking to himself, and missing her, his arm throbbing with missing her, the smell of garlic in their garden so sharp and fresh, and why doesn’t he like it anyway?
Letty spends this time in front of the television, her arm stretched down her leg, the remote in hand, freely choosing its direction without consideration from her brain. What she can’t get over is how interesting each show independently is, but how little intrigued she is, in the end, by how they end, and isn’t it amazing how she never remembers what happens? What happens is a given. Aaron is out in the Wendy room without her. She pulls the blanket closer around her and pats Darth on the head as he clutches her breast in feline self-preservation. In the Bones episode, someone is at risk. The fridge is humming strangely, which Letty intermittently worries about, and then she gets up, shoving Darth off of her.
Inside the fridge, everything is damp. It doesn’t seem as though the fridge is going to die, but it’s certainly not doing its job. She places a rag on the bottom shelf and turns the dial up to high. Has she ever put her keys in the fridge? No, she hasn’t. Although she’s looked there when they get lost. She despises losing her keys; it makes her cry every time, and one of the reasons she married Aaron is that he can always find her keys. It’s like he has a memory map in his brain; he remembers each step, even the ones he hasn’t taken or even watched, and by tracing back her steps, he solves the key problem even after she’s searched everywhere and cried for awhile, and Letty feels a part of her innards turn to strawberry lassi consistency when she thinks of this feature of Aaron. It’s like… unexpectedly hot, this ability. Goddamn his sexy mapping features.
Facebook is on in the computer room, and Aaron’s signed on and she can see that he’s posted something witty about Sarah Palin, and how dare he hate Sarah Palin. True, she’s a god-awful heinous black mark on female humanity, but shouldn’t Letty stand up for her? Shouldn’t she acknowledge the female hate embedded in most of the comments attached to Aaron’s witty Facebook comment? Is it possible to despise Palin or Obama without being a fucking racist sexist pig? Letty thinks not, and she deletes Aaron’s comment, disregarding the twelve (12!) comments that go along with it.
“You’re grinding your teeth again. Turn over.”
Like she wants to turn over! Like she’s obliged! Like it’s her fault her teeth grate out her angst in her sleep as she dreams about Froot Loops and boats with cereal for live-savers!
“Your momma…”
“No,” he says, “your momma…” It’s a draw and she finds herself grating her teeth and pulling up against him, his skin raw and bristly, errant furs clutching at his nipples and her clavicles, and he rolls on top of her, his breath not-garlicky but sweet like he’s been drinking whiskey and throwing darts. She thinks of the monkey, and his job, and her teeth are chattering by the end.
“Not again,” he whispers against her neck.
Letty’s monkey is a proboscis monkey, and they are very ugly with their ridiculous noses. Hers lives mostly inside her gall bladder but occasionally makes the journey up to her brain, where it makes everything difficult.
Upstairs, the babies are bedded down, and warm and flush in their jammies. Henry is in his dinosaur PJ’s, which are footed, which he hates, and so he has one leg dislodged and waving about nude under his sheets. His other foot is still inside the pajama bottoms, a compromise he will maintain until the morning when he wakes up, pulls back the covers, and slips his one loose, errant leg back inside so that he can pad down the hallway to his parents’ room where he may or may not sleep with both, but at least certainly one, of his parents.
Jonica, on the other hand, is lucky with her nightgown, which is an ancient hand-me-down with Rainbow Bright on the front (along with several stains, no doubt ice cream). She sleeps with all of her stuffed animals piled atop her, and it is her style to slip through the entire night, without wavering, or half-undressing, or rolling—all of which makes her the favored pack member of Hebrew, their Jewish dog, who tucks himself up against Jonica’s legs, and keeps her content and safe. She sucks her thumb, and sinks further and further amongst the animals, not a monkey in sight amongst the pile.
“You forgot…”
“There is no…”
“Do you really expect…”
“Are you listening…”
“There is no easy answer…”
It’s like he has three-quarters the deck, and she is still waiting for the royals to arrive. It would only be fair.
“How many times,” he asks, “Do I have to tell you it’s not about fairness. There is no fairness in life, only humanity.”
Aaron is very business-like this way; his pragmatic vision of culture versus nature. In nature, he thinks, we’re fucked. But we are a part of a group of thinkers, he would like to believe, who have decided to rise up above evolution and create civilization. Aaron rhapsodizes on civilization as he tends to their garden. He pulls the buttercups, which are just about everywhere, always, and thinks about how humans have decided to be more than science. How evolution has taken a back seat to civics and ethics and compromise, but there is Sarah Palin, and the tea-baggies, all of whom eschew scientific evolution, but embrace the social version, which involves the disintegration of society and culture and humanity. How is it possible, he thinks as ruffles the dirt around a very healthy squash, to believe humanity sublime, but embrace everything that makes it base? Aaron has taken to crying while weeding the peas. His wife’s monkey is back. His children play at her feet like they are waiting for the minutes in between.
