Somebodies
Megan Martin

Taking it for granted that we knew what knowing meant -- that knowing was a kind of happening -- we had gotten to thinking these things were true as wallabies.
Really, it was the brochure's fault. It said our cable car had been designed to the exact texture and proportions of an eggshell, and there we were: swaying up the mountainside in one of these things. On the other side, the brochure informed, were rare starworms, Milanese cantilevers, and other luminous miracles. Then it reminded us that we were on this side.
Sure, it was our honeymoon, but that didn't mean I had to act all rabid. That one thing I'd felt for you: it was like that deer in the parking lot -- remember? -- how I kept pummeling her, trying to turn her into a lightswitch?
I said:
I had this rare case of chicken pox once.
I think maybe that's when you said the two of us would be something someday -- that you and I could be somebodies, like Eva Gardner, or the retarded kid downtown with all those smiley buttons on his vest -- anybody, you said -- we could be so Zen -- om, you know, and with matching ottomans.
We were way up there. The trees were papery, and I said so. Also, the ground looked bedlike, so soft my eyelids fluttered, heavy with the possibility of sleep. This, for some reason, I could not say.

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