Tag: just goofing around

Lesson Learned

He’d discovered a small stone in his sandal during his evening walk. He tried dislodging it through contortions that involved kicking. He knew he could remove the sandal and get rid of the stone. He didn’t do that. Instead, as the stone inflicted a more painful moment on a toe, he complained, “Is there anything worse than a stone in your shoe?”

“Maybe,” he replied to himself. “A hair in your soup?”

“That’s not worse.”

“Okay. A shot in the head. Getting stabbed in the heart.”

“I get your point.”

“Acid thrown on your face. Your throat slit. Being set on fire.”

“That’s enough.”

“Starving to death. Dying of thirst. Suffocating. Drowning.”

“Enough!”

He fell silent. That would teach him to talk to himself.

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Life Poetry

Moving singing walking dancing choking sleeping eating

Thinking breathing hearing feeling seeing

We hunt the rhythm and listen for the chords

Trying to do the things that need done

To keep what we need

Get what we want

And strive for what we hope for

Kisses go unfelt

Words fade unspoken

Skin is left untouched

And dreams wither

But we go on

Because there’s too much time left to stop

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Feline Rhapsody

Inspired by cats and “Bohemian Rhapsody,” by Queen (and sung to that melody, with the instrumentals). We pick it up about a third of the way in.

I’m just a ginger silhouetto of a cat.

Scalaboosh, scalaboosh, can we give him some kibble?

Thunderbolt and lightning,

His claws are very frightening to me.

Galileo. Galileo.

Galileo. Galileo.

His name’s not Galileo,

Is it Magnifico-ooo-oooo?

Oh, no, no, no, no, NO!

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I’m just a ginger cat, nobody loves me,

He’s just a ginger cat, from a ginger litter,

Let him sleep on the bed tonight.

 

Easy come, easy go,

Let me go back out.

You just came in,

We will not let you out.

Let me out.

We will not let you out.

Let me out.

We will not let you out.

Let me out.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO!

 

Oh, Mama Mia, Mama Mia,

Mama Mia, can I keep this cat?

You can’t keep this cat because it’ll be more work for me,

For ME,

For MEEEE!

 

So you think you can lock me inside?

So you think I won’t run around and cry?

Oh, human,

You can’t do this to me, human.

I just gotta get out,

Just gotta get right

Outta here.

 

Nothing really matters,

Anyone can see,

Nothing really matters,

I’m just a feline that you must…

Pleeease.

 

Sorry, Queen.

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During the Eclipse

I don’t know if I was the first to think it. How could I know? I didn’t tell anyone what I was thinking. It was too damn crazy. There were probably others who likewise noticed, but kept it to themselves. Because, what could we do?

When I began thinking it, I don’t know. I didn’t mark the date. Like the economy, or a war, it took a few months to get a true and complete sense of what was transpiring.

It began with people telling about miraculous recoveries from cancer, and other diseases and injuries on Facebook. Those stories swept across the media as newspapers and television networks noticed. Reporters hunting the stories found bigger stories, even as hospitals and government agencies added other elements.

People weren’t dying. Gunshot and stabbing victims recovered. So did people who overdosed. Burns healed. Drowning victims took sudden new breaths, startling everyone. Diseases went into remission. Those who needed assistance from machines, nurses, caregivers, and doctors were able to push them aside, walking, chewing, and wiping their own asses, without others’ help. Memories, speech, and motor control returned. Their vision and minds sharpened.

So many thought it a miracle, a proof of some God’s love. Meanwhile, the planet’s average temperatures jumped. Hurricanes and cyclones destroyed cities, but nobody died. Glaciers melted. The sea levels rose, as did the heat, shriveling crops. America’s Midwest dried up, becoming another dust bowl. Water grew scarce and precious. Unemployment climbed, because there was less need for taking care of the sick, dying, and dead. People cried and screamed in hungry pain. Animals were killed. Fights over food and water broke out. Then came the riots.

I was sure I knew what had happened. Sometime during the cover given by the eclipse, others invaded Earth. They were wiping us out by accelerating our climate change, and keeping us alive even as we starved. It was a soft invasion. They didn’t want us dead, just weak, so they could enslave us.

Guessing that’s what was happening, I’d taken quiet actions to make things as pleasant as possible for my family in our remaining days. There was no way to kill ourselves; there was no way to die. All we could do was wait.

After eleven months, Nate Silver published results. August 21, 2017, was day zero. That was the last day anyone had died. We should all remember that date, when we meet our new masters. I’m sure they’ll introduce themselves by giving us food.

