MIREILLE ENOS OWNS GRACIAS MADRE — FORTUNATO SALAZAR
/Her PA wore a red hoodie that was stained with red: blood. Blood was her PA’s favorite candy. At times she breathed flames that only looked like flames to anyone ignorant of her cuisine. Her PA lived in a sphere filled with nectar that only looked like nectar.
Yuck. Her PA arm-wrestled with her crevice hand. Her grip flaunted the recent proximity to its crevice—clueless insolence. Luckily Mireille Enos was a killing machine from the elbows down. Her grip, a shovel that had already buried its opponent when it greeted its opponent.
A shovel, still evolving—a sexy shovel with a brutal dislike of any colors in the neighborhood of cherry—growing in strength without training—ate colors in the neighborhood of cherry for lunch—a healthy regimen that made it strong and fueled its appetite for duels—attached to an amazing arm, the arm attached in turn to…headquarters.
The defeated opponent would slink off in humiliation to its crevice, groveling and slinking, demolished, in need of consolation. Yes! Another in a litany of ridiculous excuses. Mireille Enos cherished her PA’s excuses, transparent schemes to be alone so she could offer solace to herself. Mireille Enos looked forward to her PA excusing herself after her hand had been…swept.
Heinous to the marrow, that was her PA. She had drowned and been revived and now she honored the lifeguard by never laundering the red hoodie. The server brought her another irrelevant utensil and stood by with a stained napkin to await the foregone conclusion.
*
Best of seven? Her PA didn’t lack pluck. If only she weren’t so…parasitic.
Mireille Enos had humored her and all of a sudden they were knuckle buddies. She would need to be taught forcibly about boundaries, who was calling the shots and who was supposed to be launching an onslaught against the evil toil that she was buried under. So much for humoring swimmers who had been…this close…to death.
While feigning a stoic tolerance for her PA, Mireille Enos would need to teach her PA to use her other hand. She would make an example of her PA, no wait, she would make a timid broken person of her PA, broken and at the same time in possession of improved dexterity in the hand that, until the intervention of Mireille Enos, the compassionate intervention, just barely did a reasonable facsimile of weakly clinging.
Her PA would slink off and cocoon inside the sphere—one hand basically a hoof—the other newly alert, an inspired descendant of its own lesser self—no longer the subordinate/outsider—once merely a receptacle for soap—just imagine soaping up—and other new horizons/contours.
Mireille Enos beamed with happiness as she envisioned how the shimmering extremity given a new lease on life would be tasked with penning her an effusive note of gratitude on soft and absorbent stationery—soft and absorbent, a win-win—and would begin the next chapter in its new life by delegating the signature to the other puppet…whoops, hoof.
Fortunato Salazar lives in Los Angeles and is an occasional visitor to Gracias Madre.
