Thursday, November 18, 2010

17 Seasons

1.

seventeen seasons had already passed and the the fires still rose and fell, the hollow trees bursting into flame like tall wooden scarecrows, limbs as arms, flickering fingers in the wind. the hallowed harvest skies pink with solemn sunset shadows, shuffled about in the wispy arms of puffy cloud chaperones, melting silently into mountain faces.

half of the timekeepers had reversed direction, and the other half had stopped entirely. it had become such a chore just to synchronize their timepieces that they now relied solely on the passage of the moons across the horizon to gauge time. the constellations plodded unimpeded around and around the universe, and it wasn't too challenging to count each star and make a pencil note in a ledger. even if it took all day. what a day had become.

that's how bad things were.


2.

drab and canvas gypsy caravans crunched along the dusty county road into town, pulling away from the smoke and fires of the plains. as night fell, small indigo shadows in the shape of gypsy children danced across the dried mud ruts, laughing and pelting each other with whatever they could grab off the ground as they skipped along. they would scatter like blueflies when a lawman occasionally happened by, his pole lantern lighting the path, as he watched the ground for "ale spiders" in the early hours leading up to tavern closing time.

the sound of bottles shattering echoed as they hit the rocks in the ravine next to the county road. tinkle, tinkle, tinkle went the glassy shards as they fell. the lawman turned to look over the edge but it was dark and he was too tired to swing the pole and lantern over, too tired to care about anything other than his footsores and gout.

he trudged towards home, his eyes half closed, his mind half asleep. the lantern and pole grew heavier with each trudge, but the glow of amber light from the kitchen window was a welcome sight. it put a little more lift in each step he took.

The small glass panel slid open and with a raspy breath and copper snuffer the flame was put to sleep for the evening. It went out with an oily hiss and he propped the wooden pole against the fencepost. pulling out the ring of keys with a jangle he pushed the door open.

Hero

The cerebral dichotomy entered into the equation, but was never taken too seriously. They would banter back and forth until day turned to day again, never getting any closer to a viable, diplomatic resolution. It troubled them, and they would take it home at night, if they went home, to their families, and their pets, and the unseen close ones around them.

It would invade their dreams masquerading as night terrors, driving the weak to tears, and driving the strong to drink. Sex lives would become blasè afterthoughts, appetites would wilt at the sight of food, and any semblence of normality would die right there on the kitchen tile floor in front of their bleary-eyed stares.

One man decided to fight the controlling force. He wasn't brave, just tired, and bored as hell. Heroes rise from the ashes of defeat before they are burned, and he wasn't in the mood to get burned today. But he wasn't a hero either–that title didn't suit him anymore. Maybe it was hanging in the closet way in the back. Not Superman, or even MacGyver, maybe just a pair of jeans and a rumpled t-shirt. In his head he was more, but not much more.

Leap

As the car swerved toward him he leapt out of his shoes to avoid it. Spinning in midair, he thought about breakfast for the next several days, and the email he should have written to Sinclair Dremis. He came down.

On bent knee he rose from the ground where he landed, quite firmly, with a dancer's grace. Light on his feet he had always been, and it came in handy as the deep red auto assassin sped off into the moist, dense, wooded area behind the small outdoor shopping mall. Ooh his eyes burned as he strained to see through the dust, the swirling dust that suddenly kicked up from the careening vehicular exit.

His phone started screaming out a tinny bad metal arrangement of Ravel's Bolero, and he wrenched it out of his hip pocket.

"Hallo," he barked into the glass-faced device.

The voice on the other end was raspy and almost unintelligable.

"Where was Marvin last night? The skylight is leaking again and I can't make sandwiches on the butcher-block until it's fixed."

Inquisition twisted his face into one big wrinkle. One big pink, ruddy wrinkle. He looked at the incoming number screen. Unknown Dialer. One big green question mark.

Poke went his finger on the End Call button. The fresh smile on his face painted his cheek creases white. He turned and walked toward a small red and white service station down the street. The thought of a cold drink washing the afternoon down sure sounded good. He looked into the soda machine perched on the concrete stoop in front of the windows heavily painted with semi-prehistoric canned oil prices.

Did they have Diet Rozzo? No. Of course not. Did that piss him off? Yes. Of course it did.

"Damn," he yelled at the glass-faced machine.

