curiosity killed her; a true story
There is a boy in my history class with one arm. I love history but Im distracted by his nub (is nub the politically correct term? whatever I digress). He sits in the desk to the left of me, and it is his right arm that is missing, at a perfect right angle, if asked to link arms we could not form any chain. He watches me, I see it and I sense it the way women in dark parking lots can sense a dirty bum touching themselves to the sticatto of their stilettos hitting the pavement. I turn quick, he flinches hurt and looks to his paper, his pen, his one hand, as if stuttering.
The Spanish Armada and the fleet of trees, Incan rules, de Soto, my professor swivels and turns to me and asks what I think of the exchange of microbial diseases carried on the shoes of Chris Columbus and I wonder...
a car accident? The wound is clean and dry. Birth defect? Maybe. I wonder how he unzips his pants, if he's learned to bite things open, like bags of chips and condoms, if he has always been left handed, and what, what does anyone really think of microbial diseases carried on the laces of colonial shoes.