Memories
The red glow
of a lit
cigarette,
a puff of a smoke, a joke, and a hearty laugh
all from the big man in a flimsy porch chair
on a summer eve on the street where I grew up.
A nicotine-
stained forefinger
tapping a beat
on the steering wheel of a station wagon
carrying me from grade school on a spring day,
back to the home on the street where I grew up.
A young boy’s
forefinger (mine)
pointing with pride
at the big man in the blue police uniform
stepping out of his car in the driveway
of the home on the street where I grew up.
The big man’s
proud smile,
firm handshake,
and warm gaze into my eyes at my graduation
from college, something he never accomplished
in all the years he was growing up and adulthood.
The retired
big man holding
my little child,
his first grandchild, up to his stubbled cheek
while wearing a brown security-guard uniform,
during my visit to the home where I grew up.
An organ plays
“On Eagle’s Wings”
at the big man’s
funeral. I touch his coffin, fight back a tear,
console my mom and brothers. It’s too painful
to recall events in the house I grew up in.
My son’s
forefinger
taps a beat
on the steering wheel of his car. “Just like Grandpa,”
I say from the passenger seat. We both laugh
as I recall life with Dad in the house I grew up in.
#
To Post or Not to Post (Hamlet’s dilemma in 2024)
To post, or not to post, that is the question.
Should I stop playing computer Solitaire
And tweet, I mean post, a delicious dollop
of gossip under my username on X
In a sea of virtual anonymity?
Or should I first weigh the harm that my missive
Might bring to another, not to mention
Consequences to my handle’s rep, if false?
Is it better to post and watch my thread grow
With agreeable replies flooding in like
A jackpot of coins in an old slot-machine,
Not to mention all the prospective reposts?
But what if the replies are just so hateful
That I cannot live with myself anymore?
To post or not to post? I am so consumed
With this existential question that I
Cannot be bothered with world news of wars
And national reports of strife and injustice.
Sigh, I will put off my posting dilemma.
Right now, I will put the red six just below
The black seven, and move my King of Diamonds;
It is easier to ponder Solitaire.
A Rejection Letter
From: WSQPA
To: Mr. Baruch/Benedictus Spinoza, philosopher
April 10, 2024
Dear Mr. Spinoza,
Stop.
Do not bother us again.
We, the Board of the World Status Quo Protection Agency, reject your unsolicited critique of our twenty-first century.
You were the seventeenth century’s problem. Not ours.
How dare you ask questions and seek to arrive at beliefs and truth individually through reason. Citizens today have banded together in groups to hear the truth and facts from sources that comport with their worldview. We have no need of philosophers in 2024.
Thus, our status quo is groupthink.
Yes, our groups clash and there are wars that are political, spiritual, and militaristic. But they are part of our status quo.
You are free in your ivory tower to sneer at our way, and claim we are pursuing false “knowledge from random experience.” It is no wonder that you were excommunicated for your radical ideas.
We know that you worked with lenses for microscopes and telescopes. But you have no right to put our status quo under your microscope.
Warmly,
WSQPA
Bedside Manner
“Awaken, dear sir.”
Not again! I turn over in my bed, eyes still closed, and hope the disturbing voice disappears. But I know it won’t. I can’t seem to shake the strange thoughts and voices that pop into my head at 4 or 5 in the morning when I have to pee but I don’t want to get up.
“Whilst you sleep in this paltry room, my good man, ’tis…”
Oh, this one is a doozy. I got a woman with a British accent bugging me. Last night, it was a pro wrestler with a gravelly voice and an eviction notice.
I turn to the other side and my pillow falls off the bed. I reach to the floor and probe with my hand, but can’t seem to find it. Drat! I grudgingly open my eyelids. And I freeze.
A woman is standing next to my bed. She is in an elegant blue nightgown. Brownish-blonde tresses are falling over her outstretched arm, which is holding my pillow. But I won’t look at her face. I am afraid of what I will see in this nightmare.
I shut my eyes and rub my lids with my fists. When I slowly open them, the woman is still there. But the pillow is closer, inches from my face.
I summon the courage to turn my gaze upward. I see a narrow, pale-white chin. Lucious pink lips in the hint of a smile. Finally, alluring eyes with long dark lashes. She nods toward the pillow.
