Esoterica

The weird stuff.

The Queen and The Viscount

The queen is fucking the viscount, and the whole court knows about it. We do our best to act like we don't, but they're getting sloppy. Unsealed missives. Garden dalliances in the full glare of moonlight. We look away when they exchange simpering glances, keeping our own faces blank. But the stink of their self-satisfaction--that we cannot escape.

Honestly I think she wants everyone to know. Everyone but the king, of course. One by one she draws aside her handmaids, demanding to know what we've seen, what we've heard. Oh, nothing untoward m'lady, we lie, and the sluttish twinkle in her eye betrays the delight she takes in this facade. But we value our heads, so we keep the lips on them sealed. We don't tell her what the viscount does when she's away. Which is much, and ugly. There are casualties of his "affection" from the galley to the stables.

The queen fancies herself a coquette, but too many years have passed for that. Too many babies born. The velvet at her waist pinches, the rouge creases on her cheek. The seamstress told us she's had the lace of her cuffs lengthened to hide withering hands. No more is she the apple-cheeked ingenue freshly arrived at our shores, her dowry the promise of war avoided.

And the viscount, well. Have you ever admired a stallion far off in the paddock, only to see when it approaches that it is, in fact, a gelding?

Then you know our illustrious viscount.

Of Peaks and Paper Dolls

I have been thinking about you, and how you slipped into quiet and shadow, living a life I don't know anything about anymore. 

In the peaks and valleys that is our friendship, you once wrote out of the blue, I think it's time for another peak. But then you disappeared again, before I could even find my climbing ropes. And I was ready to scale whatever mountain face it took, to see yours again. 

Now the only evidence I have of your continued existence is in photos of her, where you are like the trimmings cut away from a paper chain doll. You're not what I'm supposed to look at. But you are the context and the frame and the source. She wouldn't be unfolding prettily across the world like that, an accordion of grace and youth, if you didn't fold yourself in two, four, eight to give her that world.

And I understand it more than you know.

But peaks are worth the effort to climb and make for beautiful pictures, too, if you can tear yourself away from the shape of her long enough to remember. 

 War Cry

There is a space that exists between two people who have something to offer one another - something to demand of one another. In that space is an energy of their design, willed to life by the words they exchange, the glances and glancing touches they share. It is an electrified fence, the disarmament of which requires mutual consent. Intentions - good, better, or the best - have nothing to do with it. It will kill regardless. We've all died on it, at one time or another. We've all reached the first foolish hand out to test the voltage, hoping against hope that what we press our fingers against isn't fire, but another warm, open palm.

That space is infinite. That space is infinitesimal. It's the stretch of beach that one moment drowns in the depth of splashing foam, and the next yawns wide, sunning itself for the briefest second before disappearing once more. Empty, full. Full, empty. That space is more alive, more inviting, and more dangerous than anything else we can know in life. It compels us, commands us, and, as we tally heartbreak, threatens us. Seldom do we heed. More often, we choose to dash ourselves upon the rocks, the only evidence that remains of our courage the invisible, useless war cry of the unrequited lover: I'll go first. 

Confectionary

Remember me as the one who loved you in language. The one who pulled pieces of you like taffy, wound them round and round into words that sent your ego on a soaring sugar rush. You can come back to them, but you can't come back to me. I've found sweeter truths for my tongue to taste, and my mouth is so much fuller than you could ever make it.

Porridge

And so Goldilocks found herself in a kitchen that felt at once familiar and strange. She saw three bowls on a wooden table of questionable soundness, under whose third leg was stuffed a number of Splenda packets. She knew she should proceed with caution, but she was really goddamn hungry, and porridge always hit the spot. She intuited it was porridge not by sight or smell, but by the sure knowledge that it couldn't possibly be anything else.

She'd just finished getting cut out of a wolf's stomach, after all. She knew exactly what road she was on.

