I wonder when was the first time I knew I existed. Watching over the self-checkout in Price Mart, I’m wondering if this even counts as existence. What does one have to do in order to count as a life-form?
Self-Checkout
The Immovable I
Walking down my street in Seattle, I’m thinking of Baltimore again. I liked my street there, the way all the brick glowed when the sun set in the summer. Kunal and I had everything we needed there: the Brewer’s Art two blocks away for a weekly cocktail date, Viccino’s around the corner for a two-dollar slice, the patch of park around the Monument for taking in fall foliage. At Dooby’s, you could watch the students and remember how it felt to end classes at noon on a Friday.
Wide Angle Perspective
The urn is shaped like a wide-angle lens. Leona can’t help but chuckle when the undertaker’s assistant places the alabaster thing on the spotless counter top. It’s exactly one week after the funeral ceremony. She already knew about her dad’s choice of urn, having seen the picture in the catalogue. Yet it looks more ridiculous than she had anticipated. A prop instead of the real thing.
Four New Chairs and a Persian Rug
Before landing a fresh job and quitting the service industry altogether, Mary’s life revolved around shelf talkers, the diligent tallying of registers, and stock replenishment. Clocking-in-and-clocking-out.
The Deer – Editor’s Pick
Lance loved this neighborhood from the moment we drove through the gates twelve years ago. The ancient trees. The big lots. A fantastic K-8th grade school. The award-winning golf course didn’t hurt. It felt elegant but grounded. West coast country, as described by our real estate agent. If you bought a house here, you had the kind of wealth that didn’t need proving. Women wore high-fashioned brands like Chanel and Hermes but not the crap with the logos – the real stuff from the Paris runways.
Make Believe; Visions; Legacy
and when he told me to step back to see the wider view to look for any people that I knew to see what they were doing I saw one yelling at another