Fast Forward
After Ava's wake -
& we're on the beach
draped in black
with pallid faces
Pea shivers in a skirt with starry constellations. It whips with the wind through the air. Her evergreen hair flutters. Seagulls wheel, moan, just below
a steel gray sky.
It's typical of
Cape Christopher's beaches -
doesn't matter if
it's a glorious summer's day
elsewhere
here, somehow
storm clouds
are never far
seems much more fitting
for what we're about to do.
Pea slowly slips off her shoes,
steps across the sand
faded blue ocean foam rushes up to
kiss her toes -
she lets it.
Pea pauses, gentle tide pouring over her feet. Closes her eyes. Tries to gulp sea air. But in the end, all she gulps are
sobs
& regrets
& never-to-bes
Pea kneels
closer
to the weight of the ocean
& cradled in her arms rests
A Small Toy Ship: Histories #3: Ava & Pea
Sixth grade, inseparable
Avalon & Peregrine scoured the Farr household -
twin bracelets, twin brows furrowed, twin wakes of determination through the Doctors' library. Pea's fingers indexing over leather spines and the smell! Living chemistry, the backbone of her parents' pantheon: Aristotle. Archimedes. Alhazen. Da Vinci. Galileo. Newton. Linnaeus. Darwin. Lovelace. Curie. Attenborough! (even Lilly...)
Suddenly!
Pea cried out, pointing to a page's picture: "Aha!"
Ava, erstwhile companion, at her side in a blink:
"That's it!
Now all we gotta do
is break into your Dad's work shed
& build it!"
Girls' eyes stared at each other
considering -
daring.
One busted lock,
five bruised fingers,
and a grand total of
nineteen (!!!) outbursts
of surprisingly adult language
later...
& there she was:
a small toy ship -
a viking longboat,
if you wanted to get
technical
(which Pea always did.)
sleek prow rising
into a draconic figurehead,
red sails, white stripes -
all running down vertically
(made from leftover graphing paper)
little round cloth shields,
& the 'coup de grâce':
(a phrase the girls
oft repeated,
endlessly giggled)
an army of vikings inside,
only -
not actually vikings, but
a set of pirates
Ava shanghaied from elsewhere,
all beards & eye patches
& slightly risque tattoos.
But of course,
Ava being Ava -
all something different.
Hacked.
Modified.
Jiggered:
now all women.
even the ones with the beards.
(or, as Ava liked to say,
especially the ones with the beards.)
आप पढ़ रहे हैं
Avalon Bombshell
किशोर उपन्यासThe Freak shall inherit the Earth - it's a saying from Matthias Fitz's favorite TV show, Tales After The Bomb - a cartoon about the post-apocalypse - mutants, cyborgs, zombies, anarchist DJs, & a wasteland - everything an ultra-geek could want. Matt...
