better things
They found something tiny yet high and mighty when they excavated your mind with miniscule plastic pickaxes to find the location of pitterpatter thoughts dropping from the side of the table at which you ate your meals. The inspiration came from a small piece of nameless breakfast cereal, eaten one day and coned away on a diversion from its normal journey when your body decided it needed food for thought.
When they enquired about your employment, I showed them the hangar where clothes were strewn on hangers. They admired the well-worn trousers with threadbare knees, from where you would fall to the floor daily on arrival home and spend an hour or so tending to the small lawn cultivated in the spare room, borne from the holy union of a packet of sunflower seeds and some washing-up liquid, one day last September. “Let’s make fields!” you proclaimed, as the earthworms tore up the ground beneath you.
They asked me about your partner. “of course” i replied, and took them to the fountain in the middle of the city, where a row of dark material shadows had been wrung dry of rainwater and were gently steaming clean over a bucket filled with candy floss. They examined the mahogany cabinet next door, filled with examples of the finest triangular dressmaker’s chalk, and pondered the tacks with which you connected your shadow to your shoes; different types of adhesion so as not to damage the souls of soles.
They wanted me to walk alongside them. I declined, in favour of standing in the doorway of my dovecote and waving at the tiny tin ladies swimming in the sky above.
Some people have better things to do.
2 Comments