FADE IN:
A TENEMENT BUILDING
On the Lower East Side. We can faintly hear the cry of the
fishmongers. It is too early for us to hear traffic; later,
perhaps, we will
All this fucking around on the Internet is the opportunity cost of doing some truly epic shit.
I was holding this really exemplary radish in my hand. / I was admiring its shape and size and color. I was imagining / its zesty, biting taste. And when I listened, I even thought / I could hear it singing. It was unlike anything I had ever / heard, perhaps an oriental woman from a remote mountain village / singing to her rabbit. She's hiding in a cave, and night has / fallen. Her parents had decided to sell her to the evil prince. / And he and his thousand soldiers were searching for her everywhere. / She trembled in the cold and held the rabbit to her cheek. She / whispered the song in a high, thin voice, like a reed swaying / by itself on a bank above a river. The rabbit's large, brown ears / stood straight up, not wanting to miss a word. Then I dropped / the radish into my basket and moved down the aisle. The store / was exceptionally crowded, due to the upcoming holiday. My cart / jostled with the others. Sometimes it pretended we were in a cock- / fight, a little cut here, some bleeding. Now the advantage is mine. / I jump up and spur the old lady, who's weak and ready to fall. / I spot a mushroom I really want. It's within reach. You could / search all day and never find a mushroom like that. I could smell / it sizzling in butter and garlic. I could taste it garnishing my / steak. Suddenly, my cart is rammed and I'm reeling for my balance. / I can't even see who the enemy is. Then I'm hit again and I'm / sprawling up against the potatoes. I've been separated from my / cart. I look around desperately. "Have you seen my cart?" I ask / a man dressed in lederhosen and an alpine hat. "I myself have / misplaced my mother's ashes. How could I know anything about your / cart?" he said. "I'm sorry to hear about your mother," I said. / "Was it sudden, or was it a long, slow, agonizing death, where / you considered killing her yourself just to put her out of her pain?" / "Is that your cart with the radish in it?" he said. "Oh, yes, / thank you, thank you a thousand times over, I can't thank you / enough," I said. "Schmuck," he said. The mushroom of my dreams, / of course, was long gone, and the others looked sickly, like they / were meant to kill you, so I forged on past the kohlrabi and / parsnips. I hesitated at the okra. A flood of fond memories / overcame me. I remembered Tanya and her tiny okra, so firm and / tasty, one Christmas long ago. There was a fire in the fireplace / and candlelight, music, and the crunch, crunch, crunch of the okra. / I have never been able to touch okra since that sacred day. / We were in the Klondike, or so it seemed to me then. Tanya had / a big dog, and it ate the roast, and we had a big laugh, but now / I don't think it's funny. I remember the smell of that roast, / as if it were cooking this very minute, and I can see Tanya / bending over to check on it. How did we ever get out of there / alive? and what happened to Tanya? I look around, peaches and / plums. I'm buffeted from behind. "Watch it," I say to no one in / particular. Eight eyes are glaring at me. "I'm moving," I say. / But I can't move. The rabbit says, "Tonight we will meet our / death, but it will be beautiful and we will be brave and not / afraid. You will sing to me and I will close my eyes and dream / of a garden where we will play under the starlight, and that's / where the story ends. with me munching a radish and you laughing." / I can't move," I said.
