"Text Obsolete" by Bill Rasmovicz

There I was and wasn't—author, half reflection in the bookstore's night window, half seated at my fold-away table, stack of books to sign. The first few people fluttered past for the neon of the café. Second and third groups entered, glanced downward, and quickly averted themselves, each of us somehow slightly embarrassed for the other. It was clear after a few minutes that no one might attend, that the reception area would be lone headspace for reconsidering the ambition of scheduling such events.Things going right though were sometimes not in them going terribly wrong—I reminded myself (barring that, en route, my vehicle's exhaust cracked at the manifold). I swiveled behind and picked up a book, the nearest to me, about Elliott Smith (musician, tragic death): a collection of photographs, except for a to-do list faux-pasted to the inside cover, and aphoristic measures like serenity graffitied throughout the background. The artist in various sequences with balloon: in jeans and t-shirt, vintage suit and tie, mustachioed and capped, hamming it up, hospital serious.The balloon hovered a short leap out of arm's reach and slightly more than head-high. He followed it everywhere. Not one of those gaunt, bubble gum-colored purchases to quell a screaming toddler, that bursts traversing the threshold of the grocery store's automatic doors. It was perfectly round (not teardrop), the volume of five ordinary balloons, and you could deduce from its simultaneous loftiness and heft, fickle, if not intense attraction for this world and the next.Punctuated too by the wispy crane's-leg of a ribbon, it commissioned a sense of "lasting brevity" an artist of an intensely musical nature would seek. Was it ascertaining something of him? Or was it simply an overt symbol of the artist's life itself? In which case, could Smith have foreseen his too-youthful departure and ventured into said photographs knowingly? Aren't all the great artist's senses overflowingly tactile, beyond even their own perception? Still, the balloon was the gravitas carrying the book, its suspension pure, visual utterance extolling Smith's strength and frailty, a thing completely worlded in itself, rendering text as a mode of discourse obsolete.Within its pages my designated hour passed. Signing no books of my own, I thanked the manager for complimentary pastries and tea—obligation complete. The next morning I rode the bus home. Through its cinema window the opposing lanes pulsed with traffic, grasses twitched in the divide. None of this could I hear or feel, only the gravitas of engine somewhere beneath, audible fuzziness lulling me in my feet and spine—to sleep or wake, I couldn't tell. For two hours and thirty five minutes I was inside that balloon. It was nice in there.Bill Rasmovicz is the author of three books of poetry The World in Place of Itself (Alice James Books), Gross Ardor (42 Miles Press), and his newest collection Idiopaths was released earlier this month from Brooklyn Arts Press. A pharmacist, Bill has also served as a workshop co-leader and literary excursionist throughout much of Europe. A graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing program, his current home is Brooklyn.