Peace in the Sky
What is the festival really about?
by Pete
Gioconda
I AM PERCHED precariously on a wooden fence, almost falling backwards and forwards, with no desire to move, not an inch. A girl with mud on her face comes up —
‘It must drab near drab, never sleeping with anyone.’
I never had so many offers in my life! We smile pleasantly, each trying to outdo the other in sweetness, until our faces are bundles of deep crease and we have to stop.
I gaze at my knees and see reflections of the swirling sky. Blow down at clouds and they rabbit on quickly, slowing back as the puff runs out. Straighten up and blow at real clouds: after a second they too get a shot, speeding up then back to normal.
Pretty girl has gone and I miss her instantly. Wrap arms about body and become roll of arms in olive green sleeves. Whip out like a piranha, snatching at visions. My chin sinks into my knees and tickles in the clouds, magnetic with what’s below. Through sucking shell in my ear I hear myriad goings-on; filter out and bat most back. Surely the most convoluted peace convoy I ever joined.
Sit up and detect words about ‘the one on the fence’. Head held high, I revert to cloud-gazing and just billow in freedom, drawing electrically from loins and heart, epicentre of my existence. Focus chin and heave it upwards, seizing the sweetness of air.
A flea hops on my upper lip and calls me back; I nab it alive and try not to burst it. Where to put it – on cow? Cruel to cow? Too much suffering I produce. Nature says what? If I fail in all conscience, or true instinct, to act . . . I’ll go to cow, hop it off and try not catch any more: that way it’s natural wastage.
Back on fence. Lovely mud wet boots. Get in swing and blow on clouds. They swirl like salt in my porridge. Clouds for breakfast, yet no stars for tea!
Look at these arms crackle electrostatic. Clouds are soaking them too.
Two urchin girls pull up, one on a kiddy bike. She has lovely long hair and dark eyes, dark skin, skinny as a picture. Seventeen but looks mysterious twelve today. Yes my ex-girlfriend, aah. I gawp open-mouthed and merely lift my summer sky arms. Somewhere a dog laughs, echoing behind my back and round, a phantom location.
‘I wish I could dog it like that, girl child-s-ren,’ I affection-ate.
Girls eye theirselves in daze amaze while I leap and jump – through where they should be, but aren’t. As I walk, clouds have claimed the puddles and windows of cars and buses; trees rustle in tranquil music, ending superstitious limits. I hum from inside, unafraid of what I no longer see.
A lump of mud I kick up makes me feel impossible and sad, so I pat it down with hands. I do this.
A convoy bus looks cool and rugged (a dirtface girl) so I hurry to hug my arms round its corner. Someone slides by obliquely and chuckles. ‘All right?’
Clouds are too far out to contemplate, yet there’s little else. Suddenly! A Harrier jet traverses with a great roaring and rolls into a puff cigar of clouds, vanquished from my sight. Magic changes. How . . . well defended.
‘It is, it is Peace in the Sky!’ I proclaim, chest stuck on bus, smothered in caving and expanding body.
A bonfire glow soon warms inside me, time to thaw and speak. Knee-shake and pull-suck from coach, cleaning free but leaving blackened spots. Hands a-tingle, I’m feeling sexual as the last vestiges of clouds flake from my sides like crusts of toothpaste.
I stagger to the fireside, slump down and speak.
‘Um . . .’
© 2023 Copyright by Pete Gioconda & Black Cat Communications
The
story “Peace in the Sky” is an original work protected under
copyright law,
and may not be reproduced or adapted without the written permission of
the author.
Edible Society – Short Stories
