The Substructure Of Storm: Letter To The Other
by Sterling
The palm trees are bent in half with wind-driven rain. The fist-size orange blossoms have all been ripped open and strewn along the pathways. Frogs the size of mosquitoes are everywhere squashed under foot.
Poor sobbing rain! It's nearly menstrual, with red lightening and the kind of melancolic longing that hangs thick and cloying over every living creature, while the dead float away in their own degenerative juices.
Grey, litter-strewn puddles of grass swamp the median strip. Rasping voices and wretched coughs float out from broken shotgun shells. Lightening splits the trees like kindling, leaving a burnt toast smell in the air, and a battalion of car alarms screaming. May the dead stay down, and the living rise to the occasion!
How could you lead a normal life when organic life seems so perverse? And you a man who cultivates perversity! Just so you know, there are days when a rigorous bike ride feels like a finger up the ass and a pussy full of fist. (Owing to the bumps in the road and the orgasmic humidity bearing down on the rider - creating a great thirst, if not hunger for life). Why in blazes would you chose to stay put when all you know is repeated daily? A change would make you happier or at least different. (You're telling yourself that now for your own reasons. I know.) Well, what more can we mortal things expect except an occasional change in speed and direction?
You've dismissed me! Fine. You're fired as my muse anyway. A flock of crazy sparrows has taken your place, dive-bombing my head, picking out ideas. Darting fistfuls of degeneracy! They pock the sky over the Quarter's ancient buildings. Everything here is gritty till it rains. Then dirt turns to mud. And flood. The muscular arms of black men sweep the water off the shop floors and into the gutters.
Bourbon street looks cheap in the rain. It's magic dampened and flattened somehow. Cleavage-heavy girls in bright, southern belle gowns are exposed as fat, tattooed wage-slaves, cajuns probably. Well, without a drink Bourbon Street doesn't spin right anyway. It's like a rollercoaster ride. Till the man throws the switch, everything stands still. I've grown bored with the ride. But not the architecture! The way it leans against the sky's evolving light. From the electric cotton grey before the storm to the break of clear white through the cloud cover. The sun like Christ casts out the darkness of this town, exposing billowy white Cumulus clouds. Bright and huge. The rain has stopped. I can ride my bike now.
