“The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely increased by the error of the times…”
Daniel Defoe, Journal of the Plague Year
Shoes or no, I can fly, something that Radish doesn’t want to accept. He says sure I can, and so can pigs, which I never thought was funny. I mean, if I saw a bunch of flying pigs I’d think any number of things, but I’d never laugh my head off. Anyway, Bleu Radish is strange. Sometimes he taps on my door and asks if I ever saw a dish run away with the spoon, and gives me a slice of cake that he can’t eat because he’s diabetic. I ask what happened to the rest of the cake and he says there is no rest. I know where it is, I say—sitting on your kitchen counter. He doesn’t say no, but bends down and pulls up his striped socks.
Bleu’s been living here since the Loma Prieta firestorm burned down a bunch of big homes in the hills. He was one of the first to set up his stereo equipment, and told me that deer, skunks, and wild turkeys stayed as long as they could listening to his music.
The place stayed a rental property for twenty years. Afterwards, developers sold the it, which is when I moved in since my landlady had replaced me with a distant relative. By that time, Bleu had saved up his pennies as a glass installer and had bought the upstairs unit. He didn’t care if I could fly. Bleu knew I was on SSI and had a steady income. He was more than my landlord; he was a friend.
It was during the pandemic when I first flew, sorted through my mask collection—a dowdy blue one, a jeweled creation from the last California firestorm, and a quilted mask with adjustable ear straps, left on a morning while most people were working from home. The ravens were making house calls, wings black and luminous. I felt sad that this was happening, and that the federal government was spinning a cocoon of caterpillars until the next election turned them inside out, but right now it was about fresh air. Climbed the hillside, white yarrow and blue lupine on either side of me, the smell of anise and eucalyptus ventilated my nostrils. I felt like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music and propelled myself upwards where I could see how my city was arrested below. I rose like proofed dough, my feet dangled. I saw a raven wink.
Today’s headlines are that Disney World is reopening in July with facemasks and temperature checks, no fireworks, parades or character photo-ops. I’m sheltering in place under God’s blue sky.