He studied and struggled with the nature of who he was, because that was the nature of who he was. It didn’t comfort him to realize that, nor that there were many others like him.
That was his nature.
Scene
Have you ever been cleaning up a really messy vomit, and get it on you, and feel yourself about to lose it, which makes you laugh, because you imagine it’s like a scene in a silly movie?
Yeah, me, too.
The One
There were more than twenty of them, small, black birds with yellow eyes, hopping through piles of fallen brown and yellow leaves in an earnest search for something, like, maybe one had dropped a contact lens. As he walked along the sidewalk, they flew to keep ahead, but unable to sustain their search because of his progress, they finally all took off.
Except one. One was left behind. Or did he stay behind? Did he — or she — remain behind because they’d become distracted? Maybe it was a young bird who was still learning how to be part of the flock. It could also be that it was a rebel, an old codger bird who said, “I’m not flying because of him,” or a young bird who said, “Let’s see what happens if I don’t fly away.”
Or maybe it was a sacrifice that the others provided, to see what happened if they didn’t fly away.
A Good Day
It was a good day to have a beer, or die, so he thought he’d do one and see what happened with the other.
Stealth
She flies alone,
unseen
unheard
unnoticed
under the radar,
waiting for death.
Prove It
The first thing he thought of, after recognizing where he was, and what he was doing, was the Rolling Stones song, “Get Off of My Cloud.” Not really correct. Does correctness have degrees? Sure, they give partial credit to partially correct answers. Yes, but not in this situation. So, he corrected, not correct. He wasn’t on a cloud. He was on a contrail, as he’d learned they were called, a chemtrail, as others called them in the second half of his life.
Poisonous air vapors, they were. Surrounded by blue sky, he was walking on them. As he didn’t know how he’d reached them (nor how he could be walking on them), he believed he was dreaming. How high was he? Well, very high. He’d read that commercial aircraft generally fly over thirty thousand feet in the U.S. He assumed he was in U.S. air space, although nothing supported that assumption.
Physically, then, he wasn’t doing this, couldn’t be doing this, unless it was a dream or virtual reality. There was no way he could otherwise be surviving so comfortably at such an altitude. At this altitude, if it’s over thirty thousand feet, he was higher than Mount Everest. The air would be too thin for normal breathing, he was breathing normally, he ascertained with tests. At that altitude, the temperature would be forty-nine degrees below zero, or worse. He wasn’t dressed for that kind of cold.
But here he was, in his Lee jeans, knit shirt, Nikes, and Columbia Wear fleece, striding along without issue. Which presented the idea that maybe these contrails were far lower than they should be. That was absurd, of course; that’s not how they worked. Nevertheless, he stopped walking, turned, and looked over the side.
Big, big mistake.
He’d been able to see mountain tops and distant horizons of clustered buildings and farmland when walking along. But now, looking down, he found a true sense of his altitude, and it freaked him out. He was so freaked out, he should awaken at any moment now.
He waited.
Nothing changed. He looked back and forth along his contrail. It stretched on for a long distance. He could do three things now. One, step off the contrail and see what happens. Two, follow the contrail and see if it led anywhere. Three, he could stand there and do nothing until the contrail faded away.
Paper
They sort the good from the bad,
the advertisements from the EOBs,
coupons from newspapers,
mementos from those worth something spendible,
the bills,
the ones commemorating dead presidents,
and the ones that must be paid.
The River
Do you sometimes feel like life is a swollen raging river, and that it takes everything to keep from getting sucked under?
Yes, sometimes.
Floofjersey
Floofjersey (catfinition) – the state of being a cat on the American east coast, along with Catsylvania, and North and South Catalina. Another recognized state of being a cat is on the west, in Catifornia. In the Midwest, cats are known to reside in the states of Arcatsas, Catsas, and Catorado.
