Lê Minh Đức
(minhduc)
Điều hành viên
DEW ON THE GARBAGE CAN LID
by Sam Shepard
Dew on the garbage can lid. Surprised my hand. Some dream or other my head was in.
Tricky weather. First flood. Fake Spring. Now freeze like this. Good deal I didn't put the beans in early. Like I was planning.
Good to get the stink out of the house anyway. Whatever it was was rotting. Smelled like dead Broccoli.
Coons'll just probably turn the whole thing over in the night anyway. Good thing we got the dogs.
Weird night. No sirens. Silent street. No wind to speak of. Good night for stealing gas.
No, can't get it up for adventures. Too cold. Skin sticks to steel in weather like this.
I was in my T-shirt today. Wasn't I in my T-shirt? Wasn't that today? In fact I was out of my T-shirt once today.
Weird. Atomic weather. Earthquakes probably. Probably means earthquake.
Except the dogs are supposed to go crazy. Run in circles. Get sick. Signs like that.
Maybe something's cracked at the Plant. That Core thing. Nuclear fission or something. Fission or fusion. Something like that. Where it cuts loose. One's the opposite of the other. I forget which.
They'd have it on the radio by now. Except I don't have a radio. They'd have on somebody else's radio. Then somebody else would call me. Except I don't have a phone. I don't know anybody else anyway.
It's just as well. I'd just as soon not know if you wanna know the truth. I'd just as soon take it as it comes. Not get all heat up about it. If I dissolve I dissolve. Nothing to it. Just as soon dissolve in peace.
Except they say it doesn't happen all at once. Supposed to be slow. Tortured like. Belabored. Ghastly breathing.
Nice thoughts. I only come out to empty the garbage.
2/80
Homestead Valley, CA
from Motel Chronicles