He reached into his pocket for a pair of hedge clippers to snip the woody roots that had grown out of his hips and were twining about the legs of his barstool. Standing up slowly, he braced himself against both the bar and my shoulder while proclaiming “I am going H-O-M-E to B-E-D with my ten pillows.”
“Ten pillows! Don’t suffocate”, I warned.
“Oh no. I put them between my legs and all around my sides.” He leaned into my ear to deliver a serious secret. “I’m in the hotel industry. I get them for free.”
I wanted to say something nice even though we had had no conversation requiring a coda. “Well they really are better than a man. When they get lumpy, you can toss them out and get new.”
His sweet tired laughter trailed behind him like broken glass as he fluttered his fingertips and wove an uncertain path to the door.
"Perge modo et qua te ducit via dirige gressum," said Venus to Aeneas.
1 comment:
Short story, blog format.
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