[FICTION] A Garden, Doll House Playground
She speaks of the red brick path with the lichens and ivy and how the path is lined with ferns and sunlight pours in and fills the garden and gaps, and how one crack in the wall lets a little more of that bright translucent yellow wave in, and how the wave swells, sunlight between finger and thumb, like powdery wings, and she is… she’s the light that rises above, her hair flows long, ropey vines, ringlets and waves and sun, and wind lifts strands of it and makes her seem ethereal, a spirit unreal, in the garden, a doll house to stand up in, and rooms to navigate around, small tables and chairs and lace over the windows and flowers in little plastic cups, tulips, blue and yellow and milky red, and she wears sandals, black yoga pants, and a light blue blouse, and I am bound in her rich, deep-dark-brown hair, and I am entranced, but she’s only a fantasy, and I wonder at the nearly life-size dolls, sitting at the tea table, and their adult apparel, realistic glass piercing friendly eyes, and the kids run in and through and around her legs, little hands circling her thighs, and we are invisible to them, they never look down or out or beyond and really never know tomorrow, or what tomorrow brings, reality forms the play and play the reality, like a million shadows on the wall, on the hair of the back of your neck rising, there’s something there, invisible, caught in a slow motion sideways stare, the knowing that someone is watching you and you look up and they look away, then you realize you are crazy and shrug it off, and in that moment of wondering you lose that moment of inspiration and you try to get it back, he comes in dressed for work, to kiss her goodbye, and the kids stop and giggle, and run behind the only apple tree, surrounded by stones, and they kiss like kids do, and believe it will always be this way, and you dream of what it is like and you place people and objects in your head, and they are automatons, strangely awkward creatures who only seem to move or look your way when you want them to, and you realize this won’t do and you go back to the mundane, back to the process flow, back to the three cubed walls, back to the coworker who asks, what are you doing for lunch?
Glenn Boothe resides in St. Louis, Missouri. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry at the University of Missouri – St. Louis. In addition to writing poetry, Glenn enjoys sculpting, gardening, and cooking. Glenn has been working in Information Technology since 1998.