STORIES
Donald Barthelme
GREAT DAYS
- When I was a little girl I made mud pies, dangled
strings down crayfish holes hoping the idiot crayfish would
catch hold and allow themselves to be hau led into the light of
day. Snarled and cried, ate ice cream and sang "How High
the Moon." Popped the wings off crickets and floated stray Scrab–
ble pieces in ditchwater. All perfect and ordinary and perfect.
- Featherings of ease and bliss.
-I was preparing myself. Getting ready for the great day.
- Icy day with salt on all the sidewalks.
- Sketching attitudes and forming pretty speeches.
- Pitching pennies at a line scraped in the dust.
-Doing and re-doing my lustrous abundant hair.
-Man down. Center and One Eight.
- Tied flares to my extremities and wound candy canes into
my lustrous, abundant hair. Getting ready for the great day.
- For I do not deny that I am a little out of temper.
-Glitches in the system as yet unapprehended.
- Oh that clown band. Oh its sweet strains.
- Most excellent and dear friend . Who the silly season's
named for.
- My demands were not met. One, two, three, four.
- I admire your dash and address. But regret your fear and
prudence.
- Always worth making the effort, always.
- Yes that's something we do. Our damnedest. They can't
take that away from us.
- The Secretary of State cares. And the Secretary of Com–
merce.
- Yes they're clued in. We are not unprotected. Soldiers and
policemen.
- Man down. Corner of Mercer and One Six.
