look into my teardrops

THE UMBRELLA SALESMAN

The artichoke peeked from a shelf above the table, like a menace, suggestive of something he could not place, all day long.

Are you going to make the artichoke tonight? He sits on the bed as she comes in the door. It's been raining and the rain drips down from her clothes, splashing a little on the door as she bends over to take off her shoes and slide down her skirt.

Yes, she says, I was thinking I would. And she disappears into the bathroom for what he knows will be perhaps an hour. 

I’m just going to the bathroom she says quickly as she closes the door. A lie, but the lock turns decisively before there is anything to do about it. 

What does she do in there? It was a question he wondered often. The strongest suspicion was that she just stood there and did nothing. That she stood in the bathroom for long periods of time mainly because it was the only other room in their apartment and the only room where you could really be alone. And while she stands there, in complete silence save for the occasional turning on and off of the facet, which he's always assumed is just a courtesy to him, he continues to sit on the bed and stare at the fruit, which stares back at him, laughing if he thinks about it hard enough.

It’s a vegetable, she counters as she twists the knob, lighting the stove below the large pot of water. 

No, he says, hanging around, useless at her back. It’s actually a fruit. 

No, she says, you’re thinking of potatoes… or maybe the yam.

He goes to the window, picking out the dirty stub of a half smoked cigarette he finds shoved into the sill. A fruit, he says again. He lights it. Do you want me to look it up? 

In the half nook that is their kitchen she leans over, facing away from him, naked, her head over the pot, beginning to steam. You can’t, she says. I lent all our encyclopedias to Bingo this morning. He’s writing his thesis paper. He wants to go to Stanford next year. To be a scientist... Stanford or Yale.

He looks over at the bookshelf. Indeed a large portion is missing. Perhaps that was what had bothered him all day and not the artichoke after all. 

He taps some ash back into the sill, where the rest of the ash is. Well it doesn't matter I guess. But I wish you wouldn't have lent away the encyclopedias. Without saying anything about it, I mean.

Mm, she says. Or at least he thinks she does.

You know... I was talking to this funny guy earlier and he was telling me they used to have this thing called the internet, like a thousand years ago, and you could have it in your pocket or in your ear or on your nose even if you wanted to…

Letting out a comfortable drag, he brings his stupid hand up to his face, touching the tip of his nose, exhaling onto his hand. And when you used it, he continues, you could know just about everything in the entire world…

Still she hunches over the pot, carefully moving things he cannot see and only occasionally her strange twisted hands coming into view.

The what, she says, sort of yelling over the water in the pot. 

The inter-nut… or something like that, he yells back, closing his eyes, rolling them into the back of his head, as he yells.

Straightening up from the pot of gentle, continuous steam, with caution she turns around. I don’t know, she says, that sounds pretty crazy. On your nose?

He shrugs, leaning his head farther out the window, the warm mist landing onto his face. Maybe he was lying, he says. He was kind of a crazy guy anyways. He was selling umbrellas in front of the grocery store.     

Out of the kitchen, with uncertain movements, she comes towards him, blind, her arms out in front of her, feeling for the table or a wall.

Who knows what they did back then, her voice gargles a little in the bubbling water. You hear a lot of crazy things but nobody actually knows.

The artichoke strikes an uneasy balance, smiling back at him on the stub of her neck.

Yeah, he says, pulling himself back into their apartment, taking the last drag, burning into the filter.

    

Who knows.

HORSE AND TOMATO

In the room there is a wooden table and on the table is a sandwich and a glass of milk.

Sitting at the table is a man, about 50. Short, neat, plain except for a well managed salt and pepper mustache.

The room is empty except for a few things. The table, the man, a small kitchen, the sandwich. The room is lit by a large skylight set two or three feet into the angled ceiling.

The man takes a bite of the sandwich and from time to time sips from the glass of milk. 

He looks over two or three pieces of paper. 

A knock at the door. 

The man does not immediately get up. He finishes the sentence he was reading. Then he slides the papers underneath each other, into the yellow folder they came in.

The knock again.

The man lets out a small cough, as if to say: Okay, I suppose. 

He gets up and unlocks the door.

A woman stands outside, behind her an overcast sky. She is older than him. Large black sunglasses a black coat and a green floral dress peeking out from under the coat.

The woman comes into the room.

Hello, the woman says.

Please, the man motions towards a chair opposite his at the table.