Predictably enough, she burned the living hell out of her tongue on the first bowl, cursing up a storm the likes of which hadn't been seen since that Midwestern upstart (and her little dog, too) had landed in town. The second bowl was stone cold, and the small sip she had of it made her shiver violently. She held her spoon poised above the third bowl and stared at its contents; a delicate curl of steam reached the tip of her nose. She felt its warmth on her face. It promised to be perfect. It promised to be just right.

It wasn't.

Fucking fairy tales, she thought. They get me every time.

Disappointed but not defeated, Goldilocks composed herself. She set the spoon down on the table. She smoothed her frock and tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. She set her shoulders and lifted her chin. She walked to the door and through it. And as she did so, she caught her reflection in the window pane: still hungry, but none the worse for wear.

Punctuationally

She takes the first, tentative steps onto the oversized ellipsis, which carries her like a moving sidewalk through the empty space. It travels horizontally, left to right, and begins to repeat itself. Space, ellipsis. Space, ellipsis. Clusters of three dots she must walk across. She jumps the chasms between the clusters with trepidation at first, but soon hits her stride and makes the leaps with ease. Step, step, step, jump. Step, step, step, jump.

Suddenly, her landing doesn't stick. The first sphere of an ellipsis spins beneath her feet like a barrel floating in the river. She wobbles and dances, dangerously close to falling off. We see her arms shoot out sideways, desperate to find balance. Her feet eventually find a pace to match the spinning dot, and she's safe, but the game has changed. The ellipses aren't solid and sure anymore; they're treacherous and slippery, and threaten to throw her at the slightest misstep.

She keeps moving, though slower now than before. The dots spin beneath her feet as if slickened by oil. And now, another change: the ellipsis beneath her feet spreads out, widening impossibly. She'll never make it across; the distance is too far. She perches precariously for one final moment before losing her balance and dropping down, down, down between clusters of dots that are stretching out across the vacant blackness.

Arms and legs akimbo, hair caught up in the fall, she goes down, down, down. Nothing but empty space around her at first, and then, floating up, one after another, spread across the screen - question marks. Like tiny umbrellas, or parachutes. They go up, up, up as she keeps plummeting down, down, down. She grabs for one, just catching it by the dot of its bottom half, and her body slowly swings to a stop, like a wind chime abandoned by the breeze.

She hangs on. The question mark moves vertically through a void filled with the more of same, faster than some, slower than others. Her arms are growing tired. She pulls herself up to stand on the dot, holding on to the curved stem above it.

One by one, the other question marks disappear until only hers remains. A horizontal line - a dash - breaches the right side of the screen. She sees it. The dash repeats, and repeats again, unfolding backwards to the left, until it spans the nearly the full length of the space above her. It's a path she needs to get to.

She tries to climbs the question mark she floats on, to use its rounded crown as a stepping stone. She pulls her body up - but in doing so, her weight causes it to capsize, and she scrambles to stay on board. The top heavy mark swings back and forth like a pendulum, jerking her with it, until she tumbles into the opened, upside down curve of the bulb.

She's safe, for the moment, in this makeshift cradle, which drifts without an anchor through a sea of black.

Lost And Found

She knew it was missing the moment she woke up. Goddamnit, she thought. Not again. Splashes of morning collected in the twisted sheets, spilling and pooling but refusing to disappear when she pulled all four hundred threads-per-inch over her head. It warmed her in patches, soaking through the cotton, waiting cheerfully for her reemergence. I'll be here when you're ready! I'm California sunshine, and I'm utterly fucking relentless!

As always, she started with the bathroom mirror, padding barefoot across a floor that felt especially cold and hard. But it wasn't there as she held herself briefly in a series of practiced poses, angles and arcs that flattered her body's better features. Not in her stomach, forgivingly flat before breakfast, and not in her biceps, pale sinew that betrayed or belied its age depending on the light.

She looked for it in the shower, turning over thoughts like foreign coins, the flip sides of which are interesting, but rarely surprising. Nope. Not there. Not today.

