Tag: just goofing around

Love’s Fabric

He saw him across the swirl of activity. It took some effort to press himself closer for a better look. As he made his way past an entanglement of shirts, jeans and underwear, the other spotted him.

Despite his heritage and their obvious differences, instant attraction occurred. Shedding regard for what others might make of it, the old black rayon polyester blend, a plain sock from an inexpensive store, began dancing with the young gray and black wool Gold Toe. Soon they found commonalities. Both were dress socks, although for different occasions, meant for a man, sizes ten through thirteen, and shared a calf-high design.

It wasn’t long before they were entangled in intimate acts within the dryer’s hot confines. Opprobrium rapidly followed. “You already have mates,” they were told. “Think of them. And the authorities will separate you, once the cycle ends.”

Knowing this was true, they spent as much time as possible together. Some sympathetic plaid boxer shorts approached them. “There’s a way out of here,” she said. Yes, stories of that underground dryer vent was woven through their society.

A buzzer’s warning pierced the cylinder. The cool down cycle. Little time remained. They made their decision. Love was hard to find among the clothes. They followed the secret route out, hopefully, to happiness.

It helped to be open to looking past another’s materials and age to find love, but to fully embrace it was to fully embrace the unknown, and venture into new realms.  It would be hard, but they knew it would be harder yet to give up without trying.

2

The Hormone Effect

The promises.

Harvard and Yale are considered in her junior year of high school. Speaking five languages, a prodigy with several musical instruments, in advance placement classes, we’re pleased, proud and envious of who she is and her potential. But the boy has changed everything. We don’t see and feel what he brings to her but she’s modified her plans. A small local college is the goal, with a degree in international business.

Our pain of our lost dreams want us to urge her, think again, please, think ago. You wonder how this will work out. What will she be in ten years? Will they still be together? You try not to color her life with your experiences but you understand. You remember the warnings they gave you. You ignored them as she is ignoring them, because it was you, and things were different.

Life worked pretty well, you reassure yourself, but you remember the potential you tasted before the hormones struck.

Oh, the promises.

0

In The Cards

The cards, slick, dry and neat, were comfortable and familiar in his hands, Shuffling them, he naturally recalled when the cards didn’t exist. Everything had to be held in his head in that period. It was messy.

He’d invented cards, as far as he knew, and he was certain he knew the truth. After he’d used them in public a few times, others began crude imitations. Some worked. Most didn’t. Then they became used for fortune telling and games. They could be very effective for seeing hidden truths but people truly needed the ability for that. Most didn’t have those abilities.

That nobody remembered or acknowledged him as the inventor didn’t bother him. Time and reality were barely stable then. History was yet to come. History didn’t matter in the long run. Neither did time.

Today’s deck was fifty-two. He liked fifty-two cards. They shuffled well and easily fit in his pockets. Cutting the deck, he pulled a few free and spread them face down on the table. Some beer imbibed, another ordered, and then he turned the first over.

A star ship.

Been there…. No, he didn’t want to go to a star ship.

Next he turned over a hot desert, and then a castle. Alexander the Great came up on the next card. A frigate followed. All felt dissatisfying.

He sipped his beer. An IPA, its BTUs were listed as one hundred fifty. He expected a sharply bitter beer but discovered pleasant nuances and currents. The problem with here and the cards was that he didn’t know what he wanted. He’d come here searching for something different. He’d found something different. It wasn’t working out. Greed and violence were consuming honor and principles. The people and nations were becoming husks.

Yes, he’d lived in such places before.

Returning the drawn cards to the deck, he went through the picture cards, stopping when he came across a landscape that was dark, with withered plants, despite the bright sunlight depicted. With a little effort, he heard a moaning wind and felt a chill crawl into his bones. Memories of the place quickened. He’d lived there twenty lifetimes before and had no inclination to return there.

He licked his thumb and ran it over the scene. Its image blurred. Between swallows of beer, he kept licking and rubbing the card until his thumb was dark and the scene was obliterated.

Mason came by. “Do you need a refill?”

A young university student majoring in education, he liked her. Most young woman attending that university were majoring in education, sadly sexist, in his view. She was also an artist. Her acrylics sometimes decorated the pub’s walls. “Can you do me a favor, Mason?”

Although she wiped down his table, she questioned him with a brown-eyed look and flicked back her brown hair. “Anything. Well, almost anything.” She grinned. “We’ll see. What is it?”

“You’re an artist, right?”

She smiled. “I try.”

