There was a little girl there, about four, dressed in a skirt and wearing a mask. She had a homemade cardboard sword wrapped in shiny aluminum foil which she tucked down inside her waistband and crept toward me under the tables.
She drew the sword, but instead of attacking, decided to show it off. She showed me the special button she'd drawn on the handle in blue ink. If you press it, she said, "ZZZZHHHHHHHH!". She stiffened and vibrated as though electrocuted.
There was another gizmo higher up on the blade that would apparently shoot me way up up into the sky. She was beautiful, a marvel, and I wanted everything to always be alright for her. She made me think of your daughter, who might look a lot like her. And, if she's anything like you, have a similar spirit.
On the way home I caught a glimpse of the blackest, shiniest black bear prone in the bed of a pick-up truck.
And then this song from the 80's came on, She's a Maniac. Those sacred times. A Tijuana disco on a series of Sunday afternoons. I would meet Irma Lopez there. She taught deaf children. She spoke almost no English and I almost no Spanish. Sometimes it was only the two of us and the DJ in there and we danced to everything he played all afternoon. I couldn't really dance at most other times, but I always could with Irma. We found moments of absolute freedom in that club made of mirrors. We held nothing back. When it was time to go, she hugged me so tightly, happy. That dancing was everything. Nothing more needed to occur.
A young man describes his anxiety to me. He's nauseous. He knows not where it comes from, as the world wobbles and spins madly under him, and I want everything to once again always be alright for him too.
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