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April 12, 2004

up-to-date kings in meadows

To wrap up the holidays, I asked to be taken to my favourite ice cream parlour. It’s a term favoured by old people, as Chris pointed out the other night. The church bells have been ringing all through this Easter Sunday, their echoes retained into thick, looming clouds, and in such occasions, the Bilboquet fills up with old people and their grandkids, which is how the word parlour spreads out.

In turn, the children explain the etymology of the famed St-Laurent frappé, a delicious brown mixture of all knowned Slushies syrups. “We used to swim in this river, you know”, gently scold the grandparents. The kids keep jumping up and down on their seats, shooting little ice cubes out of giant straws, as they are being lectured on the Inquisition. We take our blue raspberry cones and go outside. Easter Day! What a breather. The sky is clearing up in a new salvo of bells, and we sit under the parasol, the place I have long for all winter.

“Look at my lips”, you say. “They are blue, and so are yours. We are of the same kind.” Earlier that day, as I was relunctantly scraping the candied eyes off my bunny, rolling them up for you in silky paper because they are your favourite part, I was reminded of the way you sometimes would bring up our commun ancestors, and how it is that you don’t like chocolate. “I am not sure of this”, I reply, as you caught my feet between yours, under the table. “I really am not sure.”

Posted by nathalie at April 12, 2004 4:12 PM