By Prospero Dae
A quick stop, perfectly executed, and a shower of ice shavings takes flight, as spectacular as a comet streaking across the firmament. On Saturdays he went figure skating (his clever plan to meet girls), but during the week, it was hockey.
Someone takes a tumble, sliding into the boards—but it’s not too serious.
He sees her behind the glass, with a mane of deliciously auburn hair and a retroussé nose. There’s a hot-cocoa machine near the change rooms. He could get her one.
As he approaches the glass he realizes his mistake: thick shoulder pads, mouth guard, foul language…
“Someone takes a tumble—not too serious”…and that’s how it is with daydreams. You can lie in a cowslip’s bell or fly on a bat’s back and, for a little while, live under the blossom that hangs on the bough….at least (but only) for a little while…
Someone takes a tumble, but it’s not too serious…
That’s how it is in cartoons too, and since my mind can only process bold colors and that I always half-expect to see speech bubbles over people’s heads (as occurred this morning when I accosted the postman, chiding him for not bringing me enough letters blazoned with colorful stamps—those prerequisite bold colors–and saw his mildly offensive ‘buzz off’ retort hovering over his sorry head like some kind of dislocated halo or nimbus), I understand your sentiment completely.
As far as flying on a bat’s back is concerned, I think a more cogent, which is to say less fanciful, approach is needed.
yes! I also love “A quick stop, perfectly executed, and a shower of ice shavings takes flight”, such immediacy, it pulls me in. Captures the way a memory can burst into one’s head
I am glad you were drawn in. Daydreams seem to have the knack of disarming us and transporting us elsewhere–when we really ought to be paying attention to the hard-bitten hazards of the moment.
Ditto Teresa’s comment! I like the juxtaposition of the first two sentences–lavish entry followed by simple prose intent.
Prose passages should always start somewhere in the firmament, only to descend, later, if time allows it, to more humdrum elements, such as common delusions and bad manners–the building blocks of commercial sport.