C4 antho - Chamber Four

~178~ The Chamber Four Fiction Anthology
mirrored sunglasses. He is smoking a long-stemmed ivory
pipe. He is in what looks like a circus tent surrounded by a
buffet of dried fruits and various teas. I think he looks forlorn.
Forlorn terrorists are the most dangerous, I think. The other
terrorists smile sheepishly at the TV cameras and sometimes
eat what look to be dates.
“These are terrorists of honor,” I say as I settle down
with another Collins.
* * * *
I point out Iraq on my desk globe. I touch it. It is beige
colored. Some day, I think, I will get married near a lagoon,
or somewhere equally romantic, and Wesley and his wife will
live nearby and all four of us will play cards and drink Vermentino.
But not now. Now is not the time for Vermentino.
Now is the time of terrorism, which is like the Stone Age, or
something similar, but also different.
* * * *
I am thinking about castles.
I walk to the fake castle in Central Park near Eightieth
where they sometimes hold summer concerts. I imagine living
inside as a fake lord or duke. A castle is a place for hunkering
down for a long winter of ham-hocks and hay
shortages. It looks cozy for a castle. I like cozy places. When I
was younger I wanted to live under a tree like Mole in The
Wind in the Willows. A crackling fire and cured sausages
hanging with dry sherry in little green bottles and roots curving
out like rafters.
You can’t live under a tree nowadays.