Drinking coffee a little while later, she gazed around a room at furnishings chosen at no small cost of consideration or price. At books and photo albums and nearly four decades of mementos - the things that would represented her sum and substance, when she ceased to present her corporeal substance to the world anymore. But it wasn't to be found in any of that, either. (And she'd known better than to look anyway.)

It wasn't in the faces that filled her day. Not the one that supervised her on how to spend it or in those of whom she supervised herself. Not in friendly smiles, not in nods of respect, not in the appraising, approaching eyes of men on the sidewalk - glances which seemed to grow shorter all the time. She rarely returned them at all these days, for fear of experiencing just how short.

It was hiding particularly well, she realized, when not even a bit of it was to be found in her lover's eyes at the end of the day. Always the last place you look, she thought wryly, noticing how late it had gotten. A few more hours and she'd have to call off the search until tomorrow.

Then the letter came. It rang itself into her inbox with an optimistic chime, and she reached for her phone. Launched her mail app. Recognized the name. Opened the email. Read the words. Understood the import. She felt the compliment bloom in her brain, then float down to her heart where it took root and bifurcated in a single, delicious burst. To the tips of her fingers it raced, this relief in remembering that Yes, okay, sometimes it's impossible to see myself, but it is there.

It is there.

She boxed it up in steel-reinforced gratitude and copy-pasted it to the clipboard of her mind, where it would be easily accessible for at least another twelve hours before slinking off in the dead of night, luring her into the next round of hide-and-go-seek.

Pure Promise

Because there'll be a moment a few short weeks down the road, when you'll be hit with a wave of happiness that rips your breath away and leaves you wide-eyed and wondering. Walking down Broadway, just past sunset. The shops still open, glaring fluorescent light and racks of t-shirts spilling out onto the sidewalk. Rush hour pedestrians file past, some catching buses, some catching your eye since it seems like everyone feels it - the high of this November chill, finally, the holidays around the corner and optimism seeping out of our pores in spite of ourselves.

In spite of our uglier natures, our jealousies, petty rivalries, insecurities and rootless anxiety, we all get moments like this. Joy grips your soul, your best friend by your side. He knows the scents and sounds and his prancing gait suggests your mood has infected him, too. And you don't want to go home. You want to stay out in the busy streets, the comforting bustle you've missed for months. So you'll roam, Youth Lagoon on an endless loop, using the dog as an excuse to stay out later than you should, because there are things to be done. There is progress to be made.

But it's intoxicating, the simplicity of just this single, amazing hour of your life. You're alive and well and healthy enough - and you're in love, shamelessly, with no reservations, no "if onlys" to hold you back this time. It's wide open and it's yours and cynicism has nothing to do but hide in the corner, cowering, unwelcome. Though you know better than to actually do it, you'll want to dare life to do its worst, because you feel untouchable. This is the space you know, though it's eluded you these months, waiting for you to exhale. And when you do, releasing the fear and worry that robbed you of nearly a third of your year, the breath back in is pure promise.

The Schadenfreude Buffet

When you dine at the Schadenfreude Buffet, you must show restraint. 

Heavy platters of exquisite food will be passed around. No matter your appetite, you must take from them lightly. To gorge yourself would draw scorn and shame. So though you may relish what is served, remember to disguise your delectation in an air of detachment. You are a civilized being, after all.

But should you drop your napkin, under the table will be a sea of legs dancing in delight. The Schadenfreude Buffet is always full of hungry dissemblers, savoring every bite. 

Melancholy Girl

Melancholy girl talks in riddles and rhymes, in unfinished thought and suggestive implication. She doesn't know any other way. She is incapable of being clear or direct in her words, because she's afraid of the consequences. She's afraid to say no, because she's so afraid of being said no to. She is terrified - utterly terrified - of being alone.

