Morning

The morning dew was so heavy that you have thought there was rain during the previous night.  The song of the cardinal, sparrow, crow, robin, and others rang out loud enough to overpower the sound of tires on road, the whine of a diesel engine as it downshifted to slow down at a four-way stop, and the bass of a distant engine from an older car preparing to make its way into a festival where the older car was the queen of the show, the belle of the ball.  The sun shone bright and warm through the broken, mostly blue, sky.

He stood on the lawn, tending to his dogs.  His attention to the terrestrial was weak, as he drifted in the sky with the speeding clouds.  Both the boy and the clouds moved across the sky in such a hurry that he tried to slow down, to creep, but felt, when he slowed, that he would sink into the earth.  He started to think to himself that everyone should slow down; it was Sunday after all.  But the clouds kept on pushing, and time kept rushing to some end result, some terminus.  He looked out upon the morning sky and marveled at the parade-like precision everything moved.  The clouds walked on one of those mechanical walkways you see at an airport, a flat escalator, a treadmill.  And then, a car rolled by his house; it was good that he held on to his dogs without thought and with a tight fist.  Bark and snarl.  The tugging and snarling on the end of the leash made his thoughts roll to highways, stuck in mechanical beasts which snarled at stoplights, yield signs, and slower moving traffic.  He thought of folks who had to go, had to move, late, late, late, for a very important date.  But it was Sunday.

Then, he thought of internet connections and blinking television sets.  Monitors on laptop computers. He wished he could fly, perhaps even to the edge of the atmosphere some 100 miles up, perhaps to the edge to see the stars and floating space junk and active satellites.  He blinked to avoid an Astro-collision, and then once again, he was back into the sky, racing with dark, cold front clouds.  Feeling a cool breeze, contrasting the heat of previous days, He closed his eyes and listened again to the birds and their happy morning song.  

With a bark and a yelp and a hard tug of the leash, he opened his eyes and was crashed down on to the lawn and his dogs, and all that machinery and rushing.  The birds slipped into the background; the dew evaporated into the warm morning air, as folks in the far church parking lot slammed closed their car doors, rushing into the building.  Leaving him, by himself, who stood on the lawn, tending his dogs. 

Facebook. 23 July 2017

A Good Story of A Bad Old Egg

Little Jimmy Helmsquash was a boy who loved to explore.  He spent little time in the house, and lots of time outside in the yard.  This yard was an excellent place to explore, as it was filled with old trees, creeks, and wide expanses of tall grass.  Old stories of villagers echoed about Little Jimmy’s yard; the stories talked of strange inhabitants amongst the ancient trees.

It was on one of his exploration treks through the tall uncut grass that Little Jimmy discovered an egg.  According to Little Jimmy Helmsquash, the newly discovered egg was a Greater Egg, according to the great taxonomy.  That’s right, according to experts, it was an egg of much acclaim, and therefore, an egg worthy of everybody’s time and energy.  And for a long time, folks came from far and near, to find out about all of the fuss.  To most, this egg seemed quite ordinary, maybe even on the level of “lesser,” so after a while, folks stopped coming.  Disappointed Little Jimmy Helmsquash tossed the “Greater Egg” into a steamer trunk and locked it away in a closet, and then promptly forgot about his discovery.

After a couple of years, and after the horrible smell of sulfur left Little Jimmy Helmsquash’s bedroom, mysterious sounds started emanating from deep inside Jimmy’s closet.  There were moans, and creaks.  There was a popping or two.  Then, there were scratches and sighs.  There were even the sounds of mad tea parties from Mars.  The whole house, his entire family, and sometimes some guests, would think nothing about the strange noises that would eke out into the hall.  I mean, it was Little Jimmy, after all.  

But one day something changed that took peace and tranquility right out of the place.  Instead of the moaning, the screaming began.  And the scratches and sighs were replaced with some nail dragging and belching all along one wall.  But the thing that really disturbed the place, and caused neighbors to call upon police, was an earth-shattering boom that shook the entire house like the concussion of a bomb.  Now, no one said anything, not mom nor dad, but they slowly entered the room.  His little sister brought the dog to stand guard, all the while dragging the poor creature, tearing up carpet as they went down the hall.  One Aunt Matilda and Uncle Gerard, paying a visit, cut their trip short, packing up all their luggage and throwing them all in their car.  It was good that poor Aunt Matilda had been taking yoga classes for three months just before.  So there they were, minus poor Aunt Matilda and Uncle Gerard, all in unison, Little Jimmy, his dad and his mom, his little sister and dog, leaning in toward the door to give listen.  Then, everything went still. 

