“What do you want from your life?” the teacher asked, as she guided the line of us kids from the school. It looked dark, it was night, it felt cold. But we couldn’t proceed to the parking lot until we had answered the question. It was not a drill, it was a fire, the children, faces lit up orange and hot and frowning. “A pony,” one said. “To live with mommy and daddy and granma in heaven,” said another.
When my turn came, I answered, “I want to haunt! to haunt! To hunt until hibiscus umbrellas weigh heavy like a sky, to taper off a lit taper guttering to a point. I want my life on a leash; I want to walk the earth, the bushy, humid hills, burning forests, overland parks. Now I can do what I want — not in heaven on a pony with a family, just maintaining a temporary forever in place, stereovision ovipositors shilling on shit and shore, pumping out life without my implications.” The teacher said, “That’s nice, dear,” and let me pass. The fire represented combustion of flammable materials, a festival of oxidation, not hell. But if there is a heaven, it may be not unlike that parking lot, saguaro cactus shells half funked out, camouflaged, surrounding it. Fabulosity trailed us like a buzz, we were the chosen kids, the ones who didn’t have to give a shit, only if we wanted to. But wouldn’t you know it, I woke up breathing. Santa Claus surrounded my wallpaper, caromed into light and filled the succulent water with tables of wine. I pushed in, pulled down, and nothing bad happened. I had arrived.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
June 2021
Kristin Prevallet Author/Editor
I'm a writer & teacher in Lawrence, Kansas who actually believes the scientists. I wrote a book of poems called Of Some Sky that seems to have something to do with all this. |