internet literature

Monday, February 16, 2009

There was a city street lined only with red and clear plastic tents. Some of them long as a fog-horn bellow and others short as a pop. They were all smoking, cussing up plumes of harsh charcoal and seared fish skin. Inside the tents, flames burned in the make shift kitchen. Old women cooked and cleaned. People sat around, late in the night drinking the clear liquor, laughing and smoking. A metal rim around the fire cookers sat the people. Other tables were scattered about which were white plastic, defiled and scratched by shoes and the wind. Cooking smoke and tobacco smoke lined the meaty tenor throats of youngish boys with gelled hair. The girls' conversations progressed in a flute-ish harmony. They were flowing together with the smoke, the tent plastic and the wind. Everyone swirled up into the salt laden blackness and laughing so hard their feet did not recognize the floor.

The old kitchen women bleated like a lamb and served the grilled eel in red sauce with lettuce and raw garlic. A shot of Soju comes right after swallowing the meat and garlic wrapped in lettuce. The meat is sauced smoky, lettuce clean, garlic like a violin on fire and finally, the clear liquor disinfects. 

It brought all the people back down to business. Grunting, touching and nodding were commands and requests. All the mouths were slopping up like mop buckets. Fingers licked and supped tasted like alkaline battery acid. The senses were being pulled and knocked around. None fit well together as sunshine and floral fragrance might, but there was a carefree balance.

People channeled out of the tents dirty with money and in search of taxis. They were ungraceful, unsymmetrical, un-admiral, uncivil heaps of flesh.

A taxi arrived yellow and dutiful smelling of dead flowers. It hummed as people entered. 

All the people vanished into compartments, sat quietly and fuzzed off. 

1 comment:

miles ross said...

canada is war-weary

good job