The tulips grew apart from each other that Spring. The ground cracked and crumbled in ways that I’d never seen before.
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As winner of the coveted Billybong Prize for progressive literature, Theresa, not yet 45, should have been on cloud nine. And had her sister not come to the ceremony, young daughter in hand, Theresa having left her worries about her future decision (syllable or one letter?) at home, bask in the glory.
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When the angels watch me alone in my room, they see me diagonal across my bed, sheets in a pile at the foot. The angels watch sunlight hum through my sheer curtains, and my bare tits point down my chest like puffy pizza slices….
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Last night, it rained oranges: a citrus circus of fruit knocked from branches, sent spinning into orbit, landing hard on the grass. The spindly dwarf citrus planted in the park by Walt himself hurled their burden of golden globes in the four directions: Toontown, Fantasyland, Adventureland, and Tomorrowland. And as the skies wrenched and rocked above, delivering wind—real wind, not something manufactured, some transparent trick of light and sensation—Tamaya was already winding into a state of anticipation of the windfall of sweetness.
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The students shuffle out of the building, grumbling over their still unfinished work as I organize my area, preparing it for the next worker just four hours later. The clock strikes three am but I wait to lock the doors. If students are still upstairs, possibly packing their things, they’ll be trapped inside until a sleep deprived student in a security guard uniform finds them.
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“Nicholas! Is that you? You’re home just in time.”
He steps into the dining room. Dinner is on the table, candles lit, bottle open and breathing. Chairs wait close together at the corner of a table set for two. The smell of their favorite meal inspires a deep inhale through his nose. He pauses for a moment to think about the evening that could have been. It all seems so perfect. Surrendering a deep sigh, he follows her voice into the kitchen.
“Yes, Nona, I’m here. Everything looks so good…” the pitch of his voice rises as it trails off to a whisper.
“Oh no! What is it Nicholas?”
“The reindeer, I hear they haven’t been eating anything today. I need to go check on them, tend to them. I can’t have them getting sick at this time of year.”
The men and women huddled around the kitchen table clutching mugs of coffee and tea. They hunched forward and talked nervously in muffled whispers, afraid hostile ears lurked nearby.
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Wheel of Fortune. Every day. Every damn day that’s what she watches. It’s like she has to watch it or else she’s miserable and we can’t watch anything else. If I want to watch something else, she, like, freaks out and says that I have my own television in my room. She knows how small that TV is and she wouldn’t watch it if she was forced to either.