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Walking through New Orleans with my brother who never talked and was barely there, and my mother, and a woman who was also my mother, but worse. I could not get enough of the sun. I knew it was burning me, felt it as a poison, but would not shade myself. It felt good to be poisoned.
An endless guided tour of the city. A shop which sold Mardi Gras crap. Crowns of green and pink grapes, I could not tell if they were wax. A hummingbird had been following us for miles, like a guardian. My worse mother lunged for it, tried to smash it in her fist. I screamed and everyone looked. She was such a horrible woman. I put my hand up until one lit on me, then slowly, gently, closed my hand. Stinging pain. What – a hornet? No, a dozen black ants, two dozen, I crushed them but there was always one more to crush. The hummingbirds were gone for good.
Waiting for the mail. Writing again to edebroux, hoping for a letter from her. It was busy and I told people the mail hadn’t come yet, before they bothered looking. The whole world was hoping for letters from the war. I prayed she was all right.
Cecil Adams/Casey Casem was there and thanked me “sort of” for bringing up the question about Christmas ants. Said they were still talking about it in Africa, still no conclusive answer.
Every time I looked at it, it was closer – the crazy blue and gold Microsoft building next to my house. I walked past the window again and again to make it seem closer. I wanted to photograph it but the windows were sealed. There was a giant skylight, though, opened by a black metal pole that ran from ceiling to floor. I watched it for days until I figured it out. I slid the skylight open and shut, hoping no one would stop me, watching the sunlight fire the floor two stories below me. It reminded me of the poison of New Orleans so long ago.
digging a hole in the living room dirt I found my teddy bear. How did I bury this? mystified. Finally I realized that when I had been packing the box which has sprung out of the dirt, the bottom flap must have come open, and the bear slid into the hole before the dirt sealed itself. Just luck I found it again.