"We make elaborate diagrams for one another using pink phone-message sheets. You write these words: Kissing you would be like this, and draw a picture of two butterflies being struck by lightning. I stare at it and wonder if you may be right. I do my own drawing and write, Kissing you would be like this, and draw a picture of a man made of ice kissing a woman who is actually a stove. We have made hundreds of these drawings."
"People are becoming clouds nowadays. Each time John goes to kiss his wife, Eleanor simply laughs politely into the palm of her hand and immediately turns into a puff of soft white vapor. The vapor is quite odorless and can assume various shapes. It can still understand when it is being spoken to, the vapor. It can understand whenever John begins wordlessly crying. One time, while holding hands at the airport, john, without thinking, kissed Eleanor's soft cheek and she immediately turned into a puff of charming whiteness that resembled a young pony leaping over a fence post."
"After he is acquitted, Clark Olofsson will begin a lifelong friendship with Kristin Ehnemark. On holidays and birthdays, when he is not in prison, they will exchange presents with one another. One year, for Christmas, Olofsson will give Ehnemark a white rabbit in a perforated box. It will have a blue bow around its neck. It will smell of violet perfume and will be stolen from a local pet store. It will be the best present Kristin ever receives. In her dreams, Kristin sees Clark as a hand made of ice."
(from Demons In the Spring)
1 comment:
that's wonderful. i want to read it.
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