“You don’t believe me.”
“Have you ever noticed how Six Feet Under is theatrical in a filmic way?”
“You don’t trust me.”
“Do you think Joni is too attached to Mr. Possom?”
“You wouldn’t give up everything to be with me.”
“Are you coming to the school meetings tonight?”
(“Yes.”)
(“I would, but I won’t.”)
He has the Kings, all the Jacks, some of the Queens, one Ace still in the pack. He rakes on the upper lowers, and all she seems to get is the threes against his twos. Aaron loves her, Letty knows, but he doesn’t feel it, he doesn’t listen, he says one thing but he believes another. He’s pushing her towards the primate doctor. He tells her the monkey is loose. Throwing dung, but not picking the fleas. The fridge is doing better though. She takes out the rag, turns down the dial. The carrots are crisp, but not frozen. What if she has all the rest of the royals? What if her ace is just around the corner? She watches him in the garden, tidying all the tools. When he goes to the Wendy Room, she goes outside and looks at the stars. Below her, the garlic seems ready to harvest although the rest of the veggies are just getting started. She smells them, tells the monkey to climb the apple tree—its blobby fruit just getting started, already a little crusty in a way that she can imagine will taste nice.
“Your job takes you away from us.”
“So does yours,” he says, nodding to the pile of research books she has stored on the kitchen table.
“No, I mean if you cared, you’d…”
“My heart is a gorilla,” he interrupts, as he stares down at the pile of leeks and chard piling up under the sink. “Your monkey is trumped.”
Letty sits at the table, her hands buried in the giant-sized puzzle pieces Jonica and Henry have gathered and placed on the kitchen floor in no particular order. “Perhaps,” she says and pushes an edge-piece towards the center.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Shazzzzam!
I'm posting mcrotty's prompt (at the very bottom of this post) because I happen to have received an early edition of it, and I'm not sure she's remembered it's her day. And if she does remember, and sees this, then she can repost it, and whala!
Also, it sounds like Jess, akr, cc, Andrew, Kelly and I are still in for the next round of prompterlyness, although I don't know about mcrotty, so I'll just shake the dice again and post the order for the next six weeks. Btw, I've been meaning to post my responses, which are very well written in my head, but I've been razzle-dazzled by the flu and end of the winter quarter. Next week is my spring break, and I promise to catch up, and belatedly post responses to last two prompts as well as mcrotty's. And you will all be so very impressed.
So, new dice roll:
March 28 = me [bez]
April 4 = jess
April 11 = akr
April 18 = kelly
April 25 = andrew
May 2 = cc
So, mcrotty's prompt:
Write a story (or poem) in which something impossible happens. The only catch is that the writing must stay within the bounds of art. No zombies, no dragons, no flesh-eating demons. The more everyday-human-but-bizarre, the better. I am thinking less Aimee Bender and more along the lines of: A.M. Homes' "A Real Doll" (Warning. . . NOT PG) or R.O. Butler's over-anthologized "Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot."
[oh, you know my response is going to have zombies, dragons, and flesh-eating demons! -bez]
Also, it sounds like Jess, akr, cc, Andrew, Kelly and I are still in for the next round of prompterlyness, although I don't know about mcrotty, so I'll just shake the dice again and post the order for the next six weeks. Btw, I've been meaning to post my responses, which are very well written in my head, but I've been razzle-dazzled by the flu and end of the winter quarter. Next week is my spring break, and I promise to catch up, and belatedly post responses to last two prompts as well as mcrotty's. And you will all be so very impressed.
So, new dice roll:
March 28 = me [bez]
April 4 = jess
April 11 = akr
April 18 = kelly
April 25 = andrew
May 2 = cc
So, mcrotty's prompt:
Write a story (or poem) in which something impossible happens. The only catch is that the writing must stay within the bounds of art. No zombies, no dragons, no flesh-eating demons. The more everyday-human-but-bizarre, the better. I am thinking less Aimee Bender and more along the lines of: A.M. Homes' "A Real Doll" (Warning. . . NOT PG) or R.O. Butler's over-anthologized "Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot."
[oh, you know my response is going to have zombies, dragons, and flesh-eating demons! -bez]
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Last(?) Prompt
Something simple and playful for the last one...
Use the rules of a card game in a piece.
I don't really know what this means, I just got the idea and thought it might be interesting. Not having a piece centered around a card game so much as the rules of a particular game--say, cribbage or bridge or Texas hold'em--influence a piece's construction....
Thursday, March 11, 2010
How would you guys feel if....
we linked to this blog sometimes on Facebook (or other internet forums we are a part of)?