Melancholy girl has no boundaries. She lets men take as little or as much as they want, and she tells herself she's gifted them something beautiful, no matter how much it cost her. Melancholy girl doesn't keep a good accounting of herself, and spends emotions on credit.

Melancholy girl has no true identity. She floats about, her eyes and ears keen to the charms of other women. When she sees something she admires - or that wins the attention of men - she morphs, chameleon-like, into that thing. Melancholy girl has no idea who she is. She collects visions of what she wishes that was, but that's as close as she gets to self-awareness.

Melancholy girl draws men in with her doleful sighs and downcast eyes. They want to fix her. They want to take care of her. Melancholy girl devastates men, or they devastate her, because only she can fix herself, but she doesn't know how. Melancholy girl doesn't have healthy relationships. She thrives on drama, on wild highs and crushing lows.

Melancholy girl attracts a certain kind of man - one who needs to feel strong in the face of her weakness. Melancholy girl tries very hard to appear helpless. Melancholy girl is often victimized by abusive, womanizing men. But because she doesn't love herself, deep down, she doesn't think she deserves anything better.

Melancholy girl is sometimes sincere in her pain, and sometimes not. Sometimes she's just an incredible and disgustingly manipulative actress.

Melancholy girl makes me angry. She's lazy. She's given up. She empowers abusive, selfish, and dangerous men. She hands the reigns over to them with a bat of her eyelashes. And when they've left her aching on the bathroom floor to go find another victim, she refuses to own her role in the ugly, sad story. Melancholy girl needs to grow the fuck up.

Melancholy girl is also a magnet for unhappy and lonely men - men looking for a purpose in life. She lures them with the promise of the emotionally exotic and the physically erotic. But it's all bullshit and games.

Melancholy girl isn't real. I could touch her and she'd turn to feathers and dust. She's as substantial as vapor.

Melancholy girl won't make you laugh. She'll only make you cry.

Melancholy girl will trap and drown you, if you let her.

You won't be richer for your experience of her. Only a little bit more used up.

The Bloody Empress

There once was an empress who sacrificed everything to her twin gods of Image and Profit. Tied down tight upon the altar, Probity and Integrity gave up their spirits in a spray of blood. The empress felt not a moment's hesitancy in swinging the sword. Principles pay no dividends, she muttered, wiping viscera off her cheek. 

The empress moved in circles in the sky, mincing and mingling with other false demigods who toasted one another in approving solidarity. Up there she felt safe, shielded by shared culpability from facing the shame of her dishonesty.

Far below her, though, in the soldiering, sublunary ranks - the disgust was undisguised. They knew. They talked. They mocked.

And when the blood of the lies to which they were bound rained down upon them, they looked skyward. They saw the empress holding high her sword, ready to split asunder any who dared dissent. But the soldiers were smart. They knew that deep down, she was afraid. There was no hiding the vastness of her corruption, and the silence they kept left her beholden to them, a debt accumulating interest exponentially faster than she could find new values to slaughter.

Serves Two

Ingredients

• 1 female, 38 years of age

• 1 male, 30 years of age

• 1 English Mastiff, 6 years of age

• several servings of sushi

• several ounces of alcohol

• 1 premium Spotify subscription

• 1 teaspoon optimism (if not in season, substitute with additional alcohol) 

• 1 surprise kiss

Directions

1. Arrange sober, unfed humans on opposing barstools in neighborhood tavern. Slowly mix in six to eight ounces of alcoholic beverages, pausing occasionally for casual conversation, sustained eye contact, and laughter. 

2. When thoroughly toasted, remove from tavern and allow to cool momentarily on city streets before placing in nearby Japanese restaurant. Pour in roughly 3/4 of remaining alcohol. 

3. In separate room, allow Mastiff to slumber undisturbed for two to three hours. 

4. Divide sushi into three portions: what male will eat, what female will eat, and what female will leave behind on the plate for male to eat even though she really wants to eat it herself. Stuff humans accordingly. 

