Bella Li

An area still verdant

 
 
Now consider this. You are reading a novel written in the old days before the war. The characters enter a seafood restaurant. One orders a lobster. You rent a mountain cabin, in an area still verdant. On the walls someone has hung old maps. In a magazine you come across a picture of a girl, on a large and beautiful bearskin rug.  You are given a calfskin wallet on your birthday. You have a little boy and he shows you his butterfly collection, including his killing jar. Your husband likes the picture. You are watching an old movie on TV. The chef drops the lobster into boiling water. You enter the restaurant. The characters watch. On your birthday you are given a boy and a picture of a girl your husband likes. Lying face down on a large and beautiful rug. The people who are with you admire the décor of the cabin, including his killing jar. Your husband hangs the picture up on the wall of his study. In an area still verdant, in the old days before the war. You wander in to look closer, and he follows, closing the door.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Note: “An area still verdant” includes text from Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (London: Orion Books, 1968).

Bella Li is the author of Argosy (Vagabond Press, 2017)—a book of poetry, collage and photography—which received a commendation in the 2017 Wesley Michel Wright Prize competition, was highly commended in the 2017 Anne Elder Award, and won the 2018 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry and the 2018 NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry. Her latest book is Lost Lake (Vagabond Press, 2018), which has been shortlisted for the 2018 Queensland Literary Awards.