The woman walks to the chair and loosens the straps of her coat. The man appears behind her and takes the coat from her shoulders. Noiselessly, the woman sits down, removing her sunglasses and placing them on the table. 

The man folds her coat in half and puts it on the edge of the table. Noiselessly, he also sits down. 

He looks at the woman.

Are you hungry? Would you like some of this food? Horse and tomato sandwich. We can split it if you like. 

No, the woman says and she brings up her purse and sets it in her lap.

May I smoke in here? she asks.

But the man is admiring his sandwich. Two slabs of horse and the tomato sliced thin, liberal portions of mayo spread underneath both pieces of dark rye bread.

Hm?

I'd like to have a cigarette.

He furrows his brow and nods, let me get you an ashtray, he says.

He stands up and crosses the empty room. He takes a white mug from inside the sink. He turns the tap and fills the mug with cold water. He stands there, takes a sip to make it less full and then he goes back to the table.

He puts the mug down onto the table. The woman lights her cigarette, taking one drag and holding the rest of it over the mug.

The man stares at her for a while and then looks back down at the sandwich.

My son says I should stop smoking.

The man looks up from the sandwich. Do you smoke a lot?

The woman shrugs. I smoke whenever there is a lit cigarette between my fingers.

He just doesn't want you to die, the man says.

He thinks it's trashy, she says. He knows I won't die.

Right, the man says. Well children never like what their parents do.

No, she says, I suppose they don't. She takes a long drag and taps the ash into the mug.

Do you have children? You must I suppose.

Yes, he says.

She takes another drag and looks him over. Not rich but not poor. His parents were probably poor and his children might end up poor too. A man and his sandwich and his mustache, balanced comfortably for a moment at the edge of a knife.

And your wife lets you keep that mustache?

Yes, he says. She's never complained.

I never let my men wear mustaches. 

No, he says. I don't imagine you would.

She catches his look and straightens herself. She looks away, imagining what it would be like to have him in bed. 

She drops the rest of the cigarette into the cup.

Well, finish your sandwich if you want, she says, bringing her wallet out from her purse.

The man glances over the sandwich again. The bread will be dry soon and then it will be ruined.

That's alright, he says, looking up at her, grinning at little this time.

I'll finish it later.

THE KIND OF DOG I AM

I am not dreaming. This is real life. I blink my eyes a few times. I consider literally pinching myself, just to make sure I am not actually dreaming. But I can't pinch myself because I have no hands. Instead of two hands I have four paws. Suddenly I understand that I am now a dog.

The road I am on is littered with garbage. With my newly long, fanged mouth I take up a parcel and follow my master as she continues quickly down the street, buried in her phone. It is autumn, morning, cold and wet and bright. I wonder what kind of dog I am but I cannot move my head in such a way as to fully examine myself in the glass doorways, while continuing to rush ahead after her. I hope I am a big dog. I hope I have rich, luscious fur and an extremely long tail. And I hope that, if say, a tall and attractive man were to turn the corner with the wrong look in his eye, I would be able to jump forth and bite his neck until he is dead. I hope that when we got home she would take me in her arms and stroke my fur and tell me what a good dog I am and that we will be together forever and never be dead.

But of course there will be an investigation. I have committed a mortal offense. The deceased; tall, creative, charming. Engaged to be married. Successful in his own right and his father even more so. His family will do all in its power to have me put down, even though my crime was in defense of the only one who I have ever loved. They will come for me. Four policemen at the door. The words that are spoken, I no longer understand. Papers will be produced. My owner is sad, yet understanding and without much ado they take me away and put me down later that afternoon. The needle sinking deep and silently into my beautiful fur. The life slowly thawing from my eyes as they gaze up uselessly at an ugly florescent light built into the ceiling.

And when I am dead they will throw me in a dumpster out back with all the other dogs and cats and horses and birds who have been put down trying their best to live and love and survive. Those now dead, but who have fought the darkness and evil they encountered every day in their miserable animal lives..

We stop at the intersection and these thoughts drift away. With my deep, dog eyes I dare to glance upwards towards her beautiful face. From around her phone, she notices me. What is that? Garbage? I unlock my jaw and let the parcel fall to the ground. She kicks it away with her tall leather boot, pulled tight, the blackness shining in the morning sun. 

As we wait for the street light to change I can just notice my reflection in a window across the street. I turn my head up and squint my eyes so I can try to see the kind of dog I am.