Tutor time
If I had a singing voice
I’d use the thing nonstop
To bring an end to all your tears
If they should start to drop
If I was good at artsy stuff
I’d paint and draw just you
So you could see your beauty
In the way I always do
If I was a better writer
I’d send this to make you smile
Sadly, you won’t read it
Just another on the pile
What? Wait?
What? Wait?
August 22, 2024
“What? Wait? Could you repeat that? Are you serious? Could you say that again?”
“The offer stands at one million dollars. Tax free. You have two minutes to decide.”
She thought for the time she had. Distancing herself from her date and the bartender, she had to decide.
“I am going to say, no.”
The man took the lid of the briefcase and closed it. Rarely will anyone ever see that much money, in one place, at one time. He tipped his hat and bade her a fond, “Adieu.”
Turning back to her boyfriend of two dates, she asked him to finish the story he was telling. He couldn’t speak. The bartender stood there in disbelief. Had there been other patrons, they would have mimicked the previous two.
Finally, the boyfriend had to ask, “Why didn’t …?” He never finished the question.
She knew that he wasn’t for her. The barkeep knew it also. All that remained was for her to depart as elegantly as the previous man with the briefcase displayed.
The boyfriend did not make an attempt to stop her.
Outside, she discovered the briefcase man waiting for a cab. She asked if they could share a ride.
This time, it was her who flashed sufficient cash.
Smug
Smug
August 21, 2024
“I can begin the challenge immediately. All you have to do is walk through the “doorway”. Miss Winters, you are not of this time. You have learned too much, expressed too many opinions, and have a robust hatred of societal conventions you feel are holding you back. Thus, it is time to put your money where your mouth is. I will open the portal and, if you have what you say you have, mainly the intestinal fortitude, then forever forsake our time and go to another.”
“Even if what you say is true, where or when will you send me?”
“You once told all of us that anywhere would be better than here. I will use the power saved from an accurate hold for a precision hold. In essence, when you arrive will not be as important as the quality of the arrival. The “doorway” will not close until you finish exiting. You will not be hurt on the journey. However, you also will have no recourse in which to return. In essence, this is a one way trip.”
“Then I accept the challenge. I will go to another time, possibly another place, and prove to all I encounter, I am the best prepared representative for the trek.”
Miss Winters rose and waited for the machine to spool to full power. Once the doorway opened, she gave a final statement.
“You will hear from me again.”
Miss Winters walked through, never to be seen again.
That is until she walked through the “doorway”, in the exact same spot, nearly 230 years in the future. That is what the Greeter told her as she made her entrance.
Millions watched the historic event. Billions more viewed the video currently streaming through the galaxy. The greeter called for silence and the audience understood.
Miss Winters took the time to see the “doorway” close and the dome come into focus. The Imperial Fleet kept a low orbit, despite the power drain. The High Counsel wished to be part of the historic event.
Miss Winters wanted to speak, but the Greeter did not permit anyone to break the imposed silence. He simply raised his hand to accept her hand to escort her off the ceremonial podium to an awaiting shuttle. Miss Winters moved without hesitation as the galaxy’s population watched.
“Think she knows she will be the breeder for the next generation of humans, all ten billion of them? One guard asked another as the shuttle rose to rendezvous with the Imperial slave ship.
“Who cares? It is not like she has much choice?” The second guard answered before extending his sticky tongue, capturing a small male human and pulling him into his ravenous mouth for both nutrition and taste.
Hiroshima
The ramshackle train of what could have been
Is lost in night’s eel tongue spread,
Where the sparking charge
Licks soul leeched blood
Off auburn acid tracks,
Charting a doomed course to the faraway mirage
Of once upon a time’s dust shelf kingdom,
Where every sacred minute, we wait for tomorrow’s dusky calling.
The whistling lamentation
Carves its stinging sonic tattoo
Into our slouched defeat of dreams
Between station to station,
As we rave towards the bullet express,
Our cheerless protest
A broken legged gait.
And the chattering residue
Of spectral echos along the grief anchored tracks,
Fall as a rain of war cry hyenas,
The erupted levee’s clapping doom
Shunting the path
And devouring our past,
Her storied page
Worn away
By the rusting belt
Of Hiroshima sun.
