Often it happens I am the wrong size. Walking down a picturesque bricked alley, I discover myself to be Godzilla with luggage. Except, unlike Godzilla, I am entirely ineffectual: just a big lizard in traffic.
Or I’m talking with someone, offering a little something about myself, and I think, “Wait. Did I just refer to myself as the Shah?”
More often I am trying to do something simple and important, such as buy a bus ticket, but when the man (impatient, bored) turns to me, I find myself unable to make a sound. At this crucial juncture I have transformed into an aphid. An above-average aphid--but still.
My job is to diagram the sentence but I am flimsy as a cumulonimbus, floating somewhere in the distance. How does a mustard seed get the attention of the waitress?
It gets so I am nostalgic for human male average. Five foot nine. Nostalgic for when I thought that it would be enough to be in the right place, and at the right time.
(Amsterdam, 10/08)
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