lucyoncolorado

In which I stomp across a farting bean field in the nextdoor neighbor's backyard...

I jump the fence into my neighbors' backyard and am surprised that I land in shallow water. They have converted their entire yard into a rice paddy. Instead of green plants protruding to the surface, there is a layer of dried white rice carpeting the ground beneath the water. As I slosh through the field, hard rice sticks to my feet.

I look for a path to their backdoor that will cause the least damage to their crops. About halfway through their yard, I notice that I'm now walking over dried black beans also submerged in water. With each step, gas bubbles rise up to the surface and then float up into the air where they pop with a loud toot. They stink like farts. This is hilarious to me, and I start sloshing through the been field tooting up a smelly ruckus while singing, Beans, beans, the perfect fruit, the more I stomp, the more they toot!

My neighbor steps outside. What are you doing?

I freeze. I look at her. I lift one foot into the air, then stomp it down hard through the water to smush a bean beneath. A single bubble rises to the surface then pops in the air, releasing a green smelly gas. I giggle. Get it? I say, They're beans! And they cause farts! I laugh hysterically, out loud with my mouth open.

My neighbor just stares at me. She has a butterfly tattooed across her face, its wings spread open across her eyes as if it were a party mask.

Is that a real tattoo? I ask her. I can't believe she'd tattoo her face permanently. I look away, pretty convinced that when I look back at her, her face will be different. I just barely perceive some feeling that somehow, the appearance of things can be changed if I just will it to be that way. I can't quite remember why this might be true, but I'm pretty sure I can do it. I stare at my feet through the water and think really hard about her face being different when I look back. But when I look back at her, no; there is still a butterfly tattooed across her face.

It's real. Do you like it? The work is undeniably beautiful, but I can't get over the fact that there will now be a giant butterfly across her face forever. I try to get used to the idea.

Face tattoos are all the rage in Ohio, she says.