Waiting for the movie

November 5, 1984

Something barnlike belies the carpet and curtain. The gravelly sound of jaws and popcorn underfoot make the percussive music of ruminant waiting. Drifts of spilled kernels leave the butter-slick floor bedded in cinematic silage. Almost, I expect a rumbling moo to well up from this aisle or that. After all, is this not a room of dreams? May not the Guernseys of surmise stamp, chew, and low the whimsy of their being in such a place of reverie? Does not one elaborate metaphor call up another echoed by the fact?