He looked around but couldn't find anyone even though the garage doors were wide open, and an old radio was playing Elvin Bishop somewhere in back. Humming, he walked out a back door and shaded his eyes to see what he could see. Two cats were tussling over by a pile of tires and he could hear the clank of train rails in the distance.

The cirrus sunset clouds started to pile in from the north and that made him think of his childhood and eating dinners on the patio. Walking around the front of the station he started down the street in hope of finding a bite to eat.


2 ------------------


Marvin closed the book he was reading, an old leather-bound fifth edition of "Pacific Waves," and turned on the tv. "Nothing but bad news," he muttered, flipping through the channels. Cooly, he stood up and stretched and went into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

Untitled 9.30.10

1

Tired as he was, he managed a smile. Fruitless, merging with his forehead as he winced from the bright summer sun. He took the potato belt off, the leather flaking dust as he carefully set it on the wooden red bench. Several minutes later he collected his thoughts and took a deep breath of farm fresh warm air.

City life was never for me, he thought. Maybe a ride every once in a while. Like to the airport by the river down south. Hmm, that might make a nice road trip. But only through the outer neighborhoods. Don't want to get caught up in the traffic unless I need to buy something.

Seeing the glimmering silver rooftops across the fields reminded him of airplanes, vintage though, never the newer jets. Oil and grease, gas and hydraulic fluid. Ohhh the memories.

It's the rivets and workmanship that put a cherry on top, he told a passing meadowlark on a fencepost. It's like looking at a frozen dessert that's melting but you have no spoon. You want to dig in with your fingers but it's messy and that cuts the satisfaction like a knife.

Dak stuck his tongue out. Nothing he hated worse than sticky fingers. Well maybe a crying baby. A crying baby with sticky fingers. Yuk!

2

The screen door pushed open with a springy creaking groan. Cool air rushed out as he unlocked the front door and walked into the front room. Closing the door and latching it he took off his hat and bag.

Ahhh, he said as the day's stress started to flow away.

He poured himself a cold drink and poured himself into the green recliner. The box wanted to turn on but not until he clicked the remote. Then it was happy.

Important news for you or a family member. If you or someone you know has recently suffered illness or death, this information is for you.

Oh my God what have they done, Dak said quietly. They've taken my favorite box and turned it into something evil. My favorite after work activity melted into a blob of filth. What have they done?

The man on the box screen continued to drone on about pills, wills, and flights to Senegal, but Dak tuned it out. He thumbed through the paper mail he picked up from the paper mail box on the way home. Something red and glossy caught his eye.

Sunny Furry

Once upon a time there was a serene, cool, shiny lake. Next to the lake was a large mountain, dotted with dark green evergreens, and oh so majestically lined with clouds at it's snowy, white peak. On the sunny south side of this mountain grew a velvety valley of clover, rich with a flurry of small furry animals, burrowing and scurrying, playing and dancing in the warm summer breezes under the clouds and the trees.

Now this valley was also home to larger inhabitants who lived a little further up the valley to the east. They rarely came out in the light, and only once in a great while would they glance out with their tiny eyes shaded to throw stones at the noisy furries. It was quite an annoyance since the daysleepers were light sleepers and did not appreciate nocturnal interruptions, even if their "night" wasn't technically "night.".

The Lake

When the sun faded to a burlap shade of green and slid behind the clouds, the birds came out to fly, and perch, and talk their bird talk in the trees surrounding the nearby lake. It was a beautiful, reflective lake, without encircling soggy marshes and dank, black, boot-sucking bogs. The water was silent and inviting, cool and wet, clean and fresh. Grass grew tall in hues of green and yellows now, around the lake shores, and the animals drank freely, and grazed, and ran.

On the breeze was a hint of autumn; somewhere a wood fire burned, the smokey oak smell swam over the hills into the valley, carrying the incense of the mellowing fields beyond.

The Machinists's Robot

Even in the recesses of his metal-clad, deftly riveted brain, he knew today was the day. He drew a satisfyingly deep breath of pre-methanized oxygen, as deep as his turgid lungs would allow, and he started walking.

The message he left for his machinist was vague, purposefully so, without clues or underlying meaning, to give pause to any motivation to follow him. Enough time for him to make tracks. Hit the road. Get out of town...

