someone incredulous of my posts asked me yesterday where i first learned to imagine things. i took it he meant make up things.
to spite him, i told him it was in an old well behind our house, that yellow clapboarded bungalow sniveling under the armpits of a musky kamachile tree. slimy patches of glistening green lichen bristled in the well walls like dragon scales. our dog that time, a one-balled bullshitter, howled upon its mouth on moonlit nights. and when the monsoon rains lashed, toads dove in, stunning into leaping the slugs mossed in for centuries on the lip of the well.
one time during a storm, manang goring, our toothless washerwoman, tried to cover the well's mouth with a green tarp. the wind blew so hard, crumpled manang goring to the ground then shanghai-rolled her shrieking inside the slick canvas.
and when finally the kanaway flew east ward, signaling the storm was over, toads hopped out of the well, stunned with the invention of light.
