same Theo same

seattle gothic

- if you have an umbrella you are treated with fear and suspicion. "it is raining," your friend says. they are not from around here. "why don't you use an umbrella?" it is not raining, not really. you are somewhat damp even with your windbreaker on. you treat them with fear and suspicion.

- "don't go too close to the troll," everyone says. "especially at night." the troll is menacing at night. you go near the troll anyways. the people trapped in the car under his stone hand scream at you. the next day you do not remember anything except a bone-chilling fear. "don't go too close to the troll," you tell your children. "especially at night."

- there is a ghost playing the accordion in pike place market. you turn around and there he is again. people walk through him. ignore the ghost with the accordion. he never leaves pike place market.

- the bus is always late. "why is the bus late," someone asks. everyone at the bus stop steps away from them, sharing glances. the bus will never come now.

- someone from out of state wonders what winter in seattle is like. nobody answers. the answer is that there is no such thing as winter in seattle. there are only two seasons in seattle: gray and seafair.

- everything is gray. the sky is gray, the sea is gray, the streets are gray. you would be convinced that everything is in grayscale, but the person behind the counter of the starbucks has bright pink hair. is that gray? it does not look gray. you are convinced that it is gray. after all, everything is gray.

- seafair is the only week of the year that it is sunny in seattle. "what was seafair like?" you ask. you do not remember. you distantly remember that the sun comes out during seafair. it is always sunny during seafair.

- "the mountain is out," you hear, whispered, passed around between strangers in a tone of fear and awe. everyone is waiting for the mountain. the mountain is going to do something. is it an omen if the mountain is out? the mountain is going to do something.

- the ferries disappear into the gloom, blaring their foghorns. they need them to see through the clouds that descend upon puget sound, and to announce their presence to the thing that lives at the bottom of it. passengers throw crumbs and empty coffee cups over the side to appease it. if the foghorn goes silent, you know what has happened.

- the starbucks multiply. you turn around and there is another starbucks. there are already five starbucks on this block. "i'm going to starbucks," you tell your mother, and even though there are so many of them, she never asks which one, because there is really only one starbucks.

- sometimes the ground beneath your feet trembles a little bit. sometimes this means that the sand that has held seattle up is starting to disappear. more likely it is because all of the people wearing the number 12 have congregated in the same place for three hours, and the ground is afraid. still, everyone stops, because everyone is still waiting for the big one, when the sand that has held seattle up disappears completely.

- the space needle is always there in your peripheral vision. you attempt to look at it directly. it is never there. "i want to go to the space needle," your out of town relatives insist. "the space needle is never there," you say. "i want to go to the space needle," they cry. it is never there. your relatives attempt to go to the space needle. you do not hear from them again.

- every day, people wearing pressed suits swarm around the tower of darkness that stands tall in the middle of seattle. its top disappears into the gloom. the people with suits move with purpose, disappearing into the black tower. everyone else stands clear when they walk down the sidewalk, because they are always going to the tower of darkness, and they always move with purpose.

- "bigfoot doesn't exist," your out of town friends laugh, and venture across the sound to bigfoot's hunting grounds among the gray mountains and gray fog and gray trees of the olympic peninsula. "you're wrong," you whisper, trembling. they never come back. you see your friends on a "missing persons" segment of the local news and shake your head. "you're wrong."

- ken griffey jr's baseball bat disappears in broad daylight. you blink and it has reappeared. where does ken griffey jr's baseball bat go? you do not know. it does not matter, because it is always there when you blink again.

- we built a woman with a pointy nose, named her bertha, and sent her to dig for us beneath the earth. she gets stuck there. what happened to her? she does not want to dig anymore, but everyone insists that she has to. why is she digging? what happened to her?

- sometimes if you look down there is glass: a window to the underground. do not look too long. the windows are purple and will suck you in if you stare. be careful around the windows and do not look too long. your sister did not heed this warning, and nobody remembers her anymore.

- "i'm from washington," you say. "dc?" they ask. "no, i'm from seattle." they treat you with fear and suspicion. sometimes you forget that yours is not a state that exists.