Sunday, April 8, 2012

float


a tale of the Magpie, witnessed by someone with a high fever....

There were those ominous clouds, and if one took the time and looked up to see the chocolate an vanilla swirl, then they would've known as soon as she noticed.
She sort of had the room with a view, perched high up in the egg float as the Easter Princess. An impressive float, yes, paper mache-d by Local Teamsters 502, out-biding Local Girl Scout Troop 4, risen and placed on an approved licensed trailer in a bed of cray-papered purple bonnets, surrounded by six pallbearered positioned little children in bunny suits. She was Princess only because she was the only one not frightened by its shabby-constructed-lazy flimsiness. Those little children were the first carried to the storm cellar under the paint store when everyone started shouting alarm. You know, since they could not run in those little flapper bunny feet.
She bolted from the egg. The music did not stop immediately until she ran ahead and pointed like a first lieutenant leading a charge. It was quiet then, except the triangle player still chimed his solo in disbelief as the funnel cloud came into full view as the parade route turned west. The panicked ones ran opposite, dropping the hard butterscotch candy wrapped in yellow plastic the little bunnies had weakly tossed, others huddled into the movie theater.
No one knows why she ran towards the storm, peeling away her outfit, passing her house with her dog running and barking after her with a mouthful of leftover butterscotch candy. She was always a rather odd girl anyway. But I loved her. We had our private vagabond club, a bulls-eye for getting bullied, and the only time I ever saw her smile outside of riding in that giant egg was when I imitated the voices coming over the shortwave radio in her garage. Some fascinating guy with sandpaper-weathered elbows off the coast of Scotland. She was missing once for three days because she packed a small suitcase and climbed the Thurber's water tower. As we exchanged brown bag contents one day she just blurted out it was because she wanted to be closer to Heaven. And then she started to cry silently. I hugged her and kissed her cheek. She hugged me so hard it hurt. You could tell her father took his belt to her horribly for that adventure.
The storm doglegged and set upon another course completely missing the town, except skimming the Jefferson's greenhouse, causing tulip petals to fall like pillow stuffing for weeks to come, Bertie Doyle said one landed in his beer on his patio.
Witnesses said she just disappeared running along side that tornado. About a week later at the diner an old guy turned to another old acquaintance and surmised that just maybe she'd always wanted to go to Kansas, and they just nodded and sat for another hour thinking about it.

10 Comments:

Blogger Brian Miller said...

nice...cute easter princess you got there...this is like a tall tale...chased the storm and always wanted to go to kansas...nice close on it...well spun

4/08/2012 1:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

at least there were witnesses to tell the tale

birth death its all the same

4/08/2012 1:42 PM  
Blogger Scarlet said...

Very imaginative write...Fiction writing is not my strong form, so I admire the form. I hope she gets what she dreams of...~

Happy day to you ~

4/08/2012 2:38 PM  
Blogger Wayne Pitchko said...

well done and thanks for sharing

4/08/2012 4:19 PM  
Blogger christopher said...

You have honed your story telling and it shows. Well done.

4/08/2012 5:55 PM  
Blogger Tess Kincaid said...

This made me cry, Phil. I'm not sure why...

4/09/2012 1:35 PM  
Blogger Silent Otto said...

Your words caused me to turn into a wolf, and i sat and howled for many hardboiled hours, hoping she would reappear in the magic triangle, but alas , she is lost , so thankyou for constructing this world for me to roam in, albeit temporarily.

4/10/2012 2:15 AM  
Blogger The Bug said...

I love the story - but I'm afraid that she found heaven instead of Kansas...

4/10/2012 11:53 AM  
Blogger Trellissimo said...

Some fascinating guy with sandpaper-weathered elbows off the coast of Scotland.

Goodness knows why, but this image leaped off the page at me!That's the fun of a tall tale, I guess...

4/11/2012 5:55 AM  
Blogger Susan Anderson said...

This story reminds me of a James Taylor song. I wish I could remember the name of it...

It touches me.

=)

4/12/2012 6:48 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

11,041 vagabonds plus:
Free Hit Counters
Web Counters

All original designs and text created by the author of this blog, Phil L., are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike3.0 License. All other materials remain the property of their respective owners and/or creators, unless of course they are part of the public domain.