AFTER NOSFERATU. . .
There is the old woman who usually talks to us and has decided to take a seat on the newly painted park bench. I watched the worker last week at this same time and temperature paint this bench. It was 40 degrees, and he was carrying on anyway. On the paint can it would suggest 55 degrees to be the proper temperature to begin painting.
A lot of the world was made by not reading.
Thirty feet away I called out to the woman taking her seat, “No conversation today. . .?” She looked over, waved and then I saw the smile. She rose and came over. I couldn’t move. I was stuck in a waiting line where one couldn’t afford to lose their place.
A lot of the world was made this way, too.
When the woman came over, and she always begins her conversation twenty feet off so all the world around her is immediately involved, she said she was planning to catch the local bus to go over to “Wally World” (Wal-Mart), because she had to buy some underwear. She told the world she had to buy some underwear. The world heard it, I could see, but I also could see they made sure they didn’t get involved.
A lot of the world was also made this way.
We didn’t have to ask why she couldn’t find underwear in town, because we already knew since we can’t find or afford to buy the underwear when we find it in town, and she was loudly telling us, and all the world this anyway. Underwear costs $16 per pair now in small town. This is how Wal-Mart moved in. And stayed. And the world spins on.
from A Possible Eden, Bob Arnold,
Longhouse 2010
photo © bob arnold
