i said with surprising calm. but any hint of evenness left my voice as i made haste across the long, long stretch of grass in pursuit of the larcenous crow. the cigarettes dangled from his beak. my arms flailed, my left clutching a cigarette (never a thing you want to clutch; a cane, maybe, or a hammer, but not a cigarette) while my right sought to keep the phone to the ear of my smoking swearing self.
why did my right hand do this--so i could hear dalton laughing at me? that's what he was doing, and rightly so. i had just come out of a meeting with a marketing director who told me the freelance project i was to spend the next month writing was "moving in a new direction." (her look as she said this recalled the mildly constipated face of my old girlfriend during our break-up talk, after which she trotted happily into the closet, where she could play soccer and spend all day not shaving her legs.) less than a workday earlier, a uw staffer had called me up and informed me that my services would no longer be needed at my temp job. he didn't tell me this--he informed me, with a deliberate vulcan dryness that suggested he had no life left behind his eyes. i nearly told him this; but then, i also almost told him that having a job with "staff" in the title is obvious and gay.
eventually i got my smokes back. two of the crow's buddy-crows turned on him and tried to get the pack, it fell, and i pounced. caught my breath. dalton did a terrible job of suppressing his laughter, and the tragicomedy of this whole stew i'm in hit me with a welcome force. dalton said he was reminded of the simpsons episode where they go to new york and homer gets conned and then mugged and then is standing on the street, penniless and miserable, when a bird flies by and takes his ice cream. and i was like, well, things may not be looking so good right now. but i'll get there. and, one day,
"someone will call me 'sir' without adding, 'you're making a scene.'"
5 comments:
One of your best yet. Apparently life-shit does at least make for good writing. Keep chasing those cigarettes! I mean dreams!
the funny thing, that hunts doesn't know, is that it was actually dalton in a crow suit, making off with his sack, and that the other two crows were shields and yarnell. no lie.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield
Celia Celia
- Adrian Mitchell
When I am sad and weary
When I think all hope has gone
When I walk along High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on
Keep the faith, dude.
No No NO! You're all wrong. The crow knows. Second-hand smoke KILLS!
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