The front door slid open as it recognized his presence, and he peeked left and right before stepping outside. His hard rubber-treaded soles made a crunching noise across the leaves on the wooden landing as he took each whirring step slowly and deliberately. This was the first time he had ventured out past the railing without a map, so he trepidatiously proceeded across the yard, and to the old asphalt roadway beyond.

He wondered how long the alert signal would remain dark before it illuminated and revealed his position to his machinist, and how much time he would have before distance made it fade. He had carefully planned out the escape based on his machinist's early morning routines, and fortunately they hadn't changed that morning. The subroutine had kicked in when the last door locked behind the machinist at 7:47am, and the restraining pads released their magnetic hold; yes, he knew he was free, and he could do as he pleased.

The loud, old brown dog, usually chained to a metal post on the other side of the fence, was nowhere to be seen, so he took advantage of the quiet moment. Creeping slowly down behind the hedge, he waited for the early morning traffic to subside.

Time passed slowly and was starting to become slightly anxious about the situation when the last metro bus rumbled by, and the street grew silent.

"Hopefully that was the end of traffic for the morning," he thought to himself.

"Most of the commuters have commuted, and the morning moms have settled down to soaps, ironing, or washing."

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

The FlyGrass Prophecies

Age never was a factor when it came to the convergence of the Flygrass Prophecies. As time passed, it was merely "recycled," a non-factor in the end, since there was no tangible end or conclusion after that had been started. Only a slight, barely detectable hiccup at the point where the cycle met itself to begin anew. Not a perfect circle, but a perfect cycle. RealTime was created from this Recycle process. All existence was in RealTime now.

The Flygrass Prophecies were loosely-translated, leather-bound, tea-stained, onion-skin manuscripts from PreTime, before RealTime had reached the first Recycle. Now held in the highest regard and more commonly known as The Words, they had taken the place of earlier scriptures destroyed before the first Recycle. All dwellers were weaned, taught, punished, and rewarded by The Words as they matured, and then encouraged to follow The Words as they departed into RealTime as adults.

Point Made, Point Taken

The blanket of clouds was louder than the blue sky. The sun was still asleep. The dawn pavement was busy reflecting life passing above, the iron bridge trembling carrying furious traffic over small life below.

Weeds waved, train yards smell of metal and rust, wet newspaper stuck to the yellow diamond traffic sign.

On the way back into daily slog, it's all simple but not too simple. Life runs a course that is anything but of course; Caribbean dreams reluctantly morph back into their gray concrete dull gritty alter egos. The sublime ghosts of casual thought hide in dim corners and then in plain bright view, waiting with the patience and resolve of time itself.

Labeling an impulsive endeavor as improper can be proper, theoretically. Only if undue motivation has provided the catalyst. Sequestering the drive to break the mold and create an alternate tangent can be overwhelmingly daunting. Electing to follow your nose to that end will provide unknown results. Some exist only to accomplish the adrenaline infusion for the push. Others are comfortable in solitude.

Point made, point taken.

An epilogue to close the symbiotic soliloquy.

The Beginning

Created before the birth of Isaac, the list of Minori was long and solemn, but yet it was as complete as a list that old could be. The names of all the Sitorlings were on it. That was a fact. Undisputed, even by the elder ones. Written in blood, it was said, although that was disputed.

"Will it have my name on it?" Sandruel though out loud. Loud enough that a gray and orange shedstool overheard, and flew over to perch on a lower limb. "Fly away little one," Sandruel said to the small birdlike creature. "You're much too small to be this close to me. I will eat you like a dry finger of tajnel in the bright afternoon's heat." He laughed as the creature fled at the thrust of his voice.

Sadly he turned back to his wonderment, and touched his forehead, mocking a sign of reverence. "I will run before they can make that final judgment," he said flatly. "They will have to search the entire planet to find me."

The sun was high and scorching his fur with it's intense heat, so he decided to seek shade under a tall paraya plant. "I'm far enough away already, and I will make my break for the wallfront after the day has ended," he though.

Many Years Ago...

Buttons and pale fabric lay on the floor where they had been dropped many years ago. A yellow drinking glass and a broken ceramic pitcher stood covered with a layer of dust on the bedside table.

