Friday, December 3, 2010

The Future is Space

We are on a white island born from mountains that emerged from the ocean floor and frozen slightly.
We drive to high places in cars that are never really cars; they are more like skateboards.
The snow is so high that I feel it on my chest. People have pitched their tents where it was infinitely arresting--endless sky and horizon. I could spend the rest of my life here.

So many people, whom I do not know, populate this place and they are my kin--white and brown. Something is happening--a build up of years, of scars culminating on this snow-settled tropical island.

In the late afternoon, I sit in my home which is a rundown trailer situation. Bits of wall and siding fall, but I have no shame in my poverty. It is only shelter. A couple appears. I do not know the man, but A redheaded woman accompanies him. She has been dead for some time. She is very friendly and wants to spend time with me because she regrets that she didn't when she was alive and I do too.

I call for my cousin because I do not want to miss the daylight and he arrives in two seconds. I am shocked at how impossible, yet absolute everything is and happens. I am unprepared for this. In the car, halfway down the snowy road, I jump out and slide down the snow in my slippers which continue to fall off without any cinderella grace.

I watch a sea of my family on an infinite horizon. They emerge from the doors of a church. My mother and her sister guide the mourning mass. I watch them head-on as they approach me.