The bronze capped trees
Collect volumes of disintegrated memories;
For the distance to home cannot be measured on a scale of tears.
Accordion to Whom?
Accordion to Whom?
August 20, 2024
Debbie ran her fingers over the Scandalli Super VI Farfisa with envy. “How can someone else have this and not me?”
The proprietor asked her not to touch the accordion. He knew she could not afford the price. He knew she never would.
Still, Debbie wanted this instrument and she wanted it right now.
The shop closed at 7pm. The proprietor locked up and walked toward his car. The sales were off today, as July often is. If it were September, the parents of all of the 10 year old musical prodigies would be making their first payment of a variety of instruments each of the teachers from a variety of schools would require for a variety of students to have.
“Yes, September would be a good month, indeed.”
Few people can describe the sound of a baseball bat milliseconds before impact with the ear that actually registered the noise. The proprietor would eventually be discovered by the police arriving at the call of a break in. This would take nearly seven minutes.
In the first two minutes of the seven, his key was removed and the lock opened. Not caring if a silent alarm activated, the thief believed the ends justifies the means. The race was on.
Without turning on the lights, the thief located the Scandalli, wrapped it in a waterproof sack, broke a rear window, and lowered the sack to a person waiting outside the building, using a bicycle to make an escape.
The thief made their escape only after making sure the police witnessed the escape. This would draw the police toward the escapee and not the bicyclist.
The very next morning, Debbie returned to the store, wanting to apply a new version of class warfare to the absent proprietor. The stand-in detective waited for her to approach where the Scandalli previously resided before making the formal arrest declaration.
Debbie was cuffed, searched, and finding no ID, booked, photographed, and fingerprinted. Police garnered a search warrant from a sympathetic judge and searched her apartment for the missing instrument.
By 5pm, with no evidence found, and newly lawyered up, Debbie’s posted bail, and went home for the evening, not speaking of her day to anyone.
But that did not stop the detectives. If not Debbie, then who assaulted the proprietor and stole the valued accordion? Weeks passed, then months, with no leads. Debbie refused any plea deal. The prosecution at the trial faced a sympathetic jury inclined to find for the accused. Even with the proprietor’s testimony, including emergency room photos, Debbie and her lawyer were confident with their chances.
In only 15 minutes of deliberation, the jury found for the defendant. The proprietor’s insurance paid for the damage to his establishment and person. Debbie’s lawyer filed a series of motions to expunge her arrest records and two lawsuits for punitive damages. The DA’s office finally acquiesced and settled out of court for an undisclosed, yet lucrative sum.
It took only until spring before most inquiring minds moved on to other sordid details emanating from other sordid people. Debbie was no longer on anyone’s radar.
Except one.
The one missing a baseball bat.
The one with a sister highly proficient in bicycle riding with a variety of unbalanced loads.
Debbie had the cash to conclude a transaction. She also had a few second hand books on how to play an accordion.
The sisters departed richer than expected. Debbie was such a good tipper.
Debbie had what she wanted, but could never play it. It became a symbol of ill gotten desires and the violence required to acquire it.
Nonetheless, today, Debbie was happy with the outcome.
However, by tomorrow, might need a diamond necklace she had wanted.
“How can someone else have this and not me?”
Over
We go up
climb
for that splash, of cold water
we go alone, or with boy or girl,
with old friends trailing,
or, following
after
supposed hero
on mounds of experience
we find moles, burgeoning
with hidden insight
ugly, but operable
and think! if only we could
get to that holy door, atop
that clear
insurmountable, Sinai, the
definitively comprehensible...
The Simple guides
to the rolling foot,
of the ultimate
country club
Then
we'd change places with God
...disregarding, the Almighty
looks through, not down,
nor over...
All,
and we tumble, at every phase
headlong, by passion
with pail and list
for things, and glory,
hoping the broken crown
at the bottom
is genuine
and worth it
like Love
of quest and fill
Bucket in fist
up that knoll
we press
to find ourselves
in splash of cold, compress
as we tumble and roll
spill and fall, and
rise, older, to climb
again
in search of the well,
and the hill
which we believe
we are getting on
or over...
08.16.2024
This is the hill... challenge @Mariah
