She doesn’t have a birthday. Anne was born in the Saharan desert. Her parents were nomadic turtle collectors. During her early years it was glittering, peaceful and sedate to travel on foot in the desert. Anne’s nomadic parents didn’t have much use for spring-winding devices, and when it came time to recall the exact day and month of her birth, there was a precarious look of having been cheated.
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I have been thinking about it a lot. Once, years ago, my girlfriend, my mother and I were walking in the direction of Villa Apres Lindos, near a suburb of Kansas City. We desperately needed a complete surgical repair of a laceration, and somehow remembered a parcel of lamb chops we had forgotten away to the South of the city. The power of this memory was passing from time to time across a bloodstained hedge.
I brushed myself off and got back in the game, learning from my mistakes so I could do it right the next time. But in fact, I failed to buy victory with a bribe. Nevertheless I continued spitting on a silver coin, and decided to travel to the old town by bus. The task of trying to understand the world around me was like letting out a dull sort of protest.
You might have guessed she was uneducated. Her horses weren’t smart either. Only two of them could canter along the grove of orange and cheery-trees. We’d been kept in the dark about the ambulance plunging off the cliff, and I stopped to have a brief chat with the Italian overseer about it.
I own two pairs of pants, even though I’ve never worn them. When I scrounge around in my underwear I am reminded once again that she brings with her a peace offering. In my coat pockets are the giant grinding of my teeth. Then these sounds disappear quickly into other pockets and I see a group of circus ponies tossing their heads. I really do feel these manifestations are harmless.
Given the size of my tumor, I recalled a small memory. Three yellow ducks were freezing in a state of virtual paralysis, crouched around a very old woman who recited short verses, in portuguese, of imaginary poetry. She punctuated each phrase with a stab of her sharp nails against a prize hog. Her ghastly grimace was beautiful.
There are lot of bumps on her body, and her feet are sticking out of a paper bag, bent back. A large rectangle can have its own ideas about what looks best. As I open the buttons of her coat and pull her ears with my hands, I detect a shadow on the wall of huge wolf-like teeth and think back to the memories of our explosion. They will pass.
In the summer of 1957, a friend and I went back to Helepolis for a month-long walk along the Gulf of Makri. We wandered north-south through the undergrowth, a picturesque region of red mullet and grapes. The trail mostly followed a muscle-bound rock edge, along which a long stretch of other methods of objectives were unknown.
My mother asked me how many women have I had (the answer is millions) and the harm I caused them. She continues to ignore or mischaracterize my persona. Every time this happens, I get a catalogue of dinners I have enjoyed in the past from people asking me to please clarify each menu item. Just this past week, I was guided to the safety of a deeper channel to view the rubble of a blood-stained wall.
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April 2018
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