The Whole Party

Glitter and gold

I have the good corner. Warm grate. Gold breath coming up through the black bars. My corner. Mine. I see everything that crosses. Red hoof. White pony. Red hoof. White pony. Wait. Go. Wait. Go. The whole world is trained if you watch long enough. I saw her first. Coming down the hill in her little blue carriage. Blue like the hard candy they give you at Christmas. Blue like the clean piece of sky between buildings. Window open. Yellow hair moving. Song already playing. La la la. Not those words. But like that. A pink song. A yellow song. A song with its shoes off. I saw the other carriage too. Big gray one. Gray as old snow. Fast. Too fast. Coming from the cross street while the red hoof said wait. Wait. Wait. WAIT. The gray carriage did not wait. I stood up off my grate. I do that for almost nothing. The blue carriage came down the hill. The gray carriage came through the red hoof. The ponies inside them did not know each other yet. Then they did. In the middle. Right in the middle of everything. They kissed. Metal kiss. Glass kiss. Bone kiss. A kiss with every tooth in it. The whole party went into the blender. BLUE. GRAY. YELLOW. RED. WHITE. GLITTER. The sky broke into a thousand little skies. Up they went. A fountain. A chandelier sneezing diamonds. Every shard carried its own afternoon. Tiny blue afternoons. Tiny white clouds. Tiny upside-down buildings. Tiny suns with sharp edges. Then down. Slow. Slow as glitter. Turning. Choosing. The blue carriage spun. One pinwheel gone. Another screaming. The others kicking at the air because there was no road anymore. No road beneath them. Just sky, sky, sky. Pieces of carriage flew off. Silver petals. Blue petals. A black mirror. A red light still blinking. Hello. Hello. Hello. A door skipped over the pavement. Once. Twice. Three bright sparks. Then flat. The sound was a piñata full of chandeliers. The sound was every birthday ending at once. The sound went through my ribs and found all the empty rooms. Something round rolled past me. A pinwheel. Calm as anything. It rolled all the way to the curb and leaned there. Watching. We watched together. Then the frosting quiet. Thick. White. Poured over the whole intersection. Underneath it, her song. Still playing. La la la. The blue carriage came to rest upside down like a foal born wrong. Legs in the air. Pinwheels twitching. The road behind it wore a long red rainbow. Only one color. That still counts. Red is a rainbow if it is all you have. Red glitter. Red glass. Red light. Red going into cracks. Little blue pieces of sky mixed through it, blinking. Marshmallow cream had burst from the carriage and hung from its broken face. Soft. White. Holding nobody. Holding the shape of nobody. The gray carriage sat folded around the pole. Its pony climbed out. A big pony. Brown coat. White shirt. Red stripe down his face. He held his head in both hooves. Walked in circles. No. No. No. No. He said it like a spell. No. He said it louder. No. He said it smaller. no. It is not a spell that works. I've tried it before. A unicorn came in a yellow vest. Then another. Then three. Then blue unicorns. Then black unicorns. Then white carriages with pink and blue lights spinning sugar over the buildings. Cotton-candy sky. Bubblegum pavement. Blue on the windows. Pink on the red. Blue. Pink. Blue. Pink. The unicorn in yellow pulled ribbon from a box. Bright yellow ribbon. He walked the edges of the rainbow and unspooled it. Around the blue carriage. Around the gray carriage. Around the red glitter. Around the broken little skies. A birthday party nobody could enter. The ponies gathered behind the ribbon. They stood on their back hooves. Necks stretched. Quiet. Waiting for cake. They never stand near me. They stood near me then. But not because of me. They did not see me. They were looking at her. Inside the upside-down blue carriage was a pony nobody could see clearly. Yellow hair. One white hoof. A piece of pink sleeve. Nothing moving. But ponies rest sometimes. I said that. Ponies rest sometimes. Nobody argued. The unicorns cut the carriage open. Silver jaws. Red handles. Snip. Crack. Crunch. Blue metal peeling back like the wrapper from candy. They knelt in the glitter. Their knees crushed the little skies. Chime. Crack. Chime. Crack. They worked spells with their hooves. Push. Breathe. Count. Push. Breathe. Count. One unicorn called numbers into the air. The numbers fell down flat. Another pressed on her. Again. Again. Again. Her song kept playing. La la la happy. The song did not understand. Pink light crossed her face. Blue light crossed her face. Pink. Blue. Alive. Not. Alive. Not. Pink. Blue. Then they stopped. All at once. The unicorns became ponies again. Tired ponies. Quiet ponies. One sat back on his heels. One looked away. One took off his gloves and turned them inside out, red hidden inside white. One looked at the little black circle on his wrist. He said a word. Not a spell. Time. I know that word. They use it on me. Time to move. Time to go. Time to wake up. Time is up. Time. They think time is their one true spell. The whole intersection heard it. The glitter did not move. The red rainbow stayed red. The blue carriage stayed broken. Her song kept going. The party