Started from this overheard snippet: “What if, you like… What if, like, because of your ADD, you forgot you were leaving, and came back? You should do that…”
What if you forgot who you were? What if you were who you forgot? Its silly really, to ask so many questions. Har har, so much we could inflate with our words. But if what we want is the story—a story—then this will not do. You must take things one bite at a time. Put down your spectacles and shake your money-maker.
Drop it like its hot.
Go back to your home—fix your flailing shingles. Clean the ants from beneath your shingles. kill the weeds sprouting through the cracks in your driveway—where the earth buckles and your asphalt cannot hold.
Replace the dead patches of sod. Shoot the neighbors dog for shitting in your Azaleas. Don’t kill the thing.
Tear up your front drive, and plant a sea of watermelon seeds. Care for them—so that in time, you may walk there, stepping from one swollen emerald rind to the next. The vines only can hold little ones. Be careful after a rain, the shine is a warning not to slip.
Then, after days of tending and admiring, dancing across your precious gourds, the rot begins.
First the vines shrivel, beginning at the ground. You run, sliding from side to side—touching off—flailing flying. The skin grows soft—your steps begin to impress, you leave tracks. Then you are sinking, no longer moving, no more breeze in your hair, only the dark teeming flesh swallowing your foot.
Is that right so far? I didn’t leave out any details? What is there to say?