The Bureau of Dreams to be Continued by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

The Bureau of Dreams to be Continued

Page 458

The Rider reluctantly peered toward the river to his left; or what remained of it. The playground of his swimming childhood had become a congregation of clustered dry islands interspersed by small trickles insufficient to provide aquatic cover for a shellfish. For a brief moment he wondered if this was the place he had left. His doubt was extinguished by his sighting of the irrigation ditches, now much too high above the river to be the receptacle of anything other than the hot, dry air.

He momentarily considered going back to the farce with which he was fluent after a lifetime of learning the patois. ....... He couldn’t bring himself to and he realistically thought it best to continue on as he hadn’t the time to backtrack. Going back was an option open only to the young.

He rode a few more steps, until a bearded man on foot, with glasses in need of recurrent manipulation turned the switchback corner. He had to stop Spotty as the bespectacled man was too busy carrying on a heated conversation with a person whom only he saw to pay any attention to others who might be on the hill. When they got close he could see that the bearded man was young; no more than thirty years of age. The Stranger came to an abrupt, jerking stop and used his quivering fingers to reposition his glasses higher on his nose, poking an eye in the process. Embarrassed, he said; “Why don’t you watch where you’re going!”