| BUTTON COLLECTION by Howard Winn BUTTON COLLECTIONBringing order to our mother’s house, as she sat in her rocking chair watching a daytime television program, my sister threw out old candy boxes containing buttons hoarded from at least sixty years. They sounded like shaken gourds as they went into the trash; although not in Caribbean rhythm. Snipped from worn clothes in a mild fever of saving, these buttons were of all sizes, shapes and colors, buttoning down the past even when occasionally reused in the present. They might come in handy, my mother used to say, and waste not want not. I think that she just loved the myriad colors, shapes, the quantities, the weight , the implicit histories, the textures of enclosure. INFLUENCENeutral studies indicate that success comes most often if you are tall, six feet is a minimum, apparently, if one is a believer in statistics, and pretty, or handsome, when male, in the most conventional fashion. Short or ugly? Or both? Look for happiness in other ways. Of course, if you have the aforementioned characteristics of height and beauty, the sky is the limit. Even intelligence or stupidity will not stand in your way. if you play your cards well. Political triumph may follow commercial success, or vice versa. Money and fame will flow your way when you are adept enough to pose properly, say little that is not common cliché, and put your money in off-shore banks, as yet unknown to the IRS, if that is still possible. Finally, it would be of incalculable benefit, if you were a born psychopath, wearing the mask of humane sanity. One percent of the population shares that happy condition, so your odds are poor, but, hey, you never know what your genes might provide. Check your parents. NEWSPAPER POLL TAKEN RECENTLYMore people believe in extraterrestrials than believe in God in America at the moment when polled. So, who will exit the final flying saucer on that day of judgment? The day the mortal life vanishes for eternal good health? If there is one? And what if neither faith is valid? No one will return with the news. CLEARANCE SALEBuy a governor from our overstock jumble sale. They can be had at a markdown of a few million per gov, but hurry since some are under indictment and the sell-by date is fast approaching. There is still time to arrange a tasteful gerrymandering preparation to suit every palate and pocket book although the purchase may have to include a few state senators as a side dish or antipasto before the main meal, since the bill of fare is not a la carte for the special but a table d’hôte menu. Hurry in to the governors’ bistro. It is not meant for just anyone with desires or needs, but for those special people with champagne taste and the investments to match. THE SUICIDE NEXT DOORHe has passed on, she said, dead being a word forbidden to her lips apparently. Bleed to death right in the bathtub. She shuddered as she vomited those words Who would have guessed? Three police cars, a fire truck and one ambulance clogged the private way as people excluded from the house paced and hugged. Dead. Passed on. How about passed over? What would the obituary say? The woman in the house, H his live-lover staying the night again, seemed to have slept through it all. Now she treads the driveway in tight circles when not held by friends. The medical examiner must come for it to be made official, and then the hearse, the plastic body bag, the evacuation of the black vehicles with the uniformed stunned young representatives of the law. A cat is forgotten, left behind for the SPCA. No reasons are acknowledged in the death notice of the local newspaper. Maybe a lovers’ quarrel. As with that illicit word – DEAD– reasons remain unspoken by those who know, if they do. Life gone bad is enough to know. No one wanted the cat. Unloved? About the Author:Howard Winn’s writing has appeared in Xavier Review, Southern Humanities Review, Long Story, Galway Review, Antigonish Review, Blueline, and Evening Street. His novel, “Acropolis” was recently published. His academic study was at Vassar, Stanford, and N. Y. U. He is Professor of English at SUNY. |