Fire
Bobby Parker
The little potatoes are dancing in the bubbles, hobbling around the boiling water in the rusted saucepan. They are alive and they dont like being boiled. I want to feel sad but its hard to imagine anything else for these potatoes, other than getting soft in a dark cupboard.
I want to feel happy that they will make me happy by filling my belly, but I dont feel sad or happy, watching the potatoes dancing around the saucepan in the boiling water. My life is a store room behind a shop thats going out of business.
Sirens scream outside our window like a fairground having an anxiety attack. My wife tells me the caravan across the street is on fire but a caravan doesnt have feelings, not like potatoes.
The windows are open and we can hear people shouting and jeering, bottles smashing, girls screaming for attention, dogs barkingsomeone has a megaphone and they are saying FIRE, FIRE, ha ha ha ha
I dont turn my head to look at the burning caravan or the police cars or the idiot crowd because I dont want to offend the potatoes. Its OK, I say to the boiling potatoes. I will put you with chicken and mushroom pie and mixed vegetables and cover you with thick beef gravy. Wont that be lovely? Wont that be a fucking dream come true?
Return to Archive
|