GARDEN
In high school, a girl from another country arrives to stay with us. She's very sweet and also obviously very lonely. I can hear her crying to herself at night. I get out of bed and stand, listening to her, but I don't know what to do.
One day when everyone is out I sneak into her room. My heart is pounding. I go over to the closet and look with trembling hands through her clothes. I go over to her immaculate bed. At its foot sits the blue wooden trunk , painted with flowers, that all of us admired on the day she arrived. After a moment of second thoughts, I lift the lid. Inside are rows of pots: softly colored little flowers grow in them. Their hues are of a delicacy I've never seen before; their scent is exquisite and unfamiliar. I close the lid, agitated strangely.
That night I lie awake, listening. I hear her. I get out of bed and go to my door and stand there. Then I go out into the dark hall, up to her door. I listen. Softly I try the handle.
She is kneeling in front of the blue box. It's open. She is barefoot, in a white nightdress. She turns her head when I call her name. Tears run down her face in the moonlight. I think she looks extraordinarily beautiful. "Are you all right?" I whisper. She looks at me, and she nods. "I'm just watering my flowers," she tells me softly.
SNOT
I am sitting across from a girl on the subway. She's beautiful. I watch her pick her nose. She licks what comes out on her fingertip. At the next stop she gets off and I follow her. "You know," I say, drawing beside her on the stairs, "you're very lovely, but eating what you pick from your nose does a disservice to it."
We go to her apartment to make love. Afterwards, she lolls against me. She rubs between her toes and tastes what she finds. I take her wrist sharply. "Honestly!" I tell her. "Where did you get these appalling habits?" She shrugs. She laughs, impishly. "Make some tea," she says.
I sit at the table, sipping tea, when she returns from going to the bathroom. As she picks up her mug, my gaze drifts down to her thighs under my robe. I splutter in my cup, pointing: trickles of urine make their way down. I roll my eyes and shake my head and hold up my hands helplessly.
"Barry Yourgrau manages to articulate your most bugged-out daydreams" - Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys
"There's no other writer alive like Barry Yourgrau."- Jerry Stahl (author of Perv & Permanent Midnight)
Writer & spoken-wordster Barry Yourgrau writes strange dreamlike books of short twisted stories. He also starred in the movie of his book, The Sadness of Sex, with Peta Wilson. Barry's earliest books are little classics--Wearing Dad's Head & A Man Jumps Out of An Airplane (excerpted here). His latest, Haunted Traveller, about fantastic travels, was an Amazon.com Travel Editor Top 10 Pick.
Barry was seen on MTV Unplugged's first Spoken Word special. He's often on NPR. As a film actor he debuted as an A-bomb scientist (Fat Man and Little Boy). But he's most proud of starring in an Anthrax music video, featuring Gena Elfman as a teen runaway.
Barry can be reached via yourgrau.com.
In high school, a girl from another country arrives to stay with us. She's very sweet and also obviously very lonely. I can hear her crying to herself at night. I get out of bed and stand, listening to her, but I don't know what to do.
One day when everyone is out I sneak into her room. My heart is pounding. I go over to the closet and look with trembling hands through her clothes. I go over to her immaculate bed. At its foot sits the blue wooden trunk , painted with flowers, that all of us admired on the day she arrived. After a moment of second thoughts, I lift the lid. Inside are rows of pots: softly colored little flowers grow in them. Their hues are of a delicacy I've never seen before; their scent is exquisite and unfamiliar. I close the lid, agitated strangely.
That night I lie awake, listening. I hear her. I get out of bed and go to my door and stand there. Then I go out into the dark hall, up to her door. I listen. Softly I try the handle.
She is kneeling in front of the blue box. It's open. She is barefoot, in a white nightdress. She turns her head when I call her name. Tears run down her face in the moonlight. I think she looks extraordinarily beautiful. "Are you all right?" I whisper. She looks at me, and she nods. "I'm just watering my flowers," she tells me softly.
SNOT
I am sitting across from a girl on the subway. She's beautiful. I watch her pick her nose. She licks what comes out on her fingertip. At the next stop she gets off and I follow her. "You know," I say, drawing beside her on the stairs, "you're very lovely, but eating what you pick from your nose does a disservice to it."
We go to her apartment to make love. Afterwards, she lolls against me. She rubs between her toes and tastes what she finds. I take her wrist sharply. "Honestly!" I tell her. "Where did you get these appalling habits?" She shrugs. She laughs, impishly. "Make some tea," she says.
I sit at the table, sipping tea, when she returns from going to the bathroom. As she picks up her mug, my gaze drifts down to her thighs under my robe. I splutter in my cup, pointing: trickles of urine make their way down. I roll my eyes and shake my head and hold up my hands helplessly.
"Barry Yourgrau manages to articulate your most bugged-out daydreams" - Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys
"There's no other writer alive like Barry Yourgrau."- Jerry Stahl (author of Perv & Permanent Midnight)
Writer & spoken-wordster Barry Yourgrau writes strange dreamlike books of short twisted stories. He also starred in the movie of his book, The Sadness of Sex, with Peta Wilson. Barry's earliest books are little classics--Wearing Dad's Head & A Man Jumps Out of An Airplane (excerpted here). His latest, Haunted Traveller, about fantastic travels, was an Amazon.com Travel Editor Top 10 Pick.
Barry was seen on MTV Unplugged's first Spoken Word special. He's often on NPR. As a film actor he debuted as an A-bomb scientist (Fat Man and Little Boy). But he's most proud of starring in an Anthrax music video, featuring Gena Elfman as a teen runaway.
Barry can be reached via yourgrau.com.
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