The old people are guarded from the general population. When I visit I get close enough to study the intricate etchings on their faces - Death’s Rococo graffiti - and to listen. The old people are vague, obsessed with their own mismanaged lives. They offer fragments about jobs blown, lovers lost, festering emotional wounds. They speak of objects. Things they’d touched. People caressed who no longer exist.
The old people are ghost radios. They spook me.
The guards flash me nasty looks for venturing so close, even to my Uncle Joe. They have their hands full, keeping teenage boys from beating the old people to death. Children play in the park. Their mothers prevent them from bothering the old people and god forbid contracting Time. As if senescence were contagious.
The VOICE said, “Oh hollow notions you are beer cans you are filter-less I reify you.”
I said to the recorder: “In a canvass bag marked with the emblem of Topiary Techniques, Plantman carries the tools of his trade: one four-gallon watering can, (commonly referred to as a ‘bucket.’); one pair of stainless steel scissors for trimming and shaping; one feather-duster for brushing dust motes, skin particles, nail-clippings and other impurities from the leaves; fertilizer; insecticide; and various other necessities.
“Plantman has enemies: mealy bug, spider mite, scales, and all manner of insects and diseases that attack the vegetation of The City. He doesn’t hesitate to poison. With his enemies he is ruthless. The potted, green ‘citizens’ worship him as god.”
A caller identified herself as “The Missing Girl” said: “You know who I am. Years ago my face graced the covers of The Nation’s magazines. I was the Missing Girl, poster child for The Nation’s lost children. Had I been abducted, killed? You never knew. I’ve been around. But never where I was supposed to be. I’m married now; my husband is a pilot in the war; he drops bombs on the
Nation’s enemies, many of whom happen to be children, missing now and never to be found, but I forgive him. Not long ago, before they sent him off to fight the Enemy, I traveled with my husband to the Museum of Ghosts.
“There was an exhibit titled, ‘Before She Was Missed.’ They’d transplanted my old room like London Bridge, moved all my possessions from the old house to this museum in the middle of The Nation. They put on a skit for the visitors with a teenage actress playing the young me. A ten-minute domestic drama of no account really, but interesting in its implications. My parents, older but vital still, played themselves.
“‘Sometimes I feel her presence,’ my mother sobbed.’She touches me but I can’t see her.’
“‘Objects disappear and reappear suddenly, without explanation,’ added my father.’Trinkets that were the favorites of our little girl.’
“They recognized me in the audience but said nothing. Kept their cool. Times are hard in the Nation and The Missing Girl exhibit appeared to be the most lucrative in the museum.
“Before we left I walked onto the set and opened the drawer to my old night-table and took out a pack of cherry life-savers I’d purchased in another life. I gave one to my husband and took one for myself. It tasted like virginity and dust. This is my body, I said as I popped it into his mouth, and this is my blood. We sipped the sweet grape drink the museum offered as refreshment.”
The VOICE said: “So what are you telling me, sister? You’re telling me that YOU are THE Missing Girl?”
The Alleged Missing Girl faltered.
“Well, I am Missing. Or was. For a, for quite a while. Missing a long time.”
“No, Honey, you weren’t missing,” said the VOICE. “In order to be missing, one must be missed. YOU, girlfriend, were merely LOST.”
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).