Trash Wrinkle Almost Pledge for the Sour Cream
While
enjoying a baked potato in a desolate spot behind the Enrichment Promenade
shopping center, Travis was approached by amateur photojournalist Frank
Orbiter.
“What’s
that, a baked potato?” Frank asked.
“Yep.” Travis was holding the potato much as one
would an apple or an ice cream cone, depending on one’s devotion to an image of
health.
“Just
eating it plain? No butter or sour cream
or anything?” Frank continued his interrogation, for that if what it was
quickly beginning to feel like to Travis.
Travis
nodded.
“Say, do
you mind if I take your picture?” Frank gestured with his camera.
“For what?”
“I’m a
photographer,” Frank told him. “I’m
documenting this time and this place.”
“This now,”
Travis interpreted. He was sitting on an
overturned shopping cart beneath a warped and stunted pine tree on the edge of
a steep hill covered with kudzu that dropped down to the bypass somewhere
below.
“That’s
right,” Frank nodded happily, readying his aim.
“Document this,”
Travis urged, squeezing the uneaten half of his potato into a collection of
white ribbons. As he did so the store
immediately across from his seat, an Old Navy, exploded like a distant star,
sending out a colorful cloud that took many thousands of years to make itself
known.
.
