Julie

February 8, 2014

Julie 

Tractors.

That’s how she starts the story,

her mouth taking a shape between

grin and grimace. Tractors.

I see her mind working

backwards, trying to recall

each detail as it was

or should have been

the first time. This

was not her first time

“at the rodeo,” or so she termed it,

so after a few boring hours

sitting on the couch in his parents’ house,

watching TV and occasionally making out,

she lets him lead her up the stairs to his room

where they find each other

under the cover of sheets

and darkness.

Afterwards, rolling over,

he reaches for a lamp that for some reason

revs like an engine, then illuminates

the room in bright John Deere green and yellow:

John Deere wallpaper, John Deere

photographs, John Deere models

on the dresser. Tractors

everywhere.

She might have yelped in horror, might have hid

her face in a John Deere pillow.

Me, I would have laid back and laughed.

How perfect this was, what a testament

to the sharp thrill of gasoline,

an engine’s sudden excitement,

to fields plowed fresh and new.

Six Stories, Six Voices

January 27, 2014

Six Stories, Six Voices

One.

We’re having drinks at a pub in town, all sharing stories about whatever comes to mind. He tugs on the sleeve of his oatmeal-colored sweater, giving a snorting chuckle at someone else’s comment.

Yeah, when I got my wisdom teeth out,

we found out I have this really weird heart disease

or something, because I actually died right on the table.

They hooked me up to a heart monitor out of routine,

you know, cause of the anesthesia,

but I don’t think anyone expected it

when I just flatlined

for about fifteen seconds.

They probably just looked at each other, like

“What just...?

What do we...?

Aaaaand he’s back.”

But yeah, apparently my heart stops

every night in my sleep.

I’m guessing it’s not for fifteen seconds

all the time, but... I mean, I always wake up.

He takes a sip of his ale as the rest of us laugh a little in shocked awe. “Wow, uhh... you should really get that checked out or something!”

Oh, I did. Yeah, I went to U-Mass General,

and they gave me this huge heart monitor

I had wear strapped to my chest for a week.

It looked like a bomb, all wires poking out.

We had to call and tell the high school

I wasn’t a terrorist or anything.

That’s how we know it happens every night.

Took it back to the doctors, and they said “Yeah,

we...have no idea what this is.”

And this is U-Mass General.

So like, a pretty big deal. But they couldn’t do anything about it.

So I just

die every night in my sleep.

I guess I’m so relaxed that I just

pass on to another life.

Two.

We’re all discussing school, the future, and the scary reality of graduate study, when someone asks her, “Don’t you have that weird post-doc in your lab?”