St Francis, the persistence of memory/ draft 1

St Francis, the persistence of memory/draft 1

fiction
edward w pritchard

see " let me die on a rainy day"

The girl sleeps peacefully under the ashen white comforter of her grandmother's third story attic as I pull on my boxer shorts.

Voyeuristically as I walk around the bedroom I read the girl's self improvements instructions to herself neatly lining the walls like a first grade classroom. Each is lettered neatly in green and has a stick figure of herself drawn in thick purple crayon, some with herself smiling and some with herself looking quizzical or just a bit pensive.

" to get there dress like you have already arrived", and "fake it until you make it" and " Persistence ...

It's too intimate so I go to the window and watch and preach to the birds as they swoop down from the evergreen tree toward the purple surface of the Portage Lakes.

She said she had saved enough money to go to California and when she got there she would be an industrial fabricating design artist.

The sensations are long gone and I forgot the first name but the screeching swooping birds, the majestic green evergreen tree, dark purple lake water, and her purple jeans neatly folded on the chair seem very real despite the passage of many years.

end