Week 7: Sketches i-xi

i.
The child had a cat-like voice. It disturbed Nar'kel. He held his "m"s out too long and whined at night. They had taken him from the female too late; the bodywas perfect, but the voice would betray him anywhere in Madeleinia as an outsider. So Nar'kel took the chiod to the Captain the next night.
The Captain was an old dog now, retired, arthritic and gray-faced. He had taken a wife some years ago; talk in the barracks was, she'd taken him. Her name was Cissa. She hated that the Captain still wore his uniform and kept a knife next to the bed. Cissa made her old clothes from old tablecloths and blankets, then made tablecloths and blankets out of old clothes. Tonight, when she came to the door, Nar'kel recognized a piece of the Captain's armchair in her skirt.

ii. Man in Blue vii
The body waits. One hand rests on the other. Eyes gone but glaring. Lips gone but smirking. Skin like smoke and dust over cold fire. His head is tilted. The face waits. He is tall and straight. He does not move but waits. Cleanshaven, awake in the dark. Awake but not alive. Feeding off the meager light. It falls into the vacant holes of his face. They are open, he is always awake and watching at night. Leaning on one arm, prepared to move as soon as the holes see a movement. Only the tie is askew, but he has not fixed it. The shoulders are broad and strong under the dead suit. His hair holds itself back; the whole face is visible, but one hand is hidden.

iii. Garlic I: my memory
Jeni dancing in the kitchen while I chopped the garlic and Catherine poured oil in the pan to make sauce. Jeni kissed Jon and he held her hips. I smiled and Cat stirred the oil and the Turts University Beelzebubs went on singing "Machinehead."
"Grampa grew this garlic himself, out in Illinois," I say, but no one seems to hear. The water won't boil so we can't make the pasta and Jon gives Jeni another piece of foccacia. I bite my own piece and the garlic and oil and salt and dough burn my throat as I throw the cloves in the food processor with olive oil. This was before the Atkins diet, and none of us cared that there wasnothing but carbohydrates and garlic in the meal.
We skipped to that Frank Sinatra song, "The Way You Look Tonight," and I became a baritone. Cat's famous garlic pasta after a long night of carols in the snow. We eat so much garlic in this house, the dogs will never have fleas and our hearts will never stop. It's all in a big bowl under the microwave, the orange ceramic bowl that can't go in the dishwasher. I don't want to wash my hands, the garlic smells so good, but I can't open the juice bottle with all the oil on them.
Cat cuts the lemon last. She reams it, spilling juice everywhere. You have to use a lemon, not bottled juice.

iv. Garlic II: Character
We used to sell garlic bread at the bakery, before I started working wholesale, but it went bad too fast. Now I know exactly what breads are good for it. The best, I tell customers, is our rosemary sourdough. For garlic bread? they ask. I say yes, that's what my dad makes it from. Of course, if you wanted something more traditional, Italian loaf would work very well, or a sliced baguette. Then they say, oh, never mind. They make me go through three minutes of my hard-earned bread knowledge and then say forget it. Screw you, I don't tell them. Have a nice day.
I'm a bread snob. This one time, I was walking down the dairy aisle looking for Will's cheese slices and I had to repress a gag reflex. They keep the Wonder Bread there. The preservative smell made me want to throw up. Why the hell ould yoyu buy Wonder Bread when you could get artisan bread for cheaper? I ran down the aisle but the smell was caught in my clothes. Cat smelled it on me when I got home.
In the caf the other day, I tasted a piece of bread. It was a slice of some baguette, rye and honey and wheat, and I cried.

v.
On the black hands, blood was invisible. It frightened Airen when he was small. One time, he hurt his hand and set it on the wall. When it came away and left a red print, he fell the floor and scuttled backward in shock. Airen looked at his hand. It wasn't red; the fur just glistened.

vi. Sean's hair
His hair is styled like a 70's prom queen's. It's straight on top; all the body's in the curl at the bottom. Natural layers from just letting it grow for years. If there weren't so many split ends, I'd think he took care of it. It's this thing boys can do, look better than us without trying.