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                              A MAGAZINE OF FICTION, POETRY & MORE!
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     ZYGOTE
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ISSUE #14

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July 2004
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"THE GREEN BUG"
by John Dorsey
Rice Patterson inserted a tarnished silver coin into the machine, and then slowly reached a tired hand inside for his morning paper.  The simple pleasures.

The room was the brightest shade of pink.  This left the thought of summer carnivals, and the odd shape of his mother's breasts. How they would suckle the swollen summer sun in Mexico.  The shear thought of it nearly swallowed him whole.

This room was like all of the others he had seen.  Colorful without expressing anything of the life the place was trying to represent.  This was the "The Green Bug".

It could've been about class once.  Race, age, and maybe even time, which had stood the test of love.

For Rice this soiled full service hotel of sorts, represented all of these things.  It was his family, and he treated it as such, laughing at its yellowing pink highlights with indifference.

Why his father had choosen this place as the family vacation spot was beyond him, and yet it was all so simple.  It could all be boiled down to the penis.  His father had one, and this was the place to use it.  Still, that was a long time ago.  The only reason he was bringing his own son here, was because his usual summer camp had filled up early this year.

In truth, Richard was not very good looking, and a place like this might do him some good.  He was at that tender age, where even the mention of original sin, brought on a river of sweat.

Bringing the rest of his family had not been Rice's idea.  Beth would take polaroids of swollen vaginas, and point with zeal at the outcome of sustained motion.  His daughter, what would she do?  Probably because a conservative Republican/lesbian.  This he was sure of.

Rice removed a lavender sweater from his worn leather suitcase.  He pulled it over his wrinkled white t-shirt, and straitened the sides of his graying black hair.  He contemplated middle age for just a second, and then walked out into the hall.  

Beth greeted him with a smile, and her camera.  She had been out shopping.  He frowned at the sight of the camera, and it seemed to frown right back at him in reply.

Rice placed his arm around his wife, and walked to the end of the hallway.  He stopped, and slowly removed a pair of brown wire rimmed glasses from the left side pocket of his Bermuda shorts.  He then peered into the door closest to the lobby.

A fair haired boy stood naked on a large canopy bed taking a rather robust middle aged woman from behind.  By the beds side sat a teenage girl with large oval shaped blue eyes, and a large tablet.  She had a pencil placed in her hand, catching the scent of emotion.  Inside the robust woman's mouth was a golden apple with a green ladybug on one side.

Rice walked on with pride, as Richard played cowboys and indians in his mind.  At least he liked to imagine that he was just riding a horse sometimes.  Maybe through the bottom of the Grand Canyon. 

As Rice walked outside into the summer sun, he could see his uncle Archie down by the picnic tables.  The old man sat waving.  So did the rest of the family.  Aunt Rose, cousin Buck, the twins, and even his own mother.

...Rice thought for a brief moment. 

"Yes, a this might seem like a strange place for a vacation, hideaway, or reunion of anykind, to please the afinity of age."
***BIO*** John Dorsey is 27yrs old, and has been working in the small press since the age of 15.  He is the author 7 chapbooks and several broadsides, as well as the uncoming chapbook "Word Hustling Manifesto" with Debbie Kirk, and Little Boy Beat: Selected Poems from Paladin Music & Ent, inc.  His work has recently appeared in fearless, poesy, babel magazine, shoes magazine, children, churches & daddies, and the blindman's rainbow, amongst others.  He will also have work in upcoming issues of Mystery Island,  and The James River Poetry Review.