mmmdcclxvi

Small Talk

“Alright! Which one of you
guys took an early dive into
the cake?!” No response
whatsoever. But also no
hard feelings. After all,
a party’s a party, right?
To which, a bombardment
of pokes and proddings from
from the children erupts as
all four of them scurry out to
meet the dusk’s last bit of light.
This flurry of activity seems to
elicit from the barely separated
dining room curtains (which
nobody can recollect ever
having been swung apart
dramatically to let in the
brunt of the sunlight; if so,
it’d be this window’s most
evocative and provocative
talent) a slice of evening light
that spills like imagination; it
has a life of its own and is filled
as it often is with motes from
the dining and adjacent rooms
and the swirls from the mysterious
currents known well to the elder
inhabitants of the odd and enormous
home, thanks to which the historied
Victorian was fabled to have its
very own microclimate (“A thunder
storm once appeared in the grand
ballroom,” Grandmum would
proclaim as if offering a stunning
gift to her progeny or dinner guests;
a litany her own grandmother had
often repeated in her presence.)
“If it were my wish, I’d wish
for something grand for all
of you,” one of the children
was heard saying amid the
squeals of the rest as they
blew out the door in a
whoosh, the tone and
timbre of a seven-year-old’s
prim mouth, but without her tongue
stuck out of it—because one cannot
speak decisively with a tongue stuck
out of one’s mouth, or else words would
amount to garble. And this vast residence
was always abuzz with such an abundance
of words (with only a rarest amount of garble)
that one could barely keep up with the game.
Voices—be they electric with nonsense
or burdened bounceless by severity or
aimed like harpoons with accusation or
cadenced, strong-willed debate delivered
occasionally with a crescendo of red-
faced emotion—were perpetually and
swiftly volleyed here. This grand
family loved to talk; each member
was always armed with artillery
which could be aimed in a pinch
and with precision for hour upon
hour until the ammo was gone,
which never stopped them at
first, as they’d go on and on,
exhausted and shooting
nothing but blanks. And
finally the moment arrived
when each fair orator began
to grab at the air around them
like mad with their curled
up hands, as if desperately
seeking another mouth to
which they might cling in
order to keep from falling.
But air was all each hand
ever clutched, and so, they
would become so exhausted
by speech and the clawing
that their eyes would either
curl up in to their head or
begin to slowly be curtained
by slowly dropping lids until
their entirety had landed,
usually softly, sometimes
with a bit of a thud, upon
the floor, with its imaginary
parquetry; they’d fall and
remain with lost conscious
or in more of a dreamstate,
it was never discerned, until
however long it took for them
to come to. And when they
did, always bruised and
blistered, it gave them
pause, and they’d squirm
or slither about a bit, at
battle with remembering
or trying to understand what
must have transipred. Then,
they’d do a quick once-over to
ensure that all of the voices
were accounted for, only to
realize that “Oh, well, it’s
just me. I wonder where
we all must be.” And
then out they’d go
a’gathering.