We Create Earth
As We Sleep

by Eva Konstantopoulos

She wore a bra for him on Thursday. She hadn't worn one in weeks, months even. Not since she went to the beach and realized she could get by on a windy day with just a thick shirt. Sometimes she would leave the house with just a thin shirt, a nylon/polyester blend. On those days she had to cross her arms over her chest and push the two little bumps down when passing old men on the street. She wore a bra for him on Thursday, because she didn't want, on the small chance that he did take off her shirt, for him to see that she was one of those girls that didn't wear bras. She figured boys liked bras, they were whipped cream on the pie, a nice garnish dressing up the enchilada.

Throughout the night she told herself that after this drink, after this one, she would stand and move her arms and legs just like everyone else on the hard wood floor. The birthday girl came over to her.

"And why are you sitting here?" she asked. "All forlorn."

Why was she sitting here? The birthday girl extended her hand and she swayed by her side for a few minutes, but then the lights were violating her, the people looking her way, and so she went to the corner of the room to sit down, and it was there that she noticed him leaning towards a girl with wide-rimmed glasses. She noticed his mouth, curved up in a half-moon smile.

She tapped him on the shoulder. "Do you remember me?" she said, and he hugged her obligingly. She wanted to ask him questions. Did he like his life? Was he happy? Did he forgive her? But then the girl with the glasses was by his side, smiling and extending her hand. She knew nothing of this girl, but decided she would be more like her. She would bop her head like she did, she would nod with her hands balanced precariously on her hips. But even as she did this, he stepped closer to the girl with the glasses and nother, and so they nodded at each other a little while longer and then she said good-bye.

She had dreams that night that the Los Angeles River was a garden, a garden she built with her own hands, molding the lines like sunflowers and sculpting the plants with clay, painting them green and yellow with an ordinary brush from the 99 cent store on San Fernando Boulevard. She builds her garden and the dogs come to sniff the ceramic roots and the neighbors peek out from their windows and walk down to join her. Together they assemble the dirt with their hands, they create earth as they sleep, and soon the sun rises to water what they've done and take over so they can go about the day, shaping the hours with what they've already been given, trying to find what they've already lost.

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