Dinosaur Justice
Aurora Nibley
This is a frontier town. Means it’s small.
Now, if the frontier was moving forward, like they do sometimes, our town might get bigger, but that ain’t happened for nigh on eighty years and I don’t
This is a frontier town. Means it’s small.
Now, if the frontier was moving forward, like they do sometimes, our town might get bigger, but that ain’t happened for nigh on eighty years and I don’t
They gather in the basement to weep together like the boys they are.
There was a Help Wanted sign at the florists. I had a car, so I walked in and applied. This was a time in my life when I’d decided anyone could do anything. In other words, I was an artist.
I read the article and passed her the phone.
On the drive home, I waited in the dark of the third-row seat for Z to act, reach for my hand or kiss my cheek. But he wouldn’t do anything until college, until I cornered him in the bathroom at a Halloween party and forced the space between us to shrink.
“This one’s kind of a dud,” he said, turning the page. “It’s fine, but I’m not sure where it goes.”
“That’s like me on this path,” she said.
“It’s really not.”
You look like a zombie who’s just seen a ghost, the mirror mouthed back.
All around him the congregation erupted. Tears of rapture. Hugs of friendship. Compassionate embraces. Passionate kisses. Erotic caresses.
Are you in my head? Do you know what goes on up here? Do you know what’s preceded all that goes on up here?
His subconscious deemed them too short, or not steep enough, or their grass was flecked with yellow and brown. He had succeeded in agitating his appetite and wondered what he would have for dinner.
People hung around outside of convenience stores with their hands over their mouths blowing smoke. Stereos played loud Christmas music.
Hank sucked what was left of his cigarette back in one pull and flicked it into the alley. The hot light of the ember cartwheeled through the air before disappearing into the snow.
“Hm,” Yoda grunted, considering the foyer, it’s openness, how exposed he was, and what he could do about it. “Hm,” he grunted again.
He tells them, pays for the burgers and, as they drive to the mall, as if to encourage them, a general addressing his troops, he tells them about fights with broken bottles, about fighting the black kids because he was white, the Italian and Polish kids because he was Jewish, the rich kids because he was poor.
When I wasn’t on the road, I ate lunch at the diner just to watch Cathy polish the cutlery.
Well, at least we aren't just dead, she said.
What?
At least we aren't dead, right?
Yeah.
When our baby arrives I am feeling a funny mix of elation and terror – what have we done?
A woman at our airport gate is eating a box of powdered donut holes and not licking her lips. She is capable of licking her lips, I know this because only after she finishes exactly three donut holes
Sometimes we’d see a slip of moon hung in velvety sky, and we’d find ourselves crying for no good reason, or maybe every reason that we could think of.
I only get twenty bucks that day. Trevor tells me to call him next week. He'll have some more work for me. But I never see him again. Or even hear his voice. I lose him number. Greaseback is never around. And then the phone gets cut off. I'm back to where I started.
Is this new relationship self-sabotage in disguise, or is it the cure?
Garielle's longest, most peculiar, most particularized book. A sure-to-be collector's item. Not be be missed!