Gail Oare

Lamination

The report says that the 12-year-old boy burned in the house fire a week earlier has died. This story, in broken and faded type, is only one of several appearing on page one of the 1901 newspaper reproduced as the cover of this menu. Another article expresses concern for the drought and how produce prices will be affected. Meanwhile the hospital corridor where a mother sits darkens.

It is now 2018 and every night this mother’s grief wraps around a list of soups and salads. When another hungry group swings through the door of the grill the waiter scoops up a handful of menus and the diners follow him to a table. With frosty beers in hand, they look over the dinner specials under the glow of a light replicating an early twentieth century gas lamp. In the soft shadows, a report announces that the 12-year-old boy burned in the house fire a week earlier has died.

summer sunset
the bicycle handlebar
still burning