Have you ever been walking, and smell something like grilled onions, and think, “Wow, what is that? I want it!”?
Yes, I have.
His House
Comfortably furnished, he was starting to like his house.
He was less certain that he liked his host. (Hostess?) He didn’t know her and little understood her, or even if it was a female, or if they had sexes. In his words, she was grey-green with yellow eyes. Unlike the invasion’s early day descriptions, though, he saw that they weren’t all the same color. One of his host’s frequent visitors was very light grey while another was forest green. Grey, green, and in between, that’s what they seemed to be. They all had yellow, parietal eyes, and were hairless, of the parts of them he saw. They liked watching him. In the early days, he’d sat motionless, glaring back at them. Once in a while, he shouted at them. He quit shouting at them because he thought they enjoyed that. Now he treated them with indifference and went about his day as if his captors weren’t present.
His house had running water and electricity. Located in a cage that presented him with a large yard all around it, his house was built for a family of five. About twenty-one hundred square feet, the split level featured three bedrooms and two and a half baths, along with a two car garage. There wasn’t a car. A full complement of appliances, dishes, and cookery was made available to him. They liked it when he cooked and ate.
The house’s front had been removed and replaced by a fine screen. He guessed that was so they could see in and watch him all of the time. Food was delivered in a shopping cart once a week. It was funny to see these creatures, twenty times larger than him, push a shopping cart his size into the little secure delivery area. They only opened the outer door on it when the inner door to his area was closed. It was a prison.
Besides frozen pizzas and dry cereals, they gave him cartons of milk and juice, bottles of wine and cases of beer, and fresh meats, snack foods, and produce. He didn’t know where these goods came from.
He didn’t have a phone, but he had two televisions, and a laptop, and he was connected to an Internet. Streaming shows were available, but nothing new. At times, ruminating about his existence, he mourned that he would never know how “Game of Thrones” ended. He posted on a blog every day, and others commented, and he shared emails. None of that helped them understand. All were in cages like him.
From the scenes and events described by others, he was beginning to picture entire human cities in cages.
Sunday’s Theme Music
This song has been with me just a little less than eight years of my life. I probably heard it through Mom, but I’m sure A.M. radio played a part.
“Under the Boardwalk” caught my attention as a child because of that chorus, “under the boardwalk.” I liked singing it. As I learned the other pieces, I started singing them, too. I enjoyed the Drifters’ call and response, and the song’s mellow tempo. As I grew older and started understanding the words, I appreciated the lyrics’ sentiments about being out of the sun and the song’s imagery. I knew those days when the asphalt baked and the sand sizzled and you sought cool relief or shade, and you sat with friends in a secret place, hearing other sounds and giggling.
Eventually, I caught up with the song’s romantic connotations. Now, it’s a nostalgic stream to a simpler, happier, and more innocent time, that of my youth. And though it’s about the summer, and the beach, it’s really a song for all ages and places.
Floof Shui
Floof Shui (catfinition) – the practice of arranging your home or business environment so your cat(s) are comfortable.
Michael Seidel, writer 