5 MWE

He lived next to pumpkins, strawberries, and fir trees. He lived where the ground could have been the back of a large animal. Just a short walk would take him to countless abandoned buildings. Abandoned by whom? Who abandoned? He had a stone wall that pranksters often pushed down. They backed their truck into his stone wall for a laugh. Then, he'd have to spend a few days building it again. He didn't want to cheapen any of the things that he hated. He did not want to get a crew together for any adventure. He hoped that any of the growing things near him would be blighted. Blighted by what? By whom? By kids in a truck? He took a stool with him out to a field of mud. He set the stool in the mud. He sat on the stool and slowly sank. Instead of sitting on the stool, he was sitting in mud. He did not dislike animals--especially larger animals. He did not mind that two boys often launched model rockets in one of his fields. He did not mind that they flew line-controlled airplanes. He liked to see them spinning round and round and dipping their airplanes.

No chance she would stop being agog. She was a substitute for a sister. She lived in a shack we had off our house. The shack had a kitchen and shower in it. If we wanted to, it would be easy for us to put the kitchen in a box. And the shower was orange from some growth she never bothered to clean. She went to school, but, on the weekends, she watched me to make sure I didn't drown. It would have been easy for me to drown in a pool, a tub, or even a sink. I had the part of myself I most hated on display. Or it was in a display--but not encased. The three of us children became adults in ten years. We were strict with each other but not with our parents. We did not like to mix concrete. If we had to, we ate our meals outside. Sometimes, one of us would steal away to the basement. And why? To sit very close to the humidifier. I liked to sit next to sweaters as they dried on the wooden rack. What might have been my indifference was actually a pain I had in my thigh. I was not ready to eat grapes. I enjoyed the entire bowl of nectarines. She was agog because she managed to grow her underthings. This was when we were not frightened. When we could smell metal on our hands one day, plant life on another.

I denied having had a foretaste. A lie. There was a fence that prevented an attack for one day. An animal pushed through a barbed wire fence because of a large wave. A wave with a fifteen foot face. A wave with dirt from the prairie in it. A wave with playing cards of flint in it. To have such a wave go over you. The tornado took tiles off the roofs. Shrapnel. What I would like to see is more bodily churning. I would like to hear the insides of people squinching. This is what it was: riotous. There were children in the park. The park had kites tethered to its ground. None of the children were attended by their parents. Their parents were on an airplane. Their parents were test pilots for a new design of airplane. The children found dogs tied to tree branches. So they released the dogs--dozens of dogs. The dogs were thin and thankful to be released. The children, with the thousands of dollars their parents had left them, bought food and toys for the dogs. They went to whatever stores were nearby. The dogs did not want to eat, however. The dogs sought out gutters in the street, and found openings in the curb that would take them underground.