Inner Animal

year of the cereal box

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February 6, year of the cereal box

She went on up the stairs of the house. They were bright and clean and carpeted. And along the passage, all the lights were on. In one room two little girls were sitting on the carpet in their best dresses. She picked up a plain, unmarked cardboard box, and inside were new dolls to play with

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February 23, year of the cereal box

She felt very quiet, very still. Early on Sunday morning, it seemed no one else was awake, and the motor sound of the city had not turned on yet. She walked through the apartment, touching the railing on the wainscot, patting the head of the bunny toy on the bookshelf, stood still and not looking at anything in particluar, except maybe the morning light filtering through the sheer white curtains. She went into the dining room and opened a drawer. Inside there was a stack of gold teaspoons. She picked up the stack and felt their curving shape. The ones she liked best were not on the top or the bottom, but were in the middle of the stack.

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March 18, year of the cereal box

Janna recognized the woman, but didn't remember her name. She was some kind of artist, plump with frizzy hair, dyed bright red and tied up at several bright angles on her head. She was more than plump, so large that she didn't really wear her dress, it seemed more like several swaths of bright printed fabrics wrapped around her, swirling with her as she moved. "There you are, remember me?" she said, and Janna did remember her, but not her name. "Talia, from the sales," she said. Of course, Talia, with her street fair booth. But now, here she was in the very gray lobby of a stylish hotel, a bright blotch of color and smiles. As Janna neared, Talia put her hand into a pocket somewhere and pulled out a little plastic animal she made of sculpey. Janna smiled, "Lovely!" Talia turned and walked toward a big glass double door that opened into a shaded courtyard. Even the flagstones in the court were gray, relieved only by a couple of struggling tree ferns. Talia went right up to the glass door and pulled down a large tapestry. "I'm weaving a time door here," she said. And, sure enough, Talia settled down and started weaving bright colors over the glass doors. Janna asked, "What's a time door, I mean, how does it work?" "Life has a series of time doors that close and make the things behind them not have any power any more. This one is for you." Janna wondered what it was closing on.

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May 7, year of the cereal box

He's not there! The pitcher did not return to the mound at the beginning of the inning. Baseball players stood, their weight mostly on one leg, hands on their hips, their jaws jutting, hats shading, and chewed at each other. The pitching coach came out to the mound, which was silly, since there was no pitcher to coach. Someone was called up from the bullpen, and the game resumed, but Nathan was never found. Some who were there that day swear they saw the mound open up and swallow him duriing the t.v. commercial timeout. Newspapers suggested a drug connection. His wife refused to be interviewed. And time passed, with subtle but bullying FBI investigations going on in the background of the remaining season. And when the season was over, many forgot the mysterious pitcher. His family and friends stopped looking for him. His case was filed. But I know he is alive somewhere and can sense that he is somewhere in Paris. He no longer chews tobacco. He speaks French. Many other intuitive people also believe he could be found, but may not want to be, and occasionally we email each other about him.

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May 28, year of the cereal box

She stepped out into the back yard, a sweaty glass in her hand, walked among the party. It had a mellow chatty sound about it; every once in a while a woman's laughter added punctuation. She toured the big wonderful yard and listened to the conversations, not interested in any of them. On the back of one of the vacant lawn chairs she saw a huge black cloak. It was a warm early summer evening; did someone wear this here? She abandoned her drink on the lawn and wrapped the cloak around her, holding it up with her arms to cover her head, turning slowly in the space inside the dark fabric. She heard the party sounds dim and heard them near her, hear the swish of the lawn as they approached her. She could feel them all around her closer, closer.

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August 28, year of the cereal box

Referential to the seemy salad days of early summer, what was he doing with all those round things stacked up in the back yard? What were the piles of round rubber, steel and wood of all sizes, what were they for? She never saw him bring them in, but there were always more, more in June than in May, more in July than in June. It was becoming a graveyard of moons, of tires and gears and the tops of barstools, stacked and leaning together in the blistering sun of summer. At first, when there were just a few, they seemed to be waiting for somethiing, but now, with nearly half the yard taken up by these varied disks, they began to settle, and take the space for granted.

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September 28, year of the cereal box

Win or not she would go on over and see the fences. That was what was new, wasn't it, the fences? John was ever on about them new fences he and his idiot brother Steve had built up along the pastures over the couple of months she had been away. The fences were up, both across the irregular shapes of owned parcels, and now up around the meadow of her mind, the fertility of her ideas and opinions safely quiet behind the new fences. No Tresspassing signs might even go up soon. She wondered, was she inside or outside the fenced off area of her feelings? Now that she had demarked what was safe to reveal and what was not, had she completely gone over to Their side?

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October 17, year of the cereal box

In the end i realized that the story was just a made up construct, like a freeway on-ramp or a batch of cookies. It was a battered toybox. Our hopes and her dreams were our candy, a little sucker we took for succor on our journey in a broken land. The relocation to Sebastopol and association with a growing little winery, the glamor of the wine tasting room, the bright beauty of land untouched, these things were not to be. There is no salvation for us who make our living among the jagged metals of America.

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November 28, year of the cereal box

Soon someone will tell you your name and your shadow will soften around the shoulders. It will be safe to drink the water again. You will never know who your father is. I can tell you this much: the color red.

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December 24, year of the cereal box

Close to Celia, she turned and eyed her pale golden hair, almost glowing in the broad afternoon. Celia was watching the boys running around kicking and throwing a blue striped ball, falling down a lot, she thought, shoving and shouting posing and squirming and giggling in a way that would embarass them if they could see it. She stood suddenly bouncing up and pointing toward the hill and her mouth and eyes were little o's. (past summers are locked away)

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December 31, year of the cereal box

when seed when shiny seed went seed source seed evolving seed mutating seed sleeping seed dormant seed ancient seed hollow seed sallow seed winter seed bell seed floating seed burst seed winnowed seed swimming seed waiting seed diamond seed waking seed diving seed lost seed seed from space twirling seed