Betty flipped through an album of how the view had looked one year ago; shots of the pool, looking down from her third floor balcony to the decking below. How things had changed.
Photo #1. SpongeBoy TanPants: a pre-pubescent chunk-of-a-child whose blubber lounged just within the hemlines of a plain blue beach towel. He created an entertaining illusion, akin to the licensed graphic of a cartoon character. His right-arm flexed so his hand arced between a bag of something salty/crunchy, to his open mouth. His left arm cradled a Big Gulp with a Tygon-tubing straw. Brown liquid ebbed and flowed with every sip.
Photo #2. Skirted Myrtle: middle-aged caregiver, snack provider to SpongeBoy TanPants, pulled a wheeled crate to the deck chair close to the kid. She opened the lid, tore open a new bag, replaced his empty one with something chewy/sweet this time. She seemed to know the shortest way to the dear boy's heart—attack.
Photo #3. Speedo Guido: sleek as a seal, wriggled himself like a needle, quilting an azure block with calculated movements, perfectly spaced, perfectly paced, sparse at the surface, gliding through the batting, turning—repeating.
Photo #4. Ike and Mike: candy-colored trunks on wiener-shaped siblings, one left handed, one right, with an invisible tether between their useless sides, acted as a unit in all they did. Like conjoined twins, severed early enough, through flesh and organs that didn't much matter. They shook out a double wide towel of fruity stripes, reclined themselves in unison, index fingers connecting across the lime stripe.
Photo #5. Frail Dale: a hunching shrimp in the shell, leaned into his walker, tennis ball feet skimming the decking as he eeked his way through shade the temperature of his own body, toward the warmth of...
Photo #6. Sun-drenched Sue: scanty at best, mostly naked, apart from the thong and two threads tied in a bow across her back. She was slippery in her valleys and her mounds, attracting stares like metal filings on a Wooly Willy magnetic toy.
Photo #7. Frail Dale: scooted behind his walker faster than his chicken bone legs were able, toward the warmth of his oasis in the desert—Sun-drenched Sue. His wheels smacked the rim of the swimming pool, and lunged his shrimpish hunch into the fluid blue pool—on top of Speedo Guido.
Photo #8. Guido: snapped in the neck and spine by two struts of Dale's walker.
Photo #9. Paramedic Paul: failed every attempt at pumping chlorinated pool water from Frail Dale's bony chest.
Photo #10. Paramedic Pete: pronounces Guido, bent in directions unbecoming a spine.
Photo #11. Sun-drenched Sue: maven of music, iPod booming through ear buds plugged-in to two of her many inviting openings, was oblivious to the disturbance she had caused; long past the removal of the bodies, and Skirted Myrtle's hasty exit with Sponge Boy, Mike and Ike.
Photo #12. Sun-burned Sue: blistered carcass baked to a crisp was carried out by the same shift of paramedics, one of whom found her suicide note: Pills.
Photo #13. Insurance adjuster.
Photo #14. Jack hammer.
Photo #15. Bulldozer.
Photo #16. Lawnmower cutting the grass where the pool once was.
No comments:
Post a Comment