She is hunching down on the roadside of a suburb, hoodie thrown over her head.
She rummages through her bag and you can hear all sort of things thinking, twinkling.
You find yourself asking. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, sure. Why?”
“You seem cold.”
“I am. Shivering!” She laughs, all raspy and memories of ancient days. “But it will pass.
The cold.
The wind.
I just need to sit in it for a while.”
She is then really sitting down on the side of the road.
Her things spill over: breakfasts and dinners and lunches, toads and lizards and skeletons,
shards of glass, broken promises and unstitched trusts.
She pulls out a lighter, which morphs into a three-wheel bicycle then paper dolls
then a lunch box in elementary school’s cafeteria
then a dress printed with photos of your grandmother’s cookies
then a bottle of hair dye then a vampire romance novel
then your father’s reading glasses then a cube of palm sugar then
your mother’s old worn brooch
then two spoonfuls of cough syrup then other two of honey and lime then a lighter again,
after all those sentimentalities.
“Light it,
” she says, handing it to you.
“And remember why.”
