Hans Ostrom

On the Gold Coast Theatre building, a concrete mask pretended to moan. Or sing? We weren't sure which.

We deduced it despised a violin and bells hanging below it, an architect’s tacky gifts.

There was concrete. There were bricks, glass, wood. To these we donated our need of symbol,

our weakness for decoration. Our bodies represented us in front of the old Gold Coast,

which had left behind its design in order to become. We are there no more, have scattered

to a heresy of heres. Our memories are synaptic masks that pretend to moan—

or sing? We’re not sure which. Our memories design an architecture of absence.

Life imposes on us. Memory superimposes, layering life’s imprints.

Into an aperture between life and memory moves the photographer,

who listens to light, convenes shadows, constructs position.

In the dark room, life and memory wait while hallucination bathes,

inscribes itself on a pane of white-space, coalescing like epiphany

and now rising from the translating pool, prepared to confess to eyes.

Outside a cabin in snow, we are, and hear our, breathing here. And wind in pines shucks

itself through sound like snakes slipping through their summer skins. And it is easy out here. And out

here it is easy to admire an image-aided concept of cabins in snow. And

it is easy inside a cabin now to believe in an Idea of Winter, for notions of snow

furnish our true cabin, consciousness—which, fragile amidst oblivion’s drifts, stays sturdy against howling.

Court had forgotten where it had sent Knight. Squire had quit to settle down in some village. So here then was Knight, alone,

propped up against a deciduous tree, his armor bleeding rust, and more rain coming. Sitting in his own waste and pain, Knight peered

blearily through the visor at sodden, green Druidic hills. Cold rain ripped remaining leaves from branches. The horse stood

a good way off, dry and napping under an evergreen, one rear foot cocked like a catapult. Knight felt the jail of armor locking.

A chill rattled his flesh. He thought of his murdering, the blood and terror, was about to ask forgiveness once more when he died.

In Oklahoma and everywhere, despair only makes life seem more unyielding. A better tactic is to signify that life

is what it is: If you practice law, fly a pirate-flag atop your office-building. If you run a tattoo parlor, arrange for

your phone number to be 435-OUCH. If you’ve owned a used-book store for twenty years and are going out of

business, hire a temporary laborer, and when he announces he’s fixin’ to get sick, tell him, “Use the bathroom.”

When sounds of his retching drive browsers out, say, “Thanks for coming in,” and resume the final inventory.

Wait for the man to return from his undeniable nausea. Tell him to watch things. Run your errands.

Most of your life has gone away. Some of it remains. That is the God’s-honest truth. Oklahoma is.

Maja used to say, “Thank you for today.” From her I learned everyone’s old and young at once.

At night in snow near Maja’s bus-stop on Maja’s basic street— Murargatan means street of bricks—wild rabbits sometimes paused like caesuras in Swedish conversation. I waited.

I felt wiser after leaving Maja’s house. Life itself was a tutorial. I’d gathered no facts. My Swedish wasn't much better. Nonetheless ... .

The night-bus back to the University from Maja’s place seemed hopeful and lonely, cold and bright, safe and desperate. Uppsala— winter, night. Nonetheless.

If you’re his wife, you’ve quit asking why it all piles up out there in the yard for everyone to see from the highway. Hubcaps from ghostly coupes. Beer signs in neon cursive. Coke machines, cars, cars, cars. You keep the house and the backyard according to your principles. You hate the mechanism in men that drives them to love machinery.

If you're his dog, you urinate on tires encircling weeds. You sniff varieties of rust, chase squirrels until they disappear, until you ram your hot wet nose into angle iron; it all makes the yard difficult.

Now, supposing you're the younger son, you don’t hate him yet. Your friends think he’s a wealthy man, a pirate maybe; they beg their parents to let them come over, crawl through doorless cars, turn cranks, patent imaginary uses for useless contraptions. You know what it’s all for. It’s there to look at, to touch; it’s part of a big landscape that whirls by every day outside of School.

You're the collector. You can’t help yourself. You'll fix one thing and trade it away for three things you can't fix. The dog pisses on it all, knocks over cans going after squirrels, laps up rust-water. You can’t keep the neighbor-kids away. The younger boy, he follows you around all day asking What’s this for? What’s this for? You can’t understand why your wife can’t understand why iron and motors and axles are necessary, why strewn is the best way to keep it all in order. You stare right back at people who drive by and scowl at your yard. You know they’re driving junk. Their houses are filled with junk that works. You'll get hold of it soon enough.

Somebody is always, always baking bread. It’s been that way for thousands, thousands of years.

Additionally, if life is short, then there is no such thing as a long bus ride.

In conclusion, the bus rolled onto a street of shops, and we smelled bread, baking; baking bread.