Dan by Joanna Ruocco

Author:Joanna Ruocco
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780989760744
Publisher: Dorothy, a publishing project
Published: 2014-09-30T20:00:00+00:00

When Melba awoke she was no longer in the bakery. She was inside a small house, darkly paneled. She was stretched out on a long hard sofa with very wide armrests.

“I was having a dream!” she said, starting up. Everywhere, there had been buildings, but irregular buildings, with too few or too many walls. She had walked through the rooms and in room after room, curtains or vines or racks of meat hung down from the ceilings, but finally she had entered a room with a ceiling from which nothing hung down. The ceiling was made of clouds and through the breaks in the ceiling clouds she could see the clouds of the real sky above them.

“I think the moon had gone missing?” Melba said. “And I was looking for it?” Melba looked at the ceiling. It was white and bumpy, with a protuberant light fixture she did not care for.

“Drink this.” Someone was pushing a mug into her hand and Melba clutched it. The mug had no handle. The mug was so heavily made, however, that the outside was warmed only slightly by the steaming liquid in the central well. Melba held it gratefully with two hands.

“Coffee,” murmured Melba, lowering her face to the mug. She blinked away the steam, wiggling on the couch. The couch was nearly as deep as it was long. Unless Melba sat on the edge of a cushion her feet did not touch the ground. The black vinyl squeaked as she scooted forward and she heard a low indulgent chuckle.

“Do I hear Melba’s little otter?”

Melba blinked harder but sleep and steam clung to her eyeballs.

“Who’s there?” she asked.

“Don Pond, Melba,” came the answer, and as Melba blinked she focused at last on Don Pond’s small head. The size of the head and the uneven complexion reminded Melba of a gourd, and she smiled, reassured. Gourds, useless in themselves, are displayed to indicate hominess and abundance, and Melba was not impervious to the signification.

“Don Pond,” she sighed. “So this is your house!” In addition to the enormous couch, she now made out a few other features of Don Pond’s house: a low coffee table parallel to the couch and, on the other side, a loveseat on which Don Pond sat comfortably. Don Pond had removed his shoes and socks and his bare feet were nestled in the thick mustard-colored carpet. Melba wiggled her toes, realizing that her own shoes had been removed. In the paneled wall behind Don Pond, two windows filtered the daylight, but, as filters, the windows were not fine; the daylight that entered the room could not even be considered granular; it was chunky, practically obscured by impurities. Melba tried not to purse her lips or demonstrate her superiority in any way.

“I never realized how close your house really is to the bakery,” said Melba, to make conversation. “I only shut my eyes for a moment and here I am! I’m surprised I haven’t ended up here before, by accident. I rush

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