Time For Another Transformation by Purple Mark

 

“Where are your feet, your shoulders, hands, complexion, Your -

All of you? Why not transform me also?” Tom pleaded

with the other for a like miracle for his aging self.

The other man stood in an outpouring of light transfixed between

the extremes of agony and ecstasy in his transformation: it was

the death of one self and the birth of another.

When it was complete, the new man asked, “You sent it on?”

Tom had been hunched in the corner, repairing a shuttered box

in cramped shed halfway up the tower.

The other was a younger man now, whereas he had been old,

old enough to be mistaken for Tom’s brother though they

looked nothing alike as he was an Indian or had been one.

“Remember when you took that fire ax, jumped up on the B.I.A.

Commissioner’s big, mahogany desk and split it into?”

“How could I forget? You had to rescue me from jail.”

“Ready to roll?” Tom covered in snow halfway through the door

asked the other. “Got the box ready, are you?” The other nodded.

Sometimes these transformations were unstable for awhile.

“We’ll have to find you new clothes. Since you’re not an Indian

now, you can hardly wear those old things.” The old things were

a battered hat that the Hopi favored and a beaded fringed jacket.

Another life beckoned, it was time to leave the remains of this one

and go. Soon, he would be gone from here to travel on the wind

and only the wind would be able to guess his next destination.

---Purple Mark 011412

 
 

Purple Mark's' Prompts:                                                                         

1. “Where are your feet, your shoulders, hands, complexion, your - all of you? Why not transform me also?” P. Ovidius Naso translated by Rolfe Humfries. Perseus In Metamorphosis. (Indiana University Press, 1983).
2. “'You sent it on?' said granddad. Granddad had been hunched in the corner, repairing a shutter box in this cramped shed halfway up the tower." Terry Pratchett. Going Postal. (Harper Collins, 2004).
3. “One old grandfather, a victim of the B.I.A. throughout his life, took a fire ax, jumped up on the B.I.A. Commissioner’s big mahogany desk and split it into!” Leonard Peltier. Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance. (St. Martin’s/Griffon, 1999).
4. “'Ready to roll?' Tom covered with snow, was halfway in the front door, 'got a box ready.'" Diane Mott Davidson. Tough Cookies. (Bantam Books, 2000).