Matinee Light, Diana Hartog

A Critical Piece
The parachute is tangled and I'm drifting off course. I've been sent to retrieve a critical piece, but as far as I can see there's nothing left. I've landed, the ground is still warm, my typewriter's fine. A child slouching in a doorway confesses to accepting candy from a stranger after I slip her my last mint. I ignore the toothless man collapsed on the sidewalk; he waves his cane at my ankles, claims his gold fillings have been stolen. I'm talking to an eye-witness, a waitress in the café: 'Yes, you used to sit at that table in the corner - Don't you remember that piece you wrote about me?' It's a fact: her Irish face is gone, and that obscene way she had of gripping her pencil. I made discreet inquiries about a boyfriend, thinking this will lead to a long courtship and then the ring she's hiding in the pocket of her skirt - perhaps on her third finger: an opal similar if not identical to the one I'll inherit from Mother.