Thu, 19 May 2005

i can hear you walking over my grave
When I first moved out here I spent a lot of time watching funerals at the tiny graveyard beneath the I-380 overpass. Packs of mourners were wandering the graveyard, dousing for voices with their cellphones, trying to pick up some signal, some last message by which they would find their way once again, so long content to keep her as their magnetic north around which all forces coalesced and all hearts were oriented. Freelance reporters, watching from the gates at the front enterance, bounced sunlight off mirrors and scraps of tin foil in an attempt to get the attention of any of the immediate family, but their sunglasses were set to phase out light at those levels, so that only the priest noticed them at all, and believing them cultists attempting to pull solar demons into the bodies of his parishoners, sent his sons after them with shovels and pickaxes. I watched them from an oak tree long split by lightning, the branches gnarled and intertwined, and I wanted to stay there, to watch what became of the funeral party, to feel the sunlight dappled between the leaves and falling on my face, to not have to go back to my life, but the devils of habit and tedium pulled me back into debt and terror and loss, tugging back and forth, until I felt tired deep in my chest and started walking back toward the trailer, listening to traffic hum above my head. On the way back I saw a drizzly looking dishwater blonde, wearing a half-dozen sweaters atop each other, like she spent her whole live in the mouth of a rainy day. She looked lost, so I walked up to say hi and ask her if I could help her, and she started screaming at me about fucking nasty Iowa cunts like me, so I punched her in the mouth and she fell like a sack of potatoes. Fucking nasty Iowa cunts like me don’t take shit off tourists.
(12:13.05.19.2005) [/ana] #