Buttes Like Lavender Griffons
A response to Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”. Written as if Hemingway wrote a Gabriel Garcia Marquez story. Winter 2011.
The lines of the afternoon’s oppressive heat danced off the asphalt in front of the café in the city’s centre. The street circled the café making it an island in the dizzy motion of rush hour. Surrounding both the street and the café were rows of other business, most available for rent. On the lone table sitting outside the café were the Colombian and his mistress. The man glared at the woman while she stared at two shadows swirling on the asphalt. The sole employee of the café asked them,
“What would you like?”
“You have coffee?” The Colombian cracked his neck.
“This is a café.”
The Colombian took his eyes off his mistress, “Then we’ll have two. Make mine black.”
“Some cream and two cubes of sugar.” The woman looked at him with her eyes turned to the table.
“Would you like any pastries?”
“Got anything good?”
“The croissant isn’t too bad.”
“I’d like…”
“No, just the coffees.”
The mistress looked up at the sky, “They’re back again.”
“What’s back?”
She pointed to the sky. The Colombian craned his neck.
“Yeah, they show up around this time every Thursday.”
“Why do you think they only show up today?”
“Probably hoping someone will feed them some scraps.”
“What do they even eat?”
The Colombian shrugs his shoulders. “Whatever lions or eagles eat.”
“What do lions and eagles eat?”
The employee sat their coffees on the table. The Colombian and his mistress both took sips while glancing up at the two shapes tangoing in the sky.
“They both don’t eat the same things. A lion eats gazelles and zebras or something. An eagle eats mice and insects or something.”
“Do you think they’d eat a croissant?”
The Colombian tips back his cup. “No.”
“What if it had eggs and bacon in it?”
“Maybe it had eggs and bacon.”
His mistress bites her bottom lip. “Are they nice?”
The Colombian shrugged his shoulder while drinking his coffee.
“They’re probably nice like unicorns except not as spacey.”
The Colombian shook his head. “They prey on tourists.”
“How?”
“Tourists see them in the air, wave around a piece of chicken, and then they never leave them alone.”
“I don’t know, I’d want to meet one.”
“No, you don’t.”
“It’d be nice to have someone so dependent on you.”
“It wouldn’t be nice.”
The mistress stared at her cup with her shoulder slumped. “It’d be nice to have someone depend on you that much.”
