Moment & A Misinterpretation

By Ari King

Moment

Your Siamese twin, nine minutes dead

Is slunked to the side of the hospital bed.

What do you think now? What enters your head?

Do you sit there and wonder, was it something I said?

Or do you feel it now lifting, now turning its head

Now straining to deliver something well-hid

Something to tell its old hip-tied friend.

The words fell like the sleeptalk of a kid.

You have to perform the operation.

···

Illustration by Lyla Trilling

A Misinterpretation

“The directions you gave me were awful. That train car you told me to take? It transported horses. The ‘station’? A slaughterhouse! The cab service you recommended?? A tandem bike operated by a twelve-year-old boy, who sat in the back. He dropped me at the path you indicated.

You did not tell me that the path led back to the slaughterhouse. Realizing this mistake, I decided to seek you out on foot. After twenty minutes of hopeless wandering, I was picked up again by the boy behind the bike.

I pedaled while he pointed until he, like a torturer, led me back to the slaughterhouse. It was then that I walked in.

“Sir, the journey I took to meet you has been unbelievable. I demand you tell me why you have given me such insane directions!”

The old man responded without looking up from the floorboards. “I sent you on an unpleasant journey because, as you can see, my home is not pleasant. Now that you’re here, would you like a blanket?”