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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 4119 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention Glass (Five Hard Pieces) Alan Addotto I. The face you see is what you make it. It is as simple as that. It is, of course, your own. In the mirror eyes there is no doubt Eyes…live eyes with a pulse in the pupils in the iris. contraction expansion along the living edges, Mi-cro-scop-ic-ly so easy to fall away into. Who is that? II. The reflection in the windscreen was distorted, of course, by the curve of the aerodynamic need for less drag, more speed, efficiency being the operative but ironic word. He wasn’t really going but on a one way. That’s how “glorious” worked out sometimes. He could have just as easily been flying a freight train for all the limited use for the streamlining the Mitsubishi would be put to. What did he see flash in that glass? a small house? a wife and himself comfortable at night? the possibility of children? descendants? old age? enjoying an evening exhalations tumbling down the almost sleeping, drowsy mountain’s belly? old age? perhaps a garden? a few ducks and chickens? Did he smell the perfumed conversation of the bonsai on his back porch---- as he ran his hand through the tiny prickly pine needles raising his fingers to his face and smelling the sticky resin gratitude the dwarf gave off? Did he hear someone calling him to a late evening dinner? and the chatter chatter of sliding doors as the house was opened up like the sails on his boat, to catch the puff-ball breezes scented with Magnolia Vescata camellia and jasmine? Did he? No. What he did hear was the engine cough then stop, the competitive silence, the sound of wind. He smelled the canvas and leather oil and ozone wrapping around and wombing him in just before banking hard over and spinning in. He never felt it but from the beach he saw the explosion. The only thing he felt was the sting for just the length of its split second of passing was a piece of glass shrapnel as it flew completely through him. The wife he would never ever have called him to come and enjoy the fish stew and noodles in the shadows. III. Across the street as she sat and typed day in and day out she watched the big plate glass window between the flicker-flacker of the passing, interrupting episodic frame by frame traffic …………she stole time from her employer and stared for something like the millionth time at the manikins male and female arranged so perfectly, so precisely so beautifully in so believable-unbelievable a cubic world. dressed so impeccably they stood and sat, skins as cool as their air conditioning thermostat would allow. “ That…… “ she thought “that……..” she seldom got very far past the one word that summed up her awe of the great beauty, suave grace and poise she thought she saw. The dummies stubbornly never did do any of those cheap and expected science fiction things: like move of their own accord or bestow magical genie rewards on her for her dog-like devotion. Nope. From her vantage point across the way our transcriber watched as small vignettes would unfold centered around merchandise-able things like furniture, lifestyles and clothes that changed as often soap-opera bed partners. Eventually of course she began to identify with them and now and then…. she picked favorites weaving a story line, an pleasant explanation for the changes she saw in fashions in the display from time to time. In the summer when the sun was at just the right height and the light came bounding down just right as she sat typing she could just catch momentary reflections of herself at her desk superimposed on the glass across the street and as she dreamed in between invoices and bills of lading and sale. Like her image she fantasized she was part of that fashionable, very up to date world, handsome men and ethereal females, superbly dressed, undressed and redressed. …….. exposed as clothes were draped on her around her. She had seen them nude and degenatilized except for a prominent nipple or two on the newer models. She could empathize identify sympathize. After her retirement, when the department store closed down a single forgotten manikin head gathered dust and rust becoming bleached on one side by the sun when it was just at the right angle on just the right day to catch the fire in those glass eyes before the evening stole it away or the dirt eventually clouded the window completely. IV. He was one of the men who worked on one of the crews that cleaned the steel and glass skin of that sixty five story monster opposite from the one that I worked in I saw him from time to time on that antique scaffolding hung out there on ropes like taut spider webs cleaning it across the way from me like some large rasp or cleaner sliding around the belly of a shark or other fish sucking off the parasites and underwater lice for a meal. Never finishing, never getting to a conclusion-- job security with the dirt and pollution. Getting to the bottom level then going back to the top to start all over again and again. Last week almost dead level with the floor my office is on and during my lunch break there he was standing on the edge of that aluminum maintenance scaffolding. I watched as he unsnapped his safety harness and frisbee-fling out his hard hat from his head step to the edge yell something then like some big raw-boned featherless bird he leapt with his flannel shirt and khaki pants flapping like gossiping tongues in the air passing around his personal perimeter. No use in asking why the respondent with the correct answer couldn’t. No use in watching the dramatic inevitable confusion and multi-media conclusion on the sidewalk. Later I saw that at street level the exploded window washer had done an impromptu imitation of a Jackson Pollock splatter-art mural all over the glassy transparent wall of a store advertisement for expensive British-made blue jeans. Caught by some freakish updraft the hard safety hat landed on the fascia ledge right outside my window until another wind tongue licked it off. It landed sardonically on the exact wet red spot that had been the spot where all that was left of the head had been. (The second cleaning crew was still hosing and scrubbing up but hadn’t gotten that far yet.) then Pock!!!!! it landed-- unperturbed and upright I now it is weird of me to say, but I couldn’t stop laughing all the way on the commute home that day. V. Almost like one of those commercials for expensive gourmet wines, with the smallest sip of red looking like an erect nipple at the bottom of the wineglass on the coffee table. It gathered the fire’s reflections from the rest of the room bending them around the outside in a flicker-panorama dream scene. It had been a long day. and the last of the guests were finally gone. I like people all right but much prefer she and I alone. Asleep in my recliner her head on the pillow on the arm. She is curled up …………. legs bent feet touching the back of it behind her. Bending over I catch her up lift her, (pillow, and all) she stirs only slightly to slide her arms around my neck to hold on. Lifting her to my chest I chuckle a little under my breath at her lightness, remembering her take charge attitude from earlier. bumping into the table the wineglass teeters then tips over spilling its last red tears beading them up into a string of pearls, making a memory mark of that night on the dark mahogany of the table top-- a touchable visual reminder. |
