Tender strumming drifts from my fish's aquarium, filling the bedroom with an excess of yearning, as if we were trapped in a diamond.
At first I was surprised my goldfish could play guitar but soon I came to accept it, just as he, in time, welcomed me into his secret audience.
Songs of icebergs, drifting in open water, groaning, as they glide southward, trailing their robes of white, to melt into nothing.
Once I made the mistake of asking what his songs meant. Glassy-eyed, he stared, bobbing in the water, and said: "I long for that which is gone."
The man stands at the lip of the crater, smoke and the lingering scent of sulfur peppers the air.
The man's traveling companion – the greyhound by his feet – hops onto a jutting slab of concrete and surveys the area.
"This is it?" the dog says. "It doesn't look like much. Where's the garden? You said there would be a garden."
The man shrugs, easing the bulky equipment off his shoulders to the dirt. He gingerly leans his gun on a boulder. The house and most of the neighborhood is gone.
It is early morning; the sun is a fresh scar in the sky. They sit, gazing up at the remnants of the house, watching the passing sunlight over broken windows.
"So," the dog asks, "did we find it?"
The man eyes the familiar bricks, now caved-in walls, he notices a gleaming in the rubble, but it is only a mirage.
"No. This can't be it," he says after a long pause, "we must've taken a wrong turn..."
"I told you," the dog says, "we should have turned right at the fountain. But don't worry, we'll find it. I know we will."
Man and dog, in profile, marching through the deserted streets. Their days like ice crumbling on a knotted bough.
A giraffe strolled into our yard and tried to lick the shingles off the roof.
The children were already running wildly through and around its legs when Susan and I rushed outside. The creature's muscles rippled in a succession of waves as it moved.
It blinked at us and seemed very wise. We all oohed and aahed as the giraffe extended its fantastic tongue and began munching the branches and petals of Mrs. Parish's magnolia tree. "Thanks, friend." Susan laughed, reaching up, and patting the giraffe's belly.
(Last week Mrs. Parish had written a nasty letter complaining how some people continuously let their children trample in her prize-winning flowerbeds. Susan was convinced that some people were us.)
Suddenly, for no apparent reason, I had a burst of inspiration and brought out leaves from our living room fern, holding them high above my head, like an offering to the gods. "Hey," Susan shouted. "What are you doing? My mother got us that fern!"
The giraffe turned its eyes on me and stared. I lowered my ferns in shame.
With a leafy-smelling snort, the giraffe turned, and continued on its way.
