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Show Motherlunge a novel 48 "It happened like this," I said, and I began the story in the traditional way, with the setting: I worked in a cubicle, 10 feet by 4 feet, the walls of which were grey polyblend fabric over plastic planks. The back wall was covered-as if by tiny drill team members or girl Communists-with little red and white flags. These flags were the fortunes from every cookie I'd received for every lunch since I started at QMedCare and began to frequent the Chinese takeout on the first floor of our building. One fourth of these fortunes read, You are wise among men. Another several warned, Listen not to futile words of vain tongue. One day, I was sitting in front of my computer staring at my favorite flag-the enigmatic We are happy together-when I realized I was listening. I knew the sound that the rubber wheels of Eli's cart made on our no-pile commercial carpet. I could recognize the sound of him squirting the plants along the corridor, the sound of his voice, softly saying Fuck, when his cart banged into our department's printer table. I was hearing these sounds now, and without thinking about it, I stood up. My wheeled chair rolled away from the back of my knees like an ellipsis.... "What is this plant called?" I blurted as Eli rounded the comer near my cube. In front of me, I was holding the dusty spider plant that had been sitting on top of my bookshelf since I arrived at QMedCare. Eli's untidy eyebrows went up, down, together. "Well," he said at last, pointing his spray nozzle at the pot, "That's a jacaranda." "What about that one?" I asked, pointing behind him at a yellowing ivy. "Alpine buttercup." "And that?" |
