“passages. “This is it,” Karl says, rapping a shutter.
Against the building, someone has left a cat climber. It’s marshmallow pink and shaped like a furry birthday cake. A yellow streak of dog urine, she hopes it’s dog, runs down the outside of the cake and between their feet. “It must be a hallucination,” Karl says. He puts his arm around her while he asks Grok for another shelter, a real one. She thinks that’s a bad idea, but if she speaks she’ll cry.”
It wasn’t clear to me what Karl’s ‘it’ was. The shelter I worked out. And then the significance of that object - tell me cat climber out of context and I didn’t pick up on what it was. And then it’s ’like a cake’ and then you say it is a cake. You signify the urine - is there an ascending or descending scale of urine, one being better than another? And finally because there’s a cat climber there does that mean it’s not a shelter?
Ha. And now I’ve written a lot. But like I said I like this a lot.
Thanks, Drew! I’m always grateful for your thoughts. You’ve helped me see there’s a dropped beat in there of Karl rapping the shutter again probably. In terms of urine, context is everything and the scale is deeply personal. For me, if I’m trapped in a surreal fable in a city that’s being bombed, dog is probably better than tiger
I enjoyed this. But this section:
“passages. “This is it,” Karl says, rapping a shutter.
Against the building, someone has left a cat climber. It’s marshmallow pink and shaped like a furry birthday cake. A yellow streak of dog urine, she hopes it’s dog, runs down the outside of the cake and between their feet. “It must be a hallucination,” Karl says. He puts his arm around her while he asks Grok for another shelter, a real one. She thinks that’s a bad idea, but if she speaks she’ll cry.”
It wasn’t clear to me what Karl’s ‘it’ was. The shelter I worked out. And then the significance of that object - tell me cat climber out of context and I didn’t pick up on what it was. And then it’s ’like a cake’ and then you say it is a cake. You signify the urine - is there an ascending or descending scale of urine, one being better than another? And finally because there’s a cat climber there does that mean it’s not a shelter?
Ha. And now I’ve written a lot. But like I said I like this a lot.
Thanks, Drew! I’m always grateful for your thoughts. You’ve helped me see there’s a dropped beat in there of Karl rapping the shutter again probably. In terms of urine, context is everything and the scale is deeply personal. For me, if I’m trapped in a surreal fable in a city that’s being bombed, dog is probably better than tiger
Excellent, especially the ending
Thanks Ellen!