THE DEEP THING EVERYBODY SOMETIMES CALLS MORNING - Christopher Higgs

For my thirtieth birthday, my wife gave me a metaphor. The first thing I wanted to do was deconstruct it. She made me promise that I wouldn’t. “This metaphor is not to be explained,” she told me. “That would ruin it.”

My father took me to the ocean and confessed to years of mispronouncing Nevada. I gave him a hug. He told me he loved me. The taxi cab needed to be paid.

“What’s that you got there?” my father asked me.

“This is nothing,” I said. “It’s a gift from my wife.”

“Is it a metaphor?” he asked.

I nodded.

At the dry cleaners, a white-haired woman with a lisp asked the clerk if he would take her to a movie. He hemmed and hawed and half his face was flush. I wanted badly to show them my metaphor; something told me it might have helped the situation.

Later, the bank teller wouldn’t give me an account balance because I forgot my wallet on the nightstand. “It’s ten o’clock in the morning,” I said. “Can you really be so fascist at this hour?” The teller looked in the direction of what appeared to be the manager cage. I thought for a moment and decided that instead of causing a huge fuss, I’d just show the teller my metaphor. “Do you see this?” I said.

“Is that a metaphor?” the teller asked.

I nodded.

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