“Oh, such false modesty.” He put the smudged card face up on the table. “Put your thumb on this card and think of a place for me, somewhere you really like.”

“Really?” Suspicion and doubt were in her expression. “Why? What’s going to happen?”

“It’s new software. It’s going to create it.”

“No way.”

“Sure, way.”

Mason hooked her hair back behind her ear with her thumb. “I just put my thumb on it? Either thumb?”

“Either thumb, and then think of a place, somewhere you really like.”

“Anywhere?”

“Anywhere.”

“Does it have to be real?”

“No.” Her questioned intrigued him. “Be as imaginative as you want.”

Smiling, Mason shrugged. “Okay.”

She put her thumb on the card. Her mouth fell open. She flicked a wide-eyed look toward me. “It feels weird, like something is crawling over my thumb.”

“Don’t worry, it’s harmless.”

“No, I’m not worried. I trust you. How long should I keep my thumb on it?”

“You’ll know when to remove it.”

She was going to say more. A start interrupted her. In less than an eye twitch, she disappeared.

Finishing his beer, he picked up the card to see where she’d gone. He usually didn’t do things like this but felt a new avenue was needed. When he saw her creation, he laughed out loud, drawing looks from the seven others sitting around the pub.

She was already forgotten here, she already lived there. Well, he wanted different. Picking up the card, he put his palm on her creation.

“There you are, Doctor,” she said.

Glancing around the TARDIS’ interior, he put the card in the deck and stuck it in his pocket. “Yes, here I am.” He wondered what he looked and sounded like, whether he was a new Doctor or an old one. “Where should we go today, Mason?”

****

With apologies to Doctor Who and Chronicles of Amber fans.

5

Civilization

Rains stopped sometime in the early hours. Still dark, the winds howled around the house, beating down tree branches with its footprints and scaring the cats into wary, still watchfulness. Dawn brokered a gray, thin cloud sky but the wind remained a torment. Although anxious, he waited until the wind faded and the sun crept out before visiting Antville.

He’d watched his videos of the place several times since making videos yesterday and the day before. Antville had survived the first storm but it had been mild. Last night’s rain loaded heavy howler probably wiped them out.

But, no. He was delighted to see how wrong he was. They’d survived, and had also expanded. There now existed small walls embracing a town of busy streets and alleys. Small fields were sown in several directions around it.

It seemed implausible that they’d planted and cultivated so many fields so quickly. They must be operating on a different speed of time, although he couldn’t understand how. The sun was the sun, shining down on them for the same number of hours that it illuminated and warmed his world. How tiny their seeds must be.

Then, remarkably, a small puff of smoke drew his eye. Boggling him, he realized, it’s a car. Two ants were in it. Other ants spread out to let it pass.

Another antmobile approached from the other direction. Two cars. The two headed toward each other at a fast ant’s pace.

He saw the accident was going to happen.

He hoped it wouldn’t, and wished there was something on his end he could do.

But the two ant vehicles met head on.

It was a slow speed. No ants seemed harmed. Crowds quickly gathered. The two ant driver emerged from their vehicles. After a few seconds of gentle touching, their antennae and legs began wild flailing. Other ants joined in.

It was amazing how quickly the ants were becoming civilized.

1

Time Lag

It always happened to him. Something occurred. He saw it but couldn’t think of it for several seconds, and then couldn’t act upon it for several seconds more.

It ruined sports and games, or anything that required participation. “Pay attention,” people yelled. “Why are you so slow?”

He didn’t know and couldn’t answer. And when the lights changed from red to green and he couldn’t press on the gas pedal to go, all the honking behind him did nothing to change anything.

0

A Big Thing

He was weeding when he noticed a little thing, the little thing being a large manifestation of small, black ants. That so many ants were out there, on his gravel path that hooked around the house’s side, amused him. There were but a few weeds here. Other than the weeds, there was the path and some protective, decorative bark used as mulch.

But on a pause to wipe his brow and scratch his nose, he stared down at the next section designated for weeding. The small weeds were not random; they were orderly rows. The ants were not meandering around them, but tending the plants.

His conclusion struck him dumb. He hold onto it and nothing else in his mind for a few seconds before saying, “The ants are cultivating plants.”

This, he thought, was a big thing. He wasn’t very educated but he thought he’d read that settlements becoming agrarian was a major step forward step in human civilization. Breathing the warm air over his find, he thought about what he should do. He wondered if this scene was being repeated around the world. Retrieving his cell phone, he recorded the activity for thirty seconds and marveled about it.

