I went on vacation. I was online and I found a travel site that offered competitive rates. The site was:
flanneryoconnortrips.com
According to the site counter, I was the third person ever to look at the site. According to the email I got from my flanneryoconnortrips.com travel agent, I was the only person ever to book a trip to Milledgeville.
I took a bus. I rode to Georgia on a big, grey bus. No one sat next to me. The driver hummed quietly to himself all night long, and it helped me sleep.
And then I got to Milledgeville, and I checked into a bed and breakfast. I unpacked a few of my things and put them in a dresser. I only used the top drawer, because I only had a couple of days worth of clothes.
It was early afternoon, so I decided to go to Andalusia and look around the farm.
At the farm I saw a peacock. And the peacock was the reincarnated spirit of Flannery O'Connor.
It told me. We talked all evening, until the staff asked me to leave. I asked if I could stay the night outside, that I would sleep on the grass and talk to Flannery. They repeated the request for me to leave.
And then they repeated the request again, but this time, one of them added a shove. So I left.
And came back the next day.
And the next.
I quit my job on the phone a week later. I got a job in Milledgeville, busing tables. I bought an old, used car, one that doesn't run much. It's parked near Andalusia. I sleep in it.
I go to the farm and talk to Flannery O'Connor. She does most of the talking and I've learned a lot from her. Like this:
Flannery O'Connor hates it when kids on the street swear and everyone can hear them.
I have always hated that, too. Old people can hear them. I hate it when a young person says a curse word, and an old person gets a painful grimace. Flannery and I have that in common.
Flannery and I have a lot in common.
I go to the farm and talk to a bird. I don't blog.
Bird.
