|
|
|
- (I wrote this in a notebook in October. I found it tonight while I was looking for stationery. It just ends. I think I was going to say that she ended up getting promoted. Also, other things. Also, a lot of this is true.) (Also, I forgot to say, thank you for all the comments about Mabel Mains, it was nice, and weird. Maybe I will write more about her.)
It was a beautiful afternoon, the sun shining, the clouds moving very quickly, going away -- it had rained all morning -- I'd woken up to the sound of rain, I remember that. It was still very dark when I awoke, the middle of the night, or very early morning. But it was a beautiful afternoon, although very chilly. The trees were bright and yellow, the ones that still had leaves. The air was cold -- crisp, they say, when it's autumn -- and there was a faint hint of smoke. It was a beautiful fall afternoon. I hadn't seen fall in five years. I was outside, walking around the house. The mail would be coming soon. The dogs were in the backyard enjoying the sun. There were fall crocuses blooming. Fall crocuses look weird, unnatural. They're too early, or maybe too late. There were sirens, and a woman was on the other side of the sidewalk talking about a knife. She'd come out of a police car. I had a knife in my hand, I was walking around outside with a knife. "No, no, you don't understand," I said. "It's for my grilled cheese." The lady said, "Did you have to kill the cheese?" I said, "No, cheese isn't alive." The lady laughed but didn't seem very amused. There were other people by her and more sirens. I looked at the knife in my hand and it was covered with red. Then they took me to the police station. It was tomato soup.
"Tell us what happened on the morning of Wednesday, October 20." "It was a beautiful day," I began. "It was a beautiful autumn day, and very crisp. The sun had come out and the clouds were flying away, very quickly, like thin, quick... birds made out of clouds. I hadn't seen the fall for five years, and it was beautiful." A woman was shouting, she was shouting at me. "Stop telling a fucking story! Tell me what happened to my son!" People were squirming and papers were rustling. Two men took the woman out of the room. People were talking. The man next to me said something I didn't catch. They were all looking at me like I was supposed to do something. I didn't know what to do. I looked at the man next to me. "What?" I said. He said, "Go on." The woman was his mom. She wanted to know what had happened to him. "Yes," I said, "I want to know what that bitch did to him too." I started to remember something. There were papers rustling and people wriggling. "People always want tomato soup with grilled cheese," I said. "I wonder why."
When I left the jail it was raining. I didn't go back to my house, they wouldn't let me. I went to a place with people I didn't know, and they ran a greenhouse. I could work in the greenhouse, they told me, and I didn't have to talk to anyone if I didn't want to. I had my own room and a bathroom, and they told me to take a bath. I sat on the toilet waiting for the bathtub to fill. There were flowers across from me on the wall. Some were moving, some were blinking. I said to the lady, "Your wallpaper is alive." She said, "You were in the bath a long time, we were worried." "Your wallpaper is alive," I said. "Try not to spend so long in the shower, okay hon?" she said. She was fat, I liked her. I liked succulents the best, although I appreciated the functionality of vegetables. But I don't like tomatoes, so I did succulents. At first I didn't like the people coming to the greenhouse, but it got better after a while. They looked at me like they were interested in me. I looked back at them. Eventually I had to move out of the house and into my own apartment, in order to make room for other girls. I still worked at the greenhouse everyday. After a while I got a job in an accounting office doing photocopying, so I only worked at the greenhouse a few days a week. I kept finding errors in the documents the accountants were doing, so
|