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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
 Posted - 12/30/2017 : 15:33:04
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| Midnight with the dinosaurs at Wheel Inn off the 10. "No accident," he says, "I don't believe in 'em." His gaze so grave she shivers. "The American," she calls him sometimes. Leans in on his word. A quiet life in a deep-harbor city. Salt and sealight in a white-washed room. A stop at the post office to collect the mail. A hold-out key in a jar for the chimes. Inviolate time in the garden. Later she crushes an aspirin tablet and drops it in a vase of flowers. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2018 : 19:15:30
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| Country road past the reservoir and power plant all wonder and blue vapor sky. (Nothing faux in that thimble-size town.) "No dark books, baby. No bad cards..." They're leaving the bladed places. The hot doors and windows. The sun-stained sky radiant with smog. The low chord of longing on the other end of the land line. It's a singular story. Duct tape and safety flares. "...ya know what I'm sayin," he says. Word-for-word in the next century. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2018 : 19:21:14
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Roiling clouds. The whole wet sky. West wind taking the palms down. He's on the curves with the radio cutting out. Wipers not up to the job. They were people who boarded a ship in the middle of the night cold in their clothes in a saint's seaside city. Deck slick with rain under storm-kindled sails. Waves all foam and glitter. "Do this for me," he said.
His dusty lashes sweep his cheeks when he dreams of pirates water. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 01/15/2018 : 17:32:02
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| There are plans underway to repair the Desert Line which includes the Goat Canyon Trestle. The line that connects with the Baja Rail Mexico Line at Tijuana. Crosses and re-crosses the border near Campo. Runs through Carrizo Gorge, seventeen tunnels and fifty-seven bridges to Plaster City. It will offer an alternate route for goods made in Mexico into the U.S. and eliminate much traffic on Interstate 5. Double stack rail containers take down the trolley lines so they have to ship everything from San Diego to Long Beach and Los Angeles by truck now. Always a sea of semis waiting several hours to cross. The Trestle Bridge itself is a wonder. Like a two hundred feet high macramé wall hanging against the Anza Borrego sky. I'd like to pitch a tent and stay out there through the repairs. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 01/15/2018 : 17:43:50
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| Keys left on the counter. The last light turned off. The van behind them listing to port on the S curves. The road flattening out along the coast. Too much fog? Too close to the water? "Hell, no!" he laughed, rearranging logs on the grate. The tinkering thing, she called it. He believed in the now and the present. Each and every one of them. Matched their lifelines on the tabletop under the cream-shade lamp that dimmed and brightened on its own. "Ghost in the mirage," he said. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2018 : 15:37:39
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| Overheard conversation on a plane in the clouds. "Well... They have a future. And a past. And half the transplants in Tucson are in WITSEC anyway. All that dark window glass. It's how the end game plays out." A rent in the cumulus envelope. A lurch in the troposphere. A perihelion disturbance, the end game. The time machine in his DNA ticking too fast. Each astonishing moment. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2018 : 15:46:09
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| The village women standing with candles when he emptied his pockets. All those U.S. dollars on the ground. That picture. Useless to bribe the gatekeeper. And later... A tray of sweet conchas to make them feel better about things. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2018 : 15:52:09
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| He held her so still with his look. Just reached in and took hold of her mind, she said. The way he saw and said things. His voice around for hours those decades at the watery edge. North American harbors shiny with fish and container ships floating foreign treasure. She stood ankle-deep in an incoming tide. Felt it pull out again. Inevitably getting in deeper. You know how it is. The glyphs on the heart. The sear of stars. |
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San Diego
Swinger
508 Posts |
Posted - 01/25/2018 : 17:53:32
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| They're removing the pipeline ships used to offload oil to the Encina Power Plant. The new plant runs on natural gas. A barge is cutting it in sections and hauling it to Long Beach for disposal. They're also removing the rock jetty and the four hundred foot high smoke stack. A landmark for fifty-plus years. Many easels on the blufftops trying to capture a last 2018 image against the sky. From land and sea...the coastline's silhouette will change forever. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 01/25/2018 : 18:01:57
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| Detours. Ribboning blue over the Bay. Downslope. Cindery footpath and a wilder walk to the sea where the steep cliffs can't stand still. The curved ocean cleaving under cloud skein. "Write me a letter," he said crossing that bridge. Flowers at the Post Office before Forever stamps. Birds. Inventions. The American Frontier. Spacious skies. Amber waves of grain. The hand leading the Cavalry charge. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 05/06/2019 17:35:21 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2018 : 16:37:07
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| One sidetracked morning. "...hahaha, don't count your chickens..." he's laughing with a dozen broken eggs on the floor. "Okay, okay..." he's still laughing, "There's this place... How 'bout we take a ride down there right now." The grain silos fly by on the passenger side. The mile-long boat and RV storage yards. Towering power lines and rolling brown hills dust-bright in Santa Ana. County-long mirages burned on her retinas on a never-ending road. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 01/30/2018 16:58:50 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2018 : 16:43:27
