"It is a conspiracy, don't you see it?" She walked away from the table, clenching
her fists.
Everywhere we go, we find men without eyebrows, men without sandals, men without tubes of
toothpaste. In the end, what do they have in common? They are men without. To counteract
their being, we must be men within. Inside of every man is another man. And inside of that man
is another man. Men are Russian nesting dolls. I mean this literally. They were made in Russia
and of lacquer and wood and were elaborately painted to resemble people, but you can tell,
easily, that they are not people. They are men.
I shot Sally a look. She hadn't told me her name. Because she has no name. I am she. She
walked away from the table, clenching her fists. Inside each fist were a few strands of hair. She
had pulled them from her own head. Her compatriot was a man, a Robert, she called him,
because inside him was her father, who was named Robert. What his name really was she
didn't know. She thought it sounded like "Konstantine" but she didn't think finding out would lead
to any good results. Only pain when she heard him scream as she extracted her father from
inside him... Of course, her father had another man inside him, but she would try to keep that
man's daughter from getting to her father. This was a world in which only one daughter could
have a father, and she had finally gotten close to hers.
"Pumpkins can grow everywhere. that is not what I want to discuss with you."
She tried to make her father understand. He would not. He kept discussing
squashes. He seemed perplexed at the idea that someone might consider
anything else. He repeated, "The pumpkin especially thrives in a warm, moist
climate, but not too warm and not too moist, One might even suggest that it
thrived in a cool, dry climate, except that isn't true. It prefers warm moist
climates. It can thrive anywhere, but the pumpkin especially thrives in a warm,
moist climate, but not too warm and not too moist, One might even suggest that
it thrived in a cool, dry climate, except that isn't true. It prefers warm moist
climates. It can thrive anywhere, but the pumpkin especially thrives in a- "
Sally stopped her father by taking out the man inside him. It was sad. She'd had her one chance
at a father, but if he was broken, it was better to give that time to another father. One who
wouldn't mind so much that squashes were seasonal, and a daughter who would love her father
even if he did like to talk about squashes. She didn't feel sorry for herself because she was very
capable of controlling her emotions.
the watch was broken
This must be understood for any of her other thoughts to make sense. The watch was broken.
Time had stopped for her and her thoughts began to repeat. One and another, like a Russian
nesting doll. There stood a man who had murdered her father. There stood the man she had
murdered who had murdered her father. There stood the pumpkin smashed on the sidewalk,
standing again smashed on the sidewalk again and again and again.
She was 20 again and she had on a small kerchief that looked like a headband. She'd brought
home a pumpkin from the pumpkin far, where she was working the summer away. Her dad had
carved it into the visage of his neighbor. Poking a bit of fun at the man who mowed his grass
twice a day and only spoke to him when he was upset about something, like their lawn being too
long. She didn't know, though. She'd just thought her dad had carved a funny face.
Then this man came over and started yelling at her dad for "the unsightly and unapproved lawn
decoration, and her dad had seemed to think he needed to stand up for himself in front of his full
grown, adult daughter and had yelled back. He'd looked nervous, though, and when the man
raised his hand, probably just a gesture of fury, but it looked like her dad maybe thought it was
to hit him, he'd pushed the man. And then the man had shot him with a gun that nobody had
noticed and then she'd run that man through with the shears she'd been using to trim the
hedges.
