A)    Two American soldiers, midwestern boys with all their strength about them, eighteen and twenty-three. A dim-lit bar. Italy. The smell of chicory. Is it Christmas Eve? It is Christmas Eve. Snow falls beyond the darkened window.

     1.    One of the soldiers has "chestnut-colored hair." The other is blonde (field of wheat/late autumn).
     2.    Both men smile frequently, nervously.

B)    Pool of light. Soft light. Yellow music.

     1.    Dialogue: "...waiting for me back home..."
     2.    Dialogue: "...never quite the same though..."
     3.    Dialogue: "...I had a dog when I was boy. A big farm mutt..."
     4.    Dialogue: "...what would it be like?"

C)    Nostalgia is a color. A filter for the light.

D)    [Question: Do you find erotic possibilities in violence?]

E)    One of the soldiers, in early years, walked with his grandfather to a low stone bridge over a creek. The soldier stood with his grandfather (a farmer) on the bridge and watched small fish dart in the shadows of the water. The two did not speak. They watched the fish for nearly an hour. Then, they returned to the grandfather's farmhouse and sat in the wooden chairs beneath the oak tree.

F)    An alley behind the Italian bar. Snow falls in the silent dark. Two soldiers. Midwestern boys with all their strength about them. Do they strip off their pressed uniforms? No. They do not strip off their pressed uniforms.

     1.    The dark haired soldier kneels on the cold cobblestones before the blonde soldier.
     2.    He unzips the young man's trousers.
     3.    The blonde solider does not look at the dark haired solider. Instead, he stares at an empty space in the distance.
     4.    He does not stare at an empty space in the distance because he is displeased.
     5.    He stares because that is what he has taught himself to do when he feels sexual excitement or fear.
     6.    As he stares at the empty space in the distance, a landscape appears that does not exist: country lake, water glittering in sunlight. Something rises from the lake, a pale figure, gray headed. This is not a memory.

G)    The member/penis.

     1.    Veined like funeral marble.
     2.    Thickness.
     3.    A veiled head. Pink. The shape of an arrow.
     4.    Already, a clear fluid.

H)    [Question: What does it mean to be drained of time?]

Alternate Kit: Death Kit.

     1.   Both boys will be dead by the end of the war.
     2.   One boy will be dead by the end of the war.
     3.   Neither boy will be dead by the end of the war.
     4.   One of the soldiers—on a dark night when rain falls in gray sheets—will come to understand that dreams are the soul's memory of the body.

I)    Improvisational logic? Retrospective confabulation?

J)    I like to see you standing there so young. Younger than you think. I had almost forgotten.

K)    Two American soldiers, midwestern boys with all their strength about them. A country lake, water glittering in sunlight. Above the lake hangs a pale figure, a phantom. The figure is neither alive nor dead. The figure watches the soldiers kiss. They kiss on the mouth. The soldiers caress each other. They are in love in the way that two men can be in love. The gray phantom does not move as it watches, does not shift its ragged sheets. The phantom does not want to betray its own existence.

.

Adam McOmber's most recent book, JESUS AND JOHN, a novel, came out in June. He's had work in Conjunctions, The Kenyon Review, Best Microfiction, Best Speculative Gay Fiction, and others.

Detail of illustration on main page from 1948 print ad for Vaseline Cream Hair Tonic.





W i g l e a f               09-01-20                                [home]