by Patrick Leonard
2.55.01
Marta has wine bottle puppets and writes plays by request for her daughter, Caroline, sick with many diseases from the drip-drop faucet. Marta's husband is not Vincent and he paints the landscapes on cardboard Marta snatches from shop windows and hides beneath the bottom of her blouse and top half of her skirt, admiring her luxuriously flat belly despite the severe rulings on theft. The particular day Vincent didn't remember Marta's re-proportioned figure he, quite easily, ate every single piece of her clothing while holding the 6 x 13 landscape she requested in a note that read, "My Dear Vincent, Caroline would like a play where yellow (in all its forms) does not exist. Please have the set finished by evening." Soon after Vincent's reading of unintentionally seductive penmanship, she entered with great consequence the hall where he stood, in full sweat.
20.55.01
In the evening house, Dimitri counted, among the many quantities of life shelved in the study, his beloved mechanical teeth. He believed desperately, as he stated to Emma from the tub, "Soon, my dear, we must locate the proper time piece to replace you. This has been quite a bore, even with your recent efforts." The words from the watchmaker worked their way into the lush dream of Caroline who slept in the corner on triggers and timing grinders, all crafted by Dimitri in his bedroom factory. Caroline woke with great understanding of how to replace Emma, with only the budding Adelina and nearly blind Miriam in the minutes between.