Another Place, Another Time

He put down Sombrero Fallout, confused. He was confused because he thought she was there, then realized she wasn’t. It was only a square of light on the laundromat floor produced by that pesky sun, a condensation of warmth and perfect geometry there to remind him he was sitting in the shadows, alone.

He used to get angry when she fell asleep on his shoulder watching a movie, The Shining, maybe Psycho, Casablanca. He’d readjust, grunting just enough for her to wake up and look at him with half-closed lids so out of time and place they’d melt his heart. But only for a second. Once that second passed, she’d straighten up, and he’d make a snarky comment, feigning an anger disproportionate to what really pained him, which had more to do with the fact that he’d rather be doing a thousand other things than sitting in front of a TV, that he was doing this to be with her, to spend time together. Asleep or awake shouldn’t have made much difference, he thought now. And then that anger would increase to new levels as he realized he was now defeating that very purpose himself, and what’s worse couldn’t help it, even if he did know better. All of which led to now, the undesired effect rendered full, alone in a laundromat in Sedona, Arizona with a square of light he wished to be other than it was, namely flesh and a smile, or at least lips that could smile if given the right treatment. Anything but this petroglyphic history told in scuffmarks and dried soap. Anything but perfect light.

He wanted to escape to a world where none of this mattered, differentiating lights from people, dreams from reality, and he wondered if that busted dryer in the back corner of the room could be just the portal he was looking for… Why not? Crazier things had taken place in life, the movies, and no one had proved to him thus far that this was not in fact a movie of some kind. Thoughts passing between a sad humorist’s musings over the uncanny effect a sombrero can have on varying degrees of ambition alongside the illusions produced at the hands of a lost love… Now this, portals in a Sedona laundromat. Suddenly the buzzer went off, a discordant “Cut!” to signify his clothes were done. He glanced once more at the dryer in the corner with the hand-drawn Out of Service sign taped uneven across the fetid fog of its porthole and decided to let the possibility maintain its allure for now. Ventures of that sort could wait till next time. When he had a flashlight. And a snack probably wouldn’t hurt either.

G. R. Bilodeau is a peripatetic poet from the banks of the Ramapo River. His writing has appeared most recently in As of Late, Anti-Heroin Chic, and a number of anthologies.