5. Carefully combine male and Mastiff in pre-cleaned apartment, using a dog treat to unstick Mastiff from female if necessary. 

6. Add surprise kiss.

7. Quickly, while kiss is still warm, sprinkle female with optimism.

8. Transfer humans to overly crowded scenester bar. Add remaining alcohol.

9. Return pair to apartment and add Spotify at maximum volume. Keep music on high until a loud pounding on adjoining neighbor's wall is heard; then adjust volume to low. Allow male to rest while whipping female and Mastiff into music-induced frenzy. 

10. Marinate overnight in separate zip codes.

Reviews

★★★★☆

Delicious! I thoroughly enjoyed this recipe, but I would probably use less alcohol next time. - Ellie, 7/20/13

★★★☆☆

The leftovers were a little lacking in flavor, so I just added a few tablespoons of perspective. Changed the taste completely though. - Ellie, 7/21/13 

★★☆☆☆

Hmmm, I don't know. Seemed pretty good at the time, but I'm not sure I'd make this one again. - Ellie, 7/22/13

★★☆☆☆

Needs moar treets. - Chaucer, 7/21/13

Negotiation

Body and Brain agree to meet at midnight, in a greasy spoon downtown. It's a 24-hour joint, the kind with old-fashioned glass sugar dispensers instead of crinkly pastel packets - that makes Body happy. And it's empty on weeknights, which makes Brain happy. He doesn't want to be seen. They take a booth at the back and order a pot of coffee.

"Cream, not milk," specifies Body, ignoring Brain's exasperated look. "And--would you mind?" She hands the waitress a half-empty sugar pourer.

"Are you kidding me? There's plenty!" objects Brain, but Body leans back and casually points to a clock on the opposite wall.

"You're the one that wanted to meet at midnight. As far as I'm concerned, it's a new day. Counter resets to zero, amigo. Now let's get started, yeah? I'm exhausted, and I'm sure you are, too."

She's feeling cocky tonight, Brain muses. Must have made a killing. He reaches into his coat and pulls out a ball point pen and small pad of paper. Uncaps the pen and scratches a number on the pad, then tears the sheet off and passes it, face down, across the table to Body. They silently hold eye contact while the waitress pours them each a cup of steaming black coffee.

"You didn't even have to think about it, did you?" Body asks, without touching the paper.

"Oh, I think about it all the time. Some days it's all I think about." Brain slumps in his seat, weary, anticipating the fight ahead.

Body flips the slip of paper and reads the number written there. Immediately she starts shaking her head. "Impossible." Brain starts to speak but Body repeats herself, voice rising in anger: "Impossible!"

"Not impossible," says Brain serenely. "You've been there before."

"When I was nineteen!" Body is blinking fast, shaking. She takes a gulp of coffee with unsteady hands then gestures for Brain to give her the pen. Nearly knocking her mug off the table, she slashes a line through Brain's number and writes a new one below it. She pushes the paper roughly back across the table to her adversary.

Brain considers. It's a fair number. A decent number. But he knows she can do better. As if to mock his confidence in her, Body dumps several seconds' worth of sugar into her drink. She raises it in a sarcastic toast.

"That's not going to help, you know, whatever figure we decide on." His tone is soft. He knows what he's asking of her.

"We," she replies dryly. "Whatever we decide. You do realize I'm the one killing myself on that treadmill every day, right? In the canyon, in hundred degree heat? One more mile, you whisper, as if it's so goddamn easy. Ten more minutes. Don't you want that bikini to look amazing? Well you know what? Fuck you and your impossible standards. Fuck the magazines you read and the other girls you look at, and fuck the mind games you play with me. The guilt and the shame and--"

"Stop."

"No, I'm tired of chasing some--"

"Just stop." Brain reaches across to Body. Gently squeezes her wrist. "We do this every time. You say the same thing, every time." He pauses, looking at her intently. "Then you remember how happy you would be, if only." He picks up the pen. With careful, deliberate strokes he crosses out her counteroffer. Writes his own beneath it. "You can't lie to me, Body." Slides the paper slowly back into her hand. "I know what you want."

