Cries for Help, Various: Stories by Padgett Powell

Author:Padgett Powell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Short Stories
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2015-09-07T21:00:00+00:00

The Indicative Mood

I have read that half the bees are missing. There is a woman on French TV with glossy pink cream on her lips. Oh, surely that is not called cream. Right you are, it is called gloss. So say it again. No. You have slipped into the imperative mood. All right. You have seen a woman with not cream but gloss on her lips. Yes, I have seen a woman on French TV who has glossy pink gloss on her lips. How stupid I sound. The gloss is stupid—relax. You have slipped again. Stay in the indicative. You too. I will.

What about the bees? I will not respond to that. Okay: Tell me about the bees. I will not respond to that. Okay: that half the bees are missing is interesting and possibly alarming but perhaps some details could help us along. The bees have just not come home. Your bee farmers are opening up hives and they are empty. Give me some wine. No. I would like some wine. Okay.

An early car such as a Model-T Ford or a Model-A Ford was a simple thing and it had enough room around the engine that you could stand inside the hood and fix it. And the engine was simple enough that you could fix it. Now the bees are gone. We have come a long way in the wrong direction, or in a wrong direction, I think it fair to say. There is not space inside a car hood now for a bee to work, and half the bees are MIA. I love the category MIA. It means dead but we are too pusillanimous to say so. Goddamn that is a cute girl out there on the street.

There is butter in parts of the world that has crystals of salt suspended in it. There is butter in parts of the world that has no salt in it.

This deal wherein the women have to be covered up—I am not down with it. I have patience for perversity but for a person to have to walk around under a blanket just does not position itself well in my I-can-see-that scope. My I-can-see-that scope in fact does not have in its field of view people covered up unless it is dark at night and cold in the room and they want the covers on them. I am sorry. I have refocused my scope and I just can’t get that to come into view.

I love a well engineered car even if a bee cannot get under the hood. You have got to admit they run better than they did in 1930. I concede you that ground but I maintain still that we have won the battle and lost the war. I will not contest you on that. The wine is good. We want more of it. We do. We are wine wanters. We are wanters. We want shit. We do. This is good. A boy is always praised for a good appetite. No one is praised for a poor appetite.

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