Zazen - By Vanessa Veselka Page 0,21

and snapping inside her.

Credence handed me a chisel.

“See if you can get the stuff off by the lock without gouging the wood.”

I would tell them tomorrow. I would say: I am a pool of light, then flicker like sun on a swimming pool. I would say: It has already erupted. And then, dancing through the braided shadows on the basin, wait for the foliage to land in the pool water and make galleons and cutters out of oak leaves and elm. Then they would have to understand.

The next day a second bomb went off at an auto shop down the street from Rise Up Singing. Everyone was running. But you can’t outrun it. I know. I’ve tried. You just come to the same place again and again. The return is so fast now for me that from the outside it looks like stillness. Like nothing is happening at all. But beyond that stillness is an unmappable topography, an endless stream of content.

10 The Rat Queen

I was at work when the bomb at the auto shop went off. At the time, everybody was focused on a different drama. That morning Mirror had come in, thrown her bag down on the counter, and said, “They’ve totally sold the restaurant.”

The cook, Mitch, came out of the kitchen. She was wearing a t-shirt of a pregnant woman carrying an assault rifle and her face was red from working the grill.

“No way. Franklin would never sell without giving us chance to buy it.”

“I am so fucking serious it’s not even funny,” said Mirror. “It’s a done deal. Everyone in the neighborhood already knows. That’s what that stupid work meeting’s about.”

Mitch shook her head. “It’s a rumor.”

“Actually,” said Mr. Tofu Scramble with his mouth full of potatoes, “I heard about it last week. A real shame. Well,” he swallowed, “I guess things have to change. One less thing to miss about this country, right? Hey Mitch, tell Franklin thanks for getting the spelt. Can I get another order when you have a chance?”

Mitch’s cheeks ticked. A pancake started to smoke on the grill.

“I just don’t think he would.”

“The new owners have been in here twice,” said Mirror. “Kelly waited on them. They’re from California. They’re not even vegetarian.”

Mitch stared at the toast crumbs on Mr. Tofu Scramble’s plate. Then she went to the walk-in, pulled out a bottle of wine, and stomped back into the kitchen. Seconds later a two-pound whisk hit the corkboard with the minimum wage standards.

Word of the sale spread and took over the New Land Trust bombing as the favored topic. Everyone had an opinion:

Ed, Logic’s Only Son: You’re all going to get fired.

Mr. Tofu Scramble: Change often leads to transformation. Who would have thought I’d end up on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world?

Ed, Logic’s Only Son: None of you are getting welfare either.

Mr. Tofu Scramble: You know the Balinese women are so graceful because they balance things on their heads.

It turned out Coworker Franklin had already put most of the kitchen equipment and all the decorative art pieces up on eBay. Half the neighborhood had been bidding on the Indonesian garden lattices for a week. Every time the outrage died out and Mitch calmed down, someone new walked through the door.

“Did Franklin really sell the restaurant?”

A loud crash in the kitchen as a heavy colander hit a row of hanging pots.

“Hey, can I see the Javanese batik screens? They look small on the computer.”

Glasses smashing against the metal rim of a trashcan.

“You know, I always thought this place would make a nice tapas bar.”

Mitch pours a bottle of wine into a pan and a huge fireball engulfs the stove.

As the shift progressed Mitch got more and more liberal with the portions until she was slicing a whole salmon or vegan chocolate cake into quarters and dropping them randomly on tables as gifts. Mirror made everyone free mimosas. By 4 PM we were all drunk and Mirror was raiding the lost and found box for clothes. She pocketed a couple of cell phones and put on a sparkly, red mesh top. Mitch asked her to get some things out of the shed but she refused, “I’m sick of burying rats.” She walked over to a table of her friends and sat down. They were talking about the upcoming sex party and Mirror started to draw plans, “We’ll put the stage over here, the DJ over there and upstairs…” But Mitch needed rice to plug the drains and cups