And then, without warning, there came a nearby sonic boom of a jet, and it shook out the windows and shelves, and the desk and a chair, knocking a few books from the shelves on the walls.  It disturbed the whole house right off of its foundation.  The entire group of curious gawkers leapt hard off, several feet into the air.  And then, like a single, gigantic hand, all in one, the entire group grabbed Little Jimmy Helmsquash, conveniently placed him at the center and front, and then, Little Jimmy he found himself face-to-face with the closet’s door, only the tiny sound of a pack of little arctic lemmings padding off and the sound of one phrase, “find out!”

So, alone in his now extremely small room, Little Jimmy Helmsquash had to find the courage to do what no one else wanted, and open the door.  He swallowed hard, grabbed the door knob, and then slowly turned the door.  He noticed skeletons hanging in his closet, and nothing more.  Curious as to how all that Halloween stuff got into his closet without his knowledge, he stepped inside.  Before he could reach out to touch the old bones, there was a creak and then blackness and nothing more.  And no one ever heard from Little Jimmy Helmsquash from that point forward, and everyone forgot about that egg.  Little Jimmy’s family eventually moved out, and now, after year, a new family has moved into the house.  And lately the young boy has been asking, “What is a Greater Egg?”

Jayden K. Blink, Real or Hoax

At one point, I was visited by an individual.  Well, maybe not so much as visited, but I did receive a knock upon my front door.  When I asked to whom I might be speaking, a pleasant voice called the name of Jayden K. Smith and then asked politely if I would possibly open my door.  As it all seemed so harmless, I did, I opened my door.  But when I complied and then investigated, my front stoop stood completely empty…well, I did see wet footprints in the naked porch light.  So, in disappointment, I shut my front door.  I didn’t think anything more about this strange and chance encounter.

Then one day I received a warning: do not let Mr. Smith in.  The alarm made him seem a vampire or a body snatcher, but as I had my good name taken for a ride, I was sensitive to the matter.  So, taking in the alarm, I did the neighborly thing; I warned all of my friends of a Mr. Jayden K. Smith, do not let him in.  But in response, I received a missive, a warning just as tight, that Jayden K. Smith was a hoax, and a lie.  I thought for moment about how strange the whole thing was, after all, it was Jayden K Smith that knocked on my door.  There were dewy footprints on my front porch that one particular night.  But then, after thinking, “who cares?” I set the whole matter aside.

Then recently, I received the warning once again: don’t let Mr. Smith in, all harm would come.  I’m sorry, but it seemed like the warning on the gates of Hell that Dante the poet had mentioned.  So, instead of dropping the matter as a whole, I am back to wondering about a man by the name of Mr. Jayden K Smith, a hoax or a person, or even, a woman or a man?   Again, in the recent, the present, Mr. Smith, the person with no presence (except maybe for footprints), a lie and a hoax, affected my life with a tease of a promise and nothing more.  Maybe, Jayden K. Smith is a real, not hoax or a lie.  Maybe, this person is a gremlin, or a ghost, a ghost in the machine, or a shadow, seen but without substance.  This Smith person could actually be a mask or a cat phisher dancing a masquerade, hiding a life of a person they feel has failed but wanting more.  And then I contemplate the idea of person as a hoax, feeling it odd to claim, but then I am contemplating this is a rumination of thing not made up or created for some purpose.

I thought upon this in the cool morning air, just today, as I stood in the front yard with my dogs watching the mists of Avalon caress the sky.  I thought of my own entity taking leave of my soul like a balloon, landing to take holiday on the French Riviera, high tea with some royal, and of having to foot the bill.  I thought about how easy it is for us to detach, to rip asunder.  We have firmly placed ourselves, thanks to the digital age, into a state that is all electronic, all whisper.  We no longer think of corporeal, but we’re simple numbers, a thing.  I have witnessed the act of a text, a conversation without spoken word, occurring in the same room, just thumbs and clicks.  Certainly to the great cooperations and money handlers of the mighty capital world, we can only be simple numbers, simple data.  For when a person fails in rules and must pay with world standing, there is no room for feelings or a consideration of circumstances.  Rules are rules, which is true, after all, in society.  Welcome to capitalism, welcome to the material world.  

And then I remembered the two recent visits of Mama Fox in my front yard, both at what stands in for darkness these days.  I remembered her looking my way.  She did not come knocking on my door, but there she was, out hunting, simply trying to survive.  She did not fear any thief that might steal anything, except as my dogs both barked at her, she did fear a presence that might reveal herself to the world and thus take her meal.  Maybe that’s all this whole Jayden K. Smith ever was, or could be.  Jayden could only be a shadow of a thing that never was.  A thing that only sits in the corner where the shadows are dense, devouring all of our hopes and dreams and sense of safety, an attempt to make the Boogie Man real in a digital world, an old school of thought on being weary and clear, an ancient thought of keeping us alive in a computer world.  Now, please be so kind as to add another log to the bonfire.