Tuesday, February 13, 2018

valentine

Here's a chapter from my 2010 book
The Mermaid Translation:




Ribbon


Before he went any further, Sanford thought of the mermaid. He stopped at a table set up on the sidewalk under an iron sunflower. A bead of water dripped onto him, off the wide petal above.


He smiled at the seller and she gave him a pen and a ribbon of blue paper. He thought for a little bit. Carts went by, people were talking, a couple laughed, a girl chased a dog past, then he wrote the words to fill the paper up.


“Could you have this sent to the Mermaid Café?” he asked. He put a couple old looking silver coins in her hand and she nodded.


He stood there, watched her scroll the paper into a roll to fit in the little tube tied to the carrier pigeon. The bird flapped itself importantly and lifted off her hands into the sky. There were so many lines flying laundry up above that Sanford lost sight of it behind a wet purple shirt.





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