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Unnamed
By
Wayne H. W Wolfson
The heat covered all.
Drawing the shades was no good, they were thin.
The delicate skin of an onion.
All rational ideas were gone.
I stripped, showered and without bothering to dry, wrapped myself in the last clean towel.
A water mummy.
I look around, the chair has dirty clothes piled on it, which I don’t want to touch, not after showering. There is the table. Dead violets and cracked bowl of onions. The heat causes the violets to take on the scent of dust. Dust too now covers their color. It should be anisette, with their scent of the fire and their indifference to the heat.
Finding the only cool spot to be under the table I made sure no one was watching and crawled. Coming to a full stop, lying flat on my back.
I fell asleep. Right there , like that. A wasp landed on my big toe. I dreamed of a girl, her.
In the dreamlands the wasp was converted to her, shrunk down and angry about it. Was it a loss of power or prestige?
The sting, the heat.
All I could do was survive. In this way, always acting indirectly, nothing could be my fault.
I managed to make it to the bed, where I fell back asleep. Having killed the wasp, it was now a dreamless slumber.
Chelsea comes home and dumps her tip change into the brandy snifter. The dead wasp on the floor finally catches her attention as she removes her shoes.
“How’d that get in here?”
“It was attracted by the past.”
Copyright ©
2003 Wayne H. W Wolfson
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