Creatures

Someone ate all the leaves off my tomato plant. Pictures coming soon.

Meanwhile, a war has been waged in the front yard: it's the gardener versus fire ants. Both sides have won and lost territory and although the casualties are all ants, the human did not triumph without injury. Ground covers have been installed but the human is in respite and planning the next campaign against the ants, who were busy building in the area very near the gardening locations....

“I am the Fairy of Realness,” she announced and curtsied before the professor.

“Bug!” said the professor. “There’s a bug in here.” She swatted at the fairy with her notebook.

The fairy, terrified, flew to the ceiling and out the door.

In the hallway just outside the classroom she found a corner of the ceiling to float in and she cried and cried. She had tried to tell them, tell the professor who she was exactly, why should she be a welcome member of the experimental poetry class.

Later she cried to Randy Elf at New York Pizza.

“Whatever, you just have to get over it,” he mumbled. “They used to do that shit to me before they realized I could actually write things.”

The class was just too large; that was what it was; the professor needed to get rid of people so she could actually teach them. Maybe the fairy would register earlier next time and actually get a spot in the class.

My neighbor, George, disappeared again last week and his owner went out walking the streets to find him. In my opinion, George was uncreative in what he chose to do with his freedom. He just went out and met another dog. The man only walked five blocks before spotting him outside the fence of a yard that held a Pomeranian.

"So you found yourself a girlfriend," the man said as he walked up on George, who greeted him briefly and then continued sniffing the Pomeranian's nose, like a dog.

(Dogs are so sociable; they have so many friends. I would be uncomfortable touching the nose of of a stranger but they seem to love it.)

The man wasn't angry with him and George, having found another dog, briefly forgot about the scene from the previous night. Fortunate for me because I'm always the one George barks to about whatever's going on, even though I act uninterested and go about my business.

One morning, they forgot what they were doing. The flowers needed watering, the stacks, organizing. Nobody could find their shoes. They washed and they washed and they washed but it wouldn't come out.

Once upon a time there was a story, which shortly thereafter came to an end. There was a lovely funeral, in the spring, the Camelias arching their soft, blossoming branches toward a tiny grave, and a few mourners standing respectfully, not crying, but celebrating. They wished their sweaters were lighter, their schedules less packed. They wished that they had truly known the story as it was, instead of always trying to give it direction, helpful nudging. Still, they celebrated that the story existed; though awkward and bumbling with too-long pants, he he had once been alive for them and they treasured their memories of him for many years.