I was contemplating this because I think it'd be fun to get more responders to the prompts. So, we come up with them... and others also write, and possibly comment on the prompts and responses... more dialogue, more gossip, etc. Just a thought.
Also, I was wondering if -- for those of you who aren't posting your responses to the prompts, maybe because this is a public spot and you may want to later publish your work -- what about posting an excerpt, maybe even a sentence, instead? From time to time? (Not every time because I know we all might want to pick which prompts we respond to... but my point is to not be shy, even if you are a shy mime. :) I was thinking about doing this too (as in, not exceeding a full page).
I was contemplating this because I think it'd be fun to get more responders to the prompts. So, we come up with them... and others also write, and possibly comment on the prompts and responses... more dialogue, more gossip, etc. Just a thought.
Also, I was wondering if -- for those of you who aren't posting your responses to the prompts, maybe because this is a public spot and you may want to later publish your work -- what about posting an excerpt, maybe even a sentence, instead? From time to time? (Not every time because I know we all might want to pick which prompts we respond to... but my point is to not be shy, even if you are a shy mime. :) I was thinking about doing this too (as in, not exceeding a full page).
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
A Related Quote
A very funny book, so far, by the way... it made me laugh out loud even past the 45-minute mark on the exercise bike in the Y gym. And that's saying something. Anyhow, I thought I would post it, not as an actual prompt, but just in solidarity.
How are those poetry exercises coming? Did you do that thing I mentioned where you write down every real story somebody tells you or that you overhear in a twenty-four period? Did I mention that exercise? Maybe not. I don't mean the stories that come to you on electric screens or through car loudspeakers but the ones from right around you. I overheard a story at the bank yesterday about a car-repair place that overcharged. And then somebody told me a story about a dog who ate a sock. The vet couldn't "shift it," so he removed the sock surgically and now the dog is doing well. And there were other stories, too. If you listen to them, the stories and fragments of stories you hear can sometimes slide right into your poem and twirl around in it. Then later you cut out the story and the poem has a mysterious feeling of charged emptiness, like the dog after the operation.
- Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Prompt the Fifth: Tranlsating Image to Text
Hi all. I'm bummed I haven't been active, but finishing my dissertation is draining and soul sucking. I'm so psyched to do your prompts--and thankful that they're here. So here's my contribution. It's very simple, and comes from my reading Sebald recently.
Prompt: Write the one story that these four pictures tell.
Prompt: Write the one story that these four pictures tell.
Belated, and Wicked
Not quite sure what prompted this, other than the prompt, but it is what 'came'.
*
One could hardly expect anything more
Than a husband with a tendency to snore
You might try pillows, underwear, Kleenex,
or the molting cockatoo named Phoenix
Don’t forget to stuff them in tight
(The bully! The retard! The bore!)
But you’re probably stuck with your plight
(Alas, Oho, It’s not Right!)
And I’ll try not to say, you wanton old whore
That that's what you get...
For having married a desperate old John called Teeny Felix
Alice was still crying—although it is hard to believe it possible, considering the considerable taxation she had already placed upon her tear ducts—when she stumbled upon Madame Mabel. At this point in the evening, the darkness had set in, and all but the smallest of stars had come out. And so, Alice had been able to stumble along, every so often bumping into a tree limb or a wolf or a Construction Worker. Each of these times, she would hiccupingly apologize, before brushing off their embraces or wolf calls, and pressing on. Yet, she was clearly getting tired, and the night seemed to squish in all around her. The day’s arrogance had slipped from her shoulders at the sight of the sun dipping down below the mountain ridge, and suddenly Alice wanted very much to know how to get home, how to find Kansas, or Rosebud.
“Whatever are you crying for?” Alice suddenly heard, and could not for the life of her locate the voice. True, she had stumbled into a particularly blind alley of trees, and the limbs above were brambling and clutching, but the voice sounded as if it were just at her left elbow. Left or right, she tried to remember—attempting to clarify in her thinking whether left was left to the observer, or whether left was left to the observed. Was she Observed or Observer was the questions she had of yet left unresolved, although she was about to tackle that question when she heard the voice again, this time behind her head, so she didn’t have to decide whether it was left or right, considering that she had only one of those bodily appendages, and so couldn’t be too confused to spin around.
“Oh, never mind, you’ve fortunately stopped…” said the voice, and this time when she spoke Alice could find her. In fact, it was rather ridiculous that she hadn’t seen the woman long ago, backlit as she was by a red light bulb, and what appeared to be a porch attached to the light bulb, and behind that a house attached to the porch. It wasn’t a small house either. Its garbled windows—bedecked by a kind of lacy outdoor curtain—were in fact so immense and bold that Alice could see not only her own reflection, but the reflection of a whole huge forest behind her, and behind that, a parking lot, and behind that, a subway station where a gaggle of Construction Workers were piling out of one traincar (which explained why she kept bumping into them), and rushing with incredible vim towards the lacy house.
