Rather than finish my meeting transcription, I decided to move to Norway. I wasn’t quite sure how to get there, so I walked toward the river, thinking it would flow into the sea and then beyond. After a half-hour, I found a park. People took their pets there to defecate and their children to tire themselves. I found a stump and sat down. I was worried I’d have to go back and do my work. The thought of it made my stomach feel as though it would climb out and make its own way east. If I didn’t return, it would mean I was jobless. A drifter. A squinting man among the blind, which doesn’t mean I can remember how to spell vermillion. A sickly seagull dropped to the astroturf and looked around, confused. A toddler fell over and stayed there. My cellphone began to vibrate in my pocket. That meant lunch was over. In Norway, I’d heard, lunch never ends. Buffets stretch to the horizon. They’re mostly full of types of fish, though, and I’ve never liked seafood.
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CL Bledsoe’s poetry collections include Riceland, and his newest, Having a Baby to Save a Marriage, and his latest novel is If You Love Me, You’ll Kill Eric Pelkey. Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his kid.