25 Points: Regard (25 parentheticals)

Peter Jurmu

Regard
by Pablo D’Stair
KUBOA, 2013
280 pages / $7.50 buy from Amazon

1. (all of blue)

2. (having to dig it out of the soil at the base of one of the tree trunks)

3. (of what variety she couldn’t quite make out in the dim lighting)

4. (tipped out of its holder)

5. (transparent yellow with the appearance of bubbles throughout it)

6. (interested that the hole proceeded more straight down than she’d thought it was going to)

7. (she couldn’t seem to settle the question in her mind if this was the usual way of things)

8. (she leaned against not very often)

9. (like the man had in imitation of the dog)

10. (not loudly, but not self-consciously enough to be whispering)

11. (seeing a spot of purple and not being able to explain it)

12. (deciding she’d not heard his voice at all)

13. (but he was not certain he remembered who she was)

14. (having gotten the impression in the last two hours she looked far more savage)

15. (not getting the words right in any instance of such an attempt)

16. (the two freezing together for a moment)

17. (without thinking about it very much)

18. (once depressed)

19. (as it was)

20. (fainter)

21. (drooling or grinding its teeth)

22. (through the material)

23. (where a triangle cut through the lower portion of a shape made up of an indeterminate number of sides)

24. (able to make out the darker blur of her body reflected in it)

25. (her eyes now fully accustomed to the darkness)

[All lines are direct quotations of D’stair’s parentheticals in the book]