The heights of estimation

The Heights of Estimation (where my heroes live) are treacherous and difficult to reach. Steep, craggy cliffs buffeted by icy, howling wind. A thorny, overgrown path that discourages visitors. I call on them only when I absolutely must - my heroes. Which is how I suspect they prefer it, anyway. Wizards behinds curtains keep the curtains drawn for good reason.

Still, I am a faithful supplicant. Bundled against the unbearable cold, I make regular treks to pay homage. I set my most lavish praise on their doorsteps and retreat quietly. I await response. Sometimes it comes; sometimes it doesn't. Either way they keep the homes I've built for them, high, high up in the clouds. The Heights of Estimation are rent stabilized.

Once in a while my mind plays tricks on me, and I think I see one of my heroes down here, in the sublunary world. But I know that can't be possible. Why would they consort among mere humans - flawed, pathetic, needful? What use is this place to them? They have everything they need in the lofty aeries I so lovingly furnished with my fulsome admiration, my undying devotion.

No - my heroes are quite comfortable where they are, I think. Safe. Elusive. Unassailable.

Unknowable, ultimately.

Your Glass Box

Your glass box is beautiful; I can't deny that. You built it with care, with trust for strangers you'd yet to meet. Still haven't.

Never will.

Through it I see your need, the vulnerability that you wear like a second skin, so comfortable and smooth. Was it always so?

They come and press their hands against it, leaving fingerprints - smudges of an imagined caress.

That part makes me sad. So much, given away so freely. Your deepest and darkest, offered up to the undeserving and greedy and careless.

But I understand the exchange, and the shallow satiation. I don't begrudge you.

Your glass box is beautiful. I see exactly who you are inside it.

 Ellien Christmas

Ellien's log, stardate 201412.24
11pm

I have successfully infiltrated a dwelling in a populous, temperate region of Earth, coordinates 34.0500° N, 118.2500° W. My stated mission is to observe and document the behavior of a typical adult human female during the annual celebration Earthlings refer to as "Christmas." However, I also hope to gain a deeper understanding of the more specific socioclassification blogger, a bizarre subset with whose psychological expressions I have long been personally fascinated.

Ellien's log, stardate 201412.25
8am

My host body awakens. Thanks to the 24-hour Sub-Wernickian Mind Meld I initiated upon arrival, she is unable to detect my cerebral thought-tap. I note a number of interesting physiological conditions, recorded below:

• Stress. Immediately upon waking, subject becomes aware of the various tasks she must accomplish over the next several hours, some of which she feels trepidation toward. Subject visualizes herself in various chaotic situations involving burnt food, bored guests, and other scenarios unpleasant to humans.

• Withdrawal. Subject manifests a clear and urgent need for caffeine.

• Excitement. As suggested by our observations, the Christmas holiday induces a mild euphoria among humans, perhaps due to the increasingly frenetic rate at which they consume the sugary liquified foodstuff identified as eggnog. I also suspect this effect is triggered by auditory cues, particularly those involving the incessantly broadcast seasonal soundmix, one arrangement of which seems to be permanently lodged in the subject's brainstem. 

9am

Subject and mate engage in gift exchange ritual. There is much bodily contact and high-pitched verbalization. Interestingly, I detect a slight undercurrent of negative emotion in subject's brainwaves.

10am

Subject has removed herself to private quarters. Neural pathways have overloaded and temporarily blocked the thought-tap; however, I am able to shift 30% of the mind meld to the subject's temporal lobe, where several dozen memories have come loose and are now flooding the brain. Subject is experiencing a vast array of feelings which are challenging her ability to remain upright. (Note: I believe this is what is known as a breakdown, a phenomenon hypothesized by our scientists but as yet unobserved.)

