Fiction — April 23, 2013 13:18 — 0 Comments

City Lighthouse 4 – John Osebold

NOT LYDIA is not named Lydia. She sits on a park bench one day and sees a mountain hovering over a parking lot. Such a thing! Her brain alights trying to figure it out but instead a piano is on fire underground. She can’t stop crying it’s so beautiful.

A single lightbulb flickers on and a voiceover describes things you’re not seeing.

A dead man sits with his back turned to us. We realize we’re outside. It’s night and we can’t speak. We just watch the dead man and wonder what his face is.

NOT LYDIA spends an entire montage traveling to the mountains but they keep getting farther away. So she digs down into the earth. She digs for two days. Finally, she finds a hatch. On the hatch is a lock. On the lock is a map. On the map is a mountain. On the mountain is NOT LYDIA. She looks down. Miles below her is a parking lot.

Bio:

John Osebold writes short stories, unstageable plays, speeches, things that look like poetry, and lots of jokes on twitter/facebook. Some of these bits have appeared in Filter Literary Journal, Folio, Monarch, and City Arts Magazine, where he maintains a monthly mini column. He also makes stage shows, live music, and recordings as Jose Bold, including a free December album at josebold.com, and is a member of a band called "Awesome" and a sketch comedy group called The Habit.

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The answer isn't poetry, but rather language

- Richard Kenney