"Your pigtails are starting to crumble"

An excerpt from 'What It Is', a short story by James Tate:

She stood there frowning. And then, uninvited, she sat down on a little rug. That rug had always been a mystery to me. No one knew where it came from and yet it had always been there. We never talked of moving it or throwing it out. I don't think it had ever been washed. Someone should at least shake it from time to time, expose it to some air.

"You're not even curious," she said.

"About what?" The coin was burning a hole in my hand. And the rug was begining to move, impeceptibly, but I was fairly sure it was begining to move, or at least thinking of moving.

"The package," she said. "You probably ordered something late at nightlike you always do and now you've forgotten. It'll be a suprise. I like it when you do that because you always order the most useless things."

"Your pigtails are starting to crumble," I said. "Is there anywhere in the world you would rather live?" I inquired. It was a sincere question, the last one I had in stock.

--Damn good shit, I tell ya. You can find 'Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee: 44 stories by James Tate' at Verse Press.

<<<>>> <<<>>> <<<>>>

After Reading Tu Fu, I Go Outside to the Dwarf Orchard

East of me, west of me, full summer.
How deeper than elsewhere the dusk is in your own yard.
Birds fly back and forth across the lawn
looking for home
As night drifts up like a little boat.

Day after day, I become of less use to myself.
Like this mockingbird,
I flit from one thing to the next.
What do I have to look forward to at fifty-four?
Tomorrow is dark.
Day-after-tomorrow is darker still.

The sky dogs are whimpering.
Fireflies are dragging the hush of evening
up from the damp grass.
Into the world's tumult, into the chaos of every day,
Go quietly, quietly.

--Charles Wright

<<<>>> <<<>>> <<<>>>

On a comedy tip, ifilm shows us what Metallica fans do in there spare time.