In Wyoming, on a hill.

Melissa was with me — we had all moved there, the family and me. I was scared but exhilarated. There were miles of green snowy hills and flatlands. The country was open, there were no houses or structures. I looked around at everything and it was new and scary but it made me feel good. We looked out from that window for a long time.Now I am under heavy blankets. I’m in some kind of garage, there’s people I don’t know, I don’t know why I’m there, I’m looking around in shelves and boxes for something, I know if I get caught trespassing I’m in trouble.

There’s an old woman snooping around, I know I have to pretend I’m her old husband so I won’t get caught. So I make a lot of sleeping old man noises so she won’t get alarmed & pull off my covers. And I also puff out my body so I look big & fat (with oldman bloat) under the covers. She goes away. I’m hot and stuffy under the big heavy blanket.

Then someone else from the house comes around, a woman about 40, mean & grumbling, and in no time she pulls off my covers, sees me, starts to really yell, lashing into me. Everything she says is so loud, so cutting, she makes me feel like shit. I get up and run, hop on my bike like when I was a boy, and I race off up the hill at full speed and then like a skateboarder hitting the edge of the ramp I zoom up and over thinking I’m going to land smoothly on the other slope of the hill, but no, it just drops off sheer, straight down to infinity. I’m so scared, ready to just die. But I don’t: I let go of the bike and fall straight down like a ball tossed up in the air and hook my arm over the hill-ramp-edge and save myself from falling.

I pull myself over. Now I have skis and I ski down and away all over the mountains and hills, and the landscape is now shiny dark purple berry-clusters and glowing fluorescent grasses, alien and beautiful.

Moving, swooping, never stopping.

posted by Snail at 4:39 pm