By Ben Greenman
from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled
Jason’s bath, upstairs, in his parents’ master bathroom, overtopped its edge Saturday night and gallons of water flooded the nearby floor up to a distance of four feet. The water poured out of the tub for over ten minutes. Two shoes near the tub, placed atop a bamboo mat, were completely surrounded by water, but no loss of life took place. The water was eventually sopped up with towel and mop by Jason’s mother, who discovered the deluge when she came in to the bathroom to announce that the family was considering going out for ice cream the next morning after church. The offer was instantly and fiercely revoked. When Jason was called distracted by his angry mother, he held up a finger in clarification. “Distracted is when you are looking at something else,” he said. “I was abstracted, which means that I was looking at nothing. I was just thinking. A synonym is absentminded.” Jason is eight.
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