Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Parking Meter Eyebrow, ricercar a 6

The parking meter* stands like a Roman Centurion guarding empty space.  The sleeping policeman lays nearby on the ground, enforcing the bump rule.  Customers must slow down to ascend Policeman Hill and might be tempted to stop nearby and pay the toll to the Metal Parking Maid.  The fact that the streets are empty and the slots unfilled is probably due to the fact it is the middle of the night and it is Sunday.  That, or the streets are closed due to disrepair.

The lone arch of the sleeping policeman speed bump is painted with yellow eyebrows that move in diagonal waves spreading from the centre of the street.  These eyebrows droop dejectedly saying, don't mind me, carry on.  Carry on is exactly what people do whether they can or not.  They carry on or they are carried on for them, on behalf of their hefty weight.  If one does not carry on, one worries that one is falling behind or being buried.  The eyebrows of the painted sleeping policeman show that both are true: he is falling behind and so must slow down drivers, and also he is being buried by dirt and grime.

A refugee who is running from nothing and toward nothing escapes from the clutches of whatever binds her from the side and stumbles toward the empty place guarded by the parking meter and dusty eyebrows.  She sits heavily on the curb and lights a cigarette.  This gesture is intended to convey nonchalant disinterest but instead reveals the opposite, that she is nervous, jittery and in need of a fix.  She can carry on for a while, but the itch, the burning desires will always rise up to the surface and lay themselves nakedly on her face.  Keep calm and carry on will not work when the sickness builds.  She needs to fill the void left behind by withdrawal and empty condoms.

While the refugee loafs around in great desperation, her eyes scan the edges of light looking for a way out, or a return home, neither available from here.  A loaf could be many things in her mind, there is a loaf of bread, a loaf of scrapple known by the commercial name Spam, a loaf of head cheese that is congealed boiled liquid of pig head, a loaf of pound cake which is neither cake nor weighs a pound, a sugarloaf which similarly is not made with sugar nor is a loaf, a french loaf which might contain a heel, and a meat loaf which isn't a loaf but is indeed made with meat.  Then again, to loaf is a way to goof off, lollygag, bum, arse about (using the other meaning of "bum"), dally, lounge, footle, and loiter.  Our refugee does all of these while seeming to do none.

From her pocket, uncomfortably beneath and behind her hip, she withdraws a glass tube with a blacked end wrapped in tinfoil.  She discards the cigarette in a bright showery arc that extends above and behind the parking meter, away from the eyebrows drooping sleepily on the sleeping policeman and out of the sight of the refugee loafing on the sidewalk.  Her other pocket also contains some yellowish powder in a small plastic bag, some small crystalline chunks wrapped in cellophane, and three ragged and torn wadded up mash of local currency bills.

Deep within the folds of a different sort of pocket cupped in her left hand is a lone aspirin pill which is supposed to help with reducing inflammation and inhibiting production of prostaglandins and thromboxanes.  The other benefit is placebo, by which the refugee's headache and angst decreases almost immediately after popping it down her throat and taking a swig from a bottle of urine-coloured beer.  She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and grimaces.  Her ugly visage is made uglier by the grotesque snarl of her lips and exposed black and missing teeth.  Luckily no customers are near to see the product's true face so she can still charge extra for a hand job in order to score an extra rock of crack.

Meanwhile, she smokes the glass pipe in her hand, inhaling fumes from the brewed mixture being cooked on the tinfoil plate.  White smoke full of burning toxins reaches into her brain and decays wide swaths of neurons.  The parking meter is bereft of any help.  The speed bump laying on the ground shrugs its painted eyebrows and rolls over to sleep again.  Our refugee leaves her mind to seek refuge in a loaf of haslet, finding a pocket of repose in a small bundle of aspirin forgotten in her palm.  As she dies slowly, the aspirin melts from the cold sweat of her palm.

*6 random words selected from a website for the ricecar: parking meter, eyebrow, refugee, loaf, pocket,aspirin.  Discarded:  pudding

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