The Resemblance
He thought he saw a friend entering the coffee shop, staring at him as the other passed.
Impossible, of course. His friend, Andy, died back in the early part of the century, murdered while on a business trip in Tennessee, a story misted with mystery. Andy and a woman he’d met at a bar talked to a man in the bar about buying a boat. After some drinking, the three went out to the man’s house at midnight to see the boat. A fight ensued.
Andy always carried a knife and pulled it now. The knife was taken from him. Stabbed twice in the abdomen, he staggered half a mile down the long dirt road leading to the house. A trooper found him dead on the roadside hours later.
All that came back as he watched the man with the remarkable resemblance to Andy. Other possibilities could explain why the man looked like Andy. It could be Andy. Andy could have returned from the dead. Andy’s death may have been faked, the death story constructed as part of some larger con. Maybe Andy had a twin he didn’t know about, or he’d crossed into a dimension where Andy still lived. Theories crowded his head as Andy’s doppelganger took his coffee and departed the establishment.
He couldn’t let it go. Catching up, he called, “Andy.”
The man turned back to him. A smile flickered over his expression. “No. Not me.”
Sipping his coffee, the Andy twin turned and hastened away.
Floofcological
Floofcological (floofinition) – Mental or emotional state of a person or animal arising from or related to thoughts or worries about animals, or observations about animals.
In use: “Her floofcological state always became anxiety-frazzled when she was forced to go away on visits and not be with her floof friends, although the ability to see and talk to them via a security system helped restore her calm each night.”
Monday’s Theme Music
63 F in the outdoors with a tincture of cool mountain air offsetting the morning sun’s greeting. “Perfect,” the cats agree. They’re looking forward to the possible high in the low to mid 80s F.
It’s Monday, June 26, 2023, in Ashlandia, where the cougars and bears roam the streets and tourists roam the restaurants. Perusing the news, there’s hope for a cancer treatment that shrinks tumors, deaths in Pakistan from lightning, North Korea keeping up its traditional war of words with the US, cocaine market is booming, tornadoes in the east, train hauling hazardous materials derailed — yes, another — and more deaths, more deaths, more deaths. Not much on Ukraine and Russia. Nothing on Trump. Probably too early in the day. Race results about a NASCAR offering named after a corporation which bought the rights provides filler,
Stone Temple Pilots, J. Cash, Bush, and the Stones have songs sharing space in my morning mental music stream, they being, “Creep”, “Folsom Prison Blues”, “Machinehead”, and “Start Me Up”. Why them was the leading question in my interrogation of The Neurons to learn more. They took the fifth. No comment all the way.
After all that, I went with “When the Whip Comes Down” by the Rolling Stones, a song featured in the documentary about them last night when they focused on Ronnie Wood. Written and released in 1978 (yeah, looked it up), the song is about a gay man and how he’s treated. I enjoy watching Mick playing gee-tar on the video.
May I suggest you stay positive and keep my moving forward? I’m moving toward a cup of coffee. Let’s get it cracking. Time waits for no one.
Here we go, the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 