Three Drabbles

COMMON PURPOSE
It is set at one o’clock we will make noise. Children banging on fence posts with bats. The deaf lady on her porch with a radio turned up full. The fellow with the busted muffler driving up and down the same block. A few brazen with contraband fireworks. One solid citizen discharging a shotgun. Some on their porches with matters of music, wrapping them rhythmically to no particular tune. A dog that howls on command. The cheerleading squad with megaphones. An idle bargeman with a pocket boat horn. A grand confabulation of community and purpose. And, at one fifteen, silence.

CRIMINAL INTENT
We built a fine jail. The contractors made money, town officials received bribes, local vendors suffered revenue increases from the construction traffic. A profitable endeavor all around. But the jail is only one-third occupied. It makes it look as though there was some poor, perhaps suspect, civic planning: that we should have known the capacity would overshoot the need. Yet, in all other aspects, it is a success, something our town is proud of. It is not too much to ask citizens to schedule a misdemeanor now and again. We coordinate with the sheriff. Citizen sacrifice can save the project.

UNFAITHFUL
Sitting at a café, where the sun strafes the impoverished dining area at unfortunate angles, I notice that my shadow has fallen in with the shadow of a nearby woman. While she and I are not bundled together, we are sufficiently within each other’s orbit that our manufactured darkness mingles. With but a little movement, I can create a combined shadow that bares but three arms, and then two arms, and, twisting, exposes four. The shadow torso shrinks and expands as I contort. I could do this all afternoon. It is as close to infidelity as I will ever come.