ETERNAL…
The travel agent held her breath. The diamond lay still. There were small snapping sounds and I saw a vision. I saw origami Buddhas and Popsicle stick palaces burning like hay and ashes blowing over manufactured stone flags, carved to look real. I saw a bamboo parliament of patio furniture lulled by the sound of quiet blackberries.
“It’s green,” I said and she started breathing again.
She pulled out a list of destinations.
“I have to say, Bangkok is still my favorite. Vietnam is very nice too. They have those cute little bicycle taxis.”
“Rickshaws?”
“Rickshaws—that’s it! I love those things.”
“What about Laos? Or Cambodia?” I asked.
“I don’t know if they have rickshaws.”
“They aren’t on the list of fares.”
“Well, yes, we do book trips there but they’re still coming up.”
“Aren’t they beautiful?”
“Oh lovely, but with… more of a history if you know what I mean. You can’t get to some of the prettiest places.”
“Why?”
The travel agent played with a ring on her finger and glanced over at a wall clock.
“Landmines,” she said.
“Landmines?”
“I mean it’s not impossible, just inconvenient. You can get a guide. The children know those areas like their own backyard. They work cheap too. It just makes getting around that much harder. And when you’re on vacation…”
She trailed off.
“…You don’t need those kind of hassles.”
“What about Central America?” I asked and she bloomed.
“Oh! Now that is the place. I recommend Costa Rica. It’s progressive, eco-tourist friendly and has some of the best beaches in the world. Do you like yoga?”
I looked at the brochures under the leaning rubber plant. Central America, the Atlantis of my people. In the end I bought a one-way ticket to Tegucigalpa. The travel agent saw me to the door and locked it behind me.
“Good luck,” she said through the glass, the diamond rolling across her chest.
Della Mylinak
Get away. You deserve it
000000799.99
All night long I dreamt of the Black Ocean.
9 Lagerstätte
The next day I practiced telling people I was leaving. At the yoga studio—
Devadatta: Namaste!
Me: I’m leaving.
Devadatta: Oh well, we’ll sure miss you here. Where are you going?
Me: Central America.
(Devadatta unravels a Guatemalan scarf from her hair. There were tiny people woven into in the pattern, each carrying a yellow cross-stitch crucifix.)
Devadatta: I studied yoga in Costa Rica. That’s where I got this scarf.
She laid the scarf twisted and purplish like tangled seaweed on the counter between us.
Me: I like the little people. Are they slaves?
Devadatta: God no! They’re indigenous.
And at work—
Me: I’m leaving.
Mr. Tofu Scramble: Well, Della, you know in the end we’re really only citizens of Gaia, aren’t we?
Ed, Logic’s Only Son: I’m a citizen of the United fucking States.
Mr. Tofu Scramble: I’d think about Southeast Asia.
Ed, Logic’s Only Son: You should all go to Cuba and get shot by Fidel.
No matter how I said it, I felt like a coward. The voice of the lavender-haired girl at the party sang in my head, something from childhood I couldn’t pinpoint, that tone of disgust, and I was a kid all over again with nothing to back me up but a bellyful of Kimba reruns—Run, Kimba! A mother constellated of stars. Kimba! There is supernatural help. Your father is still alive in the forest—
“Right!” I said to myself aloud. “I should stay here. Publish a manifesto calling on all of us to dress our scarecrows from the community free-box so it’ll fool the giant crows making nest out of hemp and third party candidates.”
I went to find Credence. To tell him I was leaving, tell him why and make him understand. I charged up the front steps and began looking through rooms until I found him. He and Annette were scraping paint off the doorframe of the upstairs bathroom.
“Hey,” I called, breaching the landing, “I wanted to tell you something.”
—I am leaving. I don’t want to watch anymore. I can’t stop the bus from running off the cliff and the sea is already filled with lights. I don’t know why I can’t be one. I’m going to try. If I stay here I won’t be anything the Bellyfish could lean on, I’ll just be something they have to prop up—
“How was the benefit?” asked Credence.
“The benefit?”
“At the Glass House.”
Again, the girl with the lavender hair.
“Fine.”
Annette stepped through the doorway. “Are you and Jimmy going to drive up to the anniversary in her truck?”
I couldn’t tell them, not in that moment.
“In the truck.”
“Lesbians in a truck!” laughed Annette, “Grace will love it,” and, grinning like a dingo, she walked down the hallway, swaying and humming with the Bellyfish darting