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| STEVE HIMMER’s work has recently appeared in or is forthcoming from Yankee Pot Roast, Bullfight, and the collection Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and the Culture of Weblogs. He is writing a novel about a bear, and procrastinates at www.onepotmeal.com. |
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| "drag" Every sleeper in the city woke up that morning with a dead body chained to one leg. The links were cold iron, the cuffs heavy and dark with no seams showing how they were put on. They made showers difficult, jogging impossible, and family dogs snarled and sniffed at stiff strangers invading their floors. Bodies dragged through their morning as the city dragged through its own, overcrowding coffee counters and hard-pressing busses for seats. Elevators stalled when somebody’s body wouldn’t squeeze through the door and got hung up on the outside. Airplanes left passengers stranded because attendants were never quite sure how many live persons they’d counted and how many passed on carry-ons. Pedestrians forgot they were walking for two and wondered why their legs were so tired, muscles cramped after just a few steps. The city moved in slow motion past newspaper-box windows flashing photographs from the far front, and its eyes were too tired for headlines. Children couldn’t get through front doors, the adult bodies behind them too heavy to move. Most parents let them stay home from school for the day if they promised not to watch much TV. Beneath the gold dome on the city’s high hill, politicians charged onto the floor only to trip over the weight at their feet. No bills were passed, no edicts edicted, and the day piled up in a tangle as lawmakers teased their own bodies apart from the bodies of so many others. City Hall shut down after lunch when it was clear they would get nothing done and senators spilled onto the street with nothing to do but go home. Offices were quiet in the late afternoon as worn-out file clerks and CEOs napped off the aches in their laden legs, or else snuck off early, thumping down stairs with their bodies behind. Bodies squeaked on the tiles of supermarket aisles behind carts of unwanted food pushed by shoppers too tired to remember what they usually ate. Families passed dinner without one word spoken, just the scraping of forks on mashed potato-piled plates. They went to bed early that night in droves. Long before the late news they tucked their bodies under the blankets beside them, knowing they would still be there when they woke up. ### |