dung midas     

Everything he touched turned to shit. Money, lovers, fine wines, plants and pets, all transformed into sticky wads of manure at his slightest fingering, and it was all he could do to conceal this strange fact and attempt a normal life. It was his greatest hidden sadness: he would meet a woman, have a pocket full of money, begin to fall in love, and boom. Everything right turned to steaming, reeking wrong.

After awhile, this gift became impossible to hide. Mothers came looking for their daughters, creditors for their money. The community grew restless, and soon a posse was mounted, burning torches and all. It was the middle of the night, and he barely had time to pack a suitcase, which, of course, he later discovered to be full of carefully-folded, well-packed shit.

He had nowhere to go. Strangers avoided him, probably because of the smell. He decided eventually to go to the desert, where he felt there was nothing beautiful. He found himself in one of those oil towns, where everything is either rock or machinery, and where the air is full of the odor of smoke and the sound of rigs pumping the earth. He rented a room and locked himself in. At night, when the heat died down and the streets were nearly empty, he went to the local bar and drank gin until he forgot who he was, this alchemist of dung. One of those nights, he met a charming, shy woman with eyes the color of green you see in old stained glass. She had a tattoo of wings on her lower back. He had been drinking pretty heavily, and told her he loved her. "You can't love me," she said.

"Why not?"

"Because everything I touch turns to feathers." She demonstrated by picking up an ashtray, pressing her lips to it, pressing it to her face, and opening her hand to reveal a pile of bone-white feathers.

He knew then that he was truly in love. He bought her flowers and perfumes. They wore gloves for the first three months, then after some hedging, began to touch each other naked. They went to the park and listened to oil rigs sighing in the rock, coyotes moaning in the distance. They held hands, each undone by the other.

Then one evening at the park, he pressed his lips to her neck, and she transformed.

There she was, ruined as Lot's poor wife, frozen by her lover's absurd curse. He stayed with her for days, his hands dirty with the mess of her. After a week, she dried out and began to come apart, and the wind picked up her vast hidden interior of feathers. The air was full of bright white down. It looked like snow. He watched her blowing over the desert, then went out among the dry stones and plain sand, and wept. He took off his clothes and lay there naked, pressing stones to his face, weeping terribly. Tongue-bitten, bitter, sick of himself, he went away. Only some time later would people from the desert write him, friends, acquaintances, complete strangers, to say thank you. Thank you for handling the stones and soil. Everything here now is green, green, green.

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