Scuttlebutt

scuttlebutt\SKUHT-l-buht\ , noun:

1. A drinking fountain on a ship.

2. A cask on a ship that contains the day's supply of drinking water.

3. Informal. Gossip; rumor.

The name of my pet bug. Only I could see him and he followed me around everywhere. It's a good thing he was invisible, because if my mom had seen all the places he was getting up into she literally would have killed him. Mom was deathly afraid of bugs. She hated black flies, brown spiders and even little red ladybeetles with the little black spots on them. She either had a spatula in her hand or a fly-swatter, and she'd use them in just about the same way. Flipping burgers and puncturing eggs with the same quick movements as she would smash a housefly. Little did she know that Scuttlebutt was up on the counter or sitting in the sink or right in the middle of the kitchen table, watching her and wincing with every swat, looking at me with wide eyes and shivering. He never did get used to her viscous ways toward the tiny things that always scrambled to get out of her way.
In general I tried to avoid the kitchen for this reason - to protect Scuttlebutt. I didn't like to see him distressed and since he followed me everywhere I thought it might be cruel to force him to watch his kindred being shot down one after the other. Of course Scuttlebutt was different from any other bug I had ever seen or found squished under a napkin. He was a color that was a bunch of colors in one; he could blend in with anything. And I don't mean like a chameleon..it was almost as if he was every color all at once and he just became more solid of a color when he wanted to blend in with what was around him, when he wanted to hide. Like when my mom was talking directly to me, he would just disappear, become part of the sofa or something like that. And he was big. His shell came up to my knees when I stood up and if I laid down it was possible to hug him like a long pillow because he was soft too. Not squooshy or fuzzy but huggable, if you know what I mean. Anyway, he was my friend and so I kept him away from mom. I knew she didn't have a swatter big enough to pop him, and it wasn't like she could see him, but I wasn't going to risk it. Scuttlebutt was the only friend I had.
You'd think it would have bothered me to have a big bug following me around all the time, but it really didn't seem like he had anything else to do and I certainly didn't mind the company. I was 5 years old and had already given up on the idea that mom and dad might one day bring home a brother for me to play with and by that point I had already learned you couldn't play fun games with a baby. Couldn't build forts with them or climb trees or conduct contests to see who can do stuff faster or better or longer. Not that I did any of that stuff with Scuttlebutt. That just would have been weird. And mean. He just didn't have the legs for any of it. Mostly he just watched me do stuff on my own. I think he just knew that it was nice to have somebody else around, someone to talk to. When it's only you most of the time you start making up things to do and eventually I started to experiment with building things. I'd take bits of recycling and old newspapers and odd electronic parts that mom or dad were getting rid of and collect them in a heap under my bed. Piece by piece I would take this or that and see how I could stack it or fit it or glue it together to make something else. Things without an obvious purpose or logic about them, but that made me glad when I looked at them. Scuttlebutt liked them too. Of course I think part of the reason he liked them is because a lot of them would end up looking like him. Well, variations of him. Metallic bugs. Tiny ones. Medium ones. And Scuttlebutt-size ones. Those were the ones we both liked the best. I called them Scuttlebutt Sculptures. But then we'd always have to try to hide them somehow, or even take them apart and put them back together again later, because mom was always trying to throw them out.

Milieu

milieu \meel-YUH; meel-YOO\ , noun:
1. Environment; setting.

Milieu. Million. A million places to be. A million people to be. Milieu.
Will you walk with me? Will you go with me to these places? A hand to hold. A body to walk with. Footfalls. I see us walking along a river. Cobblestones under our feet. The ground is uneven. I cling to your fingers and palm. You clutch mine. Reassure me with a squeeze that you are not letting go. My shoes are slippery. I do not trust them. You can see this in my face. The way I look to you, expectant, but smiling. Worried, but not worried. It has just finished raining. Or it is still raining. There is a faint mist, a drizzle. For some reason in my vision I am imagining Paris. The Eiffel Tower in the distance. Crowds at our left side. A ferris wheel? A river to our right. My hair is brown - or should I say "brunette"? That is much prettier. I do not look like me. My skin is olive and very smooth. I look good in winter colors. My hair is not curly, just wavy, and only half pulled back. That is not me. And the man. The man I was only just recently imagining was holding my hand - I cannot make out his face. Just that he is handsome. And he is smiling. He is French. He can only barely speak American. Ah so that is why the two characters smile at each other so much. They cannot speak. Neither can ruin the moment. Perhaps they are laughing at that too. It is funny in a way to think that speaking could ruin a moment. Well actually that is not so funny. It is true. Oh to not be able to speak - no - to not have to speak in order to communicate. How lovely that must be. I still see their faces close up in my vision. Their eyes sparkle, reflect the rippling water. A silvery glow. The air is crisp but gentle. No rough wind. The sky is gray but it is not gloomy. It simply offers a quiet backdrop. It is full. Full of something. Rain clouds share. It is not raining. It is sprinkling. The sound all around is splashing and gently falling droplets. And laughter. Yes, these two continue to laugh. Oh vacation. Where do these women meet these men? Does it matter that this probably will not last? Will she compare all American men she meets from now on to this French man that only needed to smile at her and squeeze her hand to make her feel secure and right? It is strange but in her dreams of love there was always sunshine and rays of heat. But even on this cloudy day in Paris she feels that. Or no she feels that this is almost better. Better than she could have imagined it before.

