stirrings

         Brother Ambrose embraced the caffeine rush. With a krrrick! of his neck he unlatched internal trapdoors. Kundalini serpent energy sprang forth. He espied Maxine sitting with Greendozer at a corner table. She caught his eye and he recognized her with a courtly nod.


                                                                                  *


        Earlier that morning Maxine had risen before dawn. From the octagonal window of the attic bedroom she looked out upon the flinty waters of the fyord. Colors matched those of the humpbacked whale. Sunless, deep and mystical. And climbing into the mist were great slopes of cedar, undulating in the high tubular wind from Japan. Her soul shouted halleluiah, but nary a word escped her lips.
        She slipped on a threadbare calico robe, a favorite since college.
        Then she stole down the beanstalk. Wooden circular stairs.
         Crackling arches, beefsteak slabs for feet.
         Like ivy, remnants of a dream scrambled up the red bricks of her mind.

                                                                                     *

        She found Hank slumbering on the sofa. Snoring like Battleship Potemkin. Toes with curled yellow nails wormed like nematodes from under his olive army blanket. Three empty Anchor Steam bottles lay beside his assembly-in-progress of a Cutty Sark model kit.
         She could see he had sought a high level of detail. Ratlines crafted from brown thread. Minutia painted with patience and care: belaying pins, davits, windlass and chain. The beer gave him a steady hand.
          Greendozer. The mighty.