The holiday shift makes today, a Wednesday, feel like Monday for me. That’s why coffee is so important. Helps me cope with the shifts.
Catman
After watching Marvel Avengers: Infinity War last night, I was thinking about a new superhero.
I called him Catman. Catman came to be when a terrorist detonated a small nuclear bomb. Employing their quantum skills, his pets — five cats — saw the event about to happen through their quantum vision (yes, they can see a few seconds into the future). Covering him with their bodies, they transported him via their telekinetic skills into another dimension that was like his own. However, they were a little tardy, escaping as the nuke went off.
Thus, Catman came to be in a new dimension with feline quantum skills and a changed personality and appearance.
Yes, there was wine involved in my musing, but I swear it was only one glass.
Well, maybe two.
The Question
A man passed, and he thought with horror, that guy smells like he shit his pants.
She passed in a green skirt and bright, flowery sweater. The man grimaced as acrid body odor assaulted his nose, and then another went by — he didn’t see her — in the other direction, filling the air with stale cigarette smoke that could’ve been Pall Malls.
An anonymous person passed in a haze of sour milk. Another clumped past with big, heavy red boots and large, swinging red purse, leaving moth balls’ ammonia scents wafting behind her. Her smell battled a urine fragrance as a sagging-faced gray man passed, then the skunk of marijuana from a lithe and young dark-haired man drifted through in the opposite direction.
Then he trudged by with a dirty hair smell from his hooded green coat.
Standing to leave, the man wondered, what do people smell when I go by?
Attention! Attention!
He’d dissolved his cloak of invisibility, and shredded his veils of anonymity.
He’d uninstalled his mute button, replacing it with an amplifier and speakers.
From now on, he’d seen and heard.
He just hoped he could stand the attention.
The Day
He put his dirty clothes in the recycle and tossed his used tissue in the laundry.
Returning to his study, he reached for his coffee, and remembered, he’d gotten up to get his coffee.
Leaving his study, he realized he put his dirty clothes in the recycle. Getting them out, he found the used tissue in the laundry, blew his nose into it, and threw it in the trash.
Then he fed the cats a few treats and went into his study to read, where he reached for his coffee.
Remembering, he’d gotten up to get his coffee, he laughed at himself. At least he was getting a lot of steps in today. He checked his wrist to look at his Fitbit —
Where did he leave his Fitbit?
Getting up to go find it, he left his study, went to the kitchen, and made a cup of coffee with his Keurig. Satisfied, he returned to his study with his coffee to read, and then checked his wrist to look at his Fitbit —
Where did he leave his Fitbit?
Then, he remembered, he’d put it in his shoe.
Leaving his study, he went into the other room, fed the cats a few treats, and made a cup of coffee.
This was going to take some time. Coffee would definitely help.
Clearing the Cache
He bought a fire pit and bottle of wine for Solstice, and filched a log from the neighbor’s stack. He lit the log and drank the wine, taking a sip each time the he fed the fire a rejection letter. One hundred sixty-five letters, two hours, and a bottle of wine later, he felt much better.
The cache was cleared. Good things were going to start happening for him now.
Last Seen
Deadly cold sucked the heat from my bones’ marrow as I surveyed my surroundings.
“Here,” she said.
Here? Here was a sloping field of snow glistening like icing in moonlight. Here was a field edged by elderly pines draped in snow. Here was a starry black night and the pond of a moon staring down on us. Here was a wind slicing through my gloves, shearing off my ears, and paring down my cheeks.
“Here?” I said.
I looked at the traveler. Smiling like she knew Mona Lisa’s secret, she pointed past me into the sky. As she did but before I turned, I caught sleigh bells’ tinny ringing.
Distracted by the famous sound, I turned so quickly, I slipped on the snowy field and would have fallen, had the traveler not caught my arm and kept me upright. After thanking her, I gazed through my breath toward the sound and spotted the immortal silhouette of reindeer pulling a sled commanded by a pudgy elf.
I gasped. “Santa.”
“Yes,” the traveler said.
“He was real.”
“Of course. It was on this day that he was last seen, long before his existence trickled into your dimension’s awareness.”
I nodded. Then this was was where my story begins. “I shall find him,” I whispered into the silent night as the sleigh bells faded and the wind nuzzled me. “I shall find him and bring him back.”
Drivus Interruptus
Driving through the snow,
one hand on the wheel,
while reading a text on the phone
in my other hand.
I never saw the truck,
nor the other car,
I never even saw the sign,
or tried to stop my car.
Oh, jing —
Rude Interruption
I was sitting and chatting with a friend the other day when my body said, “Pee.”
“Excuse me,” I told my body, “but that was very ru — ”
“Pee!”
“I was talki — ”
“PEEEE!”
“What are you saying? It sounds li — ”
“PEEEE!”
“In a minute. Let me finish this conver — ”
“PEEEEEE!!!”
Sighing, I stood. “Excuse me a minute,” I told my friend, and went off to the restroom.
Honestly, sometimes my body is like a spoiled, willful child, and it gets worse as I get older.
Driverless Car Returns
Saw a headline slug, “Driverless Cars Return”.
An imagined television news report about a driverless car getting lost and living on the streets by itself for years climbed into my head, and then came the happy reunion, when the driverless car returned to its family for a happy reunion.
“We thought our car was gone forever,” Patty McLaren said about the brown four-door Ford sedan. “We looked for it for everywhere for weeks. We never gave up, really. Every time a driverless car went by, we looked to see if it was our car. Though I never stopped hoping, I never really believed it would come back, though. It’s like a dream come true.”
The car is a little older and rustier, with bald tires and faded paint. Its radio and speakers are gone, apparently torn out by thieves, and the engine smokes.
“Who knows what it went through?” Mrs. McLaren said, stroking the car’s front fender. “I’m amazed it’s still runnin’. I’m just so happy it’s back.”
Mrs. McLaren said that they were going to get the car a new coat of paint and tires. “Then we’re just going to put it in the garage and keep it there, and pamper it.”
Her daughter expressed disappointment that she wouldn’t be allowed to take the car to college with her.
Michael Seidel, writer 