The Bittersweet Cruelty of a Rerun

Gazebo Scene

Who cares that Liesl loves a blonde boy who sings to her of her own suppression as they shelter from the storm in a gazebo before he declares himself a Nazi in full? Is the hope of happiness ever allowed to meander past the glare of youth, as in the summertime gaze of Danny Zuko before he reenters the familiar territory of learned leather and greased lightning? My mother and I watch Meggie being watched from afar by the priest and remind each other in the end it turns out he sticks around, for old age and all. My mother always squirms at Bill tending his moths, the fluid horror of gender, but for me, the more unsettling lurks inside the pull of Hannibal’s few minutes of screen time, how his minor character nonetheless propels our heroine to purpose, powering those black basement breaths wherein she must understand survival, reasoning quick and modest as the flutter of wings upon a nape of exposed flesh, This is the good part, I can still hear my mother saying of manufactured thunder, indulgent dance numbers, a set of teary eyes scanning the horizon with wistful romantic score draped like a sheer veil over the truth. What’s on tonight? I ask myself, reaching for the remote to replay another story. Mood is only part of the whole picture this evening. The question loops back to what I want, skipping over what I’ll look past to get it.

Dolce Far Niente

Joy betrays in easy ways, as when I wake early to find pistachio hidden inside a chosen pasticciotto and am brought to my knees before the sun finishes stretching out over Polignano a Mare. The others leave to tour caves along ancient shore, and I breathe behind the open window, sea air billowing its huge single curtain, blood tapping the back of my throat. Sweet orange light swerves in and out of shadow. Fauvist floral tiles. The room’s much too large, its windows tall as temple doors drawn open. The ocean old enough to forget itself sifting upon its cliffs. I will never be able to leave, don’t know how to call upon the gods present here. God of ragged rooftop and tinkling bell, god of umber brick and unmoored boat, god of blue paint flaking from patient hull, god of every immovable past tense. Hours tick across the walls in quadrants of gold, darken like bruises. I am myself, no longer asleep. The others return with a stranger, his shirt aglow golden as a fleece upon his shoulder. They cannot comprehend that I, too, arrived here with plans to spend days like coins. Now no one has need for me to translate their commands. Half the fun is not understanding. Bass thrums in the room above, a chorus of mocking, Ma perche? Pear-kaayy! An old folktale ends this way. The woman becomes moonbeam. Idle hands pretend to peel night back, reveal an honest dawn. The post The Bittersweet Cruelty of a Rerun appeared first on Electric Literature.