Senescent

senescent \si-NES-uhnt\adjective:
Growing old; aging.

After 53 years, she couldn't sleep in the middle of the bed. She still kept to her side. And in the mornings, after she got herself up, slipped her feet into slippers, and shuffled to the kitchen, it was difficult for her not to set the table for two. Some mornings she didn't have the energy to resist, and to set a spot for him would be eerily comforting - even to fill his coffee cup, and make it just the way he liked it. Even though she had almost always drank it black, she had started adding cream and sugar, because of course the flavor was of him, his sweetness. She would face his empty seat, stare at the steam raising from his mug, lost in memory and sighing.
Moving on took energy, energy that was harder to summon up at her age, energy she hadn't thought to save up a reserve of. She had always naively thought they would go together. That they would drift into sleep one night, holding hands, and just neither of them wake up. She was only half-way right.
And now she didn't know what to do, except continue to make his favorite meals. She had begun the strange habit of wearing his clothes to bed: a white t-shirt, a pair of boxers. Something she had never done while he was alive, but now it seemed like the only right thing to do. It meant she could still do his laundry, smell his clean shirts, feel the cotton of his underwear rub against her skin in the night, as she used to when he lied beside her. It meant still having to fold them and place them in his dresser drawer. Sometimes she might even lay out slacks and blouse and tie, arrange them on the bed, as if on a flat person. Lay next to it, play with the collar of the shirt, the buttons. After a few minutes, she would feel silly and put it all away - again the folding, the careful placement back onto hangers, the pretending that he'd need these things again.

16.

From Deaf Republic: 16
by Ilya Kaminsky

Yet I am. I exists. I has
a body,
When I see

my wife's slender boyish legs
the roof
of my mouth goes dry.

She takes my toe
in her mouth.
Bites lightly.

How do we live on earth, Mosquito?
If I could hear

you what would you say?
Your answer, Mosquito!

Above all, beware
of sadness

on earth we can do
- can't we? -

what we want.

Temerity

temerity \tuh-MER-uh-tee\, noun:
Unreasonable or foolhardy contempt of danger; rashness.

Chasing pavement, you called it. Middle of the night, keeping your footfalls in between the yellow lines. Faster and faster; sometimes you closed your eyes. And I'd watch your hair streaking behind you. Listen to the sound of your sandals flapping, sometimes scraping bits of gravel. The lines used to glow under your feet, reflecting the moon that acted as a bulb over our heads.
Those nights were like Valium to me. Leaning against the rails of the bridge, the cool dampness of it slightly wetting my hands and the butt of my jeans, listening to the sound of the river rushing underneath, and you, slicing the air in two with your body and your laughter, throwing your arms into the sky and twirling once you'd reached the end where the bridge finally met with the firm road of the land again.
We'd see their beacons coming up over the hill before the headlights even appeared, and you would break your chase with the night and run to me, grab my hand, pull me off to the side, and almost down to the water. Your body would shake with energy and you'd hop up and down a little and squeeze my hand until the vehicle passed by ~ thuhrumpbump ~ onto the bridge, and then ~ thuhrumpbump ~back off of it. One more squeeze to my hand and you'd go back. Only now the energy would have changed for you and you would lie on your back in between the yellow lines and you'd call to me. And I'd lie down opposite you, our heads touching, and look at the stars.

Consternation

consternation \kon-ster-NEY-shuhn\, noun:
sudden dread or paralyzing terror

She hadn't slept in days. Afraid of her dreams. The back of her eyelids. The things she knew crept about when her eyes were closed. Mostly it was the night. She hadn't been afraid of the dark since the days she begged her mom to put a nightlight in the hallway. Hadn't even noticed when she grew out of the need for a small light outside her door. Somewhere along the way it wasn't important anymore. Until suddenly as a grown woman the night held something sinister for her again. Closing her eyes in bed now she immediately began to feel the hot tentacles of anxiety creep along the outlines of her arms and where the sheets grazed her skin. Soon her whole body would be like a pile of stone coals smoldering in the heat of an oven. And she'd shut her eyes tighter until speckles of light would form and collect like galaxies, spinning out into oblivion. Fearing the worst, she'd pop them open again, momentarily blinded by the brightness of the optical illusion that had formed. She'd blink and blink and blink until the darkness was whole again, and she could go back to the fear she was used to, the fear that had a name.

Pinchbeck

pinchbeck \PINCH-bek\, adjective:
not genuine; fake

Looking at her face, I could tell right away that she thought I was serious. The funny thing was that I had been joking. Well, excuse me, let me make a correction. It was funny to me, not to her. Honestly, nothing much is ever very funny to her. Maybe that's why she lets me hang around: for the occasional sound of laughter. Even if it is at her expense. She doesn't mind. I swear that girl's head is always looking at the back of itself. Some people call it "daydreaming," but I disagree. If that's all someone does, wouldn't it just be their walking-talking life? No, Lucy isn't dreaming. She's thinking. And hard.

"Come on, now, Lucy. I was only kidding," I say.

But she doesn't answer. She just keeps walking and swinging a short stick that she picked up along the way, swinging it through the grass that reaches up to our knees, slowly back and forth in front of her as if she were chopping her way through a jungle. And so I follow on behind, keeping to her path, being careful not to step on the back of her heels with my long strides. I don't even try to hide my smile or my low chuckle, not when the sky's so shiny and the field's so green and her brown hair's swinging to and fro in her ponytail, smiling right back at me.