Brand Loyalty
from Your Name Here (2000)
“Father, you’re destroying the collectibles!” “You are mistaken. I’m enjoying them! The green magenta finish on this one reminds me of the piano shawl in our flat in Harbin—only greener, as though slits of light were coming through its slits.” “At least we have the lilacs.” How he would get a little too creative, God and I both know. He’s spent the morning chiding the waterspout, clearly amazed as it drew increasingly closer. “I’ve had it with natural phenomena. They never know when to draw the line. At least we have some sense, and we’re natural phenomena too, for goodness sakes.” I wouldn’t let it get to me. On the other hand, the waterspout or whatever you call it is getting to us. It touched down, back there, and only a moment ago it was in front of us. I suggest we sidle along the sand. The deuce you say! On the other hand, if you really think so. We could offer it tea and cookies, but in a moment it’ll be too late for anything but palsied brooding on the tired theme of retribution. Like I said, they build them stronger and stronger until it’s encoded in them. They can’t help putting their best foot forward, and where does that leave us! After all, a little peace was all we were after. If only you’d read up on the subject like you said you were going to. Yes, well we can’t alarm our surroundings too much, even as they torture us. That way we’d only slip out of pain and not see the exciting denouement. And what a sweet-tempered morning it was. Put aside our notions of the intrepid, the universe is paying a courtesy call, God has us on hold, and there’s not much we can do except spin like dervishes, human tops. Hair climbing upward to a point, a kind of spire, and all I’d done was brush down the sides. Can we do it that way now? Not exactly. The village is walking toward us, we are becoming its walls and graffiti-sprayed cement bathrooms, its general store, the tipsy taxi driver. If I told you where we were going it wouldn’t be a surprise anymore, and yet it would… Sounds like my friend Casper, the girl said.