And we’ll be so grateful, we’ll do what they want.

 

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His Walk

“Did you see how Marla says I walked?” he asked.

“No,” she replied.

“She was talking to you in the kitchen She said, “I knew the look, and the walk.” Then she did this weird walk. I don’t walk like that, do I?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t see what she did.”

“How would you describe my walk?”

“You walk just like your father.”

“That’s not helping. You’re basically saying that I walk like Mott the Hoople.”

“I don’t know how Mott the Hoople walks.”

He didn’t want to show her; it would only prove her point.

 

 

 

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Broken Nose

“You mean you’ve never broken your nose?” the other man asked.

He looked at the guy. “What’s the big deal?”

“I don’t understand how a boy can grow up without breaking your nose. You weren’t ever punched in the nose?”

“No.”

“Wow.” Grinning, the man shook his head. “Wow.”

Which made him feel bad. Two broken necks, a digit cut off, stitches in five places, a broken ankle, and a displaced wrist, but he’d never had a broken nose.

It felt like he’d been doing something wrong.

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The Connection

Thousands of small, black ants were swarming over the kitchen’s granite counter-top. Looking at his tanned forearm, he began crushing ants under his thumbs.

Yes, there was no doubt; each time he killed an ant, a black spot appeared on his arm. There seemed to be more and more ants, too.

Discounting what he was seeing, he kept killing ants. His arms blackened, and then his hands. He refused to stop even when he felt tingling on his face and an itchiness on his back and legs.

He would get rid of the little bastards.

He would win.

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The Sound

He was in the bath room, fresh from the shower and reaching for a towel, when he heard the sound.

It sounded like a thump in the other room, like someone was in the house. Knowing he was home alone, he grew still and listened for it again. He’d left the windows open to bring in fresh, cold mountain air before the day became the oven in hell’s kitchen. Someone may have come through one of the windows.

The thump came again.

It was not from the other room, but from below.

He looked down, considering what he’d heard and where it emanated. For, it seemed like the sound had come from his abdomen.

Listening for it, he heard it again, like someone jumping on the floor, coming from his abdomen.

Was that normal? He’d never heard a noise like that from his body before.

He resumed drying. Growing old was a murky business. The more he aged, the less he knew his body, and the less he trusted it.

He never knew what it was going to do next.

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Shopping

I’d just been thinking, if a sales person asked me if I needed assistance, I would answer, “Yes, I’m taking up cross-dressing. Do you have suggestions on what I should wear?”

Running into another interrupted my innertainment. In the Eileen racks at Kohl’s in the women’s department, we were intent on the garments being offered, ironic, as we’re both sixty something white men. Yet, bang went our heads.

We drew back, rubbing the afflicted areas and gazing at one another. “Oh,” I said. “Fancy running into you here.”

Shrugging, smiling, and still rubbing his head, the bespectacled bearded fellow replied, “Yes, you never know what’ll happen in a dream.”

Then he went on.

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The Spiral

It’d been a rotten day. Crew show wasn’t early, eight A.M., but nothing had gone right. Maintenance problems undermined plans.

Away at Sigonella, they spent hours broiling on the flightline while trouble with a GTC was tracked down and resolved. By then, they had to abort their primary mission. Though it was beyond his control, he felt responsible. A secondary mission of overwater navigation training was taken on, six hours of droning over the Med, then through the STROG and over the Atlantic, and up Europe’s coast. Matching the day’s tone, thunderstorms pushed them to change those plans and find the most direct path home. Between the flying time and debrief, he got home at ten that night.

He wasn’t expected, of course. They were supposed to be out two more days, but that GTC issue terminated that plan, so here he was.

The house was weirdly dark. Entering, he found his wife in the bedroom, with another man.

He knew the other man as her friend, Curt. She was in bed. Curt was clothed, but on the floor beside her. She leaped out of bed. She was in the sweat clothes she usually wore to bed. Curt’s watch was on the nightstand, beside an unopened condom package.

Coming to him, she hugged him. “It’s not what you think,” she said. “It’s not what you think.”

He didn’t have thoughts. He couldn’t answer.

“What are you doing home?” she asked.

“Aircraft problems,” he answered. Turning, he picked up his car keys and left, going to the club for a drink.

He stayed there for a while.

She explained the next morning that Curt was just visiting. She was cold, so she’d put on her sweats and went to bed to stay warm. They were just making jokes about the condom.

He didn’t say a word. He didn’t know if he believed her.

It wasn’t visible for twenty years, but that’s where the spiral began, he saw. Now he was so far down in it, he didn’t see any way up.

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