Absinthe

In a dazzle of emerald softness, it flew out into the breeze wanting for the red apple in the tree just outside my window. The power had gone out, spare change to total meltdown, and the air inside was stifling, thick with mind-numbing languor and mosquitoes. So I sat on the sill, a wet rag on my forehead, hyacinth blossoms serenading me through a tumbling cloud of exhaust fumes mixed with the stench of rotten garbage from the bins in the alley six stories down. I wanted sleep, wanted surrender, wanted total blackness around me, but it was just too damn hot, too hot even for a wisp of linen. “Look, Look!” screamed a woman from the street below. “It's the green fairy, I say. Look! Up there!” I looked around like an idiot, but the only one up here, there, or anywhere was naked ole me, naughty bits a danglin' over the ledge in the moonlight ... well ... just me and my parrot, squawking romantic trifles and tugging at the end of its string.