Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
He was hot. She was, she said, “Freezing.”
This wasn’t new.
But her fingers were white and waxy, like bloodless white candles. Their appearance stunned him into silence. She said they ached.
He merely sweated. So it was not the same thing. For her, it was pain. For him, it was comfort.
Spring showers slap Ashlandia. Sunshine forfeits the day to rain and clouds. Though it’s mid-morning, lights are turned on. A train’s horn haunts the quiet wet streets as a train glides through town on its metal path. It’s Tuesday, May 2, 2023. 47 degrees F now, the mid fifties is possible, the weather wranglers tell me.
Rain doesn’t please the cats. Tucker wanders, singing for sunshine to return. Papi showers me, questioning noises, alerting when he sees another cat walking toward him. “Hark! Who goes there?” Papi challenges. Tucker issues a lazy glance. Papi mutters, “Oh, it’s you,” and scurries off.
Today’s theme music comes from Jill Dennison’s post about a Chicago song called “You’re the Inspiration”. Hearing it reminded Der Neurons of another Chicago song. Maybe because it’s May. My wife and I went to the same high school. She was a year behind me. In May of her senior year, 1975, I was in the military and we were engaged. She was our school’s May Queen that year. Stationed just a few hundred miles from her, I came ‘back home’ for the event. One of the first slow dances we shared together was to a song called “Colour My World” by Chicago from 1970. Hearing it, I can smell and feel her. Then she asks, “What are you doing? Are you sniffing me?”
“Yes, I was sniffing you,” I reply with a sarcastic snort. “You’re so full of yourself. Why would I be sniffing you?”
“Why are you sniffing me?” she answers. “Do I need a bath?”
We’re still together despite lots of turbulence. I think we’re just too damn obstinate to walk away, although we’ve tried twice.
Coffee’s rich smell is calling from the other run. Stay pos and own the day. I’m just renting it, myself. Here’s the music. “Make Me Smile” is included in the video. Cheers
He always bought her earrings when he traveled. He thought she would like some dangling seaglass ones with a smalls silver hoop. Arriving home, he carefully added it to the collection. Someday he’d meet her, and he’d watch her eyes when he gave her the earrings.
He was certain she’d have beautiful eyes.
He remembered the time someone he loved told him that she hated him.
Burned like a hot knife across his back. Sickened like food poisoning. He thought she loved him.
The hatred on her face.
The way she crushed the words.
He ended up eavesdropping again. One young woman was speaking with another. God and religion were her primary topics. Then she spoke about her boyfriend for a long time.
What drew his attention was the realization that she was crying. She said, “I love him. I know people think I’m stupid. I’m trying really hard. I think we can work it out.”
It’s a trope as old as humanity.
Three dreams recalled from last night.
Bottle of whiskey.
The stone-lined path.
Wanted.
Bottle of whiskey. I was with dreams friends — folks known in a dream but not in RL. My dream wife was with me, and we were visiting in one of their homes. It was the collection point, for we were going out to dinner and then have some drinks and fun somewhere. It was a small group, just six or seven people, and the place where we met was a tidy but small, modern apartment.
We were sitting around a table with a white cloth covering it. The host entered. Opening a package, he said, “I got this in the mail today. It’s a prize I won.” He unboxed a crystal bottle of whiskey.
All were impressed. He poured his each a tumbler of his prize for us to sample. I drank mine and thought was amazing. So smooth, and slightly sweet. He offered more, which I accepted. Then, time to go. We walked down to a restaurant with my buddy taking his prize whiskey along. When he reached the restaurant, he poured other fluid into his whiskey bottle, appalling me. I wanted no more after that. Then, the, the bottle changed, with the bottle’s bottom growing rounder, until it would no longer stand upright, but tipped over. After the bottle was straightened three times, it fell over and broke.
The end.
The stone-lined path. I was out with my father, who was with others. I saw him and decided I wanted to avoid him. I could do this because we were outside, under an Interstate bridge. Huge pylons were holding it up. I kept hiding behind them.
Dad was busy doing something. Curiosity bettering me, I craned out to see. He had made a three-foot wide path in the dirt. Now he was lining it with rocks which he found. Seeing me, he called out, “Come help me, Michael. You’ll be good at this.” I went and began helping him lay the stones. While I was doing that, he took me and held me close to him. I felt embarrassed. He said, “I know that you avoid me but I want you to know how much I love you and how proud you make me feel.”
Dream end.
Wanted.
My wife and I were living in a small and cluttered apartment. We delivered a disagreement about how things should be arranged, so I said, I’m going to live in another place.
I left and went down a broad staircase, looking for another place. Women began approaching me, appealing to me to have sex. Some became very aggressive, shoving themselves against me, grabbing me, or passionately trying to kiss me. I kept telling them, “No, this is not going to happen.” They would give up and others would show up.
I went back up to my apartment with my wife. She was happily going about, doing something, dressed in her sweat clothes. I remained irritated with her and asked why she was acting as she was. She didn’t answer, so I left in exasperation. Another woman, in a white sundress with auburn curls highlighted blonde, told me that she wanted to take my clothes off and suggested with go back to her place. I told her, “No. Just leave me alone.”
