welladay

It was out west not so very long ago, a blue day, Sunday. We'd been to the jail, then we'd gone into town. There was a fair in the main street, stalls selling all manner of manufactured items as well as natural pieces like little plastic bags of jewels for fifty cents. We had lunch in a hotel called the Fitz and then browsed the market; later we stopped in at a place down the other end of the strip for coffee. It was afterwards, walking past high colonial brick walls towards the muddy river, that I said: You're a dragon, aren't you? and she said No, I'm a snake ... looking at that moment so authentically ophidian my heart turned over inside me, full of wonder and longing. Then we saw behind a dusty window of the museum a taxidermed cobra all dry and raggedy and long-gone coiled up there. Beside the brown river we returned to the car under wattles in bloom and I said it's unlucky to bring wattle into the house and she said well, she wouldn't ever do that again. And, thank you. On the drive back we stopped to buy apples and mandarins and avocados and garlic and zucchinis at a roadside shop. When the trip was over and we were saying goodbye I couldn't hide that I was feeling delirious. At the end of the hallway was the park. A distant sound of children's voices, barred light under a golden sky. Since then, it's been a month of Sundays.