Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I am not the one in love
and I’m not the one pursuing a dream
I’m not the one questioning my life
or looking back on choices
I am not the one missing you
wondering where you’ve gone
I am not the one in a bed alone
never falling asleep
I am not the one with too much time
to do too little every day
I tell you,
if you see me, I’m not the one
it’s not me
He ignored the man in the crosswalk, almost hitting the guy, not laughing about it, but feeling smug — hey, what’s the problem? I didn’t hit you, you’re fine, so you had to wait two seconds. Big deal.
Speeding up, he cut across lanes, scaring and angering other drivers, shrugging them off, pulling into the parking lot with a little squeal of tires. A space was there to the left, the car just finishing backing out, so he pulled in, cutting off another who was waiting. “Sorry, you snooze, you lose,” he told the woman giving him the finger, giving her the finger back.
He walked straight across the street, making cars stop — what were they going to do, hit him? As he reached the curb, he heard a ding. It wasn’t his phone, he didn’t know what it was, so he shrugged it off, turning right to go across another street, not looking, expecting the others to stop —
The truck driver couldn’t see him. “The sun flashed in my eyes,” he said. “I didn’t expect anyone to be crossing the road, anyhow, because I had the green light.”
The wayward pedestrian was crushed under a wheel, almost like a fluke accident, he heard the police say as his spirit departed his body. Only then did he realize that the ding had been a warning.
Karma had said, enough.
Today’s song came out of yesterday’s apres writing session. Striding along, thinking about what had been written and what was to be, a conservation was struck up between a character and her aunt. Her aunt told the younger character, “Oh, honey, your mother won’t dance. No anymore.” Which implied to the young one, something had happened to her mother, or her had changed, because of how it was expressed (but the aunt wasn’t saying anything else).
From that, though, came a song from my childhood, Loggins and Messina with “Your Mama Don’t Dance), a lively 1972 song with a throwback sound. Most people probably know it because it’s been around close to fifty years.
Michael Seidel, writer 