L'aura del Campo

More than just beige, bland and boring, this Billings diner smells of sandalwood, while orchids in a bowl gather dust. Philosophy, mathematical ethics, statistical tragedy, capitalistic trinitarian engineers... WTF... who cares! Joy's a navy blue polka-dot tablecloth with a chalkboard showing today's special on sweet rolls... that wonderful taste of cardamom on the tongue.

Neither grey nor pink nor warm nor rosy they meet to mumble the about slippery slopes of string theory, the overripe theologies of cerulean moons, the smell of oil fragrant as the two brawny guards, their jailers and protection from the others, speak about the real world, one they will never understand.

Pie in the sky-blue-sky, we whistle, bent over to smell the solid chocolate balls, the burnt-sienna bunnies. Do we dare look too close, smell too hard, maybe take a lick then rewrap and put them back... before we decide? Pollen like arsenic is never mentioned among ingredients. But teaching ethics has taught us to pay and take some home, feed them to the kids then watch... expectantly.

Purple sweetness of -8, muddy numbers dancing to division, a 4th grade beat. Rhomboids defining the rotting symbol of death: the mathematical paisley patterns of Fibonacci. Numbers, magenta manifestations of nil, the negative meaning of 4 in Chinese. We squint our eyes at the blackboard, try to remember our subtraction tables.

Onion rings bring tears of joy from emerald eyes. Lists of numbers, stats swirling before our visions of frustration. We whisper, it can't be that hard, not as hard as this table! But it was, is and will be as hard as unripe avocados. One cannot deny that tan isn't brown, we lament, that it's much more fun to visit a bar or brothel in Butte with a bunch of drunks than sit here with unripened onions. Green shoots whisper our names, our numbers; straight lines of onions, burly garlic, push up theses sown in hard clay. Their conclusions ring true: "it's all lies".

A bloody collar soaks in soft water, smelling of sweat and soap. The greatness of sky blue faded to puce. The greatness of this tragedy. Only a sack of blue topaz remains.

Microscopic coffin-shaped tins overflow with tobacco, their chestnut colored spit adorning velveteen chickens. Nothing can be smelled here where ash fills the air. No need to yell... nothing lives. Nothing of value remains.

Vestments ooze with the scent of gardenias. We look down parallel aisles at lavender poles festooned with rosemary. We blot out thoughts of the oily patch after the crash and screams. Now hymns sung in three parts soften the blows of burial.

At tea (lukewarm will do), they wear their cadet blue uniforms, discuss the stability of tetrahedrons, even at the atomic level. They ponder small things; leery of anything too hot or too cold. They live in an uncertain world that upsets rationality. Anything that whistles like a flute, they fear.