“I almost moved to Sammamish,” says Melinda. “In the Nineties, before I met your father.”
“Sammamish is a waste.” Rory kicks a rock off the edge.
“Don’t,” Melinda says absently. “It was a waste then too, but–intellectually. People who were embarrassed about never reading Pynchon, but knew enough to pretend… I would have been a big fish there. And in a nasty way, I might have liked it.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Yeah,” sighs Melinda. They’re turning east, putting the sun behind them: Redmond’s shadow scuds over pools of slag glass and wide rust plains. Rory’s rock hits the ground.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Leonard and I were in Wyoming just long enough to stop for gas off the Laramie exit.
The Vagina Monologues was my second college play, and The Laramie Project the second-to-last. They were the only times that I felt meaningful, in drama, loud and bright and kicking teeth. Every acting student in this decade has had those feelings about those plays. That doesn’t reduce their significance.
Laramie was an offhand pilgrimage, a place to throw the ashes of a twelve-year dream. I was done with acting. I’d begun to write.
Leaving, I bought a local newspaper: the Boomerang.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
In 1964 the state government began patrolling to protect Goblin Valley from vandalism, and Ted’s mother got cancer. They arrested him trying to fix these problems; they thought themselves lenient, in suspending the sentence. During his overnight in jail, after all, he had become bereaved.
Ted has his own children now and they’re not sick–he’s careful about that. But he watches the news, watches people. The world got sick instead.
Cotton rope and moonlight. Ted wears black clothes and quiet feet, tracing his cat’s cradle, encircling evil. He pulls it tight around their little stone necks. He’ll choke them all.
To the transcribers of Genesis, Mabel reflects, “sword of fire” was probably the only way to put the weapon of Eden’s guardian into words. Had they shown up this century, they might have called it a “laser.”
They’re carving words into the earth, or she thinks so, from inside the overturned bus. Runes maybe. The writing is also razing the town, but the thirty-foot white faces don’t flinch from bullets or screams.
She used to pray for the Rapture; she’s not sure whether this is it. All she knows for sure is that, finally, the angels have come to Heavener.
Desert towns aren’t designed around good drainage: when it rains, it floods. But it’s not supposed to flood like this. Holly leaves Roger at his house and he leaves her his truck; she drives west, toward the dance.
The gym’s on low ground and the water’s already topping the first floor. The truck stalls before she can get across the lot. There are students reaching out the upstairs windows, and–no–the stucco wall is slumping–
Holly’s driving barefoot. She gathers her ruined skirt and rolls down the window. She runs out onto the water, and reaches, and then she doubts.
Wednesday, February 1, 2006
“It was a holy thing to the Chavin,” says Mulroney, panting, “to keep the god in darkness. It was a holy act to see him, right?”
“‘Who touched me?'” Chien quotes. “‘I felt power go out of me.'”
“Right.” Mulroney grins. “Except they disappeared around 200 BC. Left some ruins, textiles and metallurgy.”
“They died out.” Chien shrugs.
“Nope,” says Mulroney. “I figure they took their toys and walked–here we go–”
Out of the pass: the valley is filled with stone beehives, like the natives never built. Chien realizes he’s gaping.
“Up here,” wheezes Mulroney, “to where the nighttime lasts.”
Thursday, February 2, 2006
“Oh man!” says Maui. “I think I got a big one here, guys! Paddle hard so I can reel it in!”
“That’s not a damn fish,” grumbles his first brother. “It’s not moving, and you used four miles of line.”
“You also,” says his second brother, “already used that trick twice,” and waves at the two new islands smoking nearby.
“I mean it this time! Biiig fish!” Maui smiles, and his smile is the moon. “Big fish! Fishy fish?”
His brothers sigh, and turn, and begin to paddle like whirlpools. Maui pulls the line taut. Together, they haul up the world.