Ashley D. Escobar

Nighttime at the Plastic Factory

The boys work in intervals - The boys don’t work - in plastic factories - hands slipping through automated machines - like my old friend - I could have sworn - their chapped lips touch - when I am not looking - and I always look - I have been looking for what feels like tomatoes - but only fifteen minutes have passed - since the last line of Focalin on his school-supplied desk - White  by Bret Easton Ellis sitting next to strawberry Soylent - The boys are skinny and mean - but we aren’t opposites - we’re twins on our way to temple on a nondescript Sunday - and the elder brother doesn’t believe in God - he begins to question his existence - while we stampede the popcorn - littering the floor - it feels - packing peanuts - it feels - packing for college and knowing - this is it - it feels like intervals - we run out of tonic too early - we are clockwork - we are figures the other kids recognize - we don’t sweep the popcorn dust - we kick someone else’s white soccer ball to the other side of the hallway - everyone is fast asleep - and I wonder if it hurts when a jellyfish stings - if it hurts more because you know it’s supposed to - The boys say that jellyfish drift - that I’m a drifter - I’ve never been good at touching base - keeping my base safe - guarding it - that’s the word I use when I run down the steps - my patent leather red heels - clacking against the wooden stairs - The boys slide down the banisters - their navy Dickies covered in magnitudes of dust - Isaac offers me - a cigarette - but it’s my twentieth - and I remind him I stopped smoking at seventeen - and he reminds me I am old enough to buy alcohol - that I am a spinster with greying hair in a Goodwill wedding dress - that I am - going to start smoking again - if I don’t sleep with my professor - because old women don’t say fuck - they say sleep - copulate - fornicate - gestate - but only until a certain age - they sew children’s quilts out of teddy bear fabric - on a rocking chair - overlooking the Subway down the street - and a Dollar General - The boys want to go - but it’s closed on Sundays - and it’s also 3 am - which means it’s time to fill the jam jars - divide another line - and stop Teddy from drinking - leftover Diet Coke - in a McDonald’s - styrofoam cup - on Isaac’s sick roommate’s desk - Isaac doesn’t care about the contagious stream - jam jars are our highest affectation - we don’t have jobs - we have no idea what we do all day - except we do - it’s clockwork - it’s pretty easy - to unpack - when you live in your professor’s closet - I share it with his part-time son - I wish I was his son - I am his cat - I could exist on his navy blue woven rug - for the rest of my life - if I could - it reminds me of being lost at sea - his youngest son asks - if I’ve seen his boat - but I don’t see any nearby water - how could you lose a ship - in a landlocked place - Isaac says he’ll visit me in the closet - but he never does - he keeps saying he’ll stop drunk driving - and I believe him - because something about an old woman - holds hope - Isaac is so goddamn young - I can’t be young - because I don’t raw dog the world - I wear glasses to see - I drift with conviction - I drift toward death - I drift toward some girl Diana’s room - after another line of white powdery chalkboard eraser dust - to steal her car keys - The boys don’t have licenses - we’ve never needed to drive - we walk out the bathroom window - to the rooftop - because it’s 4:44 - and we like to sit on the chimney cap - and make a collective wish - whenever I am asleep on the woven rug - I get rudely awakened by - the youngest son throwing pennies at me - I am in a fountain - and I am the centerpiece - the statue - the muse - Isaac says if I was the muse - he would have finished his next novel - but he hasn’t written in five years - I wish words were more - plastic - Isaac says - I could mold the letters easier - I could cut lines - I wish I were more plastic - so I never had to decompose - so the boys never had to let go - of their gaunt little faces - like mini Rimbauds - with better haircuts - I fluff Teddy’s hair - like cotton candy sheep at a carnival - and he asks if he thinks Isaac is - winking - back at us - pointing at the supernova - at a dying star - its last words painted blue - like the water sailor wives watch - from the tops of their houses - during the whaling days - waves lapping against the Atlantic shore - clockwork - unlike the supernova - whose explosion is a jaunt trip - it won’t be light out until 9 - it won’t snow for another couple weeks - Isaac rolls down the eaves of the roof - I reach out to grab him - all I grasp is - cold - winter air - an honest air

Ashley D. Escobar is a fiction MFA candidate at Columbia University and an intermedia artist working in cut-up collages. Her writing has appeared in The London Magazine, TRANSOM, and Expat Press, among others. She can be found at quinoacowboys.com.