The woman was a curious sort, Alice thought, and wondered if it was customary in these parts to wear black-netted panties (so little fabric too!) without any skirt, and red and black velvety corsets. But ala! Alice had to admire her color scheme, for perched on the top of her head was a loosely cordoned pile of carmine curls, and directly below—two very dark eyes with even darker lashes. Her face seemed poised and neutral, and she seemed to be studying Alice’s white frock, and her yellow-white tresses (quite a ghastly mess after all the hiking she’d been doing), her very large sweetly disposed eyes, which were not only blue but also slightly pink from all the crying. Abruptly, the neutrality vanished, and in its place a smile that was a gentle as it was rapacious.
“If, little girl,” she said again, and this time Alice noticed a kind of whispery huskiness, “you are lost, have fallen down the rabbit hole, so to speak, then you are perfectly welcome to come in and share a bed somewhere within this excellent establishment.”
And as the crowd of Construction Workers finally stumbled onto the porch and fairly nearly swamped the doors, Alice reached out and took the extended hand, feeling grateful that she wouldn’t have to spend the night out in the wild out-of-doors, at least not tonight.
*
One could hardly expect anything more
Than a husband with a tendency to snore
You might try pillows, underwear, Kleenex,
or the molting cockatoo named Phoenix
Don’t forget to stuff them in tight
(The bully! The retard! The bore!)
But you’re probably stuck with your plight
(Alas, Oho, It’s not Right!)
And I’ll try not to say, you wanton old whore
That that's what you get...
For having married a desperate old John called Teeny Felix
Alice was still crying—although it is hard to believe it possible, considering the considerable taxation she had already placed upon her tear ducts—when she stumbled upon Madame Mabel. At this point in the evening, the darkness had set in, and all but the smallest of stars had come out. And so, Alice had been able to stumble along, every so often bumping into a tree limb or a wolf or a Construction Worker. Each of these times, she would hiccupingly apologize, before brushing off their embraces or wolf calls, and pressing on. Yet, she was clearly getting tired, and the night seemed to squish in all around her. The day’s arrogance had slipped from her shoulders at the sight of the sun dipping down below the mountain ridge, and suddenly Alice wanted very much to know how to get home, how to find Kansas, or Rosebud.
“Whatever are you crying for?” Alice suddenly heard, and could not for the life of her locate the voice. True, she had stumbled into a particularly blind alley of trees, and the limbs above were brambling and clutching, but the voice sounded as if it were just at her left elbow. Left or right, she tried to remember—attempting to clarify in her thinking whether left was left to the observer, or whether left was left to the observed. Was she Observed or Observer was the questions she had of yet left unresolved, although she was about to tackle that question when she heard the voice again, this time behind her head, so she didn’t have to decide whether it was left or right, considering that she had only one of those bodily appendages, and so couldn’t be too confused to spin around.
“Oh, never mind, you’ve fortunately stopped…” said the voice, and this time when she spoke Alice could find her. In fact, it was rather ridiculous that she hadn’t seen the woman long ago, backlit as she was by a red light bulb, and what appeared to be a porch attached to the light bulb, and behind that a house attached to the porch. It wasn’t a small house either. Its garbled windows—bedecked by a kind of lacy outdoor curtain—were in fact so immense and bold that Alice could see not only her own reflection, but the reflection of a whole huge forest behind her, and behind that, a parking lot, and behind that, a subway station where a gaggle of Construction Workers were piling out of one traincar (which explained why she kept bumping into them), and rushing with incredible vim towards the lacy house.
The woman was a curious sort, Alice thought, and wondered if it was customary in these parts to wear black-netted panties (so little fabric too!) without any skirt, and red and black velvety corsets. But ala! Alice had to admire her color scheme, for perched on the top of her head was a loosely cordoned pile of carmine curls, and directly below—two very dark eyes with even darker lashes. Her face seemed poised and neutral, and she seemed to be studying Alice’s white frock, and her yellow-white tresses (quite a ghastly mess after all the hiking she’d been doing), her very large sweetly disposed eyes, which were not only blue but also slightly pink from all the crying. Abruptly, the neutrality vanished, and in its place a smile that was a gentle as it was rapacious.
“If, little girl,” she said again, and this time Alice noticed a kind of whispery huskiness, “you are lost, have fallen down the rabbit hole, so to speak, then you are perfectly welcome to come in and share a bed somewhere within this excellent establishment.”
And as the crowd of Construction Workers finally stumbled onto the porch and fairly nearly swamped the doors, Alice reached out and took the extended hand, feeling grateful that she wouldn’t have to spend the night out in the wild out-of-doors, at least not tonight.
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