on my way to the laundry room, i step out of my apartment building's back door and stop. i'm transported twenty-five years and three hundred miles in that first breath as the smell of the earth from the weed-grown vacant lot next door, damp after a warm rain, melts into that of my uncle's farm; and the air conditioners whine a tune like summer crickets. sirens howl uptown: the calls of prowling cop-cars, lasting longer than the crazed screeches of hunting owls since the owls are more efficient hunters -- thinking yanks me back to here, laundry, now. i shake my head. in the distance, thunder.
Copyright 1995 Edward Gaillard. All rights reserved.