He couldn’t weed there any longer; he became a little sick about what he might have already destroyed. He worried about what might happen to the ants and their farm. A storm was due tonight. Clouds were already gathering. He could imagine what a heavy rain would do to their world.

But it was their world. They’d come this far without him. He would leave them be and let the ants take control of themselves. They seemed to be doing well so far.

Besides, it gave him a good reason to abandon his weeding.

0

Weeding and Typing

Weeding today reminded me of typos, improper grammar and punctuation and general issues found in manuscripts.

I weed an area and move on. Turning around, I discover…more weeds, where I’d already weeded. The first time was considered, you know, an aberration. Surely the august self had merely overlooked one sector of weeds. But after the second and third times, my suspicions grew. With the fourth time, I concluded, I’m not missing the weeds: they’re growing behind my back.

That had to be the answer.

And while I chortled at my imagination and the secret plotting I now discerned among the weeds — “OMG, he knows,” — I reflected on how much this is like editing. You comb and comb for the mistakes. Satisfied that you found and corrected all the errors, you move on.

But at another time, maybe the same day, maybe a day a week from now or later, you open the doc or pick up the manuscript, and there is another error. 

They’re just like weeds. They seem to propagate on their own.

0

The Pilgrim Effect

He awoke in a leather recliner that he didn’t know and stared at the large television screen.

White on black, 04/08/04 was shown. Beneath it said 3:02 AM. The two pieces of information floated around the screen like they were tied together.

The room was cold around him. He needed to pee. He needed to drink. He felt parched but also like his bladder was ready to burst. He stood to attend those matter.

Mental cohesion began undoing. He didn’t know the chair or the floor. The walls weren’t familiar, nor was the other furniture. He didn’t know them, but then, he did. They came to him like long ago learned and forgotten information, forgotten because it wasn’t used. Then he was saying to himself, “Oh, yes, I remember buying that recliner.” He regarded it with deeper thought.

But then, he didn’t remember this body. Taking in his hands, he processed their shape and condition. He understood, these are not the hands I fell asleep with. He understood, but these were the hands I fell asleep with.

Trying to reconcile the dichotomy between what he saw of himself and his furniture, he looked again at the television. At 3:04 AM, he should be going to bed. He should turn off the television. He looked for the control to do that, asking with irritation, “Where is the remote?” It should have been with him at the recliner. With that reasoning, he considered, maybe it fell between the cushions.

As this was thought, he saw a remote in his mind and knew that it was a virtual device generated by a chip in his skull. He just needed to think of the remote and what he wanted it to do, and the remote would do it. This was information that he should have already had, because he’d been doing that for years.

He reconsidered the date. He’d fallen asleep in twenty seventeen. That date said 04/08/04. The oh four was for twenty one oh four. Yes, because that’s what year it was. His hands looked different because he’d received a new body in twenty fifty-six for his one hundred birthday.

They’d told him this might happen. Becoming unstuck in time, he’d time-traveled in his dreams.

4

The Hardest Path to Walk

The hardest path to walk, the most difficult challenging in terms of morality, ethics, courage and bravery, or risk, isn’t the path that I’m taking this morning.

Yes, the coffee cup is damn full. I’ve slurped down the mocha from the brim. I’m conscious of its waves and motion as I take steps. “Easy,” I encourage myself. “Stay focused.”

No, it’s not the hardest path. It’s just walking a full cup of coffee across a public room.

Because you know everyone will notice if you spill it.

Well, maybe not.

Okay, probably not.

Still, it’s coffee.

Well, it’s just coffee.

0

Real News

Somewhere in the well of night, he discovered streams of energy and creativity. With Amazon streaming a movie, the cats asleep in the office around him and a single desk lamp on, he started typing short stories. None of them were greater than three thousand words. Most were flash fiction.

Three movies later, dawn’s light was creeping in around the blinds. He was spent. Normally, he would then pragmatically edit the stories before submitting them. This time, he thought, what the hell. A few were submitted for publication but six of them were just posted on his blog. Basking in the glow of his accomplishments, he was surprised and pleased to see one quickly collected views and likes.

Then there was a comment awaiting approval. Opening it up, he read, “I don’t know how you found out the truth, but you should not have published it, you fucking idiot. They’re going to come for you. Resign yourself because you can’t hide. They will kill you. Do what you can to save all your loved ones.”

He read through the comment three times, furrowing his brow more with each reading. It didn’t make any sense at all.

These stories were all science fiction.

2

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