The Story, Around the Corner

is not turning the way you thought it would turn, gently, in a little spiral loop, the way a child draws the tail of a pig. What came out of your mouth, a riff of common talk. As a sudden weather shift on a beach, sky looming mountains of cloud in a way you cannot predict or guide, the story shuffles elements, darkens, takes its own side. And it is strange. Far more complicated than a few phrases pieced together around a kitchen table on a July morning in Dallas, say, a city you don’t live in, where people might shop forever or throw a thousand stories away. You who carried or told a tiny bit of it aren’t sure. Is this what we wanted? Stories wandering out, having their own free lives? Maybe they are planning something bad. A scrap or cell of talk you barely remember is growing into a weird body with many demands. One day soon it will stumble up the walk and knock, knock hard, and you will have to answer the door.