Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Don’t you love it when you’re walking and encounter others, and say, “Hi” or “Hello” and they look at you like “WTF is wrong with him?” That makes me laugh, which prompts them to give me another look, which makes me laugh more, and they —
Well, you know.
Floofcuse (floofinition) – a stare animals employ to convey betrayal, suspicion, and disappointment that hovers around being angry and contemptuous.
In use: “Opening the bag of chips, he began eating them only to discover two cats and a dog walking into the room. Sitting down, the three held a floofcuse on him that began wearing him down. With a sigh, he held out a handful of chips and said, “Do you guys want some?””
I’d been thinking about J on and off during the past week, a typical melange of, “How long has it been?” blended with “I wonder what he’s up to?”
Easy math answered how long, coughing up thirty-four years. I choked on a “wow” response as tangent thoughts about his children’s ages and lives bounced through. Thirty-four years since I’d heard or seen him, thirty-four years since I’d heard anything about him.
These thoughts boiled into my dreams, bringing a visit from him in a dream last night.
I was in a steel, glass, and concrete complex. Dust motes surfed wind currents as people walked along the corridor. Hot, I squinted against sunshine through the windows. I thought, it’s winter outside, but it’s so hot an stuffy in here. Then I paused, looking ahead at an intersection.
His back was to me but I knew it was him. “J,” I said, increasing my stride. As he turned, I caught up, but we didn’t close the distance.
Always a smiling person, even when pissed off, he was smiling and much, much younger in my dream than when I knew him. “Where you been?” I said.
With the smile hanging on his face, he said, “It’s okay, I’ve moved on.” Giving me a wave and a shit-eating grin, he walked on down the corridor, leaving me behind.
Awakening, I wondered what that was all about, and whether this was a signal that he’d died. I searched for him through social media this morning, but he has a common name. Not the first time I’ve search for him, but it was the same results.
Not surprising. He didn’t trust computers as they were emerging. He didn’t really trust society and the government. Buying and stashing gold and silver coins in a safety deposit box, he planned to buy a large plot of land after he retired.
We’d always had good times together, and we’d work well as a team. A few years older than me, a survivor of the Vietnam war (although served in Thailand), I wish him well, whatever he’s doing, and wherever he is.
Exfloofgent (floofinition) – a pet’s urgent or pressing request(s).
In use: “Although it was dark, as is usually the case at four in the morning during Pennsylvania’s winter, the cat began nudging her cheek and nibbling her nose in an exfloofgent to be fed.”
Cars can surprise me. The Miracle Focus did. Gather ’round, o’ peers of the ‘net, and let me share the short tale.
We have two cars. One car ‘belongs’ to my wife, with the connotations attached that this is the car that she primary drives, and that I slip behind the wheel once in a while. This is a 2003 Ford Focus that we bought new that year. It was replacing the Nissan 200 that was my wife’s car then. Rear-ended, they declared the Nissan totaled.
Saying the Focus is my wife’s car implies the other car, the 2015 Mazda CX-5, is my car. That’s not true. My car was a 1993 Mazda RX-7 R1. I traded it in on the CX-5 at her behest in 2014. The Focus was then going to be traded in on a new sports car for me.
She reneged on the deal.
All that is beside the point, and just lengthens the story without adding to the plot, as did this sentence. The Focus has 105,000 miles on it, not bad for a fifteen-year-old vehicle. My wife drives it around town.
I take care of the maintenance.
I don’t do a good job.
Trying to make up for that, I took the Focus to an Oil Stop to have it’s oil changed, its fluids checked, air put in the tires, and so on. I did that last year, too, actually in January of 2017. It was supposed to be returned for maintenance somewhere in May of 2017.
That didn’t happen.
The maintenance this year, August, 2018, was well-overdue. I wasn’t too worried because no warning lights had come on, and only twenty-five hundred miles had been added since the last oil change.
When I took it into the same Oil-Stop as last year, they wiped out the dipstick and showed it to me. “It’s a little overfull,” the tech said.
That was surprising. I didn’t add oil to the car. No one else had, either. Oil Stop was the last place where anyone had added oil. As is their custom, once they changed the oil filter and put new oil in last year, they’d showed the dipstick to me to prove it was full. Now, a year later, it was overfull.
I was impressed. This car not only wasn’t using oil, but was apparently creating it.
That’s why it’s the miracle Focus.
That, plus I think it’ll be a miracle if my wife ever really does let me get rid of it.
Not that I’m bitter or anything. That would be petty. I’m just saying…
You know.
Floofography (2) (floofinition) – knowing where your cat or dog housepet likes to sit or lie. (see also floofography)
In use: “He checked the floofography before turning off the lights, noting everyone’s position, confirming all were in and safe, but also lessening the chance that he might inadvertently step on on or trip over them.”
When I awoke from this dream, I held the last scenes in my mind’s hands and thought, wow, that was empowering.
Only snippets of dream fragments come to mind now. I remember struggling and coping through a morass of frustration and weariness. I don’t know the specifics of that dream’s chapter, but then I started rising. I grew taller, bigger, and stronger. I knew and felt that in the dream. As I did, I took control, because up where I was, I could see how everything connected, and how the mechanics and leverage worked. Up there, I could tell others where to find answers or how to see things. I kept growing until I was a giant. Then I used my fingers to move and show things, and help others. The last piece was that I, as a giant, was showing a young girl where something fit. By that point, the world appeared to be an enormous periodic table to me and I told her, “Forty across, and eight down.” It was then I woke.
The dream wasn’t a great surprise. Just as I fall into dark airless abysses or find myself in caves or tunnels about every twenty-five or -six days, I find myself rising, too, feeling invincible and empowered. When the dark side comes down on me, I hunker down and endure. I’m grateful when the light side lifts me up, re-igniting my hopes and optimism.
Michael Seidel, writer 