His face was eerily intent as his hand, long and lean and waiting, hovered over the pizzas frozen deep within the caverns of the supermarket’s ice chest. The frozen white metal faded away and he was poised over a river, fish swimming under his hands as he waited for the perfect one. He was no longer dressed in old jeans and camouflage, but in the skins and furs of a hunter, a warrior. The world became simpler- I prayed we’d fall away, that the whole damn store would fall away and become nothing more than forest, uncomplicated trees and streams and rocks and plants. I wanted to know what the world was like when things were simpler -- when people worked for what they had and were content. I prayed to see fathers pass on wisdom to their sons and mothers tell their daughters of their heritage, for them to have pride in themselves and the places they came from. I prayed for a world where enemies have faces, where we could know where the evil men lurked and we could prepare for their attacks, where their faces could be known.
The supermarket fell back into place and I followed him around, wondering when Walt Whitman was going to appear, if I was going to get to ask him what America was like when he wrote, and if he ever prayed for his enemies to have faces.
This is an interesting concept you wrote about. It reminds me of the new show Once Upon a Time. Have you seen it? In the fairy tale world all of the Bad guys and good guys are known for who they really are, but when the characters are in this world it is hard to see who the enemy really is.
ReplyDeleteSeeing the face of a lost world in the supermarket...now that shows observation and imagination. This has poetic potential. When are you going to start submitting?
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