| Mister Kurtz was dead, as were the honey locusts. Everything else seemed dead too, or at least too drunk to be alive. Except for the smoke, of course, which bounced about the dark and sullen room in exquisite pirouettes. |
Cashmere Tea
| Alice slid down the cellophane slide and landed sharply on her head. She made a peculiar semi-smile as the spiraling stars became colorful elephants and danced around her sky. The elephants exploded into firework outlines of sparkling yellow light and quickly faded, their fiery tails glimmering in her eyes as they disappeared. In a moment only the dark firmament remained. She was alone. |
Depart from Me Therefore, Ye Bloody Men
| The purple mint sky collapsed over Paris. Outside the Chuchotement Silencieux Café on the banks of the Seine, where women in flowery pink and yellow sundresses basked in gossip over late-morning latté and croissants, a callous rain pierced the conversations and flooded the half-empty cups and naked saucers, soaking the nibbled pain. As the meadow of wilting flowers retreated inside, waiters and waitresses scampered into the rain to fix umbrellas to the white-latticed tables. |
| There was no electricity and never would be: only dying candles lit the room. An ancient gas line, for a small rusty stove and minimal heat, protruded from the rotting floorboards and left a foul stench in the air. The iridescent candlelight hid the night and projected an adumbral pyramid upon the faded blue wallpaper. Books were everywhere. Ancient texts written in Hebrew lounged next to The Count of Monte Cristo. Rudyard Kipling sprawled out over Origin of the Species. The pages were yellowed and their corners torn, stained with tea and chocolate and cigarette ashes. A calico cat hid under the worn brown couch and drank milk from a tin cup. A thin layer of dust veiled everything, including the scrawny cat that cried out as her master came into view. |
Mourning Doves
| Two mourning doves lounged together in silence on a cobblestone path in the middle of a small park, watching a young boy attempt to eat a snow cone. The boy gripped the cone-shaped cup so hard that all the flavored ice burst forth and fell to the ground. The boy’s snow cone was now a heap of red mush lying there on the red thoroughfare, unable to be eaten. And so the boy wandered off, leaving the red ice to melt away under the mid-day sun. |