Dispatch from the Future Read Free Page A

what happened to them. Theseus killed
    the beast, and they got married and then sailed
    to an island, where he abandoned Ariadne in her sleep.
    And when she woke she hanged herself. Why
    did she hang herself? And if I find the reason am I
    less susceptible? Both unanswerable questions, and
    yet I still go home with him, submit to a strange
    bed in which I lay awake all night, without him,
    listening to the restless pacing of something familiar
    in the room beneath us, the haunt I cannot kill.
     
HOW TO MEND A BROKEN HEART WITH VENGEANCE
    We stretched a ladder between our second-story
    windows and tried to get the dog to go
    across to see if it would hold but it didn’t.
    My ambivalence must have made the dog fall, I
    called across to him. He picked up his tin can
    and said, I can’t hear you unless you speak
    into the tin cans, remember? What did you just
    say?
Sono spiacente
, I said. Nevermind.
Slicha
.
    You are probably wondering now if the dog’s okay,
    but do you think you could stay with me, anyway,
    even if I never gave you the answer? This was
    so long ago, further back than yesterday,
    when you and I spoke for the last time. You said,
    Why did you leave so early? And I said I couldn’t
    sleep and you asked me why I didn’t tell you
    at the time; you would have hit me on the head
    with something hard. Let me ask you, could you
    imagine a cloudless sky above a Nebraska plain?
    Could you draw it? Could you imagine yellow birds?
    Could you visualize the soft sound a door
    makes when it closes and sticks and I thought I
    had problems, but seriously, look at yourself.
    Look. I had this incredible dream last night
    and I’m not even going to tell you about it.
    In Russia, the young girls who die violent deaths
    either end up like birds in Pushkin or like fish
    at the bottom of lakes, where they comb each other’s
    hair all night long, where they teach each other
    the lyrics to every Talking Heads song
    so they can lure sailors into their shadowy grottoes
    and drown them. They say there once was a rusalka
    who wished to be human so badly she gave up
    her voice to be with her beloved and of course
    he loved her because who wouldn’t love a girl
    who can’t talk back, but then one night
    at a masked ball he got distracted by a foreign princess
    with an elegant neck and the rusalka was so despondent
    she went to a witch and somehow communicated, I’ve
    never been so unhappy in my whole life. What should I do?
    And of course the witch told her to stab him with a dagger,
    and of course the rusalka considered it. Like, seriously?
    Seriously stab him with a dagger? But ultimately she
    decided she would rather lose her human life and
    go back to being an underwater death demon.
    At least in the opera version the prince realizes
    his terrible mistake and goes hunting for a doe
    only to find the rusalka in her last moments and
    kisses her knowing it means death and eternal
    damnation. Here I am now, watching the moonlight
    dance across the water in the retention pond, staring
    at this scalpel and trying to forget your address.
     
JUNE 14, 1848
    Weather: hot. Health: fair.
    Dear Diary, had to leave the baby
    behind because she wouldn’t eat.
    Sent Jon out to shoot a buffalo,
    but he said they all looked so peaceful
    he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
    Figures. We’ll all be dead soon
    enough. Waiting for the Indian
    to get here so we can cross
    the river. June 15, 1848.
    Weather: still hot. Health: same.
    Dear Diary, Chastity’s doll
    drowned. She wanted to dive
    in after it, but I reminded her
    that she doesn’t know how to swim.
    Dove in anyway. Another one lost.
    Jon says he’ll skin us a buffalo
    so we have something to eat, but
    only if the buffalo has recently
    died of natural causes. Get
    a grip, Jon, I told him.
    June 16: wagon broke.
    Eating wild blackberries while
    we wait for another wagon
    party to come by and help.
    Jon has gone off on his own
    to meditate and ask forgiveness
    of the earth. Prudence