Great Leeway
Charlie MuttonChops wrestled with the potentiometer on the washing machine, but the thing was fubar from the word go. That pooch had been screwed. He tried glomming on the knob with putty, but it spun and it spun like a dying world around the sun, and he couldn’t help trying to remember the obscure lyrics to that Dylan song: Johnny’s in the basement mixing up the medicine…
It seemed like only yesterday when the dream of the stream flowed through him like a soft breeze on a light wind, when responsibilities and concerns didn’t press in on him like glorified monsters with anger and madness and despair, and he wasn’t letting anyone down by his wandering lack of attention and in fact was adding to the imagination of the universe with deep feeling tones of wonder and innovation that hadn’t yet seen the light of day.
Oh, how he longed for the gardens of Cordova and the first time he had seen a beautiful woman in the light of the sun under white blossoms spreading from the branches of grand trees growing to fullness. He wanted to taste the taste of hasteless wandering again and shed the waste of clock time binding him like crusty barnacles to the weight of the world.
Oh, Charlie, Charlie what have you done, he wondered…on the pavement thinking about the government…