(HYBRID PROSE)
WHEN ALL THERE IS : IS BLUE
CONNIE WIENEKE
WHEN ALL THERE IS : IS BLUE
CONNIE WIENEKE
Who orders two waffle cones, confetti-laced artificial blue ice cream at an espresso cafe on Cedar Street? 7 AM Rawlins, three young women, any age under 30, packing smartphones, vibrant colors gushing over the rush of texts and emoticons. Everybody listens in.
You look again at each young woman : not much more than a teen each a little bit more or less overweight than her friend. You look again for tattoos and maybe there's one : vulnerable tease, an exposed wrist, the nape of a neck, the tremolo of Bic blue ink.
How can any of us be expected to respond quick enough to the world, to think what we hold between our hands matters when our tethered fingers slip so easily?
Maybe the three are planning radical activism : like setting fire to what one friend calls their binkies, their last texts to each other and someone who is not present telling them : do it.
Doubtful : you are thinking how sweet that blue ice cream must taste a morning like this. The regulars must wonder whatever happened when all there is : is blue ice cream.
Maybe that cup of plain old American Joe and the dome of blue blue sky over their heads is a little less blue and maybe it was never enough, even on a morning like this.
Maybe like every other morning you don't want to remember your younger brother, a teen, a plastic bag to his face, tube of glue on the table next to his hooded chair, the detached garage out back his hermitage where he painted what he imagined the world might be.
And just as the line has grown longer you are thinking when all there is : is blue your brother would have cooked meth, corroded his teeth and not the kidney removed. That solitary barista you have come to admire mines the surface of Blue Bunny ice cream, the cast aluminum scoop not up to the task, her assistant off on break to take her daughter to school, the triple Americano you've waited for tastes like you will never drink it fast enough : before the on-ramp, before the miles unwind under your tires, before the grief for the town an interstate abandoned lets any of us go.
You look again at each young woman : not much more than a teen each a little bit more or less overweight than her friend. You look again for tattoos and maybe there's one : vulnerable tease, an exposed wrist, the nape of a neck, the tremolo of Bic blue ink.
How can any of us be expected to respond quick enough to the world, to think what we hold between our hands matters when our tethered fingers slip so easily?
Maybe the three are planning radical activism : like setting fire to what one friend calls their binkies, their last texts to each other and someone who is not present telling them : do it.
Doubtful : you are thinking how sweet that blue ice cream must taste a morning like this. The regulars must wonder whatever happened when all there is : is blue ice cream.
Maybe that cup of plain old American Joe and the dome of blue blue sky over their heads is a little less blue and maybe it was never enough, even on a morning like this.
Maybe like every other morning you don't want to remember your younger brother, a teen, a plastic bag to his face, tube of glue on the table next to his hooded chair, the detached garage out back his hermitage where he painted what he imagined the world might be.
And just as the line has grown longer you are thinking when all there is : is blue your brother would have cooked meth, corroded his teeth and not the kidney removed. That solitary barista you have come to admire mines the surface of Blue Bunny ice cream, the cast aluminum scoop not up to the task, her assistant off on break to take her daughter to school, the triple Americano you've waited for tastes like you will never drink it fast enough : before the on-ramp, before the miles unwind under your tires, before the grief for the town an interstate abandoned lets any of us go.
Connie Wieneke's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Split Rock Review, High Plains Literary Review, Whiskey Island Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and elsewhere. She earned an MFA from the University of Montana and is the recipient of two fellowships from the Wyoming Arts Council.