instructions

The formation of a mixed CD, including cover art and music video bonus features.

flash fiction, a narrative, a summer romance. the first song on the soundtrack would be "only" by okay, and listeners would be disappointed by this mediocre title and name. you would film an audience doing the clap sequence, perhaps at a wedding as they watch the bride and groom eat--not the cake, because that would be too much. just eating the potato salad or pulled pork. it would be a small, intimate scene. if you found a 35 mm camera with no zoom and no flash and no special features, maybe similar to the amber-and-gray rectangle with the yellow button that you played with in your grandmother's basement, if you found this it would be perfect for the still shots. in the middle of the tracklist you would plant the hidden/special/bonus track that is found when the cd is loaded into iTunes (because they would pay you for using their program on the hope that this idea is revolutionary), and then played backwards, and then fully understood when listened while flipping quickly through the booklet of aforementioned still photos that would be crammed into the front of the jewel case. because it is so thick, the corners and cover would tear when it was pushed then pulled back under the four plastic semicircles. this effect was planned and enhances the overall nostalgia, making it trendy, marketable. the product will be outsourced and then shipped back to urban outfitters, to be sold next to the coffee table books full of photography about blue jeans and rusty watches.

death parade with ribbon dancers

We did not witness its birth, but this made it easier to imagine the heartbreak the mother felt when her first born (we assumed) didn't move or cry or suckle. We didn't know if the mother had stopped in the gutter, exhausted with labor pains, and cried alone and cold during delivery. Or had she been disgusted by the stillness of the fetus and dragged it to this most undignified place, to lay next to the silt and crumbles of asphalt that stuck in our bike tires? In our mind, the mother had every trait of her own species, along with those of the woman down the street in the trailer with the pink curlers and Virginia Slims and clogs with fur trim and fingernails so long they curled back into her hands. This mother we created crossed the species line in a way we didn't understand.

We knew that she did not literally have the red, curling nails and that her fur would never be filled with pink curlers and that her hairless tail would never curl around a cigarette with ash growing like a second tail.

We also knew that the trailer-dwelling mother didn't have four skinny teeth or whiskers or an especially strong love of cheese. This, however, did not stop our own mothers from calling her mousey. Not a pet name. A complaint. She was dry, brittle, frantic.

Nor did it stop our mothers from accusing her of living with a rat. You can understand our confusion, then, over which traits we shared and which parts of us were connected to this mouse-woman. You can understand the compassion, then, that we felt on seeing the body of the infant mouse curled in the runoff water heading for the storm drain.

We gathered the body in a small box with a firm, forest-green lid that said Roger's in gold letters. The body seemed so big in the box. We had debated the matchbox, the effect it would create. It may even have been more glorious, to strike the side and set the box aflame.

The Roger's box came to rest inside the wooden well that my neighbor had in the back yard, a lawn decoration. There was no bucket and no water and nothing truly well-ish about the shingled roof and tiled sides, other than the familiar shape that we found in our various nursery rhymes. We climbed over the side of the well and dug a hole with our hands, not caring that the earth clung to our fingernails, not caring that we cut a worm in half on the way. The worm did not receive the same funeral procession as the almost-mouse.

It is the procession was the part we knew was most important, but is, for some reason or another, the part that I remember least. We stood in line and were careful not to smile. We did not have flashing lights or cars to put them on as we went along the road, but I have the slightest recollection of ribbon dancers in our hands, feeling that their colors were the most appropriate kind of mourning.

moving in and out and on

There is much comfort to be had in the whiteness of new rentals. The smaller the apartment, the more crisp the walls feel. Even a low ceiling finds forgiveness in this: the whiteness opens in the light, letting in bounce and wrap around me and say, “Yes, this is your home. We’re so glad to see you.” Each towel and napkin holder, each plant growing from a mason jar look at home on the cracked Formica countertop or peeling window sill. You dust, so as to christen every surface and corner with your own piles and layers of dust.

You take a shower and notice the water pressure. This surely is the perfect water pressure. Here, temperature and ability to rinse out thick curls and comfort as the water taps its Morse Code on skin—all sensations are in homeostasis. You acknowledge all of them and think of the pleasure it will be to shower here—in this room with teal tiles and dark wooden doors!—every day. Your eyes have closed and you open them. There are no lights on in the small room, but the walls feel sunny. You are careful not to splash or spritz or spray them with the products lining the shelf by the toilet.

You go into the living room, which is also your study, which is also the bedroom. You sit on the couch, which is also your bed, and would watch TV if you had one. This would seem sad if someone was watching. But you are content. As you think this word, you realize that it is not in the passable, shrugging contentedness of the resigned. This is a full-hearted content. A wholeness that is made up, completely, of yourself.

In a minute, you could ride your bike to your fiancé’s favorite restaurants. This means that in less than five minutes, you could turn that bike around, ride back in the direction of your apartment, pass the apartment, pass the café where you sat with your fiancé twice a week for an entire summer, and land at your favorite bar. You do neither of these things, but remain staring at your bookshelf from your bed.

Meanwhile, as sitting five hours away, your fiancé stares at the bookcase across from her bed. She contemplates riding her bike to the café you once visited four times a week for over a year, but she works there and it would be miserable going alone. She also has no bike. This reminds her that she should call the landlord and have him put a door on the leaning garage. She has made this call before, when the bike pump got stolen. Then when the bike got stolen. And now when these bikes got stolen. She does not call.

Five hours apart, you think of each other.