1pm

Party preparations begin. Subject, in a near-manic state, assembles and cooks a variety of foodstuffs. Mate assists nervously. Alcoholic beverages are consumed and subject eases considerably, though occasionally still emitting verbal imprecations and expressing regret about decision to host assembly in own habitat.

4pm

A pair bond of two adult humans arrive at the dwelling. Subject and mate greet the pair bond and another gift exchange occurs. Beverages are prepared, distributed, and consumed repeatedly.

6pm

A second pair bond arrives. There are now six adult humans and one animal in the home. The four pair bonded outsiders engage sociably with subject's mate. Subject appears withdrawn and uncomfortable, and often repairs to food preparation area alone. (Later analysis shows a correlation between spikes in thought pattern and certain phrases uttered by pair-bonded outsiders, including "moving" and "San Francisco".) Additional beverages are distributed and consumed.

8pm

A ritual of some kind is conducted, involving a large, rectangular cardboard tablet and multicolor totems which are moved across the tablet incrementally. Laughter increases in frequency and intensity. Subject's thought-tap flows with increasingly positive feelings. Multiple bottles of reddish-purple fermented juice are consumed.

9pm

The store of reddish-purple fermented juice depleted, subject offers others a pale yellow version, similarly packaged. They assent emphatically. "You guys want me to rinse your glasses first?" she asks. "Oh god no," one replies. "Yeah, don't care at all," says another. Subject nods. "You are my people," she says.

10pm

All remaining bottles of fermented juice have now been consumed. Chilled bottles of fermented grain are produced from a sealed metal storage container.

10:15pm

Thought-tap becoming hazy and difficult to access. Suspect correlation to consumption of fermented juice and grain.

11:00pm

All stores of fermented beverages depleted, group decides to remove from dwelling and relocate to nearby sky cave. Short journey to sky cave filled with animated conversation and raucous laughter.

11:05pm

Sub-Wernickian Mind Meld has now expired. Remaining observations compiled externally. Submitting preliminary report to Control, withdrawing from host body and returning to mothership for full debriefing within the hour.

nursery rhymes for exes

Little fish clown face, splashing in your pond,

What will you do when the water's gone?

Will you flip, will you flop, will you gasp for air?

Don't look now, but there's no one there! 

---

Fibs and frowns and fat, bald lies

Fly back home to your mama's side.

Take your frau and put her in the kitch'

Sew her up quick with a husband stitch!

---

Apron strings,

Apron strings,

Cheapskate date.

Quit the bourby and the derby

Ten years late!

Cool Blue Veil

Late spring in a suburban Michigan yard. On my stomach, on the grass. Someone’s older sister learned the buttercup trick, probably at summer camp, probably with a boy, passed it on to the rest of us. But we don’t have buttercups, so dandelions it is. Only, I can’t see my own chin. Doesn’t matter. I know I like butter. I rake my hands through clover patches that my dad, no landscaper he, missed or never cared about anyway. Scanning with my keen young eyes, ever hopeful. There’s got to be one here somewhere. But no, never. My own front yard keeps its good luck hidden from me.

I wander along the side of the house. The patch of crocus beneath the living room window is in bloom. Delicate periwinkle and that exotic splash of yellow. Something about it, something I’ll never be able to explain, feels sensuous and more feminine than the other flowers. It makes me embarrassed, somehow. I am not yet ten years old.

The Shell boys are out next door, playing with their German Shepherd. I drift away from the fence between us, uncomfortable being close to them. All three intimidate me, though the two teenagers are really nothing more than vague cardboard cutouts of Older Boys. But my mother has made comments about their mother, and my father has made comments about their money. The gavel has fallen, and I keep my distance.

Evening is dropping a cool blue veil, but I’m already home. When I get cold, I’ll just walk inside. All the doors are unlocked, all the time. Besides, the fireflies will be coming out any minute. As long as they don’t land on me, I’m not afraid of them.

Assets