By Ben Greenman
from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled
The man in the hat will not come into the room. He sits in the hall in a chair with a glass in his hand. “No better business any more,” he mutters. “Hoped for. Hankered for. But not present here in any amount.” Another man comes by and points at the glass. He is making a joke about optimists and pessimists, but the glass is empty. The joke fills the glass. The man in the hat sends the other man away. The man in the hat seals off the glass by wrapping wax paper across the open end and then securing the wax paper with a rubber band. The joke is trapped in there. The joke is all meaning. The glass is all time. The man in the hat is a divine presence, what mortals would refer to as a god. The room is our earth.
No comments:
Post a Comment