Tomato can grow the most colourful varieties of mould. At least that you would see in a domestic setting. And the heights it reaches even in the harsh setting of my refridgerator always impress me.
You may ask why I'm writing this. It is to test my mother's theory that it is not what you write about, but how you write it.
Next to the tomatoes (which I did have to throw out) are two jars of beets. Both have sentimental value. My mother loved pickled beets, but always in a jar; never in a can. Neither jar shows any signs of rot, so they retain their places at the back of the first and second shelves.
I am unsure about the use of parentheses in my prior paragraph. Perhaps there is an insightful essay to be found on my tumescent bookshelves.
Only a metre and a half from the beets are the ashes of the woman who bought them. And only a metre and a half farther is the desk at which I do most of my writing. And the chair, short one castor, where I currently sit. My body's protestations are only mild this night, because the voice keeping me in this chair are far greater than the voices telling me to get out--to run.
Above I attempt to emulate the style of Leonard Cohen from Beautiful Losers, which was alternately praised for its poetic yet stark style, and condemned for its lack of useful substance. I disagree, and say its style was of questionable value, but that its message encapsulated the futility of life and used it to explain the desolation that leads to things like corruption and all other expressions of the loss of innocence in politics and public service. In any case, he did win the Goveror General's award for Literature. Not for this work, though.
Author's note: Both caster and castor are correct, and I devoted the appropriate amount of time agonizing over the politically correct usage before going with the version that can also be linked to all things beaver-like. In keeping with my national and gender-based affiliations.
But back to the tomatoes. When evicting them, I catalogued the contents of my hallway:
1 orange flower print armchair
1 Wal-Mart shopping cart
1 empty bottle of scotch (double malt, by the garbage chute)
1 empty bottle of either rum or vodka (again, by the garbage chute)
I was not surprised, but I was only mildly amused. Perhaps this is a healthy balance.
Now, with the anticipated rising of the sun, I can't bring myself to keep up this exercise in style without substance. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it.
