Blue Ribbon Satins, and Paper Bag Mittens

Yes, yes, I will call it Brown (br-oun (as in “noun”)), because that is the opposite color of pink, and pink is the color of my underskirt, and baby pink is the color of my petticoat. House Brown, not Brown House. It is a name, so grammar doesn’t matter.

No, no, we don’t use fingerprints or signatures or mugshots anymore. Those are forgeable. The teeth-brushing echo (T-B EKO, for short) is much more reliable. The depth, the pitch, the vibration, the intensity, the rhythm, the rhymes, the choruses (the hook) of each person’s unique echo-song pattern is different depending on the length and width of the throat and its texture, the quality of saliva, the quality of each tooth, the whiteness of the teeth, the number of teeth… The density of the cheeks, the gaps between cheek and teeth, and teeth and teeth, and teeth and tongue, and tongue and gum, and tongue and palate, en passant, palate in French is “palais” which means palace, which means the mouth is a kindgome (kind (as in “a kind gentlewoman”)-gum (like the gingiva).) Trippy. The scarcity or richness of the papillae, the size of the uvula, the thickness, flexibility, mobility of the tongue… Much more reliable, indeed. T-B EKO replicas are near to impossible. How would you measure someone’s entire mouth system rapidly enough for them not to notice? And without killing them?

Foolproof (fool-proof (vowels pronounced as in “fruitloops”).) Haha.

So, I live in my House Brown. I’m William (Aimee, for short) and my toe is broken. Before that, before my broken toe, and before T-B EKO, I had three ways of keeping myself awake. I work in a corn field. I watch scarecrows for a living. The scarecrow watches the field, I watch the scarecrow and God watches me. Sometimes, children or immature adults or mature adults or mature children come by and fiddle with the scarecrow disrupting the harmony of the field. The crows, usually perched on the scarecrow or on the cornstalks don’t like their breakfast interrupted, or their lunch, or their supper (sup (as in “what is up”)-per (as in “super”) (it is a Canadian word, though I am not Canadian.) Aimee, stay awake. The cornfield needs its bull. I meant hero. Tickling the roof of my mouth with my tongue was most efficient. Now, it is “forbidden to fidget with the interior of mouths” (law order number 123 (1-2-3 (as in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)).) (oral sex is forbidden) (kissing is permitted) It messes up your T-B EKO. The second way was writing the community slogan with my right toe. I’d lift it just inches above the ground and dig the letters into the air. “THOU ART HERE, THOU HATH THEE, THY LAY LOW, THINE SHALT GLEE” My right leg is almost twice the size of my left due to that practice, and it became too heavy for my toe to lift its weight. So, my toe broke.

I have since resigned myself to mints, ineffective, yet at least (perhaps) yummy. Indeed.

They would not let me enter the tournament, but that is because I am 1/3 Spanish. Only pure Chinese people can enter. “Purchina” (pur (like “pure”)-china), they call themselves.

Petunia, my petunia, named after herself, is withering. I bought a button to exercise her stem. Four holes, not two. Orange, Petunia likes orange. At checkout, Mister Uncle wouldn’t let me pay 1/8 of 12 dollars as I negotiated (ne (as in “nè”)-go (as in “stop, slow, go”, which rhymes with “stop, drop, and roll”, kind of)-she-ate (an apple)-ed (wrong syllable separation)) my need for only one button in the pack of 8. He told me that it is company policy and that I cannot open the pack of 8, keep one, and leave the rest intact and still good to sell in the store. Not everyone understands benignity.

“Will, will ya just pay up?”

He didn’t stutter, “Will” is my public nickname (silent c).

The first rule is that the one who finds the prize gets to keep the prize and wins the tournament. The second rule is that there is none other prize than the one found. The third is that there are no further instructions. The (4th) fifth is that hollow bamboo sticks are always empty, and the sixth rule is to “have fun.” Chinese people don’t like the number 4. The prize could be anything, anywhere. No one ever knew what it was until someone found it. From what I know, it could very much be in Auntie Sue’s purse as much as it could be in the filament of a lightbulb, a shoe sole, the seam of old jeans (geenz), between two layers of a tape roll. Last year, Monty-Lou won (Congratulations!) a ladybug shell that he found lying in the grass.

Imagine this: laying in a bathtub, but instead of water, it is a hot metal bowl placed concave side down filled with cereal and oat milk… no, gOAT milk!

So, there I lay, in my tub, studying a bottle of shampoo soap labelled “100% Extra Virgin Coconut Oil and Shea Butter” (but the letters rearranged to read “Hair Grease Removal, but Effective Only for Maximum 2 Days Per Use”). I thought of the time I lit a Palo Santo for my Petunia to breathe. It had only burnt halfway when the police arrived. I didn’t need to open my mouth for the words to escape from the tip of my hairs. Not the ones on my head, however the ones on my knees.

“I’m not smoking (as it was forbidden in order to preserve T-B EKOs), I just lit Palo Santo.”

“ON YOUR KNEES!” That certainly shut me up.

When they finally let me stand up again, I admitted to them that the background image inside my living room clock was not, though it seemed, truly a clear, blue sky. I told them the story of when I, while on a train to Italy, hesitantly (as I was unsure of the veracity of what I wrote) carved the words “The elastic does not come back” on an orange peel and stuck it behind a old grandma’s ear. I only later found out I was wrong to hesitate when she had “The elastic indeed does not come back” carved on her gravestone. I had her picture printed, 200 times enlarged, and had a part of her blue eye (as she had a grey one as well) cut out and sized to fit inside the glass of my clock.

“Your petunia is naked”, was their only response.

“Because she is not clothed.”

Before leaving, they left me a word of warning, which to this day boggles my mind.

“Les vaches poussent là où les arbres n’ont pas de plumes. »

No, no, they do not make mirrors anymore. My little black book is my mirror. As I cannot see myself, I remind myself of who I am by reading my little black book. I am William (Aimee, for short.) I am 1/3 Spanish. I study english. I have a dysarthria , which means I need help with pronunciations. I mustn’t bite the interior of my cheek. It messes up my T-B EKO. My house is House Brown. My petunia is Petunia. Starfruit is pronounced po-ee-zon.

Aimee died at 36. William died at 47. They both had Petunias, they both hated starfruit, they both were arrested for T-B EKO theft. The little black book told me, that this world was never enough for Aimee, and was never sufficient for William. They lived their last day as they lived their first, immersed in their own minds. Running, running, on a never-ending dock, towards a sea of that sweet salad dressing they longed for. It doesn't matter what they meant to say, what matters, is that they meant to say. What killed them, you may ask? It could have been anything. From what I know, it could very much have been Auntie Sue’s purse zipper as much as it could be in the fish in the filament of a lightbulb, a crack in a shoe sole, the gold seam of old blue jeans, the glue between two layers of a tape roll, or even a digit on a 20 000-dollar bill.