Louis Stettner, Les Alpilles No. 1, 2013 (Website)
Black and white photography, 30 x 40 cm
©The Estate of Louis Stettner, 2019
Once, there was a house in the woods that was always in danger of falling down. The mother paid to have it fixed with new beams, but in hurricane season it shuddered all the same. In the basement, the water rose up.
The father was a gold ring in a cup. The children slept through daylight in odd corners, sometimes a cat lain like a holy book beneath one palm.
The eldest daughter had a car old enough to drink legally, and she loved it like a talking horse. She watched the dials, popped the hood, unscrewed the reservoir and filled it to the lip with burning blue antifreeze straight from the jug. She loved how she could take care of it like that—could open its surface and look at the parts: which were hurt, and which were doing fine. This is a story about fixing things on time.
Once, the mother said, if you leave again, don’t come back. The eldest was always about to leave, so she took the Atlas of North America, her dad’s Swiss Army knife, the wool blanket, and the copy of 1001 Arabian Nights. When she was in danger, the Atlas wouldn’t sing. The blanket threads did not quicken time. What she took was out of spite.
At night, she idled by the back gardens of big houses, shut her headlamps, took down their hose, watered her car and snuck away. During the day, curled in sun and pollen on the front seat, parked by the river, she found ways to sleep.
She dreamed of broken floors, loose teeth, a horse skull that speaks and speaks.