Self Storage

 When we were little, my brothers and I had to figure things out for ourselves. We lived by

the interstate with the surf-sounds of traffic and the downshift of diesels in a self-storage

facility that was so vast we never saw our parents. One day we went out looking for them

and that day never ended. We’d pull up the doors of the storage units like huge roll-top

desks and find Air Force wives dressed like astronauts sitting on rented leather sectionals.

Sometimes we’d find aging ballerinas in ill-fitting tights or men in gray suits wearing football

helmets, but usually we’d just find dead mice and echoes. 

Once I found a hidden corridor littered with deer hunting magazines and Playboys. We lit pages to find our way, but the corridor seemed to lengthen with our footsteps. Finally, it led us to the local mall where we bought a pewter dragon that was holding a magic crystal, but by the time we got back home, the crystal had chipped off its glue base and was lost among the dead deer and nudity of the corridor. The next day we opened up a unit and found Langston Hughes. Please, I asked him, We live on Peter Pan, and lose our keys and shoes frequently. Are we right unscheduled?  Will you tell us some true thing? There was a silence, strange and profound as the absence of birds. 

When we were little, my brothers and I had to figure things out for ourselves.