The Fable of Bing by Tim Sandlin

Author:Tim Sandlin [Sandlin, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Oothoon Press
Published: 2013-12-10T05:00:00+00:00

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The next morning Rosemary awakens alone under her grandma’s quilt in her double bed in her room in the small house. She stretches, admiring the soft sunlight on her lemon-colored wall. There are many ways to divide humanity into two groups and many people would perform that operation — those who love Disney World and those who hate Disney World, for example. We have hundreds more examples. Those who drink coffee; those who don’t. Those who watch “American Idol;” those who would rather snort Drano. One way of dividing humanity is those who wake up feeling okay and those who wake up feeling like crap. The two sets often switch out within a half hour, but there’s a fairly deep gap in that first five minutes between glad-to-be-alive and not-so-sure.

Rosemary tends to wake up feeling refreshed and hopeful. It must be genetic because there is little in her life that should motivate morning happiness. It’s only a couple minutes later when she recalls her sister’s condition and global warming and dying sea mammals that her heart plummets. But, that first few breaths after awakening is enough joy to keep her going.

On this morning, Rosemary awakens alone and it takes a short time to recall that she didn’t fall asleep alone. She fell asleep next to Bing in her dorky pajamas, hogging the bed and acting out dreams with his limbs.

Rosemary gets up, throws on her flowered bathrobe, and moves out into the living room separated from the kitchen by a sternum-high counter. The open area theory of design.

She sees no Bing, but the front door is open wide. Rosemary clinches her robe tightly to her waist and steps out onto the porch. The dawn is cooler than she’s used to — Rosemary isn’t an outside at the first crack woman — and the light is gentle, as if seen through several layers of Saran Wrap. She looks both ways up and down the block, seeing no movement. A car idles in the driveway two houses down, but no one is in or near it. Someone, somewhere out of sight, is mowing their lawn at first light, which always pisses Rosemary off no end.

She steps from flagstone to flagstone until she reaches the street, then she looks back at her own house. Bing is on the roof, still wearing the silk pajamas.

Rosemary walks back toward the house. She shades her eyes with her hand, looking up at him.

“What are you doing on my roof?”

Bing leans over the edge to see her. His legs dangle. He has on the engineer’s cap and her coral necklace that he didn’t ask to borrow. “You can see me then?”

“Of course, I see you.”

“In the zoo, you wouldn’t have seen me.”

Rosemary does a 360 to check if anyone is watching. Across the street, a woman with her hair in electric curlers opens her door and picks up a newspaper from her flowerbed. She glances at Rosemary and Bing but she doesn’t react. This is an American suburb.

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