He stumbles through sentences, forgetting whether verbs come last or second or first. He confuses the order of pronouns, putting ‘I’ before ‘you,’ and ‘me’ before ‘her.’ He is failing a simple test, running interference between the Germanic and the Romantic, thinking of the ends and beginnings of his story.
Laundry flutters against the slack breeze. Bumblebees bombard gooseberry bushes. We maneuver the broken fence. Lay naked in their kiddie pool, bodies pretzel-like, jagged.
A funeral procession moved through the narrow, cobblestone streets of Burano. Four men carried the coffin on their shoulders. They were followed by people wearing mourning black. I would have you for another ten years. I didn’t know. The Italian winter light was brighter, warmer, than we expected.
Tommy Dean interviews Robert Vaughan about his micro fictions in New Micro (W.W. Norton & Co, 2018)
The animal life here has grown robust: the roaches, the mice, the creatures who are late for work and tunneling underground.