Words Fail Him
Benjamin Kinney
It’s the dawning of a new millennium, Marle, but so many small things happen less frequently. I’ve been trying to find the right way to say this: these small things are so big, and the world is so small.
Can we stay here forever with Gato who has metal joints, and if we beat him up, we earn fifteen silver points? The silver points are so pretty, and Gato never punches too hard. He would never tell us, but if we leave he has nobody to play with. Marle, we once saw Gato’s rusted husk on a pile of wreckage, it and us and the world beaten up beyond repair, and we cried. Polluted dust flew into our eyes, and we were so hungry.
My only other friend here is a girl named Lucca, and she has already amazed me with what she can build from scraps. Can we just own cats, Marle? Can we visit the inn whenever we get bored, and can we hope that Lucca someday invents something to solve your ennui?
Marle, deep below us are monsters that feast insatiably on the world’s worst truths. There are abysses you can walk in and never be sure that the you that walks out is really you. And I hate to say it, but the treasures in the world’s crevices are no more beautiful than these woods and the tolling of the bell in this courtyard. And Marle, I know your father is a pain, but he loves you as much as he knows how. We can live a life that never forces him to think things that destroy him. Kids are playing in this square. There is cotton candy and all the soda you can drink.
We can sculpt our bodies together, and after years of beating up Gato we can boast that we could kill anything that ever existed, but instead we can stay in bed until we are woken by sunlight and crowing roosters. There is something heroic in that. I know how the world beckons, but there have been paths through the earth’s remote corners for sixty-five million years. Love, Marle, is the road least traveled. I know how disappointing this is, and I know you’ve lost something, but we’ve all lost something we’ll never find.
Marle, can we stay here and admire these bright costumes? Can we eat candy? Can we feel this breeze and pretend we are flying birds?