by Richard Garcia
Blondes are disappearing from the world. Just yesterday, one sat cross-legged on my desk looking all blonde and dangerous. She was staring at her nails, which were painted deep blue. She seemed just about to speak when she disappeared, leaving her fox stole behind, its little glass eyes staring up at me.
My red-headed wife confesses she’s a blonde. And her name is not really Katherine, but Linda. That’s OK, I never knew my first wife’s real name until I was walking out the door with my golf clubs slung over my shoulder, while the cabdriver, claiming the right of salvage, gathered my neckties from the front lawn.
In a country where there are no blondes, even fake blondes can make big trouble. My wife, looking over my shoulder as I write this, says, You’ve never had a lawn, you don’t golf, and you don’t even know how to tie a necktie. Go color your roots, I say, the blonde is showing through.
The government of Sweden has convened an emergency session. Icelandic police are gathering up Icelandic blondes and taking them to an undisclosed location. Back at the office I lean back in my chair. I wonder why it’s only blonde women who are disappearing. I open up the newspaper: no more blondes in Minnesota.
I look through the files in my computer. Blondes are disappearing from my poems: the one who had tried to poison me with developer fluid; the one I ran over with a motorcycle; the one who was last seen in the Amazon jungle smearing mud on her body that contained flecks of gold; the one who tempted me to follow her out into the rain when I was in bed with the flu.
Just then my wife, roots freshly dyed copper-red, strides into my office. She sits on my desk as if she owns the place. Stares at her cobalt nails.
from The ChairFind it in the library
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