Prose Poem: Andy Newman Wants a Bagel.

 

Eating ice cream, gazing out his apartment window at two orphaned pigeons, Andy Newman began to disappear.  "This is not normal" he thought to himself as first his right hand and then his left arm disincorporated.  As it sunk in that he might be permanently leaving his current plane of existence for another one, he began to wonder about things.  Things like his work as a writer. The many sandwiches he had never finished eating.  The bamboo plates he and his wife got as wedding presents that were left too long in the basement, so they eventually grew black mold. He marveled at the colors of water. The feel of AstroTurf.  The day his tongue itched for an hour.  It never crossed his mind to be sad about leaving this world.  This world never seemed all that real to him. When you write about stuff, he now realized, that stuff becomes smaller and more fragile; it breaks apart and floats away. Sort of like he was doing right now.  He glanced down at his legs -- they were sifting away like sand blowing off into the distance.  But there were people he would really miss.  He was sure of that.  Still, as he continued to disappear, it just didn't seem that front page to him.  In the kitchen someone turned on a faucet at the sink.  And this broke the spell or epiphany or whatever it was.  His legs reappeared, looking very stylish in their worsted tweed leggings.  His right hand popped in again, bejeweled with emerald rings.  And his left arm was once again in plain sight, with those bulging biceps he was so proud of.  "So I won't be gone, after all" he mused happily as he finished his ice cream and continued to gaze out his apartment window at the two little baby pigeons.  Who were suddenly pulled up by the talons of a pair of red-tailed hawks.  Andy Newman decided then and there he would write about red-tailed hawks immediately so the pain would never have a chance to gain squatter's rights in his heart. He shouted at the person in the kitchen:  "Have we got any bagels?"