The Impossibly Read Online Free
hadn’t even asked John.
Actually, I had never asked John much of anything, and still haven’t. I had, I remember sitting there thinking, once asked him where he was from, and he had taken me there, and had both shown and introduced me around.
Say hello to my mother.
What do you mean?
I mean say hi to Mother, come over here.
I don’t think so.
Get over here.
What the fuck is that?
The conversation took a turn, it took several turns.
At one point I was informed by Deau that I was now in the presence of a young woman who was both wonderful and very strange, which combination of descriptives seemed to add up in Deau’s mind to pleasantly eccentric.
Who are you talking about? I said.
We all three looked for a moment around the room with all its shelves.
I remember at this juncture thinking it was pretty strange to keep a stapler on a shelf you couldn’t easily reach. I also remember feeling distinctly uncomfortable at having been made privy to Deau’s opinion, presumably about the woman I was smitten with, no matter how well-informed, or, especially because it was well-informed, and I remember suddenly wishing that it was still warm out and that we were still sitting at the café near the tree.
Why is the stapler sitting way up there where you can’t reach it? I asked.
At this, she smiled, leaned forward a little, and said, I didn’t put it there for me.
Who is it for then?
She didn’t answer.
Oh, I said.
Stand up and see, she suggested.
I did. And found the stapler perfectly in reach of my outstretched hand. There was a short stack of multicolored paper sitting next to it. I picked up a couple pieces, placed them under the chisel end of the stapler, and pressed. There again came the short, crisp clunk resulting, this time, in sheets of blue and turquoise paper being crisply joined.
I don’t know.
I found it strange, and in fact despite all of it, persist in finding it strange, to have been thought of, in some way so exactly, while I wasn’t there.
The whole business, if you will indulge me for a moment, made my arm feel like a treasure.
Thank you, I said.
John had the event all organized. It was up to me to pick up the chips and the pretzels and the small pickles, or anyway fairly small pickles just not big ones, and the crackers and the meats, and it was up to me to pick up the liquid things too. I started with the meats and pickles. The ones I found were plenty small and rather handsome. I then acquired a variety of meats in several forms and brought them home, and then went back for the crackers and chips and pretzels and some cheese too, I decided, and more chips and some nuts for variety. Then I moved on to the liquid refreshments. What a glory is a beverage store. It is too many colors and too many varieties of shapes of container, and all the containers contain too many different kinds of liquids, and too much, and that they slosh, that it is in their nature to slosh, and that too many of them I had known too well and too recently.
It took three trips to get home with all of it, sloshing.
That’s that, said John.
Then it was the day of the event.
It was a very nice event, and, insofar as my dreams afterward were concerned, it did have a temporary palliative effect, as had been the case with other events in the past, although I have never been sure just why.
Marry the crowd! John yelled at me as at one point we stood at the drinks table.
Was that a quote? I asked.
Pass it on, brother, he said.
I passed it to the guy standing next to me. This guy said it to the guy next to him, a very old guy with a nose like something in a documentary on gross anomalies. Who are you? I said walking up to the old guy. He said something. I didn’t quite catch it. I started to ask him again, but just then someone yelled, the event!
The lights went out.
There was a scream.
The lights came back on.
John was on top of someone.
The lights went out again.
They were out for a long time.
Later, a
Actually, I had never asked John much of anything, and still haven’t. I had, I remember sitting there thinking, once asked him where he was from, and he had taken me there, and had both shown and introduced me around.
Say hello to my mother.
What do you mean?
I mean say hi to Mother, come over here.
I don’t think so.
Get over here.
What the fuck is that?
The conversation took a turn, it took several turns.
At one point I was informed by Deau that I was now in the presence of a young woman who was both wonderful and very strange, which combination of descriptives seemed to add up in Deau’s mind to pleasantly eccentric.
Who are you talking about? I said.
We all three looked for a moment around the room with all its shelves.
I remember at this juncture thinking it was pretty strange to keep a stapler on a shelf you couldn’t easily reach. I also remember feeling distinctly uncomfortable at having been made privy to Deau’s opinion, presumably about the woman I was smitten with, no matter how well-informed, or, especially because it was well-informed, and I remember suddenly wishing that it was still warm out and that we were still sitting at the café near the tree.
Why is the stapler sitting way up there where you can’t reach it? I asked.
At this, she smiled, leaned forward a little, and said, I didn’t put it there for me.
Who is it for then?
She didn’t answer.
Oh, I said.
Stand up and see, she suggested.
I did. And found the stapler perfectly in reach of my outstretched hand. There was a short stack of multicolored paper sitting next to it. I picked up a couple pieces, placed them under the chisel end of the stapler, and pressed. There again came the short, crisp clunk resulting, this time, in sheets of blue and turquoise paper being crisply joined.
I don’t know.
I found it strange, and in fact despite all of it, persist in finding it strange, to have been thought of, in some way so exactly, while I wasn’t there.
The whole business, if you will indulge me for a moment, made my arm feel like a treasure.
Thank you, I said.
John had the event all organized. It was up to me to pick up the chips and the pretzels and the small pickles, or anyway fairly small pickles just not big ones, and the crackers and the meats, and it was up to me to pick up the liquid things too. I started with the meats and pickles. The ones I found were plenty small and rather handsome. I then acquired a variety of meats in several forms and brought them home, and then went back for the crackers and chips and pretzels and some cheese too, I decided, and more chips and some nuts for variety. Then I moved on to the liquid refreshments. What a glory is a beverage store. It is too many colors and too many varieties of shapes of container, and all the containers contain too many different kinds of liquids, and too much, and that they slosh, that it is in their nature to slosh, and that too many of them I had known too well and too recently.
It took three trips to get home with all of it, sloshing.
That’s that, said John.
Then it was the day of the event.
It was a very nice event, and, insofar as my dreams afterward were concerned, it did have a temporary palliative effect, as had been the case with other events in the past, although I have never been sure just why.
Marry the crowd! John yelled at me as at one point we stood at the drinks table.
Was that a quote? I asked.
Pass it on, brother, he said.
I passed it to the guy standing next to me. This guy said it to the guy next to him, a very old guy with a nose like something in a documentary on gross anomalies. Who are you? I said walking up to the old guy. He said something. I didn’t quite catch it. I started to ask him again, but just then someone yelled, the event!
The lights went out.
There was a scream.
The lights came back on.
John was on top of someone.
The lights went out again.
They were out for a long time.
Later, a
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