There were some clerical mistakes, so everyone who’d been to college was hastily issued officer swords. We were meant to sheath them in holes on the floor and swing leather satchels with flourish. I failed at this. The drill instructor was surprisingly patient, becoming an actor and theatre teacher, not even five feet. The more we talked after getting the sword, the more the talk turned to theatre and the further I moved in the world. For some scenes, he had prosthetics, reaching a height you’d expect.
The next real figure with presence appeared, a Meryl Streep Botticelli dressed like Queen Mab, and she wanted to talk about music. I kept moving up in the class. A familiar presence behind me rolled her eyes, frowning. I smiled and said look, they keep giving me air. She seemed to think I was flirting, using my charm, whatever it took. I kept moving up. Soon I was sat at the foot of the stage in a small, tiled pool with three women in vestments and collars. “Is this the baptismal font?” They nodded yes, and it was incredible, the American Botticelli speaking Italian, the piscina, the drill sergeant who grew as he shrank. My friend, resentful and scowling, crumbled up looseleaf and stared at her shoes.
Chris Cocca’s work has appeared in Brevity, Belt Magazine, Appalachian Review, Still: The Journal, The Shore, and other venues. His poem “The Effects of Ground-Level Ozone on the Ecology of Pennsylvania Highways” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He holds an MFA in fiction from The New School and lives in Pennsylvania.
Image: Primavera (c. 1482) by Sandra Botticelli, commons.wikiedia.org
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