In the South, when it rains one night and the air is cool the next morning, we call it North Pole Flatulence. Because we are so far away from Knoxville or any place really cold like that, we don’t know what to do with a little break from the heat. We take in the sunshine.
My neighbor Christopher is British as hell, and wears shorts whenever it is warmer than fifty degrees. He is outside in shorts, weeding his front path, and says, “Wind knocked over your mailbox, mate?”
The wooden post was broken and the trout-shaped thing lay on its side, door agape, fish pouting its metal pout. Nothing else was hurt. Not my marigolds, nor the Sunday paper, which rested untouched on a flagstone. For a flash, I suspect Christopher of kicking the mail post down, or wrenching the tin flag (in the shape of a rainbow fin) and keeping it in his pocket. I bet it gave him satisfaction, or something close to it, because he’s a writer, and they are crafty people who might read your bills or letters to your ex-girlfriend, or steal your sweepstakes entries just to make a quick buck off of you.
“Christopher, why don’t you dig a hole back to Wales?” I say, and he laughs because he thinks everything I say is an old adage or folk wisdom. But really, I think he knows. I look closely at the mailbox, the scales of the trout stamped on by some machine in some dying rust-belt town. The wooden post is busted, like a horse with a broken leg as far as I am concerned, but the head. It can be salvaged. There’s a ding on the trout’s body where it knocked against the curb. A few paint chips scratched off. I came back outside with a bottle of nail polish my ex-girlfriend left in my bedroom, and dabbed it where the scratches stood out.
Instead of fixing it, I made it worse. The trout had SparkleCherry gills and a couple of lightning bolt scars along its belly. It looked like it was trying too hard. I knew it just needed a new leg to stand on, and a little time to get its strength back, and Christopher could go screw himself. I painted teeth on the mouth of the mailbox so people might confuse it for a shark. I drew on some mean eyebrows, and then, in a stroke of artistic genius, I drew a skull tattoo right over its fin, probably where its heart would be.
I didn’t miss her nearly as much as others thought. I wanted to take my bandages off sometime. I wanted to see the scars my body spent this entire time making.
My neighbor Christopher is British as hell, and wears shorts whenever it is warmer than fifty degrees. He is outside in shorts, weeding his front path, and says, “Wind knocked over your mailbox, mate?”
The wooden post was broken and the trout-shaped thing lay on its side, door agape, fish pouting its metal pout. Nothing else was hurt. Not my marigolds, nor the Sunday paper, which rested untouched on a flagstone. For a flash, I suspect Christopher of kicking the mail post down, or wrenching the tin flag (in the shape of a rainbow fin) and keeping it in his pocket. I bet it gave him satisfaction, or something close to it, because he’s a writer, and they are crafty people who might read your bills or letters to your ex-girlfriend, or steal your sweepstakes entries just to make a quick buck off of you.
“Christopher, why don’t you dig a hole back to Wales?” I say, and he laughs because he thinks everything I say is an old adage or folk wisdom. But really, I think he knows. I look closely at the mailbox, the scales of the trout stamped on by some machine in some dying rust-belt town. The wooden post is busted, like a horse with a broken leg as far as I am concerned, but the head. It can be salvaged. There’s a ding on the trout’s body where it knocked against the curb. A few paint chips scratched off. I came back outside with a bottle of nail polish my ex-girlfriend left in my bedroom, and dabbed it where the scratches stood out.
Instead of fixing it, I made it worse. The trout had SparkleCherry gills and a couple of lightning bolt scars along its belly. It looked like it was trying too hard. I knew it just needed a new leg to stand on, and a little time to get its strength back, and Christopher could go screw himself. I painted teeth on the mouth of the mailbox so people might confuse it for a shark. I drew on some mean eyebrows, and then, in a stroke of artistic genius, I drew a skull tattoo right over its fin, probably where its heart would be.
I didn’t miss her nearly as much as others thought. I wanted to take my bandages off sometime. I wanted to see the scars my body spent this entire time making.
