Ice Cream Parlor

by STEPHEN SMITH

illustration by MARIE-LOUISE BENNETT

The woman has a gold stud through her tongue, her companion a snarling tiger tattooed on his neck. They hover over cups of Crazy Vanilla and Chunky Chocolate as she describes the final scene from an old Tom Hanks movie in which a single white feather is lifted on a breeze to float gently through the universe. “It’s symbolic of death and rebirth,” she says, and claims the movie’s protagonist is dying as he sits on a bench pondering his young son’s passage into tomorrow. The woman with the studded tongue says the feather’s random motion is evocative of fate and free will and that we are all reborn with our final breath, our souls gently ascending. The man with the tiger tattoo sees it differently: “Sometimes,” he says, “you’re just full of it.” And there, in the sumptuous clamor of the ice cream parlor, you become aware of a cold certainty that has nothing to do with feathers or movies or tattoos or tasty confections or the clear blue sky or the universe about which the stud-tongued woman is so emphatic on this spring morning when you are again reminded that for every bright romantic notion there’s a spiteful truth that will crush it.

Stephen Smith’s Beguiled by the Frailties of Those Who Precede Us will be published this spring by Kelsay Books.

Shades Of Gray

Designer Martha Schneider of La Maison Atelier pulled inspiration for this apartment’s living room from two images from photographer Tess Atkinson’s Dogwood Series on the wall. The living area opens to the dining area, which continues on to a balcony.