went on being over. Later came the street-sweeper. Big green beetle. Round brushes underneath. Whispering. Whirring. Eating the rainbow. Red glitter first. Then silver. Then blue. Then the little white teeth of glass. Chime. Crunch. Chime. Crunch. A machine eating a chandelier one candy at a time. The brushes drank the afternoon. But not all of it. Some sparkle worked down into the cracks. Red. Blue. Gold. Tiny stars hiding under the road. I know those cracks. I have dropped things into them. Coins. A button. The silver cap from a bottle. Half a cracker. Things go in. They do not come back. It's a waste unless you say the right spell. Ponies in gloves gathered the larger pieces. The blue door. The silver petals. The mirror. The light that had stopped saying hello. They stacked everything in a truck. Party dishes after nobody ate. The blue carriage was turned upright. It looked smaller that way. They put a silver blanket over its broken face. The kind they give me when winter bites through my coat. La la la. Then they lifted it. Up. Away. Blue carriage in the air. One pinwheel hanging. Turning once. Just once. Goodbye. The yellow ribbon was wound back onto its spool. The crowd went home carrying the story in different pieces. Before the sweeper came, I crossed. Quick. Careful. Red hoof saying wait. Nobody listening to the red hoof anymore. I found one piece of sky. Three corners. Clear along one edge. Blue in the middle. White cloud. One bent line of sunlight. Maybe the hill. Maybe her window. Maybe the last thing she saw before all the colors. I put it in my good pocket. The one without the curse. By evening, the intersection remembered how to be an intersection. Red hoof. White pony. Wait. Go. Ponies crossed carrying bags. Ponies looked at their little black circles. Ponies talked into the air. No ribbon. No unicorns. No blue carriage. The pole leaned a little. The road was dark where the red rainbow had been. The brushes missed the cracks. They always miss the cracks. Her song remained. Not out loud. Somewhere underneath. Under the tires. Under the footsteps. Under the warm metal grate. La la la. A pink song. A yellow song. Playing for a pony who had gone where songs cannot follow. At night, the intersection belonged to me again. Black road. Green light. Yellow light. Red. No carriages. No ponies. Only the buildings looking down with all their square eyes. I went to the middle. I found the crack that had swallowed the most glitter. There. A red wink. A blue wink. A piece of yellow hiding deep. I sat beside it. The way you sit beside someone who has no more words. I took out my piece of sky. Set it on the pavement. Stir stir stir and turn. A window for her. There. Blue. White. Bent gold. I told the crack the things I tell the grate in winter. That the cold is a spell somebody forgot to finish. That hunger has teeth but gets tired. That morning is usually real. That ponies rest sometimes. That the red hoof means wait. That the white pony means you can cross. A black-and-white carriage came slowly around the corner. Unicorn inside. No colors. His white light found me. Found the crack. Found the piece of sky. For one second, the whole afternoon came back. BLUE. WHITE. GOLD. RED. GLITTER. Her hill inside my hand. The gray unicorn opened his window. He was breathing the colors in the air and couldn't even taste them. What are you doing? Resting, I said. Ponies rest sometimes. Time to move along. He did not ask what I had seen. Nobody did. I was the only one there for the beginning. Before the rainbow. Before the glitter. Before the blue carriage turned into pieces. When she was still alive. Coming down the hill. Window open. Yellow hair moving. La la la. Song already playing. In the days after, ponies brought flowers. Red roses. Yellow daisies. Purple flowers with black hearts. White flowers wrapped in silver paper. Blue flowers that were not really blue but tried. They tied them to the bent pole beneath the red hoof. The flowers hung crooked. Nobody straightened them. They placed a picture of her against the pole. That was how I learned her face. I had seen the blue carriage. The yellow hair. The one white hoof. The pink sleeve. Not the face. In the picture, she is laughing. All her teeth. Eyes almost closed. Sun on one side. A whole pony. Before the blender. Gold stars behind those teeth. Eyes too. Ponies stood around the pole and held each other. They left little lights in glass cups. Red. Blue. Gold. Purple. Tiny fires. Spells that know only one word. Remember. Remember. Remember. The lights go out one by one. Wind. Rain. Morning. One by one. When the last light goes dark, I take out my piece of sky. Turn in three circles and speak the words. I hold it beneath the streetlamp. Blue. White. Bent gold. Sometimes red from my fingers. Sometimes pink from the passing unicorns. I hum her song. Not the words. I never knew the words. La la la. Pink song. Yellow song. Blue song now. Still in the sky but fading. All the colors broken together. I have the good corner. The warm grate. I know the secret words and the three circles. I see everything that crosses. The ponies cross in the morning. Red hoof. White pony. Wait. Go. Nobody knows the crack is full of rainbow. Nobody knows the crack is a door.