Dream end
She and her hubby used to use “143” on the pager to say “I love you” as many people did. The numbers relate to the number of letters in the three words and had been around for over a century, from when a lighthouse in the Boston area of the US used the sequence for its light in the late 1800s.
She had not thought of the number for years after her spouse passed away in 2015. But then a friend called and said, “I’m sending you a photo.”
The photo was of a car odometer. It was reading 143143. The friend related, “I was driving on the highway, looked down and saw that on the odometer. I knew what it meant for you so I wanted to pull over, take a photo and send it to you. But I couldn’t pull over then. I kept going a bit and finally pulled over, sure that it was going to be ruined. I was surprised that it still said 143143. As I snapped the photo, I heard your husband said, ‘Tell her that she’s going to be alright.'”
High white cirrus brush strokes marble the pale blue sky. Monday, November 11, 2022, begins with sunshine and 33 degrees F in my foot of the valley. Although autumn fashion still imbues most neighborhood, eau de winter fills the air. It’ll be 54 F today, and mostly sunny. Sunshine crept in at 7:08 this morning like a cat sneaking in through the pet door. The day’s final rays will grace us at 4:45 PM.
We’re planning our soups. Soups in winter is a household favorite. Post Thanksgiving, we’ll resume a soup a week. I listed my favorites. Top of the list is harvest soup, which is all roasted veggies with mushroom broth. Second is chicken white chili. Tortellini soup comes next. Black bean veggie chili fills the fourth slot followed by lentil in fifth. Nothing like soup and warm bread on cold days to fill you, and these are all healthy and filling. Their simmering fragrances are a lovely bonus.
Musically, The Neurons were influenced by another’s post. Jill shared a song by Mike +the Mechanics, “In the Living Years”. It traditionally makes me pause to consider my relationship with Dad. Not the best, nor the worse, but a damaged one and a fount for personal frustration. He and I try but there’s just too much piss in the snow to completed the connections. I’m from his first marraige but he has children and stepchildren from a few other marriages. Dad was in the military and finally living in the continental US when I was a teenager. Another one of Mom’s marriages was imploding so I took refuge with Dad. He married again in my high school senior year. I became an adult and was gone. You see how it is. He just celebrated his 90th birthday last month.
That song prompted memories of other M +tM songs. The Neurons began playing “Taken In” from their 1985 album. I had it on CD and played it while driving across the southeastern U.S. I did that a lot in that life era. While stationed at Shaw AFB in South Carolina, I deployed on temporary duty to Florida, Somalia, Egypt, and places in Europe. I’d drive to stateside places, but before deploying, I’d sometimes take my wife and cats up north to stay with her family, as I’d be gone a while, four to eight weeks. So there were the trips there and back to taker her home, and there and back to pick her up. I put 54,000 miles on the car in eighteen months. Besides music, I’d listen to books on cassette tapes from the library. They weren’t yet on CD in our base library. It was an interesting time of transition.
“Taken In” is a mellow song and was ideal as a vehicle to help past the day speeding down the highways. I’d never seen the video before, but I love the period touches — the phones, the clothing, the cars. Hope you enjoy the video and music.
Here we go. Got coffee and a plain blueberry bagel. A cat monitors my progress on my left. The other sleeps in another room, where sunshine slices in past the slats on the blinds, generating a cozy ambiance. Stay positive, test negative. Cheers
Seeing movement on his vision’s edge, he thinks it’s his wife walking by and turns to speak to her.
It’s not his wife, but a short and plump elderly man.
He’s astonished. Other than the color of their jackets, the man looks nothing like his spouse.
Does he tell her about this incident? Do you think he has a death wish?
Darkness stole away. Into the void rose the sun.
Snow had fallen during the night. The 7 AM sunrise brought the heat and chased the thin wet snow away. We’ve regressed from winter to autumn again. A brisk wind adds some winter snap but the leaves keep autumn’s vivid colors present.
It’s Monday, November 14, 2022. Sunset will happen at 1650. Meanwhile, the temperature, now at 40 F, will hump up to 52 F.
Getting a late posting start today. Wife and I did our monthly food delivery. She wanted to leave early. Don’t know why, as we’ve learned the best time to go. I began protesting but saw the set lip and a lost argument. We went when she wanted and ended up waiting twenty minutes while they got everything ready. Yes, I’m whining. It’s Monday and my low-coffee warning is going off.
The continuing episode of life as a couple married for almost half a century awoke The Neurons. They started plinking a line, “Change, nothing stays the same,” because the disagreement was one of those things that does stay the same. It might not stay the same but oak trees grow from seeds into mighty trees before change in the relationship is seen. I mean, Gen Z will be grandparents first, if you see what I’m saying. Dave Chappelle will be a MAGA running for POTUS first.
So, Les Neurons quickly had “Unchained” by Van Halen (1981) perking in the morning mental music stream. It’s all based on that, “Change, nothing stays the same” moment, although Der Neurons also like the phrases, “Non-stop talker, what a rocker, blue-eyed murder in a size five dress.” Those are lines that conjure sharp impressions. I’m gonna miss Van Halen, both the rocking guitarist and the band. Yes, the song is a repeat. I’ll refund the money that you paid to read this to compensate.
The second round of coffee has been delivered to offset the clanging need for more. Stay positive and test negative. We’re good to go for another day. Here’s the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 