Tag: dialogue

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Lady on a Jug

http://ffffound.com/image/787ab062e373c88327e2de3becde20fb0ec075d6

John sets an overfull Hammermill paper box on the worn rug of the upstairs room he and Katie decided would be their attic.  The several LPs on top sluice to the side and spill, ramp-like, under Katie’s grandmother’s rocking chair.

“Ah, shit.”  John spots Cream’s Wheels of Fire album in the spread and wonders where the turntable got unloaded.  “Katie!  Do you know where the record player is?” he absently aims his yelling out the door and down the stairs.  Ahead of him he hears a noise he doesn’t recognize as a sob.

“Ah, shit.  What the hell Katie?”

John’s wife perches on a stout earthernware vase which sits on a lace doily which is draped over an antique coffee table—also her Grandmother’s.  She’s cast aside her slip-on tennis shoes and is wearing someone else’s white high heel shoes.  The flat front soles she balanced across most of the vase’s rim.  She managed to get the pegs perfectly on the other side of the rim.  She’s squatting with her hands behind her back and her long comfortably brown hair drapes her face.  He is impressed, confounded, and curious simultaneously.  He’s too afraid to go nearer.

“I can’t get down,” Katie sobs.

John’s arms surround his wife; he doesn’t recall closing the distance between them to get to her.  He lifts her into his arms.  Katie scuffs off the high heels and plants her feet firmly on the ground but continues to cling to him.  There’s nothing to say so he keeps quiet.

“I just…it made sense…at the time.”

Got no more time today for this one.  I’ll try to come back some day soon.

Day 357

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A Discussion of Pennies

“Everything about copper appeals to me.  The standout color, the humane odor, the way it ages to an unexpected wash of green.  Hell, the name…names—copper and cupric—please the lips.  Copper.  Copper. Coppurrrrr.”

“Um?”

“Try it.  Say it.  Copper.”

“Copper.  OK?”

“And?”

“And,” Monica stretched the word into a question, “I wonder what you meant by ‘humane smell’.”

“Odor.  I said odor.  I was going to say perfume, but I didn’t want you to think I was gay.”

“Right.  Because this whole conversation makes more sense because now I don’t think you’re gay too.”

“I just mean the smell of pennies is warm and friendly.  Common maybe.  Familiar I guess.  You know…humane.”

“Yeah, that’s not exactly what humane means.  And pennies are mostly zinc.”

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We Need a Balloon

~’We know you have balloons.’~ Lavendar said.

My brain skipped over the implausibility of the conversation I was having with a pixie that had just crawled out of a heating vent near my recliner and latched onto the practical nature of a flying pixie needing a balloon.  Why does God need a starship? “Why do you want a balloon?  Can’t you fly?”

Lemon pounded a small grape Nerd on the hearth trying to crack pixie-bites free of the main Nerd.  She had a pretty good pile going so far.

~’Dumbass.  Why do you want a truck?  Can’t you walk?’~  He stopped on the hill of my guts.

“OK.  What’s it for?  What are you trying to accomplish.”  People asking for help often focus on what they think they need rather than what they are trying to do.

~’We need to get home.’~

“Maybe I could just drive you?”

Lemon made a sound like my watch when I set the time but throatier.  I think Nerds came out of her nose.  Mint was doubled over on my keyboard laughing like a mouse.  Lemon recovered with a pipping cough, ~’Warn a girl next time.’~

“What?  Wouldn’t it be easier to drive you home than to hop on a balloon and hope the wind takes you there?”

The three looked at me like I’d just said the sky was red and the grass was blue.

~’We,’~ Lavendar flitted a circle that included Lemon and Mint, ~’can get home just fine on our own.’~  Then he made a gesture which included me and said, ~’We.  Need a balloon.’~