3/13/1998 g.g.Ashbrook
Cindy was walking her dog in the park, and passing under many all the lovely tree’s of Boatbottom. Her skirt shining reflectively in the air, and the sitting bench-sitters looked as though they be read, striped with large butterfly patterns past their any indications. Off in the distance rumble the barrels of the Bellyful distillery. The choak iron legs of a man, and the cotton languid conquer of a woman, to the trees the best Bank bridge, to the buttons of saint’ Sam for wash log. Lumbering Postal workers loomed around the tree trunks in the park. Jumping on and off the shadows like slow water. Still the drink was fine. She was jogging, he was barking, she was singing, he was pissing, she was smiling, he was forgetting what he was done in the bright clearn critle stop blaze of the next-new-and-on-again. Still in the bright tumbles of Tommy Town, the locker’s knocker’s told many a mild old mold, "talk your boredom to market, but wash like you’d never seen soap." Millday, to the town of many bottles, new markets would some times parade. Sometimes shine, look silver spotted leafs of a canopy, the great sky stay up, the ground stained the dawn, the Shoe man picked his watch to a glowery nine o’clock, Cindy was. And he. oh.
They were just hitting a long stretch with no trees or extra padding, which was very interesting as there wasn’t any padding anywhere else either. Dogsaidunlesscarswereturnedinsideout. But she didn’t hear him. And she came by a man sitting by the bank of the river with his pass book. WaitingforSharronthoughthadog. Nonsense said the girl. She stopped jogging and turned around in place. She saw it was straw, with large hollow plumes of tubing for hair (nore here), from here to there, without the here. Until he began to talk. He was over shooting Two’sday by a mile and hadgot his ship stuck on the moon [Toupee], for his lunch which he could not afford, so he afforded it to her instead. But his lunch was all straw too, incredibly desiccated, terribly dry, the house all stone faces, the cricket not doing any relief painting, there was a full prohibition of metal music and pin dropping, with the straw man standing there by the river.
She sat down on the ground and took a piece of cheese from her pocket, and the man’s eyes lit fire, (which he quickly extinguished with a thought of tears) (he had always been afraid of tall buildings). Butter dog caught him before he could run, (the painter tipped canvas as his glassoflemonade grewdry), rappling round him ten by ten, the length of the leash tie the man tight, and down to the grounds bed of grass that he might, like a tall story building with fear for a floor, or a pitcher of lemon to down pant leg pour, and the elbow struck the canvas, and the mice came from every imaginative tree stump and whole in the whail tugging ‘w’s for a center ring show of a sale, for stage fright and freak’s in the far off between, "I’ll show you clouds on that girl what I mean." Said the strawman. But even by the end of his sentence, (the painter was a judge and fond of furny linguistic landscapes) the mice were upon hymn (of hymen) and pulling his straw to the ground, and back it pulled to nests in the groundmind (for a Yeats burial) until every straw of straw hand been plucked.
He lifted his hand, to feel for his eyes, but his eye’s protested and argued "Whatever gave you the inclination that I need any help Sea’n," So he jumped up and gave hymnself a clock rundown, for the softest of skin, the kindest of kin, to daintiest of digits and a berry lipped grin, "well," he said "for all condemnation I should have waited till the end of my sentence," and off into the river he dove for to swim out to see.
So on then she went jogging, the sun striped like with fruit spilling out it’s spots and some trailing off into space spouting conversation to eachother via a blonze bank bobo-link connection, over the top of which any tree might be the tree behind you. Some of the fruit blazed through the atmosphere and into the mouths of children scattered over the centuries.
She took the trail past where it bendworthy near the river, and into scenes of bazaar dental work amidst forest trunks. Some small green children were only sitting on the trunks, while others were wittling their time away at the locks, or taking rocks to the hinges. The trees that were there were strait and notsostrait in one. With their wraparound arms and their leaves braided like all fond looks on Fin. With Jollypo sail boats sprinkling peanuts on pepper dogs, their sails cutting limbs from trees that then would stick flatbut down and sprout routs and grow more leaves spiraling highway up. When the tree’s did blossom the flurs were a flash, and the fruits grew up instantly, and just as quickly falling and rotting away with a buzzwizz or trickling sound, revealing the seedpit to be a cluster of bells, packets of shoe laces, or dog collars, special flee soap, nylon bones that look like Apolloticians [which the dogs tofore tare into the land of two], where bare whiles welt, and checkers do stain, and the crounds on the cannopy sing the refrain. "Do you tell me you love me because of my face, or the tracks on my arms, or my shadow of grace," and she pulled out of the air a special suit for her to ware; it went fast for ten dollars and a looking glass (which she took for a telescope mis-knowing her diction). And soon the forest was over and the sun lit the ground un-crumbered (some there the trees tossed crumbly muffins at eachother, and when the muffins hit the ground they took off their gags, and cackled on screaming home to through time’s fused seam), where the day lylies cried hapless and grey, for they were chained to half what they last said; and it all came out all "phlumber nipers claim call whoos catcher manit mote fat it temple near by bow phop!" Morning chains of linen and lime. Moaning bruises battered in time. The brass bands calling long out her name. So she jogged on past and picked nom de plume from her ear. Long stay tied, and long stay here, where her back weight intermittent with fear. But the gardens that rimmed the woods like lace were not so endless, and she quickly was on higher ground and looked back; and saw the gardens springing from the wood like tide, with waves of brassband bogonias, out and back, laughing lylies and green crests of taberdenanthuea peregrena. Our Dimethel broom stock, cabinet.
Up ahead she saw, unexpected to hear, the mayor of the town; whom a small crowd had grown encircling. It was mild, the air. It was half the town who’d come to see. But they all’d mistaken a statue of Grawn Mont the Rump Tanner for him, and were asking questions and hitting it with hammers, or holding out their hands to be shaken to their roots. But she knew him well enough by looks, and figured she’d travel on by, and she’d blow him a kiss through air, for a slap on the smooth of her thigh. Though when she got closer wander’n to him the dog began to tremble. She stopped her steps and knelt to her knees and inquired, but all he seemed to say was in his eyes. She pet him on the top of his head, and made him sit and chill, and rubbed his ears and soothed him with that voice of hers so half worded. "What?" she said. But he just look terrified. She looked into him for a few more seconds, just wood chips in his hair for her to brush off, nothing more she knew. And shrugged and jogged on.
She was now nearing him getting her lips ready, when of a sudden the dog started moving around wildly. She tried to jog in front to block the mayor’s view, but the dog swirled and steamed and with a clattering of pans and a dropping of bread boxes, the dog exploded. Cindy froze. There was confetti and gears and mayonaise everywhere. At this point she was nearly in front of him. Her face half still trying to smile, the other crying at the loss of dog and at the humiliation of such a negligence. She forgot all about the kiss, or about kissing. Her knee’s shook, springs bounced about behind her. She couldn’t even look the mayor in the eyes. But the mayor snapped his fingers, and another dog appeared. This had no leash. And he said, "Here, until there," and he pointed along a winding range of rock pocked path quite a ways travel up ahead. She didn’t quite know what to say. She was tired, but the knelt by the dog and realized how it looked more familiar, and more dog like, and more wild, and more capable, and less obedient and droll then the last. "Hermon, is her name," said the mayor. And gave the Cindy an invisible business card.
Hermon was mostly titanium, with copper nose and spots and gold toes and a black stripped tail. Clear teeth, a tongue of cannabis leaf, and the mayor disappeared. A taste of mint. And on she went.