The Monkey Robot Takes A Train
The windows are open to the sky. The sky is afternoon. The landscape is static with summer. The train is the only thing that moves on the landscape, and it is driven south through the heat.
The Monkey Robot is alone inside the sixteenth car of the train. There are two people riding in the car as well, but Monkey Robot is alone. Sitting with a straw hat on is a man. The man's neck is long, and mosses over with a second days growth.
In his sleep, he speaks to the afternoon.
He says: Smarmy...
The Monkey Robot says: Obsequious.
The Monkey Robot looks out the open train windows and sees an ocean sit on the beach then The Monkey Robot watches the sky sit on the ocean. The Monkey Robot looks from the sky to the ocean for a shade of blue, thinking that what The Monkey Robot wants is lighter than The Monkey Robot remembers.
There is a Woman on the train with a note pad, who says: unctuous.
The train jerks to the left and The Monkey Robot says: unctuous.
The Monkey Robot asks the woman: May I ask where it is you traveling to?
The Woman With the Note Pad says: I have forgotten.
The Woman With the Note Pad says: I am not forgetful person, but then I am forgetting.
There is the movement of the train that produces a wind that will not dry, but makes one thirst. The sleeping man's hat does not come off, even when the wind from the open train windows attempts to lift it from him.
The Sleeping Man says: Oily.
The Woman with the Note Pad draws small icons of things that pass her by on the train. She places beside each pictograph a small description.
There is a small, rough sketch in hard pencil line of The Monkey Robot's head beside which three question marks of equal size have been placed.
The Woman with the Note Pad says: I am to meet a man.
The Monkey Robot says: From Senegal?
The Woman with the Note Pad says: Maybe.
With a Monkey Robot right hand, Monkey Robot shows her the ticket the conductor has placed above her seat.
The Woman With the Note Pad says: I must have forgotten.
The Woman With the Note Pad says: I have this all written down. I will meet a man with tired eyes, and white teeth. He will smell of hyssop. This is how I will distinguish my lover from the rest of the crowd.
The Sleeping Man says: There was a clean white sheet we used as tablecloth.
The Woman With the Note Pad says: When I exit this train, a man will call my name, and I will not recognize this calling as a thing I own. The plan is that I will be trying to match my luggage up to this photograph.
The Woman With the Note Pad shows The Monkey Robot a black and white photograph of an overnight bag. The bag is shiny, covered in large daisies. On the back of the photograph is printed in neat script $16. The bag is shaped like a single humped camel. The flowered bag sits in the rack above her head.
The Sleeping Man says: On Christmas Eve it was seventeen degrees, we placed our hands against the window glass...
The Woman With the Note Pad says: When I reach my destination, I will have forgotten everything. When I reach, the place you speak of, I will be without a history.
The Sleeping Man turns his body over to the left side.
The Woman With the Note Pad opens her pad to page number sixteen.
The Woman With the Note Pad says: This is some of what I have forgotten.
Fish
Hoop
boy
Digs
sweet
Backwards
your face
Nap
Sandals
and a lighthouse never entered.
The Woman With the Note Pad says: I will be virgin.
The Monkey Robot says: Your bag will weigh almost nothing.
In his sleep, The Man in the Straw Hat begins to make the sound of something long and miserable.
