All Happy Families

A friend told me that she always reads the first and last paragraphs of books before deciding whether or not to dive in. “If they can’t hook me, and then stick the landing, they’re not worth it.” I’m with her. Books are a huge time commitment. So are television shows.

Life is Heaven 

I’m wearing an apron over a long dress with the sleeves rolled to my elbows. My hair is tied up in a bandana. My name is Lucy. I’m doing our dishes and I want you to take me to a nightclub.

I’m wearing an oversized pajama top, huge black driving gloves and a chauffer’s cap. My hair is dyed black and I have a moustache. My name is Crandall. I’m kissing you.

Rare Condition 

We set up our home to fend off invaders, but the curse of our family was that invaders constantly arrived. Although the Final Invader would go on to be the end of us, the Original Invader showed up before, and the Original Invader also wore glasses. She had met princes but not The Prince, and she was there to lord over everyone. We conferenced in the kitchen and had sing-alongs and eventually accepted her. This was a dry run for the attack on the horizon. The Final Invader was hours and hours away.

The Final Invader came from space. The press flashed cameras at him and we were overjoyed as he entered the open door of the house. Something about being up there had transformed him and he was one of us. He called us his dad and his love and we were lost. He had done it.

A friend told me that she always reads the first and last paragraphs of books before deciding whether or not to dive in. “If they can’t hook me, and then stick the landing, they’re not worth it.” I’m with her. Books are a huge time commitment. So are television shows.

For You

It was never New York. Not dead enough. There were only four of them in the center of the coffee shop, white. The looming dudes flanked the females and laid out the brunette’s poor taste. We hadn’t yet learned her name. When the dude grabbed the floor things took a turn for the psycho-sexual, the oedipal, and we were forced to listen. A fifth friend, soaked, entered. No one wanted this. This guy says hello I want to kill myself. The bride burst in on a coincidental dude cue. From then on, we were the bride, the sixth. She met everyone, decaf.

They left the keys and left. The song in the deserted apartment was Embryonic Journey, because everyone who was ever going to be and have babies had been and had babies, and because that’s all. Now the rent would be completely out of control. There was a wall from which we watched, a wall we couldn’t turn to see. From the wall, one last time, we asked: could I be anymore empty?

A friend told me that she always reads the first and last paragraphs of books before deciding whether or not to dive in. “If they can’t hook me, and then stick the landing, they’re not worth it.” I’m with her. Books are a huge time commitment. So are television shows.

Born and Raised

The young man mistook the butler for his uncle, as we all would, as we didn’t. Moments before, the young man was outside the door. We all knew how he got there, it was stuck in our heads; we could nail every lyric with little variation, and would continue for eternity. He held the knocker and rapped on the door and banged out back to life back to reality. The non-uncle, the butler, was much easier to lift. We wondered, too, where the young man’s uncle was around seven or eight. He should have been at the door on a day like today, a moving-in, to greet. This would be their first live rift. Many other rifts were already in place, and many more were to come.

The butler, on his way out, dropped the master from before the young man’s name. There used to be so much on the rug in the center of the room, but in this final moment it was clear. He hugged his aunt and his little cousin. He thought back to when all he could offer her was a lesson in rapping. Then it was only the young man and the unliftable uncle, and they stopped, and they understood. Once the young man thought everyone was gone, he turned off the lights. There was still someone upstairs with his pants down in the dark.