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| How cold it was close to that bridge in spite of the felt weather stripping. The curtains lifted and fell to the sills. And the wind prayed all night through the shingles. A five octave scale of prayer. Gas was cheaper than electricity so the depended on the stove. He'd put a match to the pilot light and sit with his back to the open oven door. She'd keep her hands safety-high over steam from the kettle. Later he held her face in his hands. His thumbs resting on her cheekbones as if they might poke through. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2018 : 16:47:07
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| He opened his eyes and he closed them. He knew where he was. The bright spots blossoming in the kitchen. The spangled windows postcard view. The same as yesterday. A house so full of sunshine she never took her sunglasses off. What happened and what they thought happened. Even they couldn't agree. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 02/07/2018 : 18:14:12
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| "Spell of remembrance," he calls the game they're playing. "Trapeze," she says. "For weeks in my sleep. Flinging myself through the air. Some music. Some terror. No net. Grab the bar. Let go. Somersault. Land on the tiny platform leaning over the crowd's miniature faces." He's cleaning the windshield. The movie in his mind making him pause with the squeegee. "...fly an' look down through the trees," he says, and he closes his eyes, "...see the tracks...see the road...how far it goes... All of it. Happening. Some nights...I got to bed early to fly. You can, ya know. If you remember... |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 02/07/2018 : 18:22:20
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| "One more thing I want you to think about now, an' it's...it's...it's..." he said in full daylight. "You have the right to remain silent," she said, "anything you say can and will be...hahaha..." There's a rusting freight car sidelined on the edge of an antique town. A tin man tower. A bandstand gazebo. Just a whistle-stop really. A blink of the eye. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 02/12/2018 : 18:31:03
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| They'd fold their pliant knees and sit cross-legged on the floor with their stories. Plural candles. Circles of light. Smokey air. "Furious angels," she laughs. "Mother... Father gone too soon. No one to say what the photographs mean. No pictures from the green isle. Many scenes of New York City. Impersonal memories. The first night I didn't sleep. I sat on the floor with my back to the door hugging my knees. Strangers footsteps down the long hall. My ankle bones turning to stone. There were little angel pins I coveted. Presented at the end of each month to girls who broke no rules. It's true I wore my nightgown under my raincoat to Mass every morning. And after night prayers I lit every votive in the trays. I ran away to the trains and often came late to Confession. (Bless me, Father, I have no sins. For your Penance then, three Hail Mary's.) But my study hall monitor complained I was stubborn and made me pray the rosary kneeling on rice. It's okay, she says when he winces. It was Lent and I felt saved. Your turn now, she says, and he looks at his fists. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 02/12/2018 : 18:54:56
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| "We're here now..." he says early in some late twentieth century decade. He's washing his face over the sink with his eyes closed. Talking through the water about twenty-five cent matinee movies with popcorn, "...hahaha..." he laughs, "...what was that one...? Tied to the tracks every Saturday? Even as a kid...didn't think my eyes could...ever take it all in..." Now the sun is setting and the Knight is waiting in the gloaming. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 02/13/2018 07:13:08 |
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San Diego
Swinger
508 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2018 : 17:44:12
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| We went to watch the gray whales migration. Open water about an hour out. First, the acrobatic dolphins. "Oh, my God!" someone shouts, and a fifteen foot high spout shoots into the air. One appears. Then two and three. Huge. Forty feet long. They seem to take up the whole ocean. "Are they always in there?" Daniel asks wide-eyed. "Not near your house," Jon says. "They're on a long trip. They're too big to fly or take the train so they have to swim to San Ignacio." Daniel looks at his whale fluke tee shirt, raises his arms and flexes his muscles, "Okay," he says. Later we go to Cabrillo lighthouse and Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. One hundred thousand white gravestones on the hill overlooking the Bay. Too much to take in without tears. San Diego is becoming glitzified but there's still a lot of real things to see. |
Edited by - San Diego on 11/20/2019 14:18:50 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2018 : 19:20:43
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| I lived on an island. I played on the docks. I pestered the fishermen. Every edge was water. Or water's reflection. The first thing my father taught me to paint. Bright light lapping round-bottom boats. Atlantic light he said was holy. An easel arrived by ferry when I was five. "Did you like it there...? Did you want to stay...?" he asks. There was snow in the winter, she says. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2173 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2018 : 19:26:08
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| "Write it all down," he said, "make sense of it later." Loose pages in the desk drawer. "Like a journey, honey. The days flow of color." A puzzle she saw in pieces. "You're standing with your nose up against one pixel," he said, "step back and see the big picture." He was the gleaner of truths. The ramshackle edge. The ravel between the mortal and the divine. |
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The Nightly Vigil