Small Places : Nick L Belardes [51 of 128]

• She drove me home, unbuttoned her blouse and said, "They look real don't they? I need celery. I'm so organic. I don't even lift anymore..."
• She continued: “I was just too inhuman then. You know, all apple and no stem? Couldn’t see nothin’ but lumps I was so bloated everywhere.”
• She didn’t stop talking.
• "I had no neck. Now I eat sushi. I want to open a sushi bar but I'm afraid I might have to learn some Japanese. So, how are your apples?"
• I'll get back to the fabulous Katie Starburn. For the moment I'm locked in my cubicle, paralyzed. I think it's the email I just read.
• It's a coffee-related email sent to all Buildicon personnel. Apparently the secretary is on the fritz about coffee stirrers. Not good news.
• Like any cubicle worker, I think, "Don't mess with our coffee!" If there's a balance to corporate cubicle existence, coffee provides it.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [50 of 128]

• The entire Buildicon office is turning into a claymation of its former self.
• Milt Butterlink's spider bites have healed. That doesn't keep him from wandering over to my desk and babbling. I try to focus in.
• Milt looks like he's chewing when he talks. So I look at his nose instead. There's something hanging there like some wild flea circus.
• Even though he's still talking, all I hear is "Boogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerbooger..."
• I consider telling Milt that a booger is doing some kind of high-flying act between nostrils. I almost wish I had a bag of peanuts.
• He's talking about the company party I never go to and brags about dancing in leather on a table. I consider his booger act YouTube worthy.
• Sixteen.
• Katie Starburns was once an organic bodybuilder. I guess that means everything but steroids. Anyway, she's got the body of a Greek goddess.
• She's statuesque with marble-like cleavage. Only hers? Silicon. I think her skin is real. Not that I touched it or she hasn't offered.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [49 of 128]

• I see Mulani's shape in sparks. I see her shape in the sand, in imaginary bioluminescence. I hear laughter, crackling flames, ocean roars.
• Buoys bounce in the dark sea. Waves crest and crash. The sand is cool next to me. A sand crab wanders close, moving like a sideways glance.
• I drift off to sleep feeling so infinitesimal that I can understand the small places between grains of sand. There's electricity in them.
• I can leap from each. A billion stepping stones to an uncertain future. The spaces become wider, the leaps longer. I try to grow wings.
• Fifteen.
• Working for a corporation is like taking the end result--life's grand statue of me--and re-sculpting into a big worthless block of clay.
• Some, like Joan or Milt, are practically monoliths at their desk. Think about it. What happens to our personalities in cubicle culture?
• Buildicon's idea of team-building is turning us all into big cubes. We'll never escape our cubicles: products of a product-driven company.
• I'm beginning to think there's more of me in the worthless Happy Meal toy I brought back from lunch. I put it on the shelf with the others.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [48 of 128]

• Mulani passes me. She's a faster runner, more athletic than I ever knew. I get winded in the sand and have to stop.
• I'm a failure at rescue. I never should have watched Baywatch. They were out of my league all along.
• I gasp while Mulani comforts Vishnu with kisses and hugs. I put my hands on my knees as Mike comes stumbling,
• pretending he's mental with the whole episode. For some reason he's a natural. Mike: "I murder little kids for Frisbee.
• Now I go to car and we go back to institution." Like an insane man he stumbles across the sand.
• Lying on the sand in the dark I feel like Buildicon's cubicles have been lifted from around me. I imagine them shooting into the heavens.
• I look up, play dot to dot, connect unseen lines into Mulani's shape.
• She's about to wad the moon like paper from Buildicon's faulty printer. Not too far away there's a fire in the sand.
• Mike is building it. Sparks fly. Vishnu is drinking heavily. Mulani is humming quietly. I suddenly feel small again.
• I'm the ant shaman in the tiny farm. Even a fleck of dust shines brighter than me. A star shoots across the sky.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [47 of 128]

• She wrinkles her brow in confusion. My hands never quite reach her waist as I suddenly turn and run down the pier.
• Two porpoise leap and make their way along the coastline. I know what Vishnu is thinking. The dolt thinks he sees sharks.
• Vishnu’s hands are up by his face in disbelief. He screams and runs, falls, gets up, screams and runs then repeats the process once more.
• Mike simply throws his arms in the air. He walks around clumsily on the sand for a few moments, then picks up some seaweed.
• Suddenly Mike starts screaming as if he’s seen some kind of sea creature more frightening than the sharks in Vishnu’s imagination.
• Mocking Vishnu, Mike covers his chest with his hands and falls to the ground pretending to die. He convulses. He kicks his legs out.
• A couple of kids walk up and kick sand on him then take his Frisbee and run.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [46 of 128]

• She leans over the pier railing. Her skin is dark. There is a shine to it in the hot sun and I suddenly want to hold her.
• I want to touch her shoulder, wrap myself around her waist and feel her lips. She turns and looks into my eyes.
• She gazes and starts smiling. Mulani turns and looks over the sand and sea. "China is so far away," she says.
• "Are you the kind of person who would take me there?" I don't have to think about this: "Sure. Why wouldn't I?"
• Mulani: "There are things I need to do and see but I'm afraid." Me: "I know."
• Down below, a few large waves roll across the surf. I sneak closer. I want to put my arms around her waist. She can sense it too.
• "Tell me what you're feeling," she says. It's as if she knows what I'm feeling--that I can't shake her, or this, or anything about her.
• I'm about to answer when my eyes move from Mulani down below to Vishnu who just dropped the Frisbee. He points to the ocean.
• If I had watched Mulani I would have seen something in her eyes just then I had never seen: the same adoration I feel for her perhaps?

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [45 of 128]

• "People from your city, your family, your neighborhood and outlying villages celebrate this festival for 5,000 years.
• "Customs are as ancient as the streets and air. All around you are lights and smiles. There are great temples and wide festival streets.
• "You stop for a pastry delicacy smothered in cheese. The ancients walked the same road, ate the same food,
• prepared in exactly the same way. "You see, a roll is not just a roll. It is a cultural artifact constantly remade in the likeness
• of its former self. "Every day they are reborn and you can have another. Time overlaps.
• This is the enlightenment of the roll," Vishnu says. Mike doesn't get it. On the pier I have a moment alone with Mulani.
• Far below we can see Vishnu and Mike tossing a Frisbee across the sand.
• Each dives over sea kelp and jellyfish carcasses to catch passes. Occasionally Mulani waves down to them while we walk.