OK, so you are at your desk now, all composed.
What are you going to do?
Of course life was simpler before I came along. That's why I came
along. Don't worry. You'll get the hang of it.
Coyote
Angel
OK, so you are
at your desk now, all composed. All tucked in and sorted out, stars put away in
various drawers and cabinets, moon hung up neatly behind the door, your shoes
kicked off, ocean muted to a calming susurration. Focus on the work at hand,
then. How the night sounds when
the tide is out, comes in, how little the sky
knows of its own origin. Small birds alight upon your terminal, cocking their
heads at you, as if, as if... on the tip of your tongue, off the top of your
head, and all the while the carpet has been growing craggy rocks, lichens, moss,
outrageously colored flowers; this will never do. Perhaps a cup of coffee or
that conference call, that's it. But the telephone has turned into a winter
squash it seems, vines trailing where once there was a cord, a line, some one
last hope of connection with reality. Because now your familiar desk has become
a baby elephant, who decides to go walking down the hall. How are you going to
explain this? Maybe you can find a banana, lure him back. Say here, nice baby
elephant, something good to eat, because you know they will simply never
understand if he starts punching buttons on the Xerox machine and pictures of
lions and leopards begin pouring out. It's for a zoo brief I've been working up.
Would that work? Or: what elephant?