I know this image is not real, but I smile and move my hands toward the pillow. But she whisks it away. She leans down closer to my face.
“Tis right that I withhold your pillow, Mister Longworth, because on this morn you cannot sleep in,” the woman says in a flat, serious tone. “You must rush in to work, because at this very moment, a fly-rink colleague at Dorn Manufacturing is plotting with company Vice President Franks to terminate your employment and your division. Don’t lay there like a wooden spoon!”
I close my eyes, but I still hear her telling me to get up. “If you do not reach the president and put a stop to this codswallop, you will be condemned to this pigsty perhaps until death. Where is the fireplace in this bedroom? And your bed—is that a common wood frame? Where is the brass, good sir? You live like a Middle Age primitive, not a self-respecting Englishman in the enlightened nineteenth century.”
I try to think of other things. I try to sleep. I toss around and the sheets come loose. It seems like an hour has passed. Maybe two. She is still there and still talking.
Enough! I throw off the bedcover and sheet, bounce out of bed on the other side, and run to the bathroom. I hear her voice until I shut the door. At least I finish my business in peace. I cautiously open the door. The voice is gone—and so is she.
But the messy bed I left is now a picture of order, every cover and sheet smoothed and in place and the pillow fluffed—with two wrapped mints on the pillowcase.
I shake my head and sit on the edge of the bed. Before I know it, I am laying atop the covers. My eyes closed.
“Excuse me.”
The next thing I know those two words are tumbling from my mouth. I am standing at the foot of a grandiose brass bed in a sprawling room with a fireplace, a chandelier, ornate furniture, and flowing drapes.
Someone in the bed stirs and slowly peels back an ornate bedcover. I see the frightened but alluring eyes. Quivering pink lips. And that narrow chin. This is the same woman who visited me.
She asks, “What are you doing in my bedroom?”
I open my mouth, but only frightened silence comes out. I shut my eyes, cup my face with both hands, and shudder. I open my eyes and I am back on my own bed.
I close my eyes and open them again. I am standing next to a bed in the corner of a gymnasium.
“Ahem,” I say because I don’t know what to say.
Someone in the bed stirs and tosses aside an old green cover. It is the wrestler who tried to evict me just the other night.
“How’d you get in here?” the wrestler says in a gravelly voice. “And do you have that deed?”
Panic sets in and I close my eyes.
A phone rings.
I open my eyes and I am laying atop my own bed.
The phone rings again.
I leap out of bed, run to the phone, lift the device off the charger, activate the app, and shout, “Hello?”
“Longworth, is that you?”
“Yessir, Mr. Franks. What can I do for you?”
“Nothing. Due to downsizing, I regret to inform you that your division has been eliminated along with your job. Effective immediately. Thank you for your service.”
The call ends. I shuffle back to the bedroom. I brush the mints off the pillow and lay on the bed. I wipe away a tear.
#
The Four-Legged Bother
Okay. If you must know about my dog, he is annoying. Or she. I'm not sure which.
Anyway, the little light-brown cockapoo hangs out on my couch. When I sit there to write or watch television or talk with friends, the dog sometimes stares at me. It does not move, but just glares at me with shiny marble-like eyes -- until I pick it up with one hand and set it further down the couch, so that it's looking at my wife.
After all, the thing was a birthday gift to my wife from her sister. And as you may have guessed, it does not have a name. The dog, not my sister-in-law. And she (the sister-in-law, not the pet) gave the gift knowing that dogs and I do not get along. I was bitten as a child while playing, drooled on, bitten again as an adult on the way to work, drooled on again, and... Sorry, back to the dog on my couch.
My wife says the little cockapoo can't hurt anyone. It is unable to move or bark or bite because it is only a stuffed toy.
But the dog on my couch is annoying.
The Contest
“Ends tomorrow.”
I notice the tagline on the writing contest.
“You haven’t a chance,” a gravelly thought echoes.
I log off my computer just before a thought with an Irish brogue chimes, “Give it a go, lad! This is yer lucky day!”
“No such thing as luck,” the gruff voice croaks with a laugh.
I rise from my desk chair. But before I take a step, the Irish notion replies, “Then what do you call logging off the instant before a massive virus would have struck?"
I sit and log back on.
computer?”
I sit down and log back on.