Oz

Reposted from elsewhere, where the writing prompt was to begin with: 

“in a tree outside my bedroom window, I knew something lived…”

I could see the city of 7 hills I call Oz, jewel-like and tiny in the distance.

People flow in and out like the tide

Or they did until the world stopped and we wondered why we did things the way we did them

People live there in expensive houses and on stained sidewalks. So cold every day except for that bright one that makes tourists move there, increasing their sweatshirt collection threefold before the change of address has even been registered.

Oz wears a grey coat, and I don’t recognize her when she wears colors. I center my childhood in the grey. In the late summer, Oz turns her face to the sunset, giving us alternate facets of orange in her windows, lozenges of joy challenging the pink sky for our attention.

On the happiest of days, she hides safe and tight in a white ostrich plume cape, with only the pointy shrimp fork identifying her presence. Three generations of women have lived under this magical down that does not warm the chill.

Today she is unextraordinary, as extraordinary things must be in order for us to appreciate them. A siren calls, from near and not far, my eyes retreat across the distance back to an ordinary room, an ordinary chair, the sense of touch on that chair, an exhale.

in a tree outside my bedroom window, I knew something lived…