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Turn
of the Century Portrait
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| ALAN SOLDOFSKY
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Published in Rattle – Issue 22, Vol 10. Number 2 – Winter 2004
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| After
he was laid off, he stood in the heat, listening to the arguments of afternoon. Around him, cars nosed into their stalls. He noticed a blister between his thumb |
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and forefinger, a broken whitish flap of skin, no one to complain to but the wind. So he spoke to no one in his gnarled accent, the car radio abrading his brow |
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and sat hunched, hands on the wheel of the '81 Cutlass, speedometer stuck at 60, before turning the key, hearing the cylinders fire their fat familiar bursts, |
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that brilliant hollow-throated thrum, rattling down his arms' ulnar nerves. A wrecked alphabet affixed to the driver's side corner of the windshield, decals peeling off |
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sun-seared glass, a smell like bacon left out all day in the pan, an incipient rancidness, a metallic tang of blood pooled behind his tongue, eyes suddenly stung |
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by salt dripping off his forehead. The surge bringing down its full weight upon him, knowing what a piece of shit all this is, and what the hell is he going to do about it.
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