PUNK PROSE: Sometimes We Outgrow Things by Epiphany Ferrell

Sometimes We Outgrow Things

 

My husband collects things that are brown. Sepia, mahogany, burnt sienna, cocoa, taupe – all the browns you can think of, in nature and in Pantone. It’s a grounding color. He needs grounding. 

He’s easy to buy presents for, though – anything brown. He was overjoyed when I presented him with the copper replica of a motorbike he had when he was young. He displays it with a brown-uniformed action figure of some alien or something, I don’t know what it is. The action figure is barely taller than the wheels on the copper motorbike. 

“Perfect proportions,” my husband says, beaming. “That’s how small I felt compared to my motorbike. God the power in that thing!” 

I’ve seen pictures, it was a 200cc is all. But I don’t want to question his bravery.

“Chicks dig motorbikes,” he tells me. “My teacher told me in fifth grade.”

I picture him, putting along the street, the back of his seat empty, him in goggles and an aviator’s abandoned helmet, cruising for chicks. At age 11. 

“Marriage is a trap,” he tells me gleefully, forgetting for the moment that we are married.

He’ll spend the next few days vrooming his copper motorbike along the back of the couch, the kitchen counter. He’ll make a show of trying to jam the undersized action figure on the seat.

--Epiphany Ferrell