3am. Suburbia. Stars move as planes race universe’s paparazzi across her sky.
3am. City. Noise keeps arteries pumping, alive. Red emergency screaming. Yellow cabbies honking. Blue revelers wailing.
Silence reverberates suburbia. Still is news. Shades hide a girl, one dreaming of her possibilities, her passion. Science. Flourish. Live as a scientist. Shades hide her face, fifteen sans wrinkles, fate birthed in late night’s kitchen.
Dad lauds over money as a sous chef does over melting butter. Fortified cereal in bulk. Whole wheat pasta purchased in multiple pounds. Fresh fruit, farmstand vegetables picked up as needed, those only on sale.
Chicken parts forbidden. Expense not worth the convenience, so it was explained. Mom could only grab whole chickens, purchased then parted for frying, baking, broiling, grilling.
Cleaver, dad’s finely honed blade 4 inches wide 6 inches long, its hand-molded black hilt lays in his left hand, angled so 3 and seven-eighths matte silver blade catches what light it can coming off spiral bulbs. In the morning before the bus comes, Katlyn liked to stare at the bulbs lying dormant. Their spiral, twisting up waiting to be charged, mostly remind her of simple virgin vanilla soft serve cones.
Sometimes she thought of their single family trip to New York City when they walk-ran through every site as if middle-aged mothers on a marathon. The Guggenheim’s spiraling stairs, a long walk well worth it. Mom said the name of a famous architect. Correcting her with delusional entitled belittlement, Dad went on at length about his architect. Ultimately, a plaque on the wall fastened on a main floor wall made the decision mother was correct. Dad decided the evening’s plans, Cats on Broadway, suddenly became too expensive.
Whole chickens, glistened rubber, color of Barbie, pockmarked as if the ageless beauty had horrible acne scars, were easy to cut up once you had it down. Dad’s cleaver, even if missing by a half-inch, sliced through cartilage and rib bones with little effort.
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