The floor was so dirty. No one was there to clean the mouse droppings along the walls and where the floor-boards were uneven. No one was there with a broom and pan to gather the pile of dusty feathers in the corners from the pigeons that took to roost in the eaves overhead.

The hot afternoon wind danced around the room, breathing life into tiny dust-devils which would live and die in the blink of an eye. The white wooden door to the porch stood partially open, the tattered screen door rapped out a staccato slapping as each volley of hot air swept by. The tinkling of a windchime sparkled in the silence, and a lone, dead oak creaked back and forth; barren branches reaching to the white-blue sky, a low howl lifting from it's hollow trunk.

Ewie: Chapter 1

Old man Ewie was a part time clown. He just wasn't funny enough to support himself as a full time clown. He supplemented his clown income by selling men's shoe insoles from a stand on the shoulder of where highway 44 and route 6 intersect. You know, over by the Jameson's old farmstead.

The horse flies were bad that hot summer day, and Ewie had to wear a shady, floppy hat to cover his bald head and weathered brown face. He groaned and tried to get comfortable on the cracked vinyl of the barstool. His skin was sticky and wet, and the sweat ran off the end of his nose.

"Easier said than done," Ewie said, swatting furiously at the circling pests. He tried to stay busy with a tv guide crossword puzzle.

"Ouch," he exclaimed as he slapped at a fly on his neck. "Buggers."

A orange-red pick-up slowed down with a scraping of brakes and pulled off the road onto the dusty shoulder across from his stand. A pudgy woman climbed out of the passenger side, grimacing against the heat and brightness. Slamming the truck door, she pulled a blue and orange scarf around her head. After tying a sloppy knot below her chin, she yelled over to Ewie.

"Hey, you over there, I need some insoles for my tenny runners," she said in a raspy chainsaw-like tenor. "I've got five bucks that ain't doin' nothin'. Whatcha got for a hottie like me?"

Ewie looked over and shaded his eyes with both hands. He had forgotten to bring his clip-ons so his eyes were watering and he could barely see through the blur.

"Sorry," he said. "I only carry men's insoles. Maybe you could try the CVS in town off Marble avenue and 10th."

"Good Lord you are a moron," the portly woman chortled back at Ewie. "If I wanted damn CVS insoles I would've just gone there right? Jeemeny Christmas." A sudden gust of wind tugged at her scarf, and gray wisps of hair framed her face as she rolled her eyes in disgust.

Ewie stuck his thumbs in the waistline of his trousers and shrugged his narrow shoulders. He wished he would have taken that serpentine belt job at the Tankton assembly plant last month.

"Anything has to be better than this," he sighed under his breath.

He was right.

The lady climbed back into the truck and it ground into gear and sped off in a cloud of gravel and dirt.

"A dish of pineapple sherbet would hit the spot right now,'" Ewie thought, rubbing his belly. "And a big fat cigar to smoke and forget all those damn kid party contracts."

The kid party contracts. It was a secret that he would take to his grave. See the things was, even though he was a part time clown, he had worked some kid parties that were earmarked for full timers only. It was a racket, and a shrewd one, but he had danced with the Devil. He loved to dance that dance, and who doesn't? Carnal gratuity had him on the fast track to the land down under. Not Australia no, no, not Oz. H, e, double toothpicks. He felt the knot in his stomach.

"Damn agent. Wish I'd never met him. He dragged me into this mess and now I have no life," he said.

Not a good mental condition for a clown. He knew it. The kids knew it. Even the fish knew it. But for now he was stuck. Like a pork chop in a mud puddle.

It was time to pack it in for the day. He closed up his little silver-gray lockbox and with his satchel under one arm and the lockbox under the other, he started walking home. The wind was getting stronger, pushing his hat back on his head, and billowing his shirt as he made his way along the barren interstate.

His legs were tired and his lower back was aching like a sad winter ptarmigan when he finally passed the gas station and crossed the parking lot of Mama Cho's delicatessen. He had been dreaming about sherbet and that firecracker-hot Mama Cho all day long. What a sight for sore eyes!

Mama Cho had been selected from over 1,000 Chinese refugees to relocate to Hartleyville over two years ago, with a federal loan, and a new lease on life as well as a delicatessen. That was the day Ewie fell for her like a shaken cake.

Mama Cho was a natural sandwich queen, the way she moved, the way she sliced, and the way she spread the condiments. Nothing escaped her sandwich-maker's eye as she flew around the kitchen north, south, east, and west.

Ewie would sit for hours with his nose pressed against the window glass of his 1982 Chrysler Le Baron, watching her as she molded balls of poor man's meat for foot longs on the back deck of the deli. She knew he was infatuated, and she would play with it, daring it, tempting it to develop into a situation that neither could handle.

What type of future could a part time clown and a sandwich queen possibly have? Oh it burned in the back of their minds, but neither would make a move. Neither would take a step towards the light.

He saw his old car sitting out back so he decided to sit in it and watch her for a while without her knowing. Even though that made him feel like a peeping-tom pervert he did it anyway. After all they were kind of dating.

Cleveland's the Man

Tim Cleveland wasn't a very tall man. He stood 5' 10" with his favorite shoes on, and he had no noticeable stoop. It must've been his buzz cut that made him look taller. He wasn't very old either, unless one considers fourty-seven too far into middle age, and his waist size was still the same as it was when he was twenty-something–33".

He patiently waited in front of Clarice's Boutique under the overhang on that cold, November morning in his hometown of Oakwalla, Wisconsin, for the 8:15am downtown bus. He had to bend down a little to stand under the red and white canvas sagging under the weight of the water which had gathered from the overnight rain. The wind was cold but there was no snow, which was strange for that time of year. Just gray clouds that scooted across the sky creating quick cracks of cold blue which would peek through. It scoured through the crop on his head and made his cheeks feel like stiff cardboard. He pulled the collar on his jacket up tight around his neck and wished he had worn a scarf.

The cold made it feel like hours until the bus finally arrived. It pulled up with a squeal of brakes and a cloud of exhaust, plowing through the gutter water. The doors opened and Tim climbed up the steps, his rubber soles squeaking and the leather uppers creaking, slid his plastic pass through the reader, and made his way down the middle aisle, past the lady with her sniffly brown and white poodle, to an empty pair of seats near the back.

Prelude to a Tome: Part 1

As old, gray, and slightly arthritic Professor Wineburst entered his morning classroom, he noticed something unusual hanging quietly on the back wall. He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes and turned around three times but it was still there. The tingling in his foot reminded him that he had been sitting for quite some time before he had gotten up to enter the room. His entire left leg had been asleep...

"Oh darn, I wish I was still in the Barnswallow pub having a dark malt with me mates," he whispered to the slightly-built but delightfully-colored parrot perched proudly on the glistening white window sill.

The parrot's name was Milton, and the professor didn't know it but the way the parrot was standing was very significant to what was hanging on the back wall.

"Shibbledeedee," said the parrot and flew out the window, which by this time of the morning was wide open to let the fresh morning sea air come in.

"Gone," said Professor Wineburst. "As gone as the day is long, but not forgotten."

He looked at the back wall again and the unusual thing had moved. Now it was on the floor, looking quite like a pool of linen; chartreuse linen with an interwoven ivory and lemon patchwork pattern that reminded the professor of his fun-soaked childhood in the high mountains of St. Alaban.

"Ahh St. Alaban," he sighed. "To be young and in St. Alaban again. So many happy hours, so many sunny days and tin can fights. So many times I can't remember most of them."

He realized he was talking to himself and remembered what his therapist had told him, so with a hard pinch to his left under arm he came back to the situation at hand.

Years ago when he was a boy, his grandmother had knitted for hours making skirts for the foreign girls that spent summers interning for the local gentries on their rolling, sweeping, densley-wooded estates. The skirts she made them would swirl around their legs as they walked by and he tried to tend to his chores. They would laugh, his grandmother would laugh, and he would laugh along with them.

As the professor bent down to touch the "linen" he was struck in the back by a sharp object. It felt sharp at least. It actually felt a little like a stabbing pain shooting through his lattisimus dorsi, paralyzing his left side momentarily, but since he was a man not prone to complaining he stifled his reaction.

"Ouch," he said. "That hurt my back."

He tried to rub it, but the professor was not a man with double joints or inclined towards contortionism, so he could only rub his hip which wasn't doing much good at all. So he chuckled and stopped.

He noticed there was a small nut-brown porcupine with an solemn yet intent expression on his porcupine face throwing porcupine quills right at him! The porcupine was standing outside the door so the professor walked over and closed it.