River of No Return
“I want to go to Idaho. I’m bored.”
{ Monthly Archives }
October 2004
Eggless in Las Vegas
(written by Sarah:)
Dusty, late afternoon sunlight shafts down out of nowhere from an unbrokenly blue Western sky. Las Vegas is empty, the lights out, the streets deserted. A few flyers and broken bottles in the gutters shuffle nervously under the light breeze, afraid to make too much noise. A single figure in near-silhouette, facing into the sun, hands in pockets, aimlessly follows the pavement in front of him. He wears a long velour coat, wine-colored and wine-stained in equal proportion, a broad, silly hat with a feather, and ridiculously expensive shoes made from something endangered.
The entire scene reeks of post-apocalyptic chic.
His arms hang useless at his side without half a dozen pretty girls on each. The hands, empty of champagne glasses, rings, thousands of dollars, are balled tightly, angrily inside his coat. After a long silence he withdraws his slender, manicured fingers and pulls the velour pocket all the way inside out.
A few bits of shattered eggshell scatter onto the ground and a single down feather, pale yellow melting to white, dances in the dusty air. There is nothing else.