Oliver Benjamin
Peering into the immense nothingness, I allowed my memory to drift
back over its more recent archives. Of course, much of it seemed too
fantastic to be real, and as memories sometimes do, seemed even
more wondrous than the actual events that spawned them. An
airbrushed photo, a sensationalized movie adaptation, emotions in
dreams, smiles in photographs. The enchantment of life detached
from the anxiety that went along with living it.We stopped in
Hawaii to exchange passengers. The Japanese man seated next to me
left and bid him farewell. I put my new carry-on bag on the empty
chair and fished out an old Van Morrison CD. It brought me back to
the beginning of my trip. It brought me forward as well.
I’ve been walking by the river
I’ve been walking down by the water
I’ve been thinking
Do you remember the time, darling
When everything made more sense in the world?
Oh I remember when life made more sense
Take me back
I felt a tap on my arm. Someone new was going to sit in the seat next
to me and wanted me to move my bag. I took my headphones off and
turned to see what it was that they wanted.
My gasp was inaudible.
She had white hair and a multicolored polyester pantsuit. There
were boils on her neck, and the familiar swaying gelatinous gush for
a chest. It was an eerie doppelganger of the world’s most unlikely
terrorist: Madge.
“…So I say to my grandson Morton, he’s the mortgage financier,
why don’t you move out to Baltimore, where I live—have you ever
been to Baltimore? No? Oh you have to go! Don’t listen to what they
tell you, it’s gorgeous and they have the best crab! Anyway, so I say
to Morton, you can live with Ernest and me! And you know what he
says? He says ‘I need my own space Grandma!’ Can you believe it? So
I tell him he can have Elsie’s old room which has the beautiful
imitation fireplace in it now—oh it’s a dream! And still he says no
thanks, at least he had the manners to say ‘thanks.’ But enough about
him…What do you think about my new sunglasses? I bought them in
Hong Kong…”
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