Random Sequence

Scenario 7 (excerpt 4)

Harley sat in a plastic seat at the laundromat, savoring the white noise and watching his clothes spin endlessly through the porthole in the big, blue dryer. As his multicolored t-shirts, jeans and boxer shorts whirled around, he felt himself drifting into yet another reverie. He was back at the arboretum, and Natalie was there, alive, and pruning a ficus. "Figs are fibrous," she was saying, in a sing-song voice. "Every Bozo knows that." "Mmmm," Harley replied. "Mmmmmm. Mmm." He wasn't able to speak. The idea of having a fig inside his mouth, and the soft, yielding resistance it would make against his teeth, made him feel slightly louche. Natalie pouted and sat on his lap. Then she blew in his ear. He pictured tiny tumbleweeds rolling across an open newspaper. One of them stopped on the phrase "narcoleptic whirlybird". Suddenly a buzzer sounded. Harley was back in the laundromat, a widower staring at a pile of laundry in a big, blue dryer. He stood up, shoved some more coins into the machine, pressed the start button, and sat down to dream.