[07 Aug 2004|02:15pm] Carrots; potatoes; tomatoes; basil; and a cantaloupe, all lined up in a row on his windowsill bump bump bump. Thom was a little guy, no more than five foot five and he loved the carrots the most. They sat in the little painted pot, next to his little window in his little apartment underground and then poof! up they came, orange and magic. Potatoes? Good for vodka, not for viewing. Tomoato? The Fruit of Knowledge; confined him to a rather miserable existence, but he was never a very religious man to begin with. Basil? Very leafy but green just became so blase against the backdrop of the tree through his window. And cantaloupe was a divine summer treat, pink and luscious on the inside (carnal even) but he always had to train the vines to grow down to the floor instead of up to the ceiling where the cantaloupes would invariably fall on someone's head. Thom sat down at his beat up table, the one his mother gave to him when he moved into the apartment that he was sure she picked out of a dumpster (she never was very generous, with material or affection) with four little carrots lined up on the table in front of him. They were freshly picked and still had the green leaves hanging droopily from the tops. Thom's table was in his kitchen that had peeling yellow linoleum floors, a faded yellow refrigerator that hummed at night, and a little stainless steel sink in the corner. On the table, beside the carrots: a hotplate, a blender, and a jug of milk. The ceiling dry and cracked, the wallpaper covered in dirt and the other window without the rows of vegetables and fruits and herbs in front of them over the stainless steel sink had a long crack Thom had patched with duct tape. He made that crack when he tried killing the wasp that had flown in through the other screenless window. He had made that crack with a book of photographs of western America. Staring intently at the carrots - trying to imagine what exactly was behind those little nubs of orange with their assymmetrical limbs - Thom tried to remember how it was that he got to this creaking apartment. He had just wanted to move away from his crackling mother's house and begin his own life. He had even taken up a windowsill garden, dreaming of one day moving out of the city and into the country - where he could perhaps expand his windowsill garden to a bona fide organic farm. He would stand tall - or, as tall as he could muster - in front of his garden of mulch and natural pesticides and carrot leaves, with a slight grin on his face and a bit of pride etched into the creases of his skin. Life would be simple, pastoral, and beautiful. He would make like a true man of nature and eat meals of freshly picked lima beans. Perhaps his dresser drawers would suddenly flood themselves with flannel shirts and blue jeans. But all those dreams started to dribble into the muddy banks of hopelessness once the postcards landed in his mailbox. He had thought that once his mother began her trip across the country to celebrate her retirement, he'd receive a phone call every now and then, and otherwise, he'd be free. But last month, he had come home from the warehouse where he worked and made his daily stumble in front of his black mailbox, collecting his usual array of standard white envelopes with little rectangular strips of plastic in the front for displaying his name: all bills. And then he saw a orange flash with white cursive letters spelling out Saratoga. post comment

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