September 2021 (iv)after fire
Running down Franklin Ave on Sunday, I found the street crammed with five firetrucks, two of them with their long ladders extended to the top floor of an apartment building. The units were unwindowed holes that gaped into burnt-out rooms. A firefighter with an enormous black and yellow coat walked out the front door, touching the brim of his helmet.
At work yesterday I read about how, after a housefire destroyed his manuscripts and letters, thousands of annotated books, and diaries kept by his late wife, Aldous Huxley told a friend on the telephone that “it did make me feel extraordinarily clean.”
On the desk at the office there is an enormous cardboard box filled with old 8mm film reels and VHS tapes to be digitized. Outside the window a bluejay notices me and bobs his head about.
ben tapeworm
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