9/2/04
The aroma of boiling noodles wafts through the air, climbs the steps, crawls beneath my door, and enters my nostrils. The sweet creamy smell of unbuttered corn floats through the air like a cloud, and kisses my nose. I arise from my musty, stale desk, and follow the tantalizing allure down the stairs, the railing smelling faintly of Windex. If the color red could have a smell, it would smell like tomato sauce, thick, bubbling, seasoned, marvelous. The most succulent meatball?s souls rise into the air to my face, and I drink them in with my nostrils. Mom has made spaghetti and meatballs tonight.
9/3/04
The rough wood where the paint has already chipped off of the wood splinters my hands. Mr. McGreevy?s railing is older than time, and harder to the touch. Pain emanates from my index finger, as I pull the sharp splinter out with a dry, dirt crusted glove. The pain slowly fades as a small red dot appears in the newly formed hole in my skin. I wrap a sticky, crinkly gum wrapper around the insignificant wound as I began to pound upon the smooth human worn door of Mr. McGreevy. The wooden door slowly creaks open as I slowly unzip my smooth jacket. ?Yes?? says Mr. McGreevy with a crackly voice which threw a single cold drop of spit to my forehead. I turned my face and wiped the sticky intrusion from my face and said, feeling all of my voice in my throat, ?Do want me to mow the front or the back first??
9/4/04
I drink deeply of the delicious life nectar in my hand as I pick some green from the flourishing bush. I bite the smallest bit from the moist leaf and my mouth is transformed into a crisp, cool, dry snowy day in February. It is sweet and bitter at the same time. Nature?s gift of refreshment and enjoyment crushed into a fine paste in my mouth, I spit it to the ground, and pick another leaf from the never dying plant. It is like the evergreen in winter, but in summer fall it blooms. I bite the leaf am in an ice cavern deep within the farthest depths of Antarctica, but inside this cavern in my mouth burns the warmest flame that man can conjure. I pick a sprig and place it in my glass. Tea tastes better with homegrown mint.
9/5/04
Gazing out the fingerprinted window to the rushing landscape, I pit down my pen and paper and think about things. I think about rooms, big and small. I think about the two story 30 year old house, crawling with small and insignificant room, filled with significant things, with memories attached, that I call my home. I think about small houses just barely large enough for mice. I think about towering apartments in the city, casting shadows for criminals and scoundrels to hide. I think about the trailer parks filled with vehicles to never move, but to take root, as dandelion seeds, floating on the wind must do. Vehicles. Cars. I snap out of my reverie and turn to my brother, ?I think we?re almost at church.? We slow down near the snapped vine that is the stoplight. Crossing over the ?bridge under construction,? and we park our car. We enter the building for my other eyes to read, ?souls under construction.?
9/6/04
The wrinkled leather skin of the old woman seems to sag in sad places under her eyes. She fixes her bright blue eyes on one lone bright star in the sky, her eyes seem even brighter. She opens a small magenta coin purse and slowly draws from it a yellowed card that is chipped at one end. She turns it over and over like a mill wheel in a river, up and down, slowly. She brings the pitiful scrap of wood pulp to her face as salty waves poor from her starry eyes. Mascara swirls in the tears and falls to her white muslin dress. The woman quickly crumbles the paper in her boney paw. She stands up, her back hunched, and throws the paper into the trashcan nearby. Her bus arrives and she gets on it with a sideward glance to the steel, graffitied trashcan. She sighs, pays the smoking driver, and sits in the back.
9/7/04
Clattering footsteps of people hurrying to purchase their last minute Labor Day bargains at Circuit City fill the air. Invisible grocery carts seem to screech by, no, it is a man in a wheel chair with a shrill snore that provokes shivers down my spine. His granddaughter pushes him in the squeaky vehicle, popping chewing gum viciously as she cackles at the sales clerk with the glasses. Technology hums silently, whirring and spinning wheels: the interlocking systems of computers silenced from their roaring ancestors. A quiet soothing melody plays over the popping loudspeakers. People laugh like bubbling brooks about good times shared and to come with their appliances. A woman?s deafening scream shakes the walls and floor. She cannot return her television.