#10

The Bench’s Dream

written by Mathias Svalina

I am at a wedding at which two benches are joining together to form together as a set of benches. They have agreed to sit beside one another, come sunshine or come snow, come overdevelopment or urban blight, to be with one another through fresh graffiti & the fading of the graffiti & through whatever appalling things humans might leave beneath them. My mother is here at the wedding. She is also a bench. I would not have expected mt mother to be invited to this wedding. After the two benches exchange vows, my mother moves to the center of the ceremony. My mother smears plaster over herself, then strategically places leaves over every part of herself, until the whole bench of her is layered in leaves, until at some point, she is no longer a bench & she is now a bush. This transformation is symbolic, I say to the bench beside me, a cute bench you do not know but whom I have been casually eyeing all day. Symbolic of what? the cute bench says. Of everything, I say. As you say this, the bush that had been the bench that was my mother, suddenly, all at once, blooms in yellow petals.