MRS DALLOWAY TRAVELS TO COSTCO
Hold on, she said. Lemme finish my
coffee.
No longer young, she poured with
trembling fingers her Folger's Instant, the same her retired mailman, oh what
was his name? - oh, it would come to her.
It was a delicious day and the first
World War was nearly over, thank heavens. Neither she nor her husband, Colonel
Wainwright, believed in a higher power. They believed in daffodils, forsythia,
jonquils and a cerulean blue sky where upon occasion a helicopter would fly
above the earth.
Hitler. What a bad man. A funny
little man whose voice sounded like the high notes of a piano, stopping and
starting, stopping and starting.
She pulled on her striped cardigan,
belted it, and went to the front garden to greet her men with various floral
arrangements. As if they cared. Well, she did. Ruthie Dalloway. She had pinwheels
that twirled oh-so-quickly they became a blur.
Bought last week at the Saint David's
Carnival for two bits.
A loud noise zoomed overhead.
What? Can't be, she thought. (italix)
A helicopter with whirring
propellers.
Like a drunken butterfly it tottered
to the ground and right into the front yard of her victory garden. This is a vegetable
garden, especially a home garden, planted to increase food production during a
war.
Two officers practically fell out of
the plane, ducked under the propellers, and saluted. “Mrs. Dalloway, we are
sorry to bring you bad news.” They paused. “Terrible news, in fact.”
"I refuse to hear it," she
said, in the same manner that Voltaire would not hear of a bad thing.
Her blonde hair streaming behind her,
she ran into the house, and poured steaming black coffee into a “We Love
Mother” thin-handled cup, and sat on her sofa and sobbed.
“No, no,” this can’t be happening.
Huge bumble-bees visited her garden,
seemingly ignorant to wars and magnolia blossoms bursting into bloom and the
Kudzua Japanese dogwood dazzling the twin houses on the street.
War! Would it ever end?
Yes! She would gather her girlfriends
together. Didn’t matter if they were 70 or 80 or 90. The words, A daydream
believer crowded onto her tongue. A bumble-bee buzzed its way into belief. She
tied a red kerchief around her messy blonde hair.
A daydream believer, a daydream
believer. The wind swept it upward into the heavens.
In a defeated voice, she called,
“Ready. Ready.” Just check to make sure the burners are turned off.
