A STORY by ELIJAH SPARKMAN
JARED
Inside the heart of a chair, in its pigeon-wing veins, there is a school bus driving south through the soft wind and the red tongue of a mule.
I asked the chair: Where did you learn to dance?
She asked the chair: When you were five years old, what was your favorite food?
He asked the chair: Is this it?
They asked the chair: Can you tell me more about that, please?
Once upon a time, during a break that I was given, because I asked for it, I counted how many specs of dirt were on the handle of a door. And then I stopped myself. It felt too productive. I wanted to be not productive. Not being productive is the only way to be productive on a break.
Where were you the first time you made love to the carpet?
When is the last time you thought to yourself, this will be the last time I ever do this?
How many times did you have to do it before you didn’t think twice about how to do it?
How long did it take you to learn this language?
Chair. You’re always sat on. You have no other purpose. You’re sat on most often by the butt of the human being.
Let me tell you now about my friend Jared. Jared hates his name. He doesn’t feel like a Jared. The name makes him feel like he is the large, then skinny, then pediophiliac guy from Subway. It makes him feel like a galleria of jewelry. His name has been co-opted by the marketing landscape. If he could reinvent Jared, he would. But it’s a hard thing to do. What he says. To himself. Taking a bite out of a grilled cheese. During the sunset. Standing in the half-kitchenette in his condo. With its beige trim and its spackled, plastered popcorn wall and ceiling.
Elijah Sparkman is a writer based in Detroit. His fiction has appeared in Sleepingfish, HAD, and Maudlin House. You can read more at elijahsparkman.com. Instagram.