He wore a
bitter, taciturn expression on his eighty-two-year-old face as he reached for
the fuzzy brown coconut right there in the grocery store. He brought it (the
coconut) up to his ear and shook it. There was a churning liquid sound inside.
He placed the coconut back among the others, picked up a second, shook it. The
sound it made was low, a bass sound. There was a sticker on the hairy shell.
The sticker depicted a cartoon coconut with a face. He grabbed another coconut
and shook it beside his ear. The fluid inside sounded viscid and dark. There
was something primordial about the sound. Coconut milk from the dawn of time.
This was the one.
When he got the coconut home he lit a
Camel (he didn’t believe smoking was unhealthy and he pointed to his advanced
age as proof), and opened the coconut with a hammer and chisel.
His
daughter, who had perished in 1984 due to cervical cancer was inside (in curled
fetal form) and he reached for another beer and began to weep.
Then he ate the coconut.
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| This picture of Lori Saunders has nothing to do with anything. |
