The robbers hasten their liquor store evacuation, the day the sky barges arrived. Turns out, there was no need.
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Effie was aset at the burled wooden desk, plate of blackberries, the culprits bleeding on her fingers. The barges drifted past. She heard them before she saw them. The cat had been fretting all morning. This reduced her surprise at the surprising.
She heard old music. Old timey. Pressed for phonograph. Tinny music. The kind men in fur coats would Charleston to, while drinking: alumnus attending the homecoming game of his alma mater. Girls twirl like it is the 1920’s. Reservedly untoward. The dance is all in the eyes.
This flashes in her mind, a daydream of orientation. Her curiosity piqued, she makes for the front room, with its huge picture windows, framed by newly painted, unadorned white walls.
Picturesque, but now the Douglas firs partially obscure her view of the aerostrocities. They move at a painfully slow knots per hour.
Ima grab those blackberries. They are not in rush and I’m hungry as eff.
She pops them ala popcorn into her mouth, watching. Her neighbors begin to venture outside. Some voluntary evacuation necessitated by a craving for speculation. The steely comfort of hearing someone else acknowledge the surprising, and then say, “I think it must be…”
Their words crackled like burning logs, the freezing air making every word they spoke become the smoke. Hazy veil from the heat source warming their fear. Tirefire.
Effie watched them, too. Actors on the stage.
WrittenCasey 