|
Imagine being a bean: a pale supplicant, rimey dot, worried pip, striving
too hard all the time. One night, he lay on a chair amidst the litter
and gush of his life. He had a great green stalk of a father and a worried
mother; steam from the oven reminded him of other beans who had died.
|
What was it like, this propensity to roll, then fall on one’s side?
The days around him were a calendar of lies. His shell swelled, leaving
a gap inside because other beans demanded so much. He was awfully concerned
about his lunch.
In school, he said he would never have a thesis because he liked to be
free. Except he was not free, for his parents and tiny leguminous brother
wanted him to fill a certain role in life or else they would scream.
|
|
Plump and spotted, thin filament legs, he ran down the street with the
gaseous desires everyone hated, and in the alley, he broke himself open,
finally, all starchy juice, veinworks bursting cold; and now, finishing
the spring semester was out of the question.
|
He ran into a nightclub, crying, seeking a way, his mind a confused sheen
of protein, warmth; when a large male bean approached him, he ran out.
Then all the neighborhood raced after him, screaming in anger, “Change!
Change!” and tackled him, driving their wishes deep into his skin, which,
he noted, thick as a baffle, never changed the way his mind did.
|
|
They brought him home and introduced him to an attractive pea, and they
screamed, “Marry her!” while the pea flirted with her bottom, though the
bean could not bring himself to speak to her, let alone kiss her opening.
|
They bore him up to his room and threw him by the window where he slept
angrily, no pillow, grueling night it was, the juice of his body recirculating
at dizzying speeds.
|
