on business she said. NOMI was hardly working at this point. she hadn’t put pencil to paper, or thoughts to mind, or lips to lips in six months and seven days. 

 

Still. That was her life. She scuffled through the bad and over-lived the small joys littered throughout her mundane days. And Still, NOMI kept grinning and slacking. 

 

purely by accident, she meet the Creek Man. a raggedy, dusty, loose, and vulgar vagrant with a heart of bronze; the rusty Statue of Liberty type of bronze. 

 

Her boss told her to get a change of scenery and bring a two-year long deal to a fruitful conclusion. She was sent to Illinois. 

 

a brief flight there. her leg cramped up two-thirds of the way in. but that’s life. NOMI could fight the sore pulsating through her thigh and down into her knee no more than she could fight the sore pulsating through her heart and down into her soul. 

 

The groggy sun. The saturated air. The smell of fornication passing through the cheap hotels. As dusk settled in, she felt more like a whore than a businesswoman. But in this day, I find the line between them thin to begin with. 

 

a knock on her door. she hadn’t ordered room service yet. on the other side was the meal she didn’t know she wanted. a thick patty smothered in spicy mustard, light in ketchup, drenched with fat and wedged between icy lettuce, musty cheese and finely charred buns. 

 

She ate and slept. She didn’t dream. The napping people live in the future from the woke, they experience the next happenings well before hand. 

 

by 11:00 AM she had the meeting and failed her task. not selling anything to the buyers except the fact she wasn’t fit for the gig and the life that followed. 

 

By 11:00 PM she had been wandering aimlessly for hours. NOMI trekked into the Congo of a swamp that was nearby. 

 

it was all dark on the bayou when the Creek Man appeared. he spoke spastically, mumbling through the fur of his beard. 

 

“You seem awfully lonely. I’m lonely too. I’ve been living here the last ten years. Speaking with the water birds and the water rats, befriending the sunken trees and singing to the endless everglade. Will you be my wife?”

 

she said yes. she hopped on his aged, oak boat. the black motor teemed with freedom.