The day Lela met the man in the hat and the harridan’s sister she had a vision that the sky would fall. She stood in front of the harridan’s sister’s knickknack table and stared at the pop-siècle placemats, her eyes twitching like clock-mice. She seized hold of one of the dories and spun the masthead like a pinwheel. She had a vision of children with impossibly small feet dancing round a maypole. One of the dancing children was wearing a flagstaff hat with a toy whistle attached to a chin-string. Another was dressed in a loose-fitting jumpsuit made from sheet music and apple skins. And yet another was wearing impossibly small booties with pinhole tops, her face red with excited exertion. She smelled boiled onions, a familiar smell from her childhood, and fainted, her legs giving away beneath her like wobbly ninepins.
Lela knew a man from Vereeniging Gauteng South Africa who had similar visions, but his were of devils dancing round caules’ stones. There was a man, a very large man, who lived in Meriden Connecticut who had visions of the man in South Africa. And another man, a very small man, who lived in a boathouse in Eschborn Hessen Germany who had visions of visions. A woman in Dunshaughlin Meath Ireland had visions of people having visions, but none of her own. In Most Ustecky Kraj in the Czech Republic a man named Karneval had visions of people who had no visions of their own, but if they did, they would be the visions he had of their visions. And in Kaunas Kauno Apskritis Lithuania a woman with baggy stockings had visions of people who never had visions of their own, but if they did they would be the visions of the large man from Meriden Connecticut who had visions of the man in from Vereeniging Gauteng South Africa who had similar visions, but his were of devils dancing round caules’ stones.
That morning the sky didn’t fall, but had it, it would have fallen into the sea. The dogmen danced around a bundle of dried milky green weeds, the biggest dogman yowling like a banshee, the littlest dogman caught in a sweetbriar of fichus branches. Lela met the dogmen when she was just past her twelfth birthday. She bumped into the biggest dogman on Ships Day, a day gray with clouds and the smell of rotten breadfruit. She politely excused herself and walked in the opposite direction, the biggest dogman shifting his largeness to let her pass.
Lela knew a man from Vereeniging Gauteng South Africa who had similar visions, but his were of devils dancing round caules’ stones. There was a man, a very large man, who lived in Meriden Connecticut who had visions of the man in South Africa. And another man, a very small man, who lived in a boathouse in Eschborn Hessen Germany who had visions of visions. A woman in Dunshaughlin Meath Ireland had visions of people having visions, but none of her own. In Most Ustecky Kraj in the Czech Republic a man named Karneval had visions of people who had no visions of their own, but if they did, they would be the visions he had of their visions. And in Kaunas Kauno Apskritis Lithuania a woman with baggy stockings had visions of people who never had visions of their own, but if they did they would be the visions of the large man from Meriden Connecticut who had visions of the man in from Vereeniging Gauteng South Africa who had similar visions, but his were of devils dancing round caules’ stones.
That morning the sky didn’t fall, but had it, it would have fallen into the sea. The dogmen danced around a bundle of dried milky green weeds, the biggest dogman yowling like a banshee, the littlest dogman caught in a sweetbriar of fichus branches. Lela met the dogmen when she was just past her twelfth birthday. She bumped into the biggest dogman on Ships Day, a day gray with clouds and the smell of rotten breadfruit. She politely excused herself and walked in the opposite direction, the biggest dogman shifting his largeness to let her pass.
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