A Wondrous Evening and a Touch of Morning Madness
by Calliope Maeve
It starts as I drift off to sleep. A symphony begins on queue to the sound of one man snoring. And outside, the cicadas are whispering sweet bedtime stories to their larvae. Mockingbirds are holding top hats and driftwood canes with flair imitating (as mockingbirds do) the soft-shooing of nighthawks on the wire. The birds keep rhythm with the chirp, chirp, chirp of the wind chimes singing in the language of Kates, a sweet evening cacophony.
But then I woke up this morning to the sounds of cats barking. As I scuffle into the kitchen I notice it’s blurry, you see, because breakfast is on my glasses so I slide the eggs gently from my lenses onto the breakfast plate. There they are, two wide-eyed, sunny-side-up yolks staring back at me as if they want to tell me something that I really don’t want to know, perhaps what it feels like to be aborted. To hush them quickly, I sprinkle black pepper and hot sauce over those eyes to cloud their sight before they reveal their secrets. I am relieved now because they look bloodshot and hungover, simply too drunk to speak.
And since we all know that every moment can be filled with wonder and magic with a sprinkle of imagination and a touch of madness, I ask you this, what is the sound of one cat yacking? Did it really happen? You may not know it when you hear it but you’ll know it when you see it.
I need to get ready to go but these lenses are too clear without eggs. I don’t care to take in the harsh sights of day so I take off my glasses, pop large rosebuds into my eye sockets, and carefully line my eyes with notes from old LP covers. Which reminds me of sweet nostalgia — ring around the rosies, pocket full of…toesies, again, I feel the collection of random toes and fingertips that I pick them up during my daily walks like one picks up shiny pennies for good luck. When I toss these up in the air, the choice is either prints or nails not heads or tails. I empty my pockets and put the pieces in the jar with the rest of the spare parts.
I sip my coffee just how I like it by flailing it into the air to watch it come down on me in slow motion like acid rain because of course everyone knows, that’s also the best way to cool it off. On my way to work, I get a glimpse of the fields pickled with their haystack headstones and I wonder what